Easter 7A -- June 1, 2014 with Jennifer Frayer-Griggs

Where Did Jesus Go?

Jennifer Frayer-Griggs, Guest Pastor  

Listen to the sermon here:
https://soundcloud.com/emsworthup/june-1-2014-11-24-03-am/s-Hx4bv

Acts 1:6-14

⁶So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” ⁷He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. ⁸But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” ⁹When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. ¹⁰While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. ¹¹They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”¹²Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath day’s journey away. ¹³When they had entered the city, they went to the room upstairs where they were staying, Peter, and John, and James, and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. ¹⁴All these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers.

This passage always reminds me of Star Trek, the whole “Beam me up, Scotty” Teleportation. I mean, where does Jesus go?

Now that we know that up past the clouds are more clouds, and then the atmosphere, and then outer space, and then more outer space - where does Jesus go?

Does he just keep going up and up and up forever? Where is heaven? How long did it take him to get there? Lightyears? Can Jesus travel the speed of light? The speed of sound? Where does Jesus go?

For me, and my perpetual doubting self, the Ascension is rough. This is harder than the virgin birth, harder than the incarnation, harder than the resurrection.

Not only do we have to come to grips with some strange, mythical, theological concept of Jesus being raised into the clouds, but we have to do it after Copernicus, after Galileo, after the Scientific Method and the Age of Reason.

Where does Jesus GO?

It’s hard enough to wrap our heads around “God with us,” but how do we do that when he’s been sucked up into the clouds, and according to the art depicting him, often without shoes, in these glowing robes, and angels all around. (Why doesn’t he need his shoes?)

I guess there aren’t any rusty nails or hookworms in heaven, so maybe you just don’t need your shoes?

Is that where Jesus goes? This place called “heaven”?

Where does Jesus go?

And. Why does he leave us?

I mean, the disciples just got him back, for heaven’s sake.  They’d gone through the worst day of their lives, they’d buried their best friend, their only hope for the redemption of Israel, heck, their only hope for their very salvation. They’d seen the sky go black and the curtain rent in two. They’d carried his broken body while the Roman officials laughed in their faces. They’d laid him in a cold, hard tomb.

But, hooray! That’s not the end of the story! Jesus comes back! Full in the flesh. All eating and drinking and laughing. The same ol’ Jesus who tells stories and catches fish and speaks in strange metaphors.

Finally. Our hope is restored. “Jesus!” they ask, “are you finally going to do what we’ve wanted you to do all along? Are you finally going to restore Israel? And give us back our land? And give us back our fortunes? And give us back our power? Do we finally get what’s coming to us? Do we finally get what we deserve?!”

Ha. The disciples still don’t get it. Not after all they’ve been through. Not after all they’ve learned from Jesus about the last being first and the first being last and the putting away of swords and the sheep and the goats and all that.

Nope. Jesus is about a different sort of kingdom. A different sort of heaven.

Luke, the writer of Acts, tells us, Jesus says, “nope, that’s not what I’m about” and then he’s gone, whoosh, vanish, thwoop. Jesus is now the rabbit back in the magician’s hat, the ghost writer, the professor emeritus. Jesus has left the building.

Where does Jesus Go? And why does he have to leave us?

He’s promised to leave us the Advocate. To give us power when the Holy Spirit comes upon us.

But the disciples are in this in-between space. Jesus is gone. The Holy Spirit is coming. We’ve got a layover. We’re stuck at the train station. We’re sandwiched between what has been and what is yet to come.

Where does Jesus Go? Why does he have to leave us? And why the wait ‘til the Holy Spirit comes to give us some purpose, some direction, some guidance? Why the wait ‘til the plane is ready, ‘til the train is at the station, ‘til the table is set and the food is prepared?

So often, we find ourselves staring up at the clouds, at the place where the bottoms of Jesus’ soles used to be, looking for Jesus to come back down the same way he was sucked up.

But the two angels ask, “Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?”

Because it’d be so much easier if we could get sucked up too.

It’d be so much simpler if we could just think about what it takes to get to heaven and leave it at that. It’d be so much better for us if we could just believe the right things and pray the right prayer and then wipe our hands on our pants and leave all this behind.

It’d be so much easier if I didn’t have to listen to the complaints of a homeless guy we’ll call “Mike.” He comes to The Table - our free community meal - every Tuesday and Thursday and, often before I can even get into the door, produces a list of needs for me to fill.

