Sermon, Christ United Presbyterian Church, Sunday June 9, 2013

CUPC
SERMON
JUNE 9, 2013

“SAUL WHO?”

Here's the audio link if you'd like to hear the sermon, and below is the full text of the sermon:
https://www.box.com/s/cvswqbx17fcwnrm0o7lv

Our scripture lessons this morning are filled with the one miracle that we all say is the one that would convince us once and for all.  In the Old Testament lesson Elijah restores life to a boy thought to be dead.  In the Gospel, Jesus touches the body of a man being carried off to his funeral, and the man returns to the living!  And Paul tells us of perhaps the greatest miracle of all:  Saul was ushered into new life by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

What’s that you say:  there’s no comparison to Paul’s experience and the experience of the two men brought back to life?  Hmmmm. 

One of my favorite preachers and teachers is a Baptist by the name of Tony Campolo.  Tony is a pretty unusual guy, and while he often jokes about his “Baptist” identity, he really cannot be described by any denominational label.  Tony is a Christian!  He is also a wonderful storyteller.  What makes him a wonderful storyteller is his acceptance of his own sinful and foolish nature, and his continuous sensitivity and openness to the presence of God around us at all times and all places. 

Tony tells a story about being a visitor at a conference of Christians who believed that even today we are called upon to perform visible miracles – including healings - to help bring an unbelieving world to Christ.  Like many of us, he was a little shy about such things.  He explained to his host that when he was with sick people he always prayed for them to be healed, but he had never actually witnessed a dramatic healing experience. 

A few weeks later Tony was preaching at a more traditional church and something moved him to suggest that he would stay after the service and pray with anyone who wanted to stay for healing.  Like the good pastor that he is, Tony listened intently to about 30 people who stayed.  He wanted to touch their hearts and let them know that he was listening to them.  Most of the people didn’t have physical ailments but sought healing in various parts of their lives that seemed to be falling apart.  There were 2 or 3 people who had actual physical ailments and one man in particular who was suffering from a voracious cancer. 

A few days later Tony received a phone call from the wife of the man who had the cancer.  She called to let him know that her husband had died.  His first thought was that he had screwed up again:  no miracle had taken place!  The woman heard the self-recrimination in his voice and said, “No, you don’t understand.  When he and I came to that church that night, he was bitter and angry with God.  Over weeks and months the anger made him not only bitter but mean.  He became meaner and meaner even to his grandchildren, who were the light of his life.  But then you layed hands on him on Sunday morning and prayed for him, and when we left the church I knew that something had changed.  He was a different person.  The last four days of our lives have been the best four days we ever had together.  We talked and laughed.  We even sang hymns together.  It was a good, good time.  Tony he wasn’t cured of his cancer, but he was healed!”

He wasn’t cured.  He was healed.  It was a miracle.

The son of the widow of Zarephath was dead, and Elijah intervened, asking God to restore him to life.  The son of the widow of Nain was dead.  In both cases, the lives of those widows were over as well.  As childless widows in their respective societies they had no future.  They had no way to earn a living.  They too were as good as dead with the death of their sons.  Elijah and Jesus each focused the power of God into a miraculous event.   In the moment, both were recognized as great prophets by the people who saw these things, but in the end Elijah couldn’t sway the people; in the end Jesus was crucified.

Saul was a bitter and mean person.  He was consumed by the cancer of hatred.  He oversaw the murder of Christians. He may have even carried some out by himself.  And he believed that he was doing it for the sake of the purity of his own religion.  He was the chief persecutor of the new followers of Christ. 

One day God killed Saul’s old life and took him into a new life.  Saul’s new life was his old life turned upside down.  In fact we are told that shortly after he was baptized and was living with other Christians in Damascus he became such a powerful preacher of the Gospel so that the leaders of the synagogue in Damascus plotted to kill him. 

Two men restored from death to life.  One man lifted from a life of death into God’s new life. 

In I Corinthians Paul says that some require signs and miracles and others require great demonstrations of wisdom and logic.  That hasn’t changed.  We still want proofs before we commit to really trusting in the Lord.  We’d like a real miracle or two, but some eloquent logic will work as well.  For Paul the Gospel message was all he had to offer: “For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. [I Cor 1:18]”

I think that all our talk about wanting to see miracles is just so much talk.  We look for excuses to maintain the tepid religious lives that allow us to change nothing about ourselves.  We worship some old religious tradition.  We come to church.  We may enjoy one another’s company.  We expect very little of God’s presence, but as long as we continue to live reasonably comfortable and safe lives we tell ourselves that we are blessed.  Just look at how bad some other people have it:  God has definitely chosen and blessed us.

If a really dramatic miracle happened we might be ready to change some things about our lives, but we’re doing okay so God must not want anything more out of us.

Here’s a little secret I want to share with you.  There is no greater miracle that we can witness than the acceptance of God’s new life in our own lives.  If you accept the new life that God has brought to us in the person of Jesus Christ, you will become a living miracle, changed, energized and new.  You, like Saul,  will become a new person.

Scripture tells us that when we welcome Christ into our hearts our sins are not only forgiven, they are completely forgotten.  God says: “What sins?”  In that release from our pasts we walk into new lives.  We become the children of God that God intended us to be.  We become followers of Jesus, not just “worshippers” of some old religious tradition. 

And our lives will change.  The change will be visible.  We will be new people, following the way that Christ laid out for us so plainly in the Sermon on the Mount and in His “new” commandments.  People will look at you and say: “That’s a miracle!” 

God looked at this man who had been persecuting His followers and ushered him into new life.  God looked at that man and saw a miracle in the making, a miracle that could bring the Gospel to millions of people.  God looked at that man and said “Saul who?” 

If Christ United Presbyterian Church is to go on for the next 100 years, the next 25 years, the next 10 years, the next year it will take a miracle. If this church has any right to exist it is only to proclaim the Gospel to the people of Marshall, Minnesota: young and old, of all races and nationalities and languages.  If this church is going to exist to carry out that mission, it will take a miracle. 

Believe in miracles.  Miracles are all around us every day.  We serve a living God.  You and I are all the miracles that God needs to do His work.  Amen.