Readings

FIRST LESSON

The first lesson is from Isaiah, Chapter 40, verses 21 through 31

Have you not known? Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?
It is God who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to live in;
who brings princes to naught,
and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.
Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown,
scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth,
when God blows upon them, and they wither,
and the tempest carries them off like stubble.
To whom then will you compare me,
or who is my equal? says the Holy One.
Lift up your eyes on high and see:
Who created these?
God brings out their host and numbers them,
calling them all by name;
because God is great in strength, mighty in power,
not one is missing.
Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from God,
and my right is disregarded by my God”?
Have you not known? Have you not heard?
God is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
God does not faint or grow weary;
God’s understanding is unsearchable.
God gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for God shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.

SECOND LESSON

The second lesson is from Acts, Chapter 1, Verses 1 to 11

In the first book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus did and taught from the beginning until the day when he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. After his suffering he presented himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over the course of forty days and speaking about the realm of God. While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of God. “This,” he said, “is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

          So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” Jesus replied, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that God has set by God’s own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” When Jesus said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were gazing up towards heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

This Week's Sermon

Date: May 16, 2010

Title: Feel the Power

Message Delivered By: Rev. Dr. Joe McMurray

After having performed several weddings in the past few weeks, it’s not surprising that so many times I’ve heard Key West referred to as “paradise.” Well maybe there’s more to this than you might think.

There was a man from Detriot who decided to write a book about churches around the country. He started by flying to Los Angeles, and started working east to zigzag across the states from there. He went to a very large church in LA and began taking pictures.

The man spotted a golden telephone on a wall in the lobby, and was intrigued by a sign that read: "Talk to God: $500 a minute." Seeking out the Pastor he asked about the phone and the sign. The Pastor answered that this golden phone was, in fact, a direct line to Heaven and if he were to pay the price he could talk directly to God. Making a note for his book, he thanked the Pastor and continued on his way.

Next the man stopped in Portland, and visited a huge cathedral there. He was intrigued to find another golden telephone in the vestibule that said, “Direct Line to Heaven: $1,500 per minute.” The Bishop who led the congregation was greeting people after the service, and he, too, insisted that this phone would provide a direct connection to heaven, for a price. Again the man thanked the Bishop, and moved on.

The man continued his journey, visiting churches in Seattle, Boise, Denver, Minneapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, New York, and other places in between.. And in nearly every place, he found more golden phones with similar signs promising direct contact with the Divine, with the asking price up to $5,000. And from each pastor he received the same answer.

Finally, the man arrived in the southeastern part of the country. Upon entering a small community church, low and behold, he saw the usual golden telephone, but this time the sign read: "God’s Phone: 35 cents."

The man was fascinated, and upon finding the Pastor, asked, "Reverend, I’ve been in cities all across the country and in each church I’ve found this same golden telephone. And in each place, I’ve been told it will provide a direct line to Heaven, and that I could speak directly to God.
However, in the other churches, the cost was anywhere from a few hundred dollars to $5,000 per minute. Your sign reads 35 cents per call. Why is that?"

The Pastor, smiling benignly, and replied: "Son, you're in Florida now. It's a local call."
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Will you pray with me? God, we have traveled together through the many weeks of the Easter season. With our lessons behind us, amidst the soul-searching and the seeking we have done, we are comforted knowing you have accompanied us on this long journey, as you have with each journey we undertake. Your presence is constant and ever-changing. And through our experiences you call us to view the world with new eyes as we complete this cycle and prepare for the next. Give us the wisdom to embrace and accept the changes we must make to keep up with you and with the world. And may my words and all of our thoughts be filled with honor and praise to you. Amen.
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Each of us has, in our own way, an idea of who God is, or at least who we think God is. Every one of our images of God is different from another. Most of us have been informed one way or another about God’s identity for most of our lives: from the Scriptures, from what we’ve been taught in school and in churches, from depictions of the persona or presence of God throughout the centuries by theologians, philosophers, prophets, artists, writers, musicians and others who have captured various glimpses of God through their spiritual lives, their life experience or their inspiration. And from these many of us have formed our basic understanding of who and what God is.

If we take this a step further, and include the scope of the power of God or the ability of God to cause action in the world—that is, all those things we think God is capable of—it expands our knowledge of God exponentially.

If we can accept this premise—that each of us thinks of God in different ways, and imagines God’s power in a multitude of ways—it is a beginning toward understanding how flexible God must be, how malleable, how changeable God must be. In reality, God is potentially all things humans believe God to be—and so much more that we cannot even imagine.
Let’s think about human history for a moment in relation to change. One hundred years ago, people never dreamed that new advances of modern technology would be at the forefront of everyday life in the ways that we experience now. Some of the very things we take for granted—television, cell phones, lasers, commercial air travel, space exploration, nuclear power, instant communication through the Internet, and other advances too numerous to mention—would have been deemed impossible at the turn of the last century.

Yet such changes are commonplace today. We cannot keep up with modern technology. It seems as though the minute something new comes on the market—like the iPhone—or technology brings us closer together—with Twitter and Facebook—something else newer and faster and more compelling comes along right behind—like Kindle or the iPad or whatever.

