We all remember the famous scene in the Wizard of Oz when at last Dorothy and the gang bring the broomstick of the wicked witch of the west to who they think is the mighty and powerful wizard of Oz.  As he tells them to come back later and that he can’t grant their wishes, Toto the dog goes behind an unseen curtain to reveal the true nature of the Wizard.  He is an old guy turning switches speaking into a microphone.  ‘Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain’ then becomes an everyday phrase.What we have this morning is the same kind of story—but in reverse.  The curtain is pulled back.  But the Jesus Peter, James and John are now faced with is not the same rabbi from Palestine, he is engulfed in blazing light and the cloud of Chekinah, great glory.  As he said, these three now ‘have not tasted death before seeing the kingdom of God.’We know this as the Transfiguration—the last Epiphany experience before Jesus comes down from the mountain for his journey to the cross.  The content of what he Elijah and Moses were talking about was just that—his exodus to the cross for the Deliverance of, not just the children of Israel, but of the world. I have three reflections.  The first is the taste of future glory.  Better yet, this is realized glory.  Many say that the life of the spirit is all fine and well, but they live in the ‘real world.’  However, what we see manifested here is the real world.  It is ultimate reality.  It is the real, whereas the world the disciples thought they were living is really the not-so-real world. Here is a glimpse of how things really are.Here is something that will bake your noodle.  What do we say in the Creed?  We believe in the ‘communion of saints.’  Where did Moses and Elijah come from?  What is their nature?  They are not phantoms nor are they ‘night of the living dead.’  They are somehow outside of time yet in time.  While Elijah was transferred into heaven, Moses died.  Yet, here is Moses in a kingdom state of being with the benefits of Christ’s resurrection before it has happened.  The curtain is pulled back and Jesus is revealed—and faithful followers are also revealed—while Christ does not share his glory with anyone, Elijah and Moses are right there.There is the glimpse, the curtain pulled back.  Sometimes we feel that or see that in our own world.  We are created for an experience of the real, an experience of Jesus as real as what the three disciples experienced.  It is not so much that Jesus changed as much as the disciples sense of perception changed.  They were given a gift to see things as they really are.The contemplatives, like Thomas Merton and even C.S. Lewis would say that we could experience mighty things if we would just for a moment let go of our selfishness, pride and greed.  If we could love God and others not for our sakes but for theirs.  But we are satisfied with imitation.Thomas Merton said, ‘The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows; not by clarity and substance, but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.’Sometimes, though, we are given glimpses.  Sometimes in other people.  Sometimes in realizing the gift that God gives us.The other day Caroline called me on the phone before she went to school and said, ‘Daddy, I just want to tell you that I love you.’ I just had to choke back the tears.  Who am I to deserve what God has given me?  And I feel that way about Sarah, Macrina and Luke too.  I am not worthy.If we could step away from ourselves just for a moment!  Before Thomas Merton entered the monastery, he was told by one of his profs to look at the Trappists, the strictest orders in the world.  Merton said, ‘I can’t do that.  They take things a bit too far.  And can’t keep their strict silence.  Also, I couldn’t do without meat.  I have to eat meat for my health.’   His professor replied, ‘Well it is good that you know yourself so well.’We are made for relationship with Jesus to such an extent that we can perceive him and see what is real and what is counterfeit.  To love him for his sake.  To love others without wanting anything in return.  To have a glimpse behind the curtain.Next, this scene shows us without a doubt who Jesus is.  The second person of the Trinity, God of God light from light…‘This is my beloved Son.’  The imagery around the Transfiguration is very important.  A cloud envelops Jesus.  This kind of cloud in the Old Testament represents God’s ‘Shekinah,’ or his ‘Chabod,’ that is, his glory.  Look at our scene from Exodus 34.  