He needs dental floss. He needs multi-vitamins and trash bags. He needs toothpaste, but not the whitening kind because he read a study that whitening agents cause cancer. He needs socks and size 9 1/2 dark blue running shoes with a combination last and high arches.

But he rarely stays for the food.

He’s a vegetarian, he says. And it’s only when he is absolutely destitute and has no other option that he condescends to eat here with us.

Well, gee. Thanks.

And then just this Thursday he hands me a note, wadded up tightly, with the strict instructions “not to read it until after he has left.”

I’m hoping it’s a thank you note. Maybe a note of encouragement, since that’s what I’ve been trying to get this congregation to embrace lately.

But nope. It says, “Why I don’t eat here: Mike Smith’s 95 Theses”: “ You use aluminum pans, sheets, cookware etc. Aluminum is poisonous to every cell in the human body - reacts with acids, especially when heated. This leaches aluminum into the food. Aluminum has been linked to Alzheimer’s, arthritis and general decrepitude.”

Why do we stand looking up toward heaven? Because otherwise, we might get so jaded that we shut our doors. Because we might have to see this man as a manipulator and someone who just works the system. Maybe because looking into Mike’s eyes as he demands and manipulates and criticizes just makes us want to pack up our pots and pans and potato salad and spend our evenings watching Law and Order reruns. Because we might have to accept that this guy may never change. He may live under a bridge and criticize all the good around him and be lonely and afraid of death for the rest of his life.

 On Wednesday a woman came to the meal at Brookline with her beautiful one year old daughter. This little girl had adorable brown curls and an easy smile, and followed her momma wherever she went. And it’s a good thing, too, because momma was twitching and bouncing and rocking and talking fast and slurring her words. She was chain smoking and the cigarette was bouncing between her fingers as she paced up and down the sidewalk.

Why do we stand looking up towards heaven? Because otherwise, we might see that little baby get hurt. We might have to watch this woman destroy her life on drugs. We might have to accept that there isn’t much we can do for either of them. We might have to feel helpless.

Just last week we had an elderly couple, or at least, I thought they were elderly come to dinner. Sharon and Phil came in, both with canes, both with bloodshot eyes and unsteady knees. Sharon made it to a seat. But Phil wasn’t so capable. He was ready to collapse right on the floor mats in front of the church entrance. And three others came up to him and grabbed his arms and caught him before he fell. And we set him in a chair, right there, right on the floor mat, certainly in the way of anyone else who might want to come in, certainly a fire hazard.

But this time, I didn’t look up toward heaven. I looked into the yellowing eyes of Jack, who pulled up a chair next to Phil and talked to him in a quiet voice. Who grabbed Phil’s meal and fed him lasagna by the spoonful and told him he was ok, and reminded him to sit up before he passed out in his meatballs and knocked over his iced tea. Who went into the kitchen to wet a cloth so he could gently clean the man’s hands and face.

If we always stand looking up towards heaven, we are gonna miss the face of Christ right here, right in front of us. In the midst of the drug addicts and the paranoia and the criticism and the fear and the men so drunk they wet themselves and fall on floor mats right in front of the church entrance.

The Holy Spirit, the very Presence of Christ, enables us to look in the yellowed tired eyes and the precocious one year olds with addicted mothers and the homeless drunks who stack the chairs and clean the tables, and see the face of Christ.

This gift, this Advocate, this dove and flame and wind, could even help us see the face of Christ in this privileged white girl with too many master’s degrees, in the hands of the wealthy Republican who ladles out the soup, in the liberal millennial covered in tattoos who washes the dishes, and in the autistic and deaf thirteen year old who comes to help, but often spills more than he delivers, and his caretaker who isn’t even sure if she believes in God.

Where does Jesus go?

I really don’t think that Jesus goes up towards heaven - not in the literal, physical, temporal way that we think.

I think Jesus goes into the eyes of the kind drunk who stays after the meal to help clean up. I think Jesus goes into the hands of the paramedics we had to call after Phil fell in the parking lot and couldn’t get up. I think Jesus goes into the heart of the woman who wrapped piles and piles of leftovers in tin-foil and packed it in the woman-with-the-baby’s bag.

Men and Women of Galilee. Men and Women of Pittsburgh and Portland and St. Louis and Detroit. Men and Women of Somalia and Syria and Ukraine and Nigeria. Men and Women of Emsworth and Homewood and Upper Saint Clair and Brookline and The Southside. Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?

