St. Paul's On-the-Hill Episcopal Church

The Rev. Stephen C. Holton, Rector

Easter 6, The Sunday after the Ascension; May 4, 2008

Acts 1:6-14

John 17:1-11

GOD'S WORDS OF POWER

People Of Weakness Expect Resources

People Of Witness Expect Results

People Of Words Expect Revolution

People of Ossining and Briarcliff and Peekskill and Pleasantville and Yonkers. Ordinary people of ordinary jobs. Not super-people, super-Christians, super-apostles, super-disciples. Ordinary people, why do you stand looking up toward 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.

He will come – with words and power – as he promised – in the Holy Spirit.

Ordinary people. The angels do not say 'followers of Jesus.' They do not say 'super-apostles,' 'super-disciples.' They call the disciples by the most ordinary of titles, by the region they come from and the language they speak. Its almost a pejorative. In Jerusalem they are picked out as Galileans because they do not speak with quite the right accent, in quite the right way.

“Men of Galilee.” In Scripture we always have to be aware of what is not said. We get so used to what is said we forget what is not said. They are only men of Galilee. Nothing special.

So in order to follow Christ and be disciples of Christ they don't have to be anything special first, right from the get-go, right off the bat. They do not have to be saints to be Christian. They don't have to be exemplary and incredible. They just have to be themselves. Men of Galilee.

People of Ossining and Briarcliff and Peekskill and Pleasantville and Yonkers. Yeah, just you.

Don't stand looking around. Jesus will come back and give you his strength, his power, to do what he wants you to do, spread his word, witness to his presence.

Generally we identify ourselves – in our heart of hearts – as people of weakness. That's who we are, people of weakness. People who don't amount to much. People who can't do much or, if we can, then we can't do it for very long at a time before we fall apart, exhausted. Maybe we are capable from time to time of saintly behavior – but not for very long. So maybe we avoid it, the saintly behavior, or the behavior that changes neighborhoods and towns, because we know we can't keep it up, and too much will be expected of us if we even try.

So we don't.

But people of weakness, expect resources; expect God's strength. That is the strength of the Holy Spirit. That is the strength Jesus asks for on our behalf as he departs from the world. The strength of the Holy Spirit that comes when he departs.

The strength of the Holy Spirit comes when we ask for it.

The strength of the Holy Spirit comes when we admit we are weak – just people of Ossining and Briarcliff, Pleasantville and Peekskill and Yonkers; not saints; people in need of saintliness, people who can't be saints on our own, but want to be, because we want to do God's work.

All that it takes to be a true Christian, a good Christian, is the desire to be. Ask God for the ability and he will supply it in the open space left by your open hand.

People of Weakness, Expect Resources (or POWER).

People of Witness, Expect Results (also POWER).

Jesus asks us to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth! He gives us the resources, the strength and the words to do this. He says: “Father, I have given them the words that you have given me.” People of Words expect Results.

He does not leave us comfortless. He does not leave us without a plan. And he does not leave us without a way to fulfill that plan.

When he leaves, when he is gone, be his witnesses. Talk about him. Use his words; about what he did and who he was; words of comfort for the stranger, food for the hungry, visiting for the captive. Use all those words that fill a whole book of Scripture!

And you will see results. People of Witness, Expect Results. You really will. These words you use will begin to change people's lives. The words you live by will begin to change yours, and you will more and more be changed into Jesus' likeness. You too will become a person of comfort, justice, mercy, peace, love. And people will see you and witness Christ active in your life. You will not be able to help being a witness. And people will say to you as the Servant Girl said to Peter at the foot of the Cross - “you too were with him.” And you will be stuck with Peter, identified, picked out as a Christian by your words and your work.

And with him you might say: “No, I'm just a person of Galilee, of Ossining or Briarcliff or Peekskill or Pleasantville or Yonkers. I'm nothing special.”

Not all by yourself, you're not. But with Christ's strength you are!

He gives you a whole book of words to live by. But People of Words Expect Revolution (POWER again). These words can be dangerous. But you don't have to make them up. You don't have to dream up new and creative ways to be a witness to Christ. Just use his words – in normal conversations in normal places – like Galilee and Ossining and so on. And transform them into extraordinary places by the use of his God-given words, words that held such a profound, revolutionary effect when he used them.