For Moses, the glory came from above, for Jesus, the glory comes from within.One scholar says that glory, in the OT, ‘implies more than a disclosure by God of who he is.  It  implies an invasion of the material universe, an expression of God’s active presence among his people.”  The cloud of glory is often associated with the Temple or the tabernacle, the presence of God among men.Do you ever wonder what was wrong with Peter’s desire to enshrine this event?  Much ink has been spilled in Peter’s defense or as a critique of what he did.  The reason why Peter’s suggestion to build shrines was problematic was because he wanted three shrines, one for Moses, Elijah and Jesus.But Jesus transcends them all.  Jesus transcends the tabernacle and the Temple, the Law and the Prophets, Moses and Elijah.  Jesus does not ask for a booth alongside the others because he is above the others.  God’s presence is most evident in Jesus Christ because he is God become human flesh.  ‘This is my beloved Son.’One missionary says, “Behind the story and the details with the disciples, the tents and the cloud, one thing stands clear–in that momentous event the unique, eternal, and full divinity of Jesus Christ shone into and out of Christ.  Nowhere in religious literature do we read of a comparable scene.  The closest thing in Islam would be Mohammed’s midnight trip to Jerusalem and up to the seventh heaven, passing the realm of the prophets Moses and Jesus on his way to the very presence of Allah.  But no transfiguration, merely a return to Mecca that night to find his bed still warm.  Jesus and Jesus alone has the fullness of the deity dwelling in Him.  He is the express image of the one true God, the maker of heaven and earth.  All the world was through Him and for Him, He is the one to whom all authority in heaven and earth has been given, and he will judge the living and the dead.”The irony is that the more centered we are in the Deity of Jesus—the more confident in his Godhead, the easier it is to dialogue with other faiths.  This is not so much because of what we think or what we understand intellectually, but because our heart and will is so dedicated to Jesus that his love shines through us and in us.  So, you don’t think, ‘how do I convince this Muslim or Buddhist to believe in Jesus,’ but you think, ‘how would Jesus treat this person and how does Jesus see them?’Lastly, the story ends ironically.  The disciples have seen something and not really understood it.  But even what they have understood, they what?  Keep to themselves.  Peter writes about it later and obviously the story is shared with the gospel writers, but Luke tells us, ‘The disciples kept this to themselves, and told no one at the time what they had seen.’  Why not?  Weren’t they given something special?  Didn’t they have something to ‘one-up’ the rest of the 12?  Why wouldn’t they enshrine the event?C.S. Lewis’ book the Great Divorce, which we have gone through in our adult class, is a fascinating tale of what the kingdom could be like.  Of course it is fiction but very interesting.  The people of earth after death are given an opportunity to ‘try out’ heaven, but they are made of the stuff of earth and are more like ghosts.  The grass hurts, the atmosphere is ‘real’ and solid, while they are not.  Therefore, the grass hurts to walk on and the light is too bright and the sounds are too noisy.There is one scene in which a man from earth is trying to take an apple from heaven back to earth—back to the bus they came on.He tries to get the biggest one, but he cannot lift it, so he goes for a smaller one, still he can’t lift it and he is in a pathetic kind of state.  Kind of like what enshrining the Transfiguration would be like.  Trying to capture heaven and bring it to earth.Sometimes the greatest response to God is silence.  Sometimes the greatest way to glorify God is to keep our mouth shut.  This sounds like a contradiction of what I always say that you need to tell your story of your relationship with Jesus.  But many times our greatest evangelical moment comes from less explanation of our faith than more explanation. ‘Preach Christ at all times, if necessary, use words’  so said St. Francis.  In our world of sounds and images, it is so much more effective to show the mercy of Christ to someone than to try to explain it.  Remember, God is the one who draws people to himself anyway.  We are simply messengers.  And bad ones at that.  But if we love with his hands and see with his eyes and sit in his presence, his life will shine forth from us. 