You are the hands and feet of Christ now. You are the eyes of Christ. You are what God is doing in the world.

It’s terrifying. And lonely. And sometimes we just want to look away. We want to Look out. Look beyond towards some kind of “heaven” that we’ve made up for ourselves.

But Jesus, Jesus, God with us, God here in the flesh with us, Jesus who represents the fullest connection between God and this world, keeps calling us to the messiness of this world, to the flesh and the bone and the alcohol on the breath and the bouncing knees of the drug addicted. To the hungry and the tired and the malnourished and the paranoid and to those of us who think we’ve got it all together. He keeps calling us to this because that’s where Jesus is. That’s where Jesus goes when he gets sucked up to heaven and seems to be so far from us and leaves us feeling alone and abandoned and lost.  He’s in those eyes we’ve been looking at all along.

Thanks be to God

For more information about "The Table" at Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community, please visit their blog at http://thetableministry.blogspot.com

Unglued Church Launch -- May 30 and 31, 2014

On May 30 and 31, more than 50 leaders from eight churches in Pittsburgh Presbytery, together with Ayana Teter (Associate Pastor of Pittsburgh Presbytery), Philip Lotspeich (Coordinator for Church Growth, Presbyterian Mission Agency), Jim Kitchens and Deborah Wright (Adaptive Change Consultants, Pneumatrix) as well as eight Adaptive Change apprentices (Sarah Robbins, Tom Moore, Jake Clawson, Brenda Barnes, Larry Ruby, Linda Ruby, Ayana Teter, Susan Rothenberg) gathered to launch the "Unglued Church" pilot project.  Funded by a grant from the PCUSA, this two-year project will not only seek to help churches redefine their mission as they face the tsunami of change in our culture, but also train a cohort of teaching elders in our presbytery to work with churches into the future and help them use adaptive change and positive deviance to effectively live out the Gospel of Jesus Christ in their communities.  

Rev. Wright and Rev. Kitchens of Pneumatrix

The first phase of the project was for each church to participate in a "New Beginnings" assessment http://whatisourfuturestory.com/beta/the-process/.  The New Beginnings assessors visited with each church in April and created a comprehensive report detailing each church's assets, challenges and ministry opportunities.  This weekend, Rev. Lotspeich instructed the church leadership and apprentices how to read the reports, and outlined the next steps in the New Beginnings process.  

Each church -- including Emsworth U.P. -- will now hold a series of "house meetings" -- and that's where the fun really begins!  We are praying that the Spirit will bubble up in these holy conversations over the next few months as churches begin to dream and talk and listen to one another as they seek to become what God would desire them to be.  We pray that their conversations will be fueled by their love for Jesus Christ and not fear of the unknown.  We pray that each church will discover new things about the communities around them and the people they serve.  We pray that each church will open themselves up to a new beginning and a new future, whatever that may look like for each of their congregations.

My colleague, Rev. Sarah Robbins and I were privileged to lead worship this weekend, and we drew our inspiration from a sermon preached by Walter Brueggemann at The Festival of Homiletics last week. In the sermon, he reminded us that our churches are fragile clay jars, and that we are privileged to carry the treasure of the Gospel within us.  The treasure cannot be destroyed.  The clay jar, however, needs to be smashed from time to time.  The good news is that the Potter can put us back together, but we will not be the same clay pot we once were.  We will be reworked into another vessel, as seems good to God.

Please pray for this effort -- for the churches, the apprentices, and all of us who dare to imagine that God has not stopped dreaming of a new thing for a bunch of old clay jars.

Here is the liturgy we used in our opening worship on Friday night: 

Call To Worship                                                                                     

Gift us, O God, with divine imagination.

Mold us with holy intention.

Change us with your compassion.

Release us from our fears.

Break our stubborn habits.

Pry our idols out of our anxious hands.

Destroy all within us that is not your will.

Live through us, today, always.

Unison Prayer                                                                                    

Merciful God, weary from efforts to change our own lives, we hand ourselves over to you.  You are the only One who can center us firmly, rooting us in this moment, mindful of our potential.  Your hands hold us with warmth and you eyes see us with imagination.  We can feel ourselves beginning to turn with the energy of your purpose.  Weighty is your love for us, yet with lightness of heart we feel ourselves transforming, rising, and opening up to your grace.  Let us become vessels of your own design.  In Christ, we pray.  Amen.