No one could ever have imagined these things were possible. Yet God, in God’s wisdom, allowed for this reality by endowing humanity with particular gifts of intelligence, creativity and power to make all of this a reality. We look back at those who lived at the turn of the last century, and poke fun at their naiveté. We consider ourselves so advanced and superior to them in so many ways.

But in this same way, our notions of God can become outdated. We cannot fathom where humankind will be one century from now. We have seen small glimpses of what the future might hold technologically—and these glimpses are shocking indeed. And this is how we must allow ourselves to think of God—as an entity or Divinity that is shocking and that will continue to evolve and change in ways we cannot even imagine.

So today, in pondering the scope of God’s power, I invite us to try to expand our limited understanding or imagination of who God is to the possibilities of all things that we believe about God and that others believe about God, including all that we do not or cannot yet know.

As the prophet Isaiah so aptly reminds us, it is God who is in charge.

It is God who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
God who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to live in;
God who brings princes to naught,
and makes the rulers of the earth as nothing.

In our world, we often think that we are in command. With the trivial, perhaps this is true. With the mundane and the meaningless, humankind clearly reigns supreme. Just look at how are 21st century politics has quickly devolved to resemble something from the turn of the century—not the last century, but the 19th to the 20th.

Some of us have misread how we should have utilized the gifts God has given us; some have taken advantage of the power God has bestowed upon us. Some even have the audacity to cause harm to God’s people, to actively participate in the destruction of the earth and all her inhabitants including animal and plant life, and actually call it the will of God. The arrogance of humankind is surpassed only by its ignorance.

The power of God is everywhere. God’s power in nature is evident from both the silent and the thunderous; from the beautiful to the tragic. From a trickling stream to a raging river, from a quiet valley to the shrill sounds of the jungle, God reigns. We tend to look at weather phenomena—hurricanes and tornadoes—and geological events such as earthquakes and volcanoes—or the strength of powerful winds or violent seas—as evidence of the awesomeness of God.

But we also see God’s presence in the birth of a child, the unconditional-loving and non-judgmental gaze of an animal companion; watching a seedling bud forth into a towering tree. Both in life and in death, God’s hand is upon us. Of course God’s power is significant in these things. And God’s power is so much more than we know.

But it is the power of God in earthly things—in the events and circumstances of our time—that becomes most meaningful to us. The manifestation of God’s power on earth is what engages us to participate in life. It is here, it is visible, it is tangible, it is our reality.

In the first chapter of the Book of Acts, as Jesus appeared once more to his disciples, about to transfer his legacy to them, a legacy given from God, he had already opened their minds to the Scriptures, to the mystery of his death and resurrection.
Jesus had prepared them to take up the mantle of his teachings of God’s unconditional love, of the value of every human being, of the promise of redemption for all of humankind. This was the human manifestation of the power of God—first through Jesus and then through the disciples.

The disciples, as naïve then as we are now, misread Jesus’ words. They still looked for an earthly manifestation of God’s power—when Israel would once again be restored to its former position of power, as in the days of King David. But Jesus reminded the disciples that God was bigger than that; that the power of God was beyond kingdoms, rulers, or an earthly understanding of power.

Jesus implored the disciples to remain until they had been visited by the Holy Spirit. Then they would receive a different kind of power—a power that would enable them to offer hope to God’s people everywhere—a hope that God would remain steadfast and present. God’s liberation was not just freedom from Roman rule or earthly power, but as witness to God’s presence expressly given by the Holy Spirit.

I have already alluded to the misguided use of power by some in our world. Yet at times, when we can act, when we can actually effect change, we weaken and do not take the challenge. Many of us are afraid of the power God has given us. Perhaps because we have seen power so abused, we have backed away from confronting even those things we know we should face—things we should change because God has called us to change them.

Other times, we feel helpless, powerless to overcome the oppressions of humanity, so we back away in hope that others will lead and take care of what we fear we cannot handle. But in backing away from the appropriate use of our God-given power and gifts, we shirk our duty to God and to one another.

But sometimes when we do summon our bravery, when we manage to accept the responsibility that comes with the power to change our world or at least to finally confront those things that stand between humankind and God, we have been dismissed. We are told we have no power, that our efforts are meaningless, and that better people can handle things for us. So we come full circle, and the greatest danger becomes that nothing will ever change—and the mistakes of humanity will repeat in perpetuity.

As Isaiah says:

God gives power to the faint,
and strengthens the powerless.
Even youths will faint and be weary,
and the young will fall exhausted;
but those who wait for God shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.

The same power that Jesus’ enjoyed with his connection to God is the same power Jesus transferred to the disciples; it came through the gift of the Holy Spirit—the spiritual manifestation of God on earth—the remaining bond that humankind has to the Divine.

And that same power has been given and transferred to us. It is ours for the taking; this is our direct connection to God and our special invitation to use the power of God to transform the world. Let us accept God’s invitation openly, freely and joyfully. And may we continue to lead where God is calling. Amen.