April 29, 2007                                            

 Pastor Jim Bangsund

 

"Fracture and Frontiers: A Foretaste of the Feast to Come"

Acts 9:36-43

 

As Pastor Judy mentioned last Sunday, we give thanks to God as this month we have joined your ministry team here at St. Timothy’s.  We’re looking forward to this new stage in our lives as well as in yours as we have the privilege of becoming involved with and supporting all that Pastor Dan has been doing here for a dozen years.  Let me tell you something most of you don’t know.  One reason we are here is because of what we heard was happening at St Tim’s even while in Tanzania.  More on that later.

As some of you know, in another life, before we went to Tanzania, I was pastor at Holy Redeemer Lutheran Church over on the Alameda.  I remember an evening when a group of us went to the opening night of a major summer movie.  Standing outside in a long line with other members, as we waited for the doors to open, you can imagine our surprise when a car rolled up and two members, I’ll call them Gary and Jill, got out, opened the trunk, and brought out a little red wagon which Jill then decorated with a red checked tablecloth, candelabra, snacks and a bottle of wine.  We then stood there, amazed and delighted, as they went up and down the line offering tasty hors d’oeuvres to members of the congregation.

Well, as you can imagine, other people in line started looking up and asking, “What’s this?  Who are you folks?”  And I said, “Oh, we’re from Holy Redeemer Lutheran Church.”  “Really?” they said.  “Where’s that?”  And soon we had some good conversations going on.  Well, I don’t know that Gary and Jill were thinking evangelism when they put that little red wagon in the trunk – they are just people for whom hospitality is a natural talent and a gift and they like to share it.  But it caught people’s attention and fired their imagination.  And as I watched that candelabra and the hors d’oeuvres and wine go up and down the line, I couldn’t help thinking: “Ahhhh ... a ‘foretaste of the feast to come’!”  And, no, I can’t remember if attendance went up the next Sunday, but I suspect it did.  By the way, their names were not really Gary and Jill.  I’ve changed their names because they are now members here at St Timothy’s – have been for quite some time now – and I’ll just let you guess who it is that has such a natural talent for whimsy and hospitality.

A foretaste of the feast to come.  That’s a phrase from the liturgy, of course, and it speaks of the Lord’s Supper being a little preview of that great heavenly feast we will one day enjoy before God.  And the story I just told, and that phrase from the liturgy, help unlock this morning’s first lesson for me.

This morning is the second sermon in a four week series on the book of Acts– a series we are calling Fracture and Frontiers.  The title was inspired by a book published last year by Dr. Roy Harrisville of Luther Seminary.  I don’t know how many here know Dr. Harrisville.  To say he is brilliant and a character is to understate the case on both counts.  He recently gave me a copy of the book as a birthday present, and in the front has written: “Jim and Judy!  My friends like it, my enemies hate it.  I hope you like it, because I need all the friends I can get.... May God bless and keep you both!  Roy Harrisville.”

The book is titled Fracture: The Cross as Irreconcilable in the Language and Thought of the Biblical Writers.  And here’s his point: what happened on the cross was so unexpected and astounding that it went against the grain of all previous religious notions, set them on their ear, fractured them, as it were.  Certainly this was true for the apostle Paul, as you heard last week – a man convinced he had God all figured out ... until that day when the risen Christ confronted him on the Damascus road.

We’re now in the season of Easter, and are remembering, indeed celebrat­ing, this fracture of history brought by the cross and the resurrection of Christ – a fracture of world views and religious para­digms unlike anything before or after.  For the Cross and Resurrection are God’s showing that the brokenness and rebellion of your life and mine are not the final word.  Rather, God entered this messy world of human flesh and frailties and lived among us as one of us – teaching and healing and letting himself be put to death.  For you, and for me. Christ’s death and resurrection mark that fracture – God’s reaching into your life to set things aright.  Have you, like me, said and done things you wish could be undone and erased from memory?  There is forgiveness to be had, my friend, and opportunities for fresh starts and new frontiers in your life.  That’s what the fracture of the cross is all about.