Reading From Scripture

Jeremiah 18:1-10                                                                                    

The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: ²“Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” ³So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. ⁴The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him. ⁵Then the word of the Lord came to me: ⁶Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. ⁷At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, ⁸but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. ⁹And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, ¹⁰but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it.

2 Corinthians 4:7-12                                                                                    

Therefore, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart. ²We have renounced the shameful things that one hides; we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word; but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God. ³And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. ⁴In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. ⁵For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. ⁶For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. ⁷But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. ⁸We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; ⁹persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. ¹¹For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. ¹²So death is at work in us, but life in you.

Reflection: Smashing Our Clay Pots,  Ungluing The Treasure                        

We have this treasure in clay jars. 

That’s what Paul says.  That’s what he tells the church in Corinth.  We have this treasure in clay jars.

The people in Corinth were in quandary.  They were stuck, endlessly obsessing about the small stuff: class distinctions, differences between Jew and Gentile, questions about circumcision and proper foods, who could be an insiders and who were the outsiders.  What kind of hymnal, what color flowers, proper doctrine, polity and policy – you know, all the nit-picky stuff that can quickly sink a church. 

Paul believes that the church in Corinth has forgotten that our stuff and our rules and our doctrines and our traditions are not the point. They have forgotten that the church is not the treasure, but a clay jar that holds the treasure.  And it’s a good thing because a clay jar is…what?  (HIT THE POT WITH A HAMMER) Vulnerable.  Fragile.  A clay jar does not last forever.  The treasure inside the jar – the Gospel of Jesus Christ – is the thing that cannot be broken.

The clay jar exists for one purpose and one purpose only-- to carry the richness and fullness of the Gospel.  And, as the text from Jeremiah tells us, the clay jar sometimes has to be broken and reshaped.  Again and again.  Breaking and reshaping the clay jar is the work of the potter.  That is God’s transforming work in us and with us.

Congregations can get caught up in thinking our job is to take care of the clay jar instead of the treasure.  Sometimes we think that the extraordinary power of the gospel begins with us.  But Paul reminds us that the extraordinary power comes only from God.

Tonight, it seems to me that the church’s best hope for the future is to be broken open and made new if we want to be suitable vessels for the treasure.  We need the potter -- who created these clay jars to begin with -- to reshape us and reclaim us. It is only in smashing our clay jars for the sake of Jesus that the power of the treasure can break loose in the world. Because that is the only treasure the world really needs – the power of Jesus in his generosity, forgiveness, hospitality and justice.

To borrow a brilliant phrase from Walter Bruggemann, -- it is time for us to get smashed for Jesus.  And tonight and tomorrow marks the beginning of our becoming unglued for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, remembering Paul’s words:

⁸We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; ⁹persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.

I invite your group to place the clay jar in the bag provided for you, and take turns striking the jar with the hammer.  You can hit hard or softly.  You may end up with only a few large pieces, or many shards.  When everyone has had a turn, take out the fragments and lay them on the table.  Then we will pray together.

Unison Prayer

Let us begin this task of breaking open our lives in the service of our God.

Let us build something new from the fragments of these broken times in our church and our world;

Let us cry out for those who have no voice;

Let us work with what we have,

to help bring healing, justice and mercy

to those whose lives are filled with fear and suffering;

and know that God is with us, even in the dark of doubt.

Here are the broken pieces, God.

We trust that you will use them to renew in us a right spirit.

And now, give us peace for the evening and good rest through the night. 

Amen.

Benediction

May the peace of Christ comfort you.

May the love of God sustain you.

May the energy and orneriness of the Holy Spirit embolden you in all you do in the service of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

On this day and even unto the ages.

Amen.

Easter 6A -- May 25, 2014, Guest Preacher Jay Poliziani

Matthew 25:37-40

³⁷Then the righteous will answer him, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? ³⁸And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? ³⁹And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?” ⁴⁰And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family,^* you did it to me.”

On Sunday, May 25th, we were overjoyed to welcome Mr. Jay Poliziani to our pulpit.  Jay has been the Director of Northside Common Ministries for three years. NCM is an affiliate operation of Goodwill of Southwestern PA and Jay has worked for Goodwill for over two decades in various social service roles.