But they are revolutionary. In a complacent, go-along, get-along world where people are used to the way things are – they are revolutionary.

In a stressed out, chaotic world, no one wants you to introduce a hint of change, a hint of the new, even if its good; because it will upset the whole apple-cart of their lives and everything will fall apart.

So these words are revolutionary – even good ones like faith and hope and love. People will react, maybe in a bad way at first but then in a good, as they see how these words of power are words of transformation and life.

I asked Tina our Secretary to print up these little seed packets of seed words – like the seed packets you use to plant your spring flowers.

But the seed packets have seed words. And I couldn't use all the words of the Bible so I just picked the big three: “faith, hope, love.” But each of these word seeds is the name of a whole genus of word seeds. Faith is endurance and knowledge of what is unseen, and strength and determination.

Hope is promise for the future, and knowledge of God's ultimate blessing no matter what happens.

Love is caring, helping, giving.

I'm going to put out these packets of word seeds after the service, some in the narthex and some in the parish hall. And I'd ask you to take one or more. The over-achievers can take lots. The quieter ones can take just one, one of every kind or just one.

Put it in your wallet or your purse and let it remind you to use the word seed at least once this week, and see what happens.

See what grows from that seed.

Something will grow, some blessing for you and others. That is its power.

These words are magic seeds. Well, not magic but Godly. Powerful.

They are jack-in-the-beanstalk seeds. And if you throw these out the window or into a conversation, all kinds of things will happen, and grow, and lift up the whole conversation clear to heaven the way the beanstalk grows mysteriously and lifts Jack's house clear to the giant's castle where he finds all those good things he brings home to change his life.

So too with the seeds. They're from heaven, brought by Jesus – or Jack – and given to each of us to use.

So use them. The world is waiting to be changed. And it won't be changed until we – ordinary people of Ossining and Briarcliff and Peekskill and Pleasantville and Yonkers – use them.

They do throw people off. Expect that. Do you remember the Sally Forth cartoon? In the first frame of one, the mother is washing the dishes, like every night. In the second, the little girl comes up and hugs her and says, “I love you Mom.” In the third, the Mom is looking stunned, dishrag suspended in hand, and the little girl is saying: “you have to do that every so often just to throw them off.

Words have consequences. Use them. It completely throws people off stride and starts them on a new walk of life, a good one.

Words last, and have long term effects. They are not weak, even if they look that way, and we – their users – look that way.

Tom Friedman, the writer and foreign correspondent, once said this about the war in Lebanon during its darkest days , and how it never seemed quite to destroy the spirits of the native population. “Hope is like a weed here,” he said. “It will grow anywhere.”

But, like all weeds, at first it looks like a weed and destroys our idea of a carefully tended garden. Plant hope in a crack of your life, surreptitiously plant it in the crack of someone else's life when they're not looking, and it will eventually bust the concrete of the nicely tended parking lot of their life. Parking lots are nice and useful but not life-giving. And eventually it will turn that Parking Lot into a Garden of Eden, but not before it looks like chaotic destruction first; but then you get used to the idea that our lives are not meant to be clean, swept parking lots but lively gardens of eden with plants and bugs and everything.

Plant the Seeds.

Use the Words. And you do have to use them for them to do any good. Like someone learning a language, you have to use them in a sentence – all the loving words of Jesus – a sentence to a real person and not to a mirror; although I suppose we each need to hear them too.

Use a word of love, from the genus of love – or hope or faith – to someone in a meeting or at their desk or on the street or in the store or at school – and watch them change. Watch them! They will.

Or use an action of love or hope or faith for another person or for the community, and watch them change too.

Use the Words, Words of Power. Expect the Resources to do it, results, and revolution.

God gave us these words. He came as Jesus – or Jack down the beanstalk – who seemed like an ordinary person too, a man of Galilee or of ordinary, commonplace towns such as ours.

But he was not. He was God made flesh.

We are not. We really are ordinary. But we have these seeds of God, that he gave to us. Use them. Plant a Garden of Eden, a Garden of God, all around – wherever you use them.

Amen