Third Sunday of Easter

Acts 3:12-19
Psalm 4
1 John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36b-48
Our 1st and 2nd century spiritual forbears have left us an interesting record of their struggle to build the church. It lives in the pages of the gospels, Acts of the Apostles, many of the New Testament epistles and other writings that are not included in the Bible. The meaning that their words and stories had for them is sometimes obscured by its distance from us in time and cultural context. We reach across 20 centuries looking to their words for meaning for our own lives. That’s a good thing for us to do. Because in many ways, their struggles are not dramatically different from ours.
The early church took its message in two different directions. We read about the disagreements between Peter and James of the church in Jerusalem, and Paul, the church’s persecutor who became its champion. Peter and James were leaders of a community that was evolving from a primarily Jewish culture. The members of that community understood monotheism. They were accustomed to setting themselves apart from the spiritual traditions of the Roman Empire. But their community attracted followers of Jesus who were not Jews. In the book of Acts you can read about their struggle over the question of what is required to be a member of the community of Jesus’ followers. Do you have to be a Jew first? Do you have to follow the law of Moses in order to be a follower of Jesus?
Even in this moment, our church is struggling with cultural distinctions that have threatened to dismantle the Anglican Communion. Our co-religionists in Africa and Asia tell us that they cannot achieve the respect of the majority muslim cultures in which their churches exist unless we in the west agree to exclude our gay, lesbian and bisexual members from full participation in the church. Do you have to be straight or at least act straight in order to be a follower of Jesus?
Those who undertook the mission of spreading the teachings of Jesus within the Jewish community struggled also with Jewish traditions concerning the messiah and resurrection. Jewish thought and tradition were no more monolithic in the first century than they are in the 21st, but the church’s teachings about Jesus as the messiah and about his resurrection were distinctly different from Jewish tradition. In very broad strokes, that tradition envisioned the messiah’s coming within the context of a messianic age – a time in which the world would live in peace and plenty and all (Jews and non-Jews, by the way) would be gathered into the presence of God. For Jews who believed in resurrection, it was an event in which all participated together. The resurrection of one man, and the claim that he was the messiah in the absence of a messianic age were challenges to traditional expectations. The stories of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances were a means of attempting to deal with those expectations.
John’s three letters, one of which we hear from today in the epistle, and Paul’s letters were written to congregations dealing with internal conflict or struggling to define themselves in relation to others. Having no more knowledge of Jesus than they did, it’s not surprising that they interpreted his teachings in a variety of ways. Human nature being what it is, there was an inclination to draw boundaries around what the community would believe and do and what it would not. The trick was getting everyone to agree on where the boundaries would be. How often do you hear of different varieties of Christians condemning each other for false teaching.
The leaders of the early church took their message to an audience that was at the very least skeptical, and in many cases hostile. In addition to the discontinuity between Jewish and Christian teachings about the messiah and resurrection, the early church had other challenges to deal with when offering the good news to non-Jews. Church teachings prohibited such activities as eating meat offered to idols. Participation in the religions of Greece and Rome was important to the social and economic life of prospective non-Jewish converts to Christianity. The social life of the pagan temples was integral to maintaining one’s economic standing in the community. Worshipping in the temples of the gods identified with one’s city of residence was considered essential to public well-being and the common good. Were they to leave that activity behind, they would be judged as disloyal and perhaps even dangerous by friends and family. For many, becoming followers of Jesus meant leaving behind an entire way of life.
Since the first century, the church has had the experience of being the driving social and political force in western culture. We have been representative of the cultural majority and have had a voice in public life, for good and ill, depending on the circumstances. The church has also experience the challenge of the enlightenment and the rise of science as a means of explaining natural phenomena and human behavior. In our country we see now, on an almost daily basis demands that individual religious belief be taken into account in the formulation of law and the standards of various professions. We regularly hear religious faith ridiculed as fantasy by those who would seem to elevate science as a belief system on par with religion.
The 21st century church takes its message to a generation of young adults, a large proportion of whom have built lives and identities and communities for themselves in which Christianity is perceived as irrelevant and potentially destructive. The church is arguably at least partly responsible for those perceptions. Too much of our time has been spent in answering questions the world is no longer asking. Too much of our energy has been spent on defining boundaries and too little on finding ways to include people in our mission.
Last Thursday night and last Friday morning, St. Mary’s took an important step into our future. I’ve been talking to you for at least three years now about the need to restore and renovate our building. Last Thursday night the Vestry voted to allocate funds from the William T. Kemper grant for the first major project to that end. On Friday morning, the Landmarks Commission approved the design for that work. Our first project will be replacement of all of the exterior doors of the church building and repair or replacement of doorsteps and masonry surrounding the doors. This project will move us in the direction of making the building look open and active. Working first on the doors is an important expression of how St. Mary’s has defined itself during the last several years – as a place that is open and welcoming to all who come here.
We have many things in common with our first century church counterparts – we’re small, we’re short of resources, we have a few dedicated people doing a lot of important work. Most importantly though, we’re committed to communicating our mission outward, rather than holding it within and we greet with joy all those who visit with us and welcome them to stay and join with us in our work. Let us join together in giving thanks for the generosity, skill and devotion to our mission that have allowed us to come to this point and ask God’s blessing on the work on our building that we are about to undertake and upon all those who enter through our doors at this time and forever.