+==Sermonizing {007}==+

"Transformative Communities" (given for Ministry Team at St. John UCC, Chicago, IL)

Psalm 30

Acts 9:1-20

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I was in New Zealand this time last year studying abroad. I had emailed the chaplain whenever I got to NZ because I wanted to find a community in which I could thrive where I could release my spiritual and religious side. Knowing how secular the country was I thought it might be a problem. Really, I just wanted a place to belong. She told me I had two options: Christian Club and Student Life. I would find them milling around during Orientation week, so I figured that would at least make the process a little easier. I ran into a Christian Club member. She handed me a tract, ask me if I knew God and invited me to their first meeting. I said thank you, yes I do, and ok thanks! I had no intention of ever going. The tract scared me. So then I found a student Life member and whenever I went to the meeting it felt like a petty, 6th grade Bible study. We were talking about times when we had betrayed our friends and how Jesus wouldn't have done that. It didn't have the depth or richness I was looking for. So I emailed the chaplain again and she offered to pick me up for something else that Sunday night. So I ended up at her house with several others: Rachel, Andrew, Mike, Sarah, among others. This group was eclectic and random... young and old.... but they had one thing in common: they were ridiculed for their faith. They had left the church for various reasons ... but here they were at the chaplain's house. I found this group… and they… they were a community...
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Let us pray.

God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be acceptable in your sight for you are our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
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We heard in the dramatized scripture this morning about Saul. We’ll get to know Saul later, but let us recognize that, Saul, if he was here today, would have been forcing Rachel, Andrew, Mike, and Sarah to the edges of society. You see, they had been pushed to the edges by people who thought their theology and ideas about God were wrong. This group called themselves “Exile” because they felt like they were in exile. Some of them left the church because they had a bad experience. Others left because they felt like the people did not love others the way Jesus calls us to. No matter their reason for leaving, they were welcomed with open arms at Exile.
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Last week the scripture was about the walk to Emmaus. On that road Jesus came to a couple disciples walking down the road and he played dumb, asking them questions about all that had happened those past few days. They had no idea it was him. When they came to a house for the evening, Jesus broke bread. As they gathered in community and as he said those words, Jesus revealed to them that it was him… the risen Christ. They weren’t physically blind…. They were just so disconnected from the overwhelming power of God since their most beloved leader and friend was gone.. gone from the earth and apparently gone from the tomb. This week, our scripture is about a similar, but very different experience.
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You see, Saul was a persecutor and when God called him out on it and said, “Go to town, and you’ll figure out why I’m sending you there once you get there.” Saul rose to his feet with eyes wide opened… but he found himself blind. His friends had heard God too but were paralyzed with fear. They didn’t know what to do with themselves… but they led him into Damascus where he waited and waited… didn’t eat and didn’t drink for three days.
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In the meantime, God was calling on Ananias to go help Saul. Ananias is like, whoa… God.. you know I don’t like him. Seriously… he’s not nice and has been persecuting people for as long as I can remember… There’s no way….we would probably do the same, right? I mean, if I was asked to intervene on behalf of God to our enemies, I would feel uneasy and unsure and… afraid.
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But did you hear what God said to Ananias? “None of that matters anymore… I have much to show him!” Whoa!!! None of the words that he had said to people… none of the things he had done to people… none of it mattered anymore because God was going to show him everything. Well that just didn’t seem fair, did it? God was going to show Saul everything after all he had done? All the persecuting? All the slander?
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BUT when the scales fell from Saul’s eyes… when Ananias touched him and said to him, “Saul, God is calling you”….he was transformed. His name didn’t go from Saul to Paul haphazardly… He had changed. God transformed Saul with the help of Ananias.
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You see, this story, just as the one about Emmaus, isn’t about physically seeing anything. Saul wasn’t transformed because he could suddenly see color and see people and see what he was doing. He was transformed because now he could see the world the way God saw the world. When we are living for ourselves… when we are ignoring God, our focus is too narrow. The scripture says Saul didn’t eat or drink for 3 days… When we lose sight of God we become spiritually famished... We thirst for God’s word and we are hungry for God’s love. But when we are nourished… when we open ourselves up to God, we can see how God sees. We understand the fullness and the breadth of God’s creation. We see the whole picture.
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It is when we are most vulnerable that we come to understand just how much we need others. When we are famished or ill or unstable… and we don’t know how to help ourselves, we must allow ourselves to be open to others. Because… because God works through others in our lives, if we are closing ourselves off to that, we deny God’s amazing power. So then, when we allow them to help us, that is when we are transformed.
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So whatever happened to that community in New Zealand? Exile became my spiritual home while I was abroad. It didn’t replace what I had at home. It didn’t pick up where I had left off. I realized the eclectic group that made up Exile embodied God… God was living in each of them and I had to realize that my life would never be about replacing the community from which I came. Instead, I gain new communities that transform me in unexpected ways. I couldn’t maintain my spiritual life on my own in New Zealand. No, I needed people. I was vulnerable and had no idea what to do with myself or my spirituality… or lack thereof. I needed people. I needed Exile to help me wrestle with spiritual issues and bring me closer to God when I was so far away from home.
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Our Psalm for today said, “When things were going great I crowed, ‘I’ve got it made. I’m God’s favorite. God made me king of the mountain.’ Then you looked the other way and I fell to pieces.” Saul thought he was the king of the mountain. Sometimes we think we are the king of the mountain, too. The Psalmist fell to pieces just as Saul was knocked off his high horse. Saul finally realized what he was missing whenever the scales fell from his eyes and he shouted “JESUS IS THE LIBERATING KING!” God had freed him from his egotistic, selfish lifestyle. The Psalmist writes: “You did it: you changed wild lament into whirling dance.” You changed wild lament into whirling dance.
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We need not mourn for God has transformed us. God is constantly transforming us. Saul the persecutor became Paul the advocate. We can’t build up God’s kingdom if we are living for ourselves. Because we can’t build up God’s kingdom if we’re closing ourselves off to seeing the way God sees the world.
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God rid of all of Saul’s issues and transformed him.

God takes all of our issues and transforms us too.
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For some people community is the only way they have experienced transformation. It’s hard to do it on our own and most of the time, we can’t do it on our own. We have to be vulnerable. Saul had Ananias. – Saul allowed Ananias to touch him and declare what God had in store for his life.— I have the Niebuhr Center at Elmhurst College. – had I not allowed myself to be broken, the Niebuhr Center would not have been as much of a support to me because of my resistance.—Some of you have your community at First Congregational in Geneva. – where you are vulnerable with each other in order to pray and care for each other. – You all have this community here at St. John. -- where you allow yourselves to be real with each other… and what a community this is.— God uses each of our communities no matter where they are to help transform the way we see the world.
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God created us to be vessels of God’s love. Soon we too will be shouting: Christ is the Liberating King!!! For Christ has risen. Christ has risen indeed. God’s love overcomes all the hate and evil in the world and transforms the world.
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“I can’t keep quiet about you. God, my God,” the psalmist writes, “I can’t thank you enough.”
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God has turned our wild lament into whirling dance.

God has transformed our lives.

And because we can’t place a period where God has placed a comma,

God will continue to transform our lives forever.
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Amen