Jay is a single father of one teenage son, and his educational background includes degrees in education, marketing and theology, all of which have proven to be helpful in different ways in his work at NCM.

Listen to Jay's message here:https://soundcloud.com/emsworthup/may-25-2014-11-18-37-am/s-RsaMV

You can read more about Northside Common Ministries by going to their website: http://www.ncmin.org

Easter 5A -- May 18, 2014

The Ram In The Thicket

For audio, click this link:https://soundcloud.com/emsworthup/may-18-2014-11-18-02-am/s-2zOJT

Acts 7:55 – 8:1a

⁵⁵But filled with the Holy Spirit, he (Stephen) gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. ⁵⁶‘Look,’ he said, ‘I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!’ ⁵⁷But they covered their ears, and with a loud shout all rushed together against him. ⁵⁸Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. ⁵⁹While they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ ⁶⁰Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ When he had said this, he died.¹And Saul approved of their killing him.                       

Let us begin with prayer:  Lord of creation, we come to you with open hearts and eager ears.  Increase our understanding of your Word and gift us with faith to courageously live into your claim on our lives.  In Christ, we pray.  Amen.           

I have always thought the most horrifying text in all of scripture is the one in which we are led to believe that God is the kind of deity that tortures a devoted father by allowing him to believe for three horrible days that his beloved son must die.  And the part that really gets to me is that Abraham has to wrap his mind around the terrible idea that he has no choice but to murder Isaac in order to prove his faithfulness to God.  My question for the longest time was this – what kind of God would torture a person like that?  And – more to the point -- is that the kind of God I want to follow, must less love and trust with my whole heart? 

For years, I couldn’t read Genesis 22 without breaking into tears, but managed to get through it dry-eyed only after I realized that it is not the story of God’s cruelty, but a story about how we torture ourselves trying to figure out what God wants from us, and how very often we get it wrong.  I think the story of Abraham and Isaac tells us that violence is not an inevitable fact of our lives, and certainly not the will of God in the Old or New testaments.  Violence and vengeance are terrible choices we make all on our own, and they break God’s heart.  So much so, that God provides a ram in a thicket if we have imagination and courage enough to see it.  And even when we make the most terrible choice, God will do what God always does – create new life out of the bloody messes human beings create.   We see that truth most clearly on the cross.  And we see it today in another pretty horrible story from scripture.  The story of Stephen’s stoning in the book of Acts.

At first glance, there’s absolutely nothing good to say about this text.  Stoning is a barbaric and horrible act, and if we were actually standing in this story while Stephen was being stoned to death, we’d have to avert our eyes.  Although scripture is riddled with references to stoning as proper punishment for any number of crimes from being a wizard to being a thief, it doesn’t change the fact that death by stoning is an unspeakably horrible way to die.  In our own time, stoning is still legal in Afghanistan, Iran, sections of Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates. Women in particular have been threatened by religious authorities with this hideous punishment as a way of controlling their behavior and keeping them in line.  And I’m sure it’s a deterrent that works very well.

So there isn’t much to celebrate in this story.  Stephen was a devoted apostle, whose primary responsibility in the early church was to care for the widows and others who could not care for themselves.  Stephen was one of the original deacons of the church, in fact, and when he wasn’t doing compassionate deeds in the name of Jesus Christ, he spread the word about Jesus Christ.   Stephen healed and preached and did what he could to not only talk about how Jesus changed his life, but also demonstrate through his life what kind of difference Jesus made in him.  And as we see in this text, all of this good work got Stephen into a boatload of trouble with the Jewish authorities.  Stephen’s speech in his defense when he is brought in for trial is what sealed the deal.  It’s a long speech that you can read for yourself in Acts 7, verses 1 – 54, but the long and the short of what Stephen said to the Jewish leaders is that God’s chosen people had been a troublesome lot from day one.  They had a long history of being stiff-necked and mean, and had never met a prophet that didn’t want to push off a cliff, run out of town or crucify.  Moses had found the chosen people nearly impossible to lead, and Jesus had been just the latest example of God’s messengers that the religious leaders had been only too happy to reject.  In other words, Stephen spoke the honest truth, just as Jesus had done, and got a similar result.  Stephen held up a mirror to his accusers and it made them so angry that they couldn’t resist the impulse to smash Stephen into a million bloody pieces.

