The Direction to Walk

Sermon Easter 6C Acts 14:8-18, John 14:23-29

We are quickly coming to the end of the Easter season, that time in church life between Easter Day and Pentecost. We will celebrate Pentecost this year on Sunday, May 27, Memorial Day weekend. And we will celebrate it as usual with a birthday party, pizza and cake, because Pentecost celebrates the birth of the Christian Church.

We will also celebrate those members of our parish who have dedicated so much time to building our new wall and creating the music room, including a formal dedication of the wall and room.

Through out the Easter season our scripture makes a slight change from the rest of the year: there is no Old Testament reading. Instead we make our way through the Book of Acts learning about the formation of the early church.

This formation had its beginning on Pentecost, which is why we celebrate it as a birthday party. Acts was written sometime around the years 80-85 CE, or about 5o years after the death of Jesus. It was written by the same person or community that wrote the Gospel of Luke. The Book of Acts continues the story of the Gospel of Luke, beginning with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus in Luke and continuing with the Apostles and their work to build the church in Acts.

Much of the work in this early church revolved around spreading the Good News of God’s love in Jesus across the Roman Empire. In the process the church encountered some very intense controversy: what to do with these Gentiles who wanted to become Christian, but who had not lived according Jewish custom.

In particular was the issue of circumcision: Jews were circumcised, Gentiles were not.

Now to our ears this may seem quite mundane and trivial. Who cares? Aside from the doctor asking whether or not a baby boy will be circumcised no one really asks that question anymore. At least it never comes up in my daily conversations.

It helps to remember that Christianity grew out of Jewish communities. Jesus was Jewish and so were his friends and disciples. And so were most of the folks in the early church. One of the key markers of a Jewish man, that which distinguished him from Gentiles, was circumcision.

Circumcision was a primary ritual and fundamental sign of a faithful Jewish man. It marked him as holy, one of God’s people. Think about what is the most primary ritual and fundamental sign of faith to you.

Perhaps it is baptism. Perhaps it is Eucharist.

The point is, these things that we would name as primary to our faith help us to understand how challenging it was to be in the early church and face the debate on who could be a member and how.

The controversy then was probably as intense as the controversies we face today. Then they asked the question: “Would all male Gentiles need to be circumcised before becoming Christian?”

That was the first big debate and potential schism in the church. So, the early church had a meeting. Everyone gathered and debated the merits one way or the other. Can you imagine having a conversation like that in church today? Debating the merits of circumcision as it relates to faith?

In the end they decided to error on the side of God’s grace and hospitality. The Gentiles would not need to be circumcised; they could be full members regardless. Hospitality won, conformity did not. Peter led the way. You can read about this in the 10th and 11th chapters of Acts.

Time again through out the history of the church we have faced issues that rock our faith. Time and again, when we allow ourselves to listen to the Holy Spirit we find that God is guiding us, and in the end, it is God’s desire that lives on, not ours.

In today’s reading from Acts we hear about the healing of a man who had been crippled since birth. In this healing Paul said, stand and walk.

In living our faith we too are asked, to stand and walk. What I have found is that standing is not so difficult. It isn’t even really hard to walk. What is a challenge is to know the direction. In what direction are we to walk?

Jesus knows that walking in the direction God calls us will be our challenge. We hear something about this in our Gospel reading this morning. In our efforts to live into God’s words, God’s desire, we may find ourselves deaf to God, unable to hear. And being deaf we are lost. Being lost we are either standing still or walking in the wrong direction.

So, Jesus has sent us, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, or as Eugene Petersen says in The Message, Jesus sends “The Friend.” The Holy Spirit is our friend, sent by God, to be with us as we face the challenges of life. The Friend is given to us to teach us and to remind us of God’s love.

As with the people of the early church this “Friend” points us in the right direction. Reminding us that we are dependent upon the Holy Spirit’s guidance. And, if we take the story of Acts and the building of the early church as our model for building church community then we are to error on the side of great hospitality and love.

One way we at St. Hilary’s are striving to do this is to participate in the resettlement of refugees. Working with EMM, Episcopal Migration Ministries and IRIM, Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Ministries we are looking at ways we can assist in helping people find new homes in new countries.

Refugees are people who have been displaced from their homes and countries because of war, politics, and or genocide. These people cannot return home and expect to live. They live in refugee camps with crowded poor conditions, sometimes for 10 or 15 years. Entire generations are born and raised in these camps.

Countries around the world have formed together to help these refugees. Churches, Synagogues, and Mosques have gathered resources to help refugees find a new home. Our country has developed specific guidelines to determine who qualifies as a refugee and who can enter this country under refugee status. The guidelines are stringent. It takes years to move through the process.

As a church community we are working with EMM and IRIM to help the refugees who come to Chicago establish themselves and make a new life. We don’t do this with the expectation of getting anything in return. The people we help might be Christian, or Muslim, or Jewish. We do this because God has called us to help others in this world. To be for them the Friend, the bearer of the Holy Spirit. Helping is not just about standing or even walking, it is about having a direction.

And although what we at St. Hilary’s have done might seem meager and small we are becoming a beacon of hope, an example of what is possible. Our little effort to bring in coats, or donate dishes has set a pattern in motion. We are being held up by the national church through Episcopal Migration Ministries, as an example of what is possible.

As the volunteer EMM Refugee Program Diocesan Liaison I am working to create a consortium of churches to assist in meeting the needs of refugee families. IRIM anticipates 20 families arriving in July, another 20 in August, and another 20 in September.

The process of attaining apartments and setting up housing for 60 families in three months is daunting. This consortium of churches can help. I am creating a means by which churches can establish a warehouse in an unused closet or corner of their church where they can store specific items. For instance one church will store items for bathrooms: towels, bars of soap, combs. Another will house items for the bedroom.

Here in Prospect Heights we are going to work with two other churches, Good Shepherd and St. Als to house kitchen items. St. Hilary’s will gather and store eating utensils: knives, forks, spoons, and cooking utensils. Starting next week we will have a bin sitting next to the baptismal font to place your items, like we did for the silent auction.These can be used or new. But we need to gather enough utensils to stock a kitchen for 20 families of 4 by July. I think we can do that.

Then as the refugee families arrive we will box up our share and have them ready for pick up or delivery. The other churches will do the same, and in a short day of driving a staff person from IRIM can swing by and gather all the items to set up an apartment.

We are calling this ministry, Church Pantries for Refugees, or CPR, a good metaphor for starting life again. Just as the Spirit breathed life into the early church and gave them direction we are called to bring forth new life in our world. For in caring for others we move past the places where we get stuck in our faith.

We stand, walk, in a clear direction, helping others, following the Spirit. This is the peace of Christ.