James 2:1-18

James 2:1-10, [11-13], 14-17My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you? You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. [For the one who said, “You shall not commit adultery,” also said, “You shall not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery but if you murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.]What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.

Porche 944

Todd Hunter, a Vineyard pastor who recently became Anglican wrote a book called Christianity Beyond Belief.  In the book he reminds us that Jesus had really one message—the Kingdom of Heaven, which Hunter calls ‘God’s story.’  He then asks the question, ‘which story are you in,’ or which story do you believe?’  What is the overarching story that you live by?

Alexander Solzenitsyn gave an eerily prophetic speech to graduates from Harvard in 1978.  I commend it to you.  He basically says that the only story of the West left is the story of materialism.  There is no longer anything for us to live for or rise above because comfort is our goal.  Material comfort is our story.

I mentioned the last couple of weeks how important it is to try to listen to God.  It is also instructive to learn and listen to ourselves—to find out what we truly live for.

What story does Jesus want us in?  The epistles, like James are the Scriptures way of practical living in God’s story and his kingdom.

As a review, we are going through the book of James, a book that provides wisdom and encourages one to listen and to act on what we hear.  I mentioned that James is playing on the ancient rabbinic teaching known as the yesarim.  That is, that there are two impulses in every human being, a virtuous impulse, known as yeserhatov and an evil impulse known as yeserhara.  In part, James’ letter is wisdom on how to live by the yeserhatov, by the impulse of virtue.  Our passage this morning is all about the yeserhara, the evil impulse.  The yeserhara has the potential of taking over when the desire for wealth and prestige becomes our story.  Today’s passage is specifically targeting the last danger or awakening the evil desire within us, the desire for wealth and prestige.

James’ letter, in part is to refute the teaching going around his churches that wealth is an automatic sign of God’s blessing and being poor the sign of God’s curse.  James turns that thinking on its head by saying the opposite, that the poor are the ones who are really rich.  He says, ‘Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him.’  James is echoing the words of Christ almost verbatim, ‘Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.’

Both James and Jesus are not saying that it is evil to be rich or to be in a place of honor.  I mentioned before that the wealthy were the ones who helped start churches and offered the main support for them.  What James is saying is that when you are on the bottom, there is no place to look but up.

Now in the ancient world: only 8% had wealth, 2% were gaining wealth, and the other 90% were poor.  8% old money, 2% new money and everyone else.  It was virtually impossible to ‘move up’ in Roman society, unlike ours.  Conversely, in the Roman empire, if you were part of that small 10% there was no way you were moving down.  As impossible as it was to move up, it was unthinkable to step down.  That is why Jesus’ teaching was so radical—‘whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.’  Jesus also said to seek the riches of the Kingdom, to hunger and thirst for righteousness, ‘for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.’  And James, “Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?”

In the community of Faith, in the church, James sees the poor on a higher rung on the ladder–because, he says, they are rich in faith.  In fact, he goes so far as to say that if you show favoritism in the body of Christ, if you are unable to humble yourself, you are like an unbeliever.

In the ancient world, it was actually status that was more highly valued than cash.  The senate class, those who ruled the empire, these were the highest of the highest.  And they were there because of blood lines, not because of money.

Juvenal said that pecunia (love of money) was a goddess.  But she was a vassal, a minion in the service of another goddess, philotomia, the love of status.  The upper crust was the envy of society.  James says there is to be no envy of society, except those who have nowhere else to look but up, because they are poor in spirit and theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

James says that the church is the place where there will be no favoritism or privilege.  If there is, then the community does not get it, they don’t believe the gospel.

Now we may no longer be the wine and cheese denomination.  But what we have to be careful about is never to think that it was good for us to have that reputation.  We have a great heritage as Anglicans, but having General Convention in the Bahamas is not one of them. 

This summer I read George MacDonald’s novels about George Wingfield, a faithful priest/curate.  His characteristics of the church show us how the culture of England affected the church—lineage, status, was prized over anything else.  Wingfield the curate entered the church at first to get ahead in society—clergy were reluctantly received into the upper crust.  Wingfield, though didn’t believe a word of it.  He had a boxful of his uncles sermons that he read to everyone each Sunday.  There is a character named, Mrs. Ramshorn who is a wealthy widow whose late husband was the dean of a cathedral.  She has strong views about what is said in church and how the clergy should behave.  Eventually Wingfield’s conscience is pricked for reading other people’s sermons and for not really believing what he was called to do.  Therefore, he confesses it to the congregation and begins his own discovery of Christ.  Mrs. Ramshorn is appalled.  A clergy should have no emotion and should know his place.  She was also appalled that so many different kinds of people began to attend church to hear Thomas Wingfield’s passionate sermons—even the unseemly. 

But this kind of problem does not just plague Episcopalians.  Some of the newer church architecture of the last 25 years has deliberately tried to mimic ‘the suburban corporate headquarters of high tech companies.’  The mega church wants to look and feel as mega important and mega successful as possible.  It really is a strategy that if the place looks mega successful, then successful people will come.  This mindset is not the case in all big churches, but it is in some. 