Stephen was only the first of many Christians who met violent ends simply because they spoke and lived the truth as best as they could manage it.  In fact, from that day on when Stephen was killed, many of the new Christian/Jews skee-daddled out of Jerusalem and scattered like so many fertile seeds across the landscape of the Roman Empire.  For centuries, the fledgling church survived but just barely.  Christianity was continually in hiding, or on the run, or in big trouble with somebody who found the message about Jesus bothersome.  But somehow the church managed to grow and kept on growing. A couple centuries later, Christianity became so successful that it became the official church of the empire and stopped being any real trouble to anyone at all.  Over time, Christians were no longer the persecuted ones, but became the ones doing the persecuting of other faiths.  And as history has taught us, horrific violence against individuals, communities, tribes and whole countries has been committed in the name of one god or another has been raging ever since.  Atrocities have been inflicted by people of faith, as well as on them.  The bloody result of religious zealotry looks pretty much the same regardless of which god is being vindicated.

Can it be that our God really as cruel as the cruelty we inflict upon one another?  Or is there something else to explain why humanity hasn’t stopped stoning one another since the beginning of time?  In our advanced culture here in America, our weapons of choice have become a little more sophisticated than sticks and stones.  Instead, we use bombs.  Lethal injections.  Drones.  Automatic weapons.  Humanity still hasn’t kicked our brutal habit of leaving behind a bloody path in the name of justice.

It’s tempting to focus only upon Stephen’s peaceful countenance as he dreamily stares up into space while men are gathering around him ready to crush his skull and tear open his body. That’s certainly what the church has historically done with martyrs like Stephen.  We focus on the worthiness of their deaths, their fearlessness in facing down rocks and knives and lions.  But we avert our eyes from the carnage.  None of us can bear to see Stephen being stoned to death anymore than the disciples could bear to see Jesus suffer on the cross.   We close our eyes to the violence, blame the bloodshed on God’s plan, and quickly move on to resurrection and sainthood for at least some of the victims.  As for the rest, well, that’s just how the world works.

I hate this story about Stephen’s death, but I also think there may be a sliver of light here that looks an awful lot like grace here if you look closely.  There he is, standing on the sideline, with his eyes wide open, watching every moment of Stephen’s agony.  Saul.  Saul is there on the scene, helpfully holding the coats of the guys stoning Stephen. Because, you know, stoning a young healthy man like Stephen takes a while.  Better to strip down to the undergarments, because stoning is hard, sweaty work even with a cooperative victim like Stephen.

And of course, Saul heartily approves of this execution.  He loves it.  It could be that Saul even had something to do with making sure this death would happen.  Saul not only approves of the killing of this one particular troublemaker, but he will go on -- as Acts chapter 8 tells us -- to ravage the new Christians by entering house after house to drag off men and women, committing them to prison or worse.  Saul is every inch the true believer, a real zealot in maintaining the purity of the Jewish faith.  Saul is the most persistent of persecutors and continues to be so until Acts chapter 9 when he will have his life turned upside down by the murdered Christ himself.  After that, Saul is no longer who he was; he is transformed into Paul – the apostle who will not longer measure truth by how closely it’s protected and guarded by religious insiders.  In fact, Paul breaks open the message of Jesus to everyone he can get to listen to him – Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female. 

And Paul never forgets Stephen.  We know he didn’t, because Paul soon found himself in a position similar to Stephen’s and had to defend himself in front of another zealous crowd who just couldn’t wait to stone Paul.  And in that moment, Paul calls upon the memory of Stephen.  He tells his accusers he remembers standing there, holding the coats of Stephen’s executioners and seeing the blood pour out of Stephen’s body.  Paul is no longer who he was, but he still carries that memory of who he used to be.  The memory must have haunted him.  But it is a memory that shapes Paul’s ministry, and you can see it in Paul’s writings.  When Paul’s Jewish brothers and sisters refuse to accept that Jesus is, in fact, their Messiah, Paul does not seek to harm or destroy the enemies of his new faith.  Instead he struggles with their refusal in genuine pain and prays that all of Israel may find its way into the arms of Jesus. 

