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Reverend Timothy B. Cargal, Ph.D. Birth in the Face of Death There is an office supply company that has been running a series of advertisements over the past few years that feature a big, bright red button emblazoned with the word, "Easy." Most of the ads center around some crisis in a small business. Pressed furiously up against a deadline that could make or break its survival, the workers discover they are missing some critical item needed to complete the presentation, communicate with their client, or perhaps resolve a technological breakdown. While one employee is comically having a complete meltdown, a colleague reaches over and presses the "Easy Button." Just like that, the delivery person shows up with exactly what is lacking, and the hysterics are replaced by the phrase, "That was easy!" Though I haven’t checked recently, there was a time when you could actually purchase your own big, bright red "Easy Button" right at cashiers’ station. I’m sure that somewhere in its packaging the legal department insisted there be a disclosure statement that office supplies would not magically appear at your door simply by pushing the "Easy Button." You still would have to go to the stores, or pick-up the phone, or log-in to the website to select the items you need and finalize the purchase. There is no real "Easy Button" for managing your office, and certainly no "Easy Button" for dealing with all the other crises of life. If you too quickly read through the second chapter of Acts, you might get the impression that Peter and his fellow apostles had an "Easy Button." There is quite stir in the temple precincts, bordering on a crisis given all the concern over recent weeks in Jerusalem about unruly crowds drawing the attention of the Roman occupation forces. Jews who have gathered from around the Mediterranean basin for the observance of Pentecost commemorating God’s giving the Torah to Moses on Mount Sinai are suddenly witnessing Judeans and Galileans praising God in languages normally heard only in far-distant lands. Peter offers a brief sermon of explanation (far briefer than even what I will preach this morning), and some three thousand persons join the newly born Christian church. Why, "that was easy!" Well, go back and look a bit more closely, and you will see that not even Peter believes that the Holy Spirit, whose presence had stirred all the commotion soon verging on crisis, should be thought of as an "Easy Button" for generating church growth. Nor, as we have heard in the portion of Peter’s sermon that we have read this morning, was Jesus’ own ministry, even characterized as it was by "deeds of power, wonders, and signs [from] God." The response to those miraculous events had most generally been opposition rather than acceptance—opposition so intense it had culminated in Jesus’ crucifixion. In the face of Jesus’ death, God had responded by raising Jesus from the dead and by giving birth to the church through the gift of the Spirit. The turn around of adding three thousand persons in one day may have been sudden, but it wasn’t easy. Skip ahead roughly a hundred years to the time of our other scripture lesson for this morning. Once more we find words attributed to Peter that speak to those in the church about the blessings of God. The focus is once again on God’s "great mercy [that] has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." Recall that by the time this letter was written the circumstances of the first Christian Pentecost had been totally reversed. Instead of inhabitants from across their known world coming to Jerusalem and coincidentally encountering persons witnessing to Christ in the power of the Spirit, those Spirit-empowered Christians had quite intentionally spread across their known world to tell others about the glorious things God was doing through Christ. In just a hundred years, without benefit of any of the technological marvels we now take for granted, those roughly three thousand Christians had grown to perhaps hundreds of thousands. One might look at things and say, "That was easy." Yet once again, we hear Peter’s voice offering correction to that potential misperception. There had been no "Easy Button" that could bring about the automatic delivery of the gospel message so badly needed across the world. More often than not, the church’s ministry was met with the same opposition that had greeted Jesus’ ministry. The Christians were even still facing what the writer simply refers to as "suffer[ing] various trials." But even if not everyone around them was ready to accept the good news and join in the celebration, these Christians were being reminded that they could "rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy" because they believed that the God who had given birth to the church in the face of the death of Christ would continue to give "us new birth into a living hope." This morning we as a church find ourselves in a position almost smack-dab in the middle of the two pictures of the church we have seen in our scripture lessons. Pentecost and 1 Peter are separated by roughly one hundred years, and we find ourselves fifty years on from our founding and trying to imagine and prepare for what it will take to reach our centennial. We remember our birth; we don’t want to face death. Looking back, it might seem that this congregation was founded with an "Easy Button." Within two months of its first worship service, this congregation was set in order with more than one hundred charter members. In almost exactly a decade, the buildings were constructed as we know them today and the membership had grown to more than five hundred. If folks had looked around and thought to themselves, "That was easy," no one (at least on the outside) would have thought the statement amiss. But the forty years since have certainly been marked with "various trials." The buid-it-and-they-will-come days of church growth are a distant memory, at least for congregations like this one in now quite well-established neighborhoods. Yet as we have seen, the church has never been built by the magic of an "Easy Button." On that first Christian Pentecost, it took the witness of Peter and the others to bring in those three thousand. The continuous rejoicing among the recipients of 1 Peter a century later was founded on the fact that they continued to bear witness to the power of resurrection, the reality of new birth in the face of death. There is no other means—no "Easy Button"—for the church now than continuing to bear witness to others. On Friday I heard a story on the radio about a man who was robbed at knife point. He handed over his wallet. As the young thief walked away, the man called out and offered him his coat. When the thief asked why he was doing this, the man replied, "If you're willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me ... hey, you’re more than welcome." Perhaps to both their surprise, they went into the diner and sat in a booth. When the bill arrived, the man told the teen, "Look, I guess you’re going to have to pay for this bill ‘cause you have my money and I can’t pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I’ll gladly treat you." Without hesitating, the teen returned the wallet. The man paid the bill and then gave $20 to the teenager, asking for something in return—the teen’s knife— which he gave to him. That is where the story ended. No word about whether the teen’s life was turned around by this act of kindness. No word about whether it was the man’s faith or simple common decency that motivated his actions that night. But it is through such acts consistent with Christ’s ministry of mercy and justice that the future of his church and, yes, the future of this congregation depends. There is nothing easy about it. But in such acts there can be birth even in the face of death. Copyright © 2008 by Timothy B. Cargal. All rights reserved.
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