May 20, 2101, "A Lot to Gain"

Acts 1.15-26

Judas went his own way.

For whatever reasons, he betrayed Jesus.

30 pieces of silver.

And a kiss.

It ends badly for Judas … in one account, he hangs himself [Matthew 27] … in our reading today, he falls and injures himself so badly he dies.

We have to be careful with Judas.

Who hasn’t made a really bad decision a time or two?  

We’ve all crossed thresholds we’re not proud of.

We’ve all gone to bed at night racked with regret.

We’d do anything to live the day all over again.

However it ends, it ends badly for Judas.

And it seems to end badly for Jesus, too - arrest, trial, crucifixion, dead and buried - but God’s ways are not our ways!

As it turns out:

God’s purpose is fulfilled in the death of Jesus … the throne of glory, a cross; his crown, a wreath of thorns.

To our eyes, all is failure.

To the eyes of God, only through failure, the worst of it, can God reveal the beauty of God’s love at work in all things … not just the easy things of life, or even the medium-difficult things, but the meanest, the ugliest, the worst of it.

Only through suffering can the Messiah show to the world the full power of love … love that lays its life down for the sheep … love that comes to us, not to be served, but to serve … love that sheds its formal dress and, with towel and basin, washes feet.

Three days later, the stone is rolled away.

Jesus raised from the dead, triumphant and glorious.

Death cannot hold him.

Life wins the victory … it always does … and it always will!

Jesus appears to his disciples … walks with them and talks with them … restores Peter to the fellowship … 

Jesus gives to them the Holy Spirit, the breath of life … and a great commission, a task, a calling - take the message of hope into all the world … as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.

Be my witnesses.

Tell the story.

Live the story.

Love one another as I have loved you.

Forgive one another ceaselessly.

Pray as I’ve taught you.

Make a difference.

But don’t leave Jerusalem, just yet … don’t jump the gun … don’t be impatient … wait for the promise … John baptized with water, but in only a few days, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

With that, Jesus takes leave of them - the cloud of unknowing envelopes him … 

He ascends into heaven … to the right hand of God … to govern the world and guide the coming of the Kingdom … the angel says to the disciples, Don’t spend any more time looking up … get on with it down here … this Jesus, whom you saw lifted up, will come again, in the very same manner you saw him take leave.

The disciples return to Jerusalem!

And there they wait … and there they pray … and there they take care of some business!

Peter stands up and says … What shall we do about Judas? … he was one of us … he betrayed our LORD … but it was supposed to be this way … the Scriptures foretell the story. 

There’s something wonderfully practical in Peter’s leadership … a time of uncertainty, instability … happens to us all the time - loss of job, moving to a new town, changing careers, the onset of illness, the death of a loved one - the world comes to an end for us, or at least a part of the world comes to an end for us … 

Counselors encourage people to find basic things to do … sort through personal papers, pay the bills, vacuum the living room, get the car washed … go to work.

Did Peter see the need for them to do something other than just sit around waiting and wondering?

Here’s something we can do, said Peter.

They select two persons, who had been with them from the beginning …

Joseph called Barsabbas, also known as Justus and Matthias.

They cast lots.

There was a lot to gain!

Ohhh, I know, a bad pun.

“A lot to gain”?

But just exactly, what is the casting of lots?

Did they throw dice?

Draw straws?

Choose the right hand or the left hand held behind someone’s back?

Pull a name out of the hat?

Flip a coin?

No one knows for sure what the casting of lots was like.

The soldiers at the foot of the cross cast lots for the garment of Jesus.

Casting lots is mentioned 70 times in the Old Testament and seven times in the New … yet no one knows for sure how it was done.

Yet the point is clear - there was no election, as we know it.

The choice was left to God.

We might well ask a million questions about all of this … questions about God, questions about Judas, questions about fate, predestination, and all those other sticky questions.

Life and faith are full of sticky questions … questions that have no answer … problems for which there is no solution … terrible things that have no reason.

But the disciples are at peace.

Peace in God’s eternal purpose … the Suffering Messiah … betrayal and denial … death and darkness and disappointment … strange tools for the work of God … but the Scriptures bear witness to these strange tools … tools in the hands of God … God at work … God at work, for good.

Because God is good all the time, and all the time … God is good!

God is our refuge and strength,

A help always near

In times of great trouble.

That’s why we won’t be afraid

When the world falls apart [Psalm 46.1-2a].

If the disciples are at peace with all of these dark questions, maybe we can be at peace, too.

To God be the glory.

Amen and Amen!