Despite all the violence he committed against Stephen and others in his past, Paul is finally able to see the God’s better way.  Paul finally saw the ram in the thicket that God had been waiting for him discover the whole time.  Paul’s path was diverted from proving his faithfulness through persecution of the impure.   Instead, Paul proclaimed the faith of Jesus Christ, an open and welcoming faith that is secure not in its’ ability to defend itself from enemies.  The security of Christianity is not rooted in our willingness to defend it from its enemies, but in the One who has already passed through death and brought us to life everlasting.  The One who taught us words of forgiveness.  The One who is indeed our rock and our fortress.  Though we are tempted to hide behind barricades, guns and bombs, stories such as this one remind us of the One who overcame evil not be defeating the enemy, but by loving the enemy and thus defeating death itself.

So there is light in this story after all.  We see it in the Christ-like forgiveness demonstrated by Stephen and how his words were absorbed through the eyes and ears of Saul.  Perhaps the seeds of Saul’s transformation were sowed right there, in that horrible moment where God took the heartbreak of human violence and transformed it into something life-giving that would open up the gospel beyond what anyone could imagine.

A few years ago, I had the privilege of meeting Reverend Walt Everett and hearing him speak at Sixth Presbyterian Church.  In 1987, a man named Mike Carlucci shot and killed Rev. Everett’s 24-year old son, Scott.   For a year afterward, Rev. Everett was unable to work at all.  Everett saw his life spiral downward, seemingly out of his control. He felt despair, rage, depression. His marriage, already on shaky ground, cracked under the strain. Everett prayed to God, beseeching him to show him a way out of the darkness. But Everett discerned no response. He attended a support group meeting with other family members of murder victims—the only people, he figured, who could possibly understand the anguish that consumed him. One night he heard a woman in the group say that anyone who committed murder “should be taken out and shot immediately.” Then he learned that the woman’s son had been killed 14 years earlier. He wondered if that’s what his life would be like for the next 14 years.

Eleven months and two weeks after the murder of his son, Everett sat in a courtroom in Bridgeport for Carlucci’s sentencing. Everett had never before set eyes on his son’s killer, who arrived at the courthouse three hours late, having indulged in one last cocaine binge before prison. The judge asked Everett if he wished to make a statement. Everett rose and spoke for 10 minutes, though he doesn’t remember a word of what he said. Then the judge asked Carlucci if he would like to speak. Carlucci stood and said:

“I’m sorry I killed Scott Everett. I wish I could bring him back. Obviously, I can’t. These must sound like empty words to the Everetts. I don’t know what else to say. I’m sorry.”

That simple expression of remorse would change the course of Everett’s life. “It was,” he said, “as though at that moment God said, ‘I’ve been asking you to wait. This is what I’ve been asking you to wait for.’”  It was the ram in the thicket moment for Everett.  That moment when he glimpsed a better way to manage his heartbreak.  His decision to forgive Carlucci, he says, was not meant to ease the guilt that weighed on the soul of his son’s killer. It was more selfish than that. He says he offered forgiveness to save his own life.

Amazingly, the two men struck up a correspondence that morphed into a friendship.  Carlucci cleaned up his act and his life, and Reverend Everett eventually presided at Carlucci’s wedding.  Everett says, “I can never forget what happened to Scott,” he said. “It has forever changed my life. But when I look at Mike, I don’t see the person who harmed Scott. I see somebody who’s been changed by God, and I celebrate that.”(1)

A broken heart is an avenue, a crack for life to come in, a place for God to plant the seed of new life.   We do not need violence to protect us.  We do not need violence to express our shattered souls.  We do not need violence to bring justice.  The myth of redemptive violence is just that – a fable that can only destroy us. 

There is a better way now that Easter has come again for us.  The world does not need another martyr, willing to die for their faith.  It needs more Rev. Everett’s and Sauls who are willing to live out their faith.  The world needs more people who are able to see the ram in the thicket.  People who are willing to take the different and even more dangerous path to the peace and forgiveness and openness of Jesus Christ.   May we be those people. Thanks be to God.  Amen.

(1)All quotes are from "Forgiving the Murderer" by Paul Solotaroff in Rolling Stone Magazine, June 24, 2004. Downloaded on May 16, 2014. http://www.willsworld.com/~mvfhr/walt's.htm

Because we're all hungry for something.

Find out what God is up to in Pittsburgh's North Side and South Side neighborhoods as we welcome two individuals deeply involved in Christ's mission of feeding the hungry.

May 25 -- Jay Poliziani, Director of North Side Common Ministries

http://www.ncmin.org

June 1 -- Jennifer Frayer-Griggs, Coordinator of The Table Ministry at Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community

http://thetableministry.blogspot.com