James says that favoritism and showing privilege have no place in the church.  No matter what variety.  He says that favoring the 10% and give them important seats at the expense of the 90% who are in need is a sign of unbelief and a symbol that the yeserhara, the evil thoughts and impulses have gotten control of members of the body of Christ—that another story has crept into God’s Kingdom story.

What troubled James, was that the desire for prestige created a climate in the church that was inclined to evil.  Even Roman historian Livy (59 B.C.-A.D. 17) wrote, “Wealth has made us greedy, and self-indulgence has brought us, through every form of sensual excess, to be, if I may so put it, in love with death both individual and collective.”

If it was true in the culture that greed led to self-indulgence and eventually to death, how much more was it a concern was there for James’ churches.  And for our own.

The most quoted piece of James letter is found here in James chapter 2.  ‘Faith without works is dead.’  It is often quoted in tension with Paul’s proclamation that we are saved by faith without works.  It is as if the two are at odds.  This is why Luther rejected James by the way.  He thought he was taking the ‘side’ of Paul.

But James again is like one of the prophets of old.  He does not oppose Paul, in fact they say much the same thing just in different ways.  James challenging his churches—Do you believe the gospel or not?  Do you listen?  If you do, you will reject favoritism and you will care for the needy.  It is not enough to say you believe, even the demons believe!  Your belief must be followed by action–specifically showing love for neighbor and not having a class system within the church.

Do you think of the poor?  There is a scene in the movie Casablanca in which Ugarte, says to Humphrey Bogart’s character Rick, “You despise me, don’t you Rick?”  “I probably would,” replies Rick, “If I gave you any thought.”  So it is the way James’ world and ours treats the poor.

I have to say that we are a congregation that responds quickly to need.  I have seen example after example of times when one of our own is in trouble or when we hear of a need outside of these walls that you immediately respond with money or time or whatever.  Of course we can always do better, but based on what I’ve seen, James himself would be proud of us.

But there is a deeper element in James’s vision for the church that really applies specifically to us.  James is clear that what he wants in his churches is a climate of humility.  An environment where love is the language of the people.  An environment where the members of the body are dependent on God and not the wealth or status of a few. 

What story are we in?  If we were hugely successful did not have the kind of church James describes that loves neighbor, where humility and love are never compromised, if we could never have a climate of truth held with arms open wide for the poor among us and the poor around us, then we have failed.  James says that humility, and weakness, are what are honored by God because those things create a soil that conducive to his grace and power.  Arrogance, prestige, and favoritism only lead to destruction, but humility leads to faith that God will lead and guide.

We want a climate of love and humility.  We want to be a people who believe and who act on their belief.  We want to be a people who truly have faith and works.

This week, do something for someone in this parish.  Something unexpected that shows that we are a body who will take these words of Scripture to heart.  Ask God to show you who needs a little extra love this week and if you dare, follow his direction.  Let us be doers of the word!

I would also challenge you to listen—to yourself.  What statements do you make, what places do you go, what desires do you have that tell you what story you really believe.  That overarching story that you live by.  Is it God’s?

“And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but Jesus was asleep.  And they went and woke him saying, ‘Save us Lord; we are perishing.’ And he said to them, ‘Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?’  Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.  And the disciples marveled saying, ‘What sort of man is this, that even the winds and sea obey him?’”

Our gospel lesson is a parallel with what I just read from Matthew 8.  Matthew emphasizes Jesus’ superiority to Moses and the Torah.  Jesus brings not only new teachings, he is a king for and in a new kingdom.  At the end of the Sermon on the Mount there is a key phrase: ‘When Jesus had finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.’

The question asked by the disciples in Matthew 8 gets answered throughout the rest of the book?  ‘Who is this?’  This is one who calms the storm, one who casts out the devil, one who heals the sick, one who teaches with authority, and literally, one who walks on water.

What is happening around these events?
There was unbelief–Jesus’ rejection in his hometown.  John the Baptist was beheaded by Herod Antipas.

There was faith:
Jesus was exhausted from ministry: from casting out demons, from healing the sick, from
feeding the 5000+.

Then there is faith and unbelief found in one person, Peter.