The book of Acts speaks of what happened in those first days after Easter – those first days in the lives of those who became known as Christians and would later be known as the Church.  They had been told by the risen Christ:

you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

And in the book of Acts, it is not so much the apostles as God himself who is clearly on the march.  Last week we heard about Jerusalem, as it were, with the fracture coming at a very local level, in the life of Paul.  This morning, the impact of God’s fracture of history moves from a life to a growing community of faith.  From Jerusalem to the surrounding region of Judea.

Whenever we dive deeply into scripture, we should occasionally “Up peri­scope,” as they say in the world of submarines.  That is, we should sometimes pop our heads out of the text and take a look not only at the verses we are reading, but also at what happens just before and then what happens afterwards.  That gives context and helps us understand what is going on in the text we are studying.  Just like when you drive a car, you not only watch what’s happening around the car, but you also frequently look far down the road as well as in your rear view mirror.  At least I hope you do, now you and I are driving the same streets!  And I hope you do it when you are reading the Bible, too.

This morning, we read in Acts 9 that a much-loved member of the church in the seacoast town of Joppa had died – a woman named Tabitha.  So the people send messengers to find Peter in the village of Lydda.  Why Lydda?  Why Peter?  Because in the verses right before our text this morning – the ones we see in our rear view mirror, or looking back with our periscope – we read

As Peter traveled about the country, he went to visit the saints in Lydda.  There he found a man named Aeneas, a paralytic who had been bedridden for eight years.  "Aeneas," Peter said to him, "Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and take care of your mat." Immediately Aeneas got up.

Through Peter, God had healed Aeneas in Lydda, and the word spread.  Thus, when Tabitha died in Joppa, the people called for Peter. He goes, and when he enters the house, we read in verses 32-35:

Peter sent them all out and knelt down and prayed, and turning to the body, he said, "Tabitha, arise." And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up.  And he gave her his hand and raised her up; and calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive.

And the first thing I want to say about this story is:  It’s not about Peter.  It’s not about Peter.  This story is not saying, “Wow!  Peter can do miracles!”  Rather, it’s saying, “The risen Jesus is alive and well and still doing great things – in this case, through Peter.”  Luke, the writer, is expecting us to notice something here.  He’s dropping clues.  You see, Peter, like Jesus and the other disciples,  spoke not English, not Hebrew, but rather Hebrew’s sister language Aramaic.  And so what he actually said was not “Tabitha, rise,” but “Tabitha cumi.”  And Luke expects us immediately to say, “Aha!” and to remember “Talitha cumi.”  Remember the story of Jairus’ daughter in Mark 5?  Jairus’ little daughter has died, and Jesus goes in and says to her, “Talitha, cumi,” which meant “Little, girl arise.”  And she does.  “Talitha, cumi.”  And now Peter says “Tabitha cumi.”  Ahh, your mother should have taught you Aramaic.  You miss so much without that.  The point is, this story is not about Peter.  Rather, it’s language is pointing to Jesus, the risen Jesus who is still healing and raising from the dead.

Second – and hear me out here – this story is not about healing.  Not really.  It’s about more than healing.  Now I know and I believe that God heals.  I think, for instance of a friend of ours in Tanzania, Pastor Justo Pallangyo, who was set upon by thieves.  They beat him up and broke his arm one night, and he was taken to Selian Lutheran Hospital where they X-rayed the arm, found a bad break and signed him up for surgery the next morning.  He then went back home with meds, spent a painful night, and returned the next morning – without the X-ray.  In all the confusion, he had forgotten it at home.  What happened next was related to us the following Sunday morning at Arusha Community Church by an amazed Dr. Mark Jacobson, the ELCA missionary doctor who runs Selian Hospital.  They took another X-ray, and there was no break.  I kid you not.  It simply wasn’t there any more.  Mark just shook his head and said to all of us, “I’m not big on sensationalism or overdone stories, but what can I say?  Apparently God healed him, and ... well, we just sent him home.”

And we praised God.  But God doesn’t always heal like that.  And we all know that.  Apart from what I just told you, this past year was a tough year at Arusha Community Church.  Four American women in their 50s came down with different types of cancer, and we lost three of them.  Sobering.