May 6, 2012, "Quickly the Doors Open"

I didn't preach this text ... when I stepped into the pulpit, I went in some other direction, extemporaneously ... but I wanted to post the text I had prepared:

Acts 8.26-40.

Quickly the doors open.

God’s love reaches far and wide.

An angel sends Philip to a desert road, to meet a carriage, a man on his way back home …

The power of one … one person with a purpose … with a heart … with a vision … a willingness to go to a desert road, get into someone else’s carriage, spend some time with them.

How many of you have ever heard of John Wood?

I never heard of him either, until earlier this week.

He’s a library man.

12,000 libraries and 1,500 schools, all around the world.

[the following material comes largely from a New York Times article - see below; I’ve edited it to conform to preaching].

It began in 1998 when Wood, a Microsoft marketing director, came upon a remote school in Nepal serving 450 children. Only one problem: It had just a few books.

Wood offered to help and eventually delivered a mountain of books by a caravan of donkeys. 

The local children were happy, and Wood said he felt such exhilaration that he quit Microsoft, left his live-in girlfriend (who pretty much thought he had gone insane), and founded Room to Read in 2000.

He faced one challenge after another, not only in opening libraries, but in filling them.

There are no children’s books in many languages, so Wood became a self-publisher, with now more than 591 titles in languages including Khmer, Nepalese, Zulu, Lao, Xhosa, Chhattisgarhi, Tharu, Tsonga, Garhwali and Bundeli.

Room to Read also supports 13,500 impoverished girls who might otherwise drop out of school. 

In a remote corner of the Mekong Delta, reachable only by boat, one of these girls, a 10th grader name Duyen … her family, displaced by flooding, lives in a shabby tent on a dike.

When Duyen was in seventh grade, she dropped out of school to help her family. “I thought education was not so necessary for girls,” she said.

Room to Read’s outreach workers trekked to her home and convinced the family to send her back to school. Room to Read paid her school fees, bought her school uniforms and offered to put her up in a dormitory so that she wouldn’t have to commute to school, two hours each way, by boat and bicycle.

Duyen is back in school, a star in her class — and aiming for the moon.

“I would like to go to university,” she says.

The cost per girl is $250 annually. 

To give some perspective, Kim Kardashian’s wedding is said to have cost $10 million; $10 million could have supported 40,000 girls in Room to Read.

Education is a powerful tool to transform the world … the powerful nations of the world have yet to learn this lesson - the big powers of the world continue to believe that the world can be made better with missiles, soldiers, conniving treaties and billions spent on planes and warships.

Schooling is cheap and revolutionary … the more we spend on schools today, the less we’ll have to spend on missiles tomorrow.

Wood is only 47 years old - tireless, enthusiastic, emotional … when he talks about Room and to Read and the lives of girls transformed, he tears up.

“If you can change a girl’s life forever, and the cost is so low, then why are there so many girls still out of school?” he asks.

Room to Read now has fund-raising chapters in 53 cities around the world.

Wood tells supporters they aren’t donating to charity but making an investment: “Where can you get more bang for the buck than starting a library for $5,000?”

“There are 793 million illiterate people - the solution is so inexpensive …. 

No guarantee every child will take advantage of the opportunity, but if it isn’t provided, there will be no opportunity at all, and poverty will continue.

Wood would like to have a 100,000 libraries, in 20 years, reaching 50 million kids. 

Big plans … big ideas … and it all started with one man’s decision 

[The New York Times: “His Libraries, 12,000 So Far, Change Lives,” by Nicholas D. Kristoff, November 5, 2011].

Whatever we might learn from the story of Philip, this much we know for sure: God works through people, just like Philip, just like you and me, just like John Wood.

An angel told Philip: Go to the desert road between Jerusalem and Gaza …

Philip might have asked a millions questions:

Why?

How come?

What am I supposed to do?

How much will it cost?

How long will it take?

Isn’t there anyone else?

No questions … just obedience … call it faith … faith isn’t something we believe … faith is what we do with our hands and our feet … faith is life, action, decision, work … 

Philip went to the desert road.

And when a carriage came near, the Spirit told Philip, Approach this carriage and stay with it.

We know the rest of the story.

Dear friends, never underestimate your power to change the world … God works through people … great things happen when love is the power, when compassion is the goal, when someone says, I’ll do it!

Who knows?

Maybe there’s a John Wood sitting in the congregation right now … an idea … a project … a dream … it’ll unfold, and the world will be changed.

Maybe there’s a Philip here … one day, an angel will tell you where to go … because someone needs to hear your voice and guidance.

Who knows?

Never ever underestimate your place in the kingdom of God.

Never underestimate the doors you can open!

Amen and Amen!