6 Easter A
Transcribed from a
sermon give
May 29, 2011
By the Rev. Valerie
Ann Hart
At St. Barnabas
Episcopal Church
When I get ready to preach and
read through the lessons for the coming Sunday, sometimes a passage, a little
short something, will just jump out at me. Then I know that I have to preach
about that, even if I’m not real excited about having to preach about that.
The one that stood out for me
today is in the First Letter of Peter, where he says, “Always be ready to make
your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting of the hope that is
in you.” Be ready, be ready to make a defense of the hope that is within you.
As Christians we are always to be ready to make a defense of the hope within
us.
Now of course the first question
is what is that hope? I will get to that later in the sermon. But first of all
there is the the idea that we need to be ready to respond. This doesn’t mean proselytizing.
This doesn’t mean going to your neighbor and knocking on the door and insisting
that they listen to you talk about God. This is when someone approaches you, and
questions you, and asks, because if a person is asking “Why are you going to
church? Why do you waste your Sunday morning at church? You don’t believe in
that stuff, do you?” If they bring it up. If they ask you, that means that they
are thinking about it and that means there is some part of them that really
does want to know and understand. That is an opening and an opportunity to
proclaim the hope that is within you.
Peter goes on and says we are to
do it with gentleness and sensitivity. We have the perfect example of that in
Paul in this reading from Acts. Here Paul is in Athens. Athens at that time was
the center, or at least they liked to think of themselves as the center, of
intellectual exploration. There wasn’t any TV. There weren’t any reality shows,
so entertainment was going to the town square and listening to people talk
about philosophy. Sounds like not entertainment for us, but for the Athenians
that was the most exciting thing they could do. And there would be debates. And
any time someone came through town that was a teacher, speaker, or well known
in any way everyone was excited to hear what they would have to say.
A crowd had gathered to hear what
it was that Paul was going to say. Notice how he begins. He begins by having
observed and listened to the people he is going to be talking to. He begins
with where they are by saying, “I was walking around your town and you guys are
really very religious people.” He complimented his audience. It is always nice
to do that. And he said I notice that you had a shrine to an unknown god. Well
we know who that god is. God is not unknown to us. Then he quotes one of their
own poets, Aratus, by saying "God is him in whom we live and move and have
our being." It is a wonderful way to describe the creator, the source and
foundation of all. The one in whom we live and move and have our being. He
started with where the people were.
So if someone asks you about your
hope or your belief, listen to them. Start with where they are. For example,
when I go a party or a reception or a place where I am meeting somebody outside
the church and they hear that I am a priest I get one of two reactions. The
first is, "Gee I’m really sorry I haven’t been to church in a long time."
I don’t know this person. Why should I care that they haven’t been to church?
That’s their issue.
The second is “Well I don’t
believe in God.” If they look like they really want to have a conversation I’ll
say, “Well what is the God like that you don’t believe in?” And then they’ll
begin describing the God they don’t believe in, “I don’t believe that there is
some male with a big white beard up in heaven who is looking down at us and if
we ask them we’ll get what we want if we are good and if we are bad we get
coal.” And I’ll say, “I don’t believe in Santa Claus either.” The God they don’t
believe in I don’t believe in either. Then I can begin to start talking about
the God I do believe in. The God that has created - the source of everything. If
it is a scientist you can talk about recent physics that suggests the
complexity and interrelationship of the world. And if they love nature you can
talk about the beauty of the creation. This God in whom we live and move and have
our being.
So when we have the opportunity to
defend the hope that is within us, what do we say? We are as Christians supposed
to be prepared to give a response. The first thing in order to give a response
is to have spent some time and thought and prayer and reflection on just what
is this hope? Notice Peter is not saying be ready to quote scripture at them. And
he doesn’t say be ready to recite the creed at them. It doesn’t say be ready to
know all the rules. It says be ready to defend the hope that is within you. It
is all about our hope. What is that hope that brings us to a church on Sunday
morning? What is that hope?
It is Easter time and we have been
celebrating the resurrection. Is the hope based on that? Is it the hope that we
will continue to have life after our death? Is it a hope in the presence of
Christ right now? Is it a hope in the future second coming, when Christ will
come and heaven and earth will all be renewed? What is your hope? Is it a hope
that life is not meaningless, that there is some kind of purpose? Or perhaps
you are here today because you are feeling hopeless. Your job Is a mess or you
lost your job. Your relationship is a mess. Money is running out. Everything is
falling apart and you are feeling hopeless and you come to church with a glimmer
of hope that there will be something said or something happen, or something
that you will experience that will give you a glimmer of hope. Or perhaps you
have come to church because you don’t believe but your spouse does. Thank you
for being here. Perhaps there is the hope that it will strengthen that relationship.
Or maybe you are here for your children because you know that Sunday school
will help them develop a foundation. It is a hope for the future, for your
children. What is the hope? What are you hoping for?
When I try to describe my hope it
is about a relationship. My hope is based on a relationship with Christ. It is
based on a relationship of love. It is based on an experience of the presence
of Christ, the experience of the presence of love. And that is what the Gospel
is all about, that relationship. The Gospel reading today where Jesus says to
his disciples, I won’t leave you orphaned. I have a relationship with you that
will continue. And I’ll send the Holy Spirit to be with you so that the love we
have for one another will continue.
Then he gets into that rather
complex language that John’s Gospel uses, where Jesus says that if you love me
you are in me and I am in the father and the father is in you and it gets all
this kind of complicated language and long complex sentences that when you sit
down and you try to read you kind of read half way through the sentence and
have to go back to the beginning to figure out just who… But the point of all
that is relationship. A relationship of love. A relationship of support. And it
is that relationship of love, that promise of the Holy spirit, that promise of
God’s spirit being with us, strengthening us, leading us teaching us, loving
us, surrounding us, caring for us. It is that relationship that is the
foundation of our hope.
I also love the prayer for today,
the first prayer, the collect that is at the beginning of the readings. You may
not have been paying attention at the beginning of the service. It is a
wonderful prayer.
Oh God you have
prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding. Pour
into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and
above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can
desire.
The hope is the promise for
something that is beyond all that we can desire - that what the future holds is
more magnificent then any of us can even imagine. It is not sitting around on
clouds playing a harp, it is not something up there, it is something more, it
is something grander, it is something more profound and it is based on a relationship
of love. The love we have for God and the love that God has for us that was
shown in Christ and proved through his resurrection. That is the hope within us
that we need to be ready to defend.
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