Jesus sends the disciples on the other side of the sea.  He is anxious about the journey to Jerusalem–and his first ministry in Gentile lands

And while the disciples are struggling to fight a storm–Jesus is where?  In prayer for nine hours +

You know the rest of the story.  Jesus doesn’t calm this storm, he walks on the water right through it.  The disciples are afraid when they see him, like they have seen a ‘ghost’ and the word there is closer to a ‘deceptive spirit,’ that is, a demon.

The rest of the scene is all about Peter.  This is his moment.  He wants proof that this is not a demon but Jesus.  ‘If it is you, call me to walk on the water.’

Peter does, for a moment, then, echoing Matthew 8, he takes his eye of Christ and on the storm and says, ‘Lord save me.’

Peter is very important to Matthew.  He is the leader of the disciples without a doubt.  But he is full of flaws and leaps before he thinks.
This burst of emotional energy to get him out on the water is ‘effective enough to motivate him but not effective enough to sustain him.’

Peter is the high low, the emotional and the depressed.  The passionate and faithful disciple and the stumbling bumbling disciple.

Peter is the ultimate study in contrasts.  He will make the ultimate profession: ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!’  Then he will be tool of Satan.  He will be in the inner circle at the Mountain of Transfiguration, then he will mess it up by wanting to pitch tents.  He walks on water, then takes his eye off Christ.  He says he will die for Jesus, and then denies him three times.

Many preachers want to focus on Peter’s foibles.  Ha ha, silly Peter sinking to bottom, taking his eyes off Jesus.  How much do I need to remind you of the fact that if you take your eyes off of Christ, you’re in for a heap of trouble?

When you take your eyes off of Christ and put it on the difficulty or the pain or the trouble or anything else, you’ll find yourselves sinking in a storm.

I’m sure that Matthew wanted to remind his audience of Peter’s clay feet and humble beginnings.  But he also wants to remind all who read his gospel of the authority and power of Jesus.  He doesn’t still the storm, he ignores it.  He doesn’t fear the water or waves, he walks on them as if he is on a neighborhood stroll.  The kingdom of heaven is at hand.  ‘Truly this is the Son of God.’

What is key here is not what Peter fails to do or what he cannot see.  It is not so much his lack of faith that is remarkable but the evidence of his faith!  Look at what Peter does right.

John Ortberg says, “ This is the fundamental truth: if you want to walk on water, you’ve got to get out of the boat.  If you want to experience the power of God in your life, you’ve got to take a step of faith.  It involves risky obedience.”

Peter does two things here that is very important.  First, he gets out of the boat.  Second, he calls on Jesus when he sinks.

While the other disciples are shivering and panicked, while they are trying in their own strength to solve yet another storm, Peter does what?  He gets out of the boat.  He has listened to Jesus’ words, he has seen his power, why not?

This is faith.  It is faith to look at an impossible situation, to look at something that we have no ability to walk into and to put out our faith and to step out.  Peter gets out of the boat.
There is nothing that we can accomplish in the kingdom of God, there is no way of facing our fears and our grief and our pain and our unbelief unless we do what?  Step out, and get out of the boat.

Peter knew it. When Francis walked into the woods naked he knew it.  When Benedict walked away from the city of Rome to the countryside he knew it.  We know that of the saints, but we have somehow domesticated them.  Being a faithful Christian is akin to walking on water.  But we keep those who have done it faithfully at a distance.

As Thomas Merton says, ‘We have buried [the saints] in our own routines, and thus securely insulated ourselves against any form of spiritual shock from their lack of conventionality.”

When someone is baptized, regardless of their age, they are stepping out of the boat.

Every Christian in every age who have not bowed the knee to Cesar but who have proclaimed Christ as Lord knew it.  As John Ortberg says, ‘if you want to walk on water, you’ve got to get out of the boat.

John Burtness told us Friday at the men’s group about a Yale professor who lost his son at 25 in a mountain climbing accident wrote a book called Lament For a Son.  He talks of the difficulty of having faith through his loss, especially when everyone else is like Job’s wife who says, ‘why don’t you just curse God and die?’

He says, ‘Faith is a footbridge that you don’t know will hold you up over the chasm until you’re forced to walk out onto it.’