Sobering, yes, but also eye-opening.  Because, like I said, this story of Tabitha and Peter is not really about healing; it’s about something else.  Again, it’s a pointer, pointing to something greater.  Note this my friends, being healed – even being raised from the dead – is not the same as the resurrection.  Lazarus was raised from the dead.  Jairus’ daughter and Tabitha were raised from the dead.  But they all died again ... eventually.  It was but a temporary fix; and then, one day, they got old and they had to go through it all over again.  They died again.  And now they, like we, await that final resurrection from the dead, after which we will never die again.

So if this morning’s first lesson is not about Peter and not really about healing – then what’s it about.  My friends, it’s a foretaste of the feast to come.  A foretaste of the feast to come!  Yes, God sometimes heals.  And we give thanks when he does, especially when it gives more time to finish what we are about.  But even when he does, it’s only a temporary fix, after all; a foretaste, a pointer and a reminder of what is eventually to come for all of us who are in Christ.  Resurrection.  Permanently.

Good friend and colleague Dick Nysse, also on faculty at Luther Seminary,  reflected on this several years ago when he was diagnosed with cancer.  He wrote to students and colleagues:

"These are strange and disorienting days, as you might well imagine. I am sick and I don't feel sick – that is only one of many contradictory ... emotions I am feeling.  Another: I'm committed to realism, but that is tricky, for there can be an undertow of macho bravado in realism.  Instead, I'm striving for a hopeful (and fighting) realism. I will fight for all the healing God will grant and the doctors can achieve. Healing – because life is a gift and gifts must be stewarded.  I understand fighting for healing to be part of stewardship.  But inevitably there is plenty of selfishness mixed in with that attitude.  Healing, yes, but with no illusions.  Eventually we will all need the resurrection God has promised in Christ."

That was 7 years ago, and Dick is still with us and we all give thanks.  But he’s right.  What healing really does is point us in two directions.  Points us back to that moment when God fractured history and overcame death’s ultimate power over you and over me.  Points us ahead to that great promise of complete and final resurrection in Christ forever.  Note the endings of both of the stories of healing here in Acts – of Tabitha in our lesson and of Aeneas in the verses just before it.  After Aeneas was healed, we read, “And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord.”  And after Tabitha was raised from the dead, we read, “And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.”

It’s not about Peter; in the deepest sense, it’s not even about healing.  Rather, it’s about drawing our eyes to a cross and an empty tomb; to a fracture, an Easter aftershock, if you will.  It’s about Jesus and Resur-rection hope and forgiveness of sin.  It’s a foretaste of the feast to come, a pointer to the final resurrection.  My friend, hear this: the cross and resurrection of Christ have to do with you.  They are God’s trump card over all those things in your life which separate you from him, or bind you in fear or despair or just numb resignation.  God’s fracture of history can bring healing to the fractures in your own life including death itself.

People in the communities of Lydda and Joppa heard what was happening among followers of Jesus.  Like that little red wagon with the red-checked table cloth and candelabra outside the movie theater, healing caught people’s attention and fired their imaginations.  It gave them a foretaste of the feast to come.  And they came to see more, to ask “Who is this Jesus?  And what is this community of faith all about, this community gathered in the name of Christ and encouraging one another and talking about an empty tomb and hope?”

I said at the beginning that one reason Judy and I are here is because of what we heard was happening at St Tim’s.  You should carry a copy of the church calendar in your pocket and share it with friends.  The Gospel is being preached here and the Lord’s Supper shared at the altar and sins forgiven in Jesus’ name.  And there are gatherings of people throughout the week where struggles are shared and wounds are bound.  Where the Bible is studied and lives are built up.  Where children and families and singles and couples and old and young gather to grow and, at times, to heal.  A foretaste of the feast to come, indeed.

Think about what God has done and is doing in your life here at St Timothy’s.  And then tell others that there is this place on Camden Avenue where sin and burdens may be laid down; where there is hope in times of loss and encouragement in times of stress; where God uses his people to lift you up and build you up.  Our lesson this morning ended with the words, “And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.”  May it someday be said of us here at St Timothy’s that “it became known throughout all the Santa Clara Valley, and many believed in the Lord.”  Amen.