Peter had guts.  Peter was willing to live on the edge.  Peter was willing to face what he knew was sheer terror–don’t forget he was a seasoned fisherman familiar with storms!

If you want to walk on water, you’ve got to get out of the boat.

The Youthworks leaders told us the other night that just last week, there was an 80 year old woman who was so convinced that a Youthworks mission trip would be important for the teenagers in her church that she would go and lead them–even when no one else would.  That’s stepping out of the boat!

Lastly, Peter sank.  But our focus should not be his sinking–we sink all the time.  It is not so much his sinking but who he cried out to when he did.  Peter knew that the Lord had every ability to save him.

Ortberg again says, “…only Peter knew that when he sank, Jesus would be there, and he was wholly adequate to save.  The other disciples could not know because they never got out of the boat.”

Included in the Creed we are about to say is that we believe in the ‘forgiveness of sins…’  This is really the hallmark of our faith.  There is no anxiety about the God we serve, at least there shouldn’t be.  Now of course when Peter was sinking, Jesus didn’t say, “hey Peter, no worries, embrace your sinkingness.”  No, Peter knew he was about to sink into despair.  But what puts Peter above the rest is his ability to call out when he was sinking.

If we want to walk on water, we have to get out of the boat, but when we fall and sin and make mistakes, Jesus is always there to pull us out.  We still have to face the mire, but Jesus is always there, strong and mighty to save.

My advice to our Youthworks leaders is that you keep that in mind.  God has called you to radical things, as he has called all of us.  But we cannot walk on water by ourselves.  Only he gives us the ability to do anything and only he can save us when we fall.

What is the Christmas hymn you hear every year?

Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen,
When the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even;
Brightly shone the moon that night, tho’ the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight, gath’ring winter fuel.

The hymn is about Winceslas I, a Checz king who helped the poor in his country even during winter months.  The Feast of Stephen, of course, is when?  December 26th.

That begs the question, who is Stephen?  He is the main character in today’s reading from Acts.  He was chosen and ordained by the apostles themselves to be one of the first Deacons.

We live in a day where our resumes are extremely important.  What is our experience?  Where were we educated?  What degrees do we have?  What are our references?  It’s not what you know, but who you know.  This whole process is agonizing for me and a bit narcissistic! But it’s got to be done.  I would challenge you to think of a different kind of resume.  Since we’re in Easter season, I might call it a ‘resurrection resume.’

Stephen had a heckuva ‘resurrection resume.’  The Scripture says he was full of faith, full of the Holy Spirit, and that he was (charis)matic–that is, gifted of God and full of God’s power.  So much so that miracles were done at his hands.  The book of Acts is a vast document which has important speeches by its two stars: Peter and Paul.  But Luke reserves his longest speech for a little known Deacon full of the Spirit, Stephen.

For Luke, a strong symbol of the presence of the Holy Spirit is someone who opens their mouth and speaks truth.  ‘Were not our hearts burning within us when he was explaining the Scriptures?’ So say the two on the road to Emmaus when Jesus opened their minds to understand the Law and the Prophets.  Stephen does the exact same thing.  Top on his resume was his knowledge of the Scriptures.

But it is a knowledge that is unconventional.  It is seeing and understanding the Scriptures in a new way–or at least being able to see what was not obvious on its face.  The religious leaders knew the story of Abraham, Moses and Solomon just as well as Stephen.  But Stephen was able to get to the heart of the Tanakah and see it as a huge signpost to Jesus–the Son of Man and Son of God.

Abraham was important because he was father Abraham.  All of the promises of God about the people of God are represented by Abraham, especially in terms of the land of promise.  Yet Jesus transcends Abraham–hence Jesus transcends the land.  Moses was the representative of the Law–the Law which gave the people of God their identity. The Law that showed them the heart of God–yet nothing showed the heart of God more than his Son Jesus.

Solomon is a representation of the Temple.  The Temple was God’s footstool, his throne.  The presence of God was palpable in the Temple.  Yet, as Stephen says, no place can contain God.  Yet God is very much contained in Jesus Christ.  He is now the Temple of God.

Stephen’s words were from the Scriptures–yet they were words no one wanted to hear–because if they heard them the way Stephen preached them–they would have to change their lives.  I hope that you don’t miss the real radicalism that is in the Scripture.  Here’s one–‘love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, pray for those who harm you.’

That’s radical stuff.  More than ever our world needs a different vision of how to live and we conduct ourselves.  You may or may not like Jim Wallis.  But he has recently coined one of the most intriguing terms, ‘Conservative Radical.’  He writes this:

Maybe what we need is a new paradigm altogether—we might call it “the conservative radical.” To be conservative means to be rooted—in a tradition, in faith, in core values. To be radical also means to be rooted (“radical” stems from the Latin word “radix,” which means “root”), which gives one a consistent perspective on the world. So these two—conservative radical—may not be contradictory but in fact deeply complementary.

While Wallis is talking mostly about the political process, I would argue that this kind of thing can only come from the people of God, the Body of Christ.  The Bible makes us radical and counter cultural.  It talks about sexual purity and faithfulness in marriage and all of the ‘family values’ kind of thing.  But it also gives a radical nature of the world–go back to the words of Jesus.  Love your enemies, rejoice when people speak bad of you and when they exclude and revile you on account of the Son of Man–rejoice and be glad!! Do good to those who hate you.

Even the Old Testament is one of the most radical documents.  The prophets railed against the people of God because they worshiped as if everything was great–yet their worship was perverted because they were observing the feasts of Israel, yet at one and the same time they were negligent of the poor, the widow, the orphan and the stranger.

The content of Stephen’s sermon caused his hearers to consider one important thing: we are dead wrong about everything that we hold dear.  If Jesus is the Son of God, if Jesus is risen, everything changes.  One of my favorite historians was Jaroslav Pelikan–a deep writer on the history of the Church who taught many years at Yale.  He wrote with the insight of a historian, yet with the passion of a faithful Christian.  He died of cancer a couple of years ago.  On his deathbed he said this: ‘If Christ is risen, nothing else matters.  And if Christ is not risen—nothing else matters.’

The religious leaders who heard Stephen’s sermon had a choice, repent and change everything, or go on doing what they were doing and eliminate Stephen.  They chose the latter.  They chose to ignore Stephen’s words, they refused to see the Scriptures in a different way.

More than ever we need to see the Scriptures radical documents for our time.  They tell us about God, but they also bring us face to face with this God.  They tell us stories of Jesus, but if we allow them we can hear the radical call to follow him, no matter what we have to leave behind in the process.

There is one last entry in Stephen’s resurrection resume.  Though his radical preaching of the Scriptures got him stoned, he was full great love.  What were his last words?  ‘Do not hold this sin against them.’

This is love of the radical sort.  This is a love that loves whether the other deserves it or not, a love only Jesus can give–a love of the most radical sort.  Stephen’s words should remind you of Jesus’ words, ‘Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.’

This is the kind of love that doesn’t ignore the wrongdoing of the other, it is loving despite their wrongdoing.  In Stephen’s case, it was a love for the ones killing him.  This is incarnational love of the highest sort.  If loving cost us our lives, could we do it?  Love of Christ and love of neighbor?

I read recently of a 19th century Belguim saint named Father Damien.  He was one of the first missionaries to Hawaii.  Now that sounds great to me but there was an island in the 19th century called the Island of Molokai.  This was no resort island but a colony for lepers.  But Fr. Damien felt the Lord wanted him there not only to preach Christ but to serve the lepers in a most radical way.  The island itself smelled of rotting flesh and was full of contagion. One writer says that he:
“Built homes for the people, made coffins for the dead, and grew food for the hungry.  He worked tirelessly among a people who were not his own and who had an illness he did not have.”

He constantly knocked on the doors of Rome for them to send supplies and to be advocates for his new brothers and sisters in Christ.

Then one day, after a hard day of work, he was soaking his feet in a pot of hot water, and he could no longer feel them.  He had so wanted to relate to his people that he allowed nothing to separate him from them.  He caught the disease and died at the age of 49.  His day is April 15.  When you are panicked about taxes on Tuesday, remember Fr. Damien!

Only a biblical radical would live and die this way.  This is the resurrection resume of so many of the saints of God.  No fanfare.  No riches.  No ‘man or woman of the year’ awards.  Only Christ at the right hand of God cheering them on, like Stephen.