7 EASTER 07 C

A minister decided to do something a little different one Sunday morning. He said, “Today, in church, I am going to say a single word and you are going to help me preach. Whatever single word I say, I want you to sing whatever hymn comes to your mind.

The pastor shouted out “CROSS.” Immediately the congregation started singing in unison, “The Old Rugged Cross.”

The pastor then hollered out “GRACE.” The congregation began to sing “Amazing Grace.”

The pastor said “POWER.” The congregation sang “There is power in the Blood.”

The pastor said “SEX.”

The congregation fell into total silence. Everyone was in shock. They all nervously began to look around at each other afraid to say anything. Then all of a sudden way from in the back of the church, a little 87 year-old grandmother stood up and began to sing, “Precious Memories.” Precious memories, how they linger, how the ever flood my soul.

If I were to say to you the word Ascension, would a song come to mind? Perhaps if you were one of the few who came to our Ascension Day service you would be able to sing an ascension song, but I suspect most of us could not come up with one. We are going to sing an easy Ascension song at communion time, one which I hope you will long remember when it comes to the Ascension.

On Ascension Day we talked about what Christ’s ascension meant to those in Jesus’ day and what it means to us. One of the things it means is that the promise of the Father to put his Spirit within us and to pour out his Spirit upon us was now to be fulfilled. One of the benefits of that outpouring for us is the power to become better witnesses for Christ and to be partakers in his power to accomplish things we could not ordinarily accomplish.

Such was the case for St. Paul and Silas in our first lesson today. When Paul and Silas were in prison they witnessed to the guards and sang songs of praise to God. When God miraculously delivered them from the prison via the earthquake, the guard, whose job it was to see that no one escaped on threat of his own death, realized what had that Paul and Silas had not escaped but had stayed because of their belief in God. He came to realize that God was real. His response was “What must I do to be saved?” No doubt Paul and Silas had preached the gospel to him earlier, and now he was brought to a moment of decision.

Unfortunately, many people never come to that place of desperation which moves them to ask how they can be saved from their sins and separation from God. They just kind of go through life never really thinking about their eternal destiny.

Others seek to try to convince themselves that it will all work out in the wash, or in the end everybody will be saved (or at least they will). Or they think that God, being a loving God, will not allow any to perish despite what the Scriptures say. Others think that as long as they have done nothing majorly wrong or that they have tried to do their best to live a good life that in the end God will reward them with eternal life.

One of the reasons why Episcopalians, according to statistics, invite an unchurched person to church once every twenty-eight years is because we have convinced ourselves that people really aren’t perishing without Christ; they are not destined to spend eternity separated from God.

One of the reasons for this is seen in a story told by Bishop William Frey. Bishop Frey tells of a time twenty years earlier when he was asked to lead a clergy conference. He describes it this way:

“Believing that it’s always wise to know your audience before going on stage, I asked a wise old canon, ‘How many of these clergy would you say are functionally agnostic?’ He was somewhat taken aback and said, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard it put that way before. But now that you have asked, I’d say no more than seventy-five percent.’ As it turned out the canon exaggerated a bit, but not by much.

“These clerics hadn’t made a reasoned choice to be agnostic, or even thought of themselves as agnostics. With the exception of one who told me privately about his conversion to what he called Christian Atheism, they would undoubtedly have called themselves believers. Their ‘functional agnosticism’ was mostly inadvertent. Their faith that God could and would act in their lives had eroded in almost imperceptible increments. Now there was little left that they would bet their lives on. I discovered that for most, their faith had first been eroded by a theological education in which the Word of God had died the death of a thousand qualifications. Some felt they had been taught a lot about what ‘modern people’ couldn’t believe, and very little about what they could – or should.

“Some of the older ones had found that their faith had been beaten out of them through years of parish squabbles, unresponsive congregations, unsympathetic bishops, and personal disappointments. Others seemed to be reacting against the excesses of some televangelists or ‘renewal people’ who seemed to imply that if you just prayed the right prayers in just the right way, God would perform on cue. To combat ‘excessive faith,’ these clerics developed a minimal faith. They all prayed for the sick, of course, because such prayers were part of the liturgy. (Talk about expecting God to perform on cue!). But most would have been surprised, a few even embarrassed, if anyone had actually been healed.

“A smaller group had adopted their agnosticism as a fashionable garment. Presuming that all sophisticated people – and what are we Episcopalians if not sophisticated? – are skeptical about anything that the masses believe in., they worked hard at being ‘more skeptical than thou.’ They were like the character Sportin’ Life in Porgy and Bess who sang, ‘Oh, I takes that Gospel wherever it’s pos’ble, but with a grain of salt.’

“Whatever the reason, many were functionally agnostic. They didn’t deny the resurrection. It’s part of the Creed. They simply turned it into a metaphor, something like ‘it’s always darkest before the dawn.’ In other words, they believed in God, but they consistently denied that He could ACT. The God they believed in had little to do with their daily experience or their hopes for the future. As I got to know these clergy I discovered a wonderful thing. They didn’t want to remain functional agnostics. They longed to be real believers, and to know a God who would walk with them and talk with them, who cared for them and their people and did something about it. Over the time of that conference, the more we opened the Scriptures and the more we prayed, the more deeply they came to believe. They didn’t need scolding, they needed encouragement.”

I’m wondering if some of you here may say, “You know he’s describing me. I am a functional agnostic. I don’t want to be, but I think I may be.”

Fredrick Buechner has a scene in one of his books in which Eve, far from Eden, permits her mind to drift back to the time “when too good not to be true” hadn’t yet turned into “too good to be true.” The major dividing line between believers and unbelievers lies right here. It lies between those who by God’s grace have been brought to see that the Biblical story is “too good not to be true,” and those who haven’t yet had their eyes opened – or have refused to see.

Functional agnostics would often like to believe, but for one reason or another, feel themselves unable to do so. In a society which professes a lot of religion, but exhibits little deep faith, they are often afraid to trust something, or Someone, who might disappoint them. “Too good to be true,” they think. We think we know this from experience. A great deal of the functional agnosticism of our own age – a great deal of the functional agnosticism of our own lives – stems from some kind of disappointment with God. Believing, on some level at least, that believers should be able to avoid pain and suffering, we cry, “Where is God when I need Him the most?” And our faith begins to erode.

It is odd, isn’t it, that people whose belief system centers on the innocent suffering and death of Jesus, who celebrate Holy Week and Good Friday and whose primary emblem is the Cross, should be surprised by pain? Small wonder that the first thing the risen Christ did for His followers was to “open the Scriptures to them.” The power of God, exhibited in the Resurrection, coupled with the Biblical story, interpreted by the crucified One of whom the story speaks, is a powerful remedy for all the fear, mistrust, disappointment and anxiety, in the lives of the disciples and in our lives.

There is a story of a blind man which will be for us a reminder of the Gospel promise and a reminder about reality.

John was an undergraduate at the University of Colorado back in the early 50’s. One day he was asked how he lost his sight. He told about an accident when he was a teenager. Afterwards he had simply given up on life. The man who was telling this story was an active learner so what changed his attitude? Here is the story he told:

“When the accident happened and I knew that I would never see again, I felt that my life had ended. I was bitter, and angry at God for letting it happen, and I took my anger out on everyone around me. I felt that since I had no future, I wouldn’t lift a finger on my own behalf. Let others wait on me. I shut my bedroom door and refused to come out except for meals.

“One day, in exasperation, my father came into my room and started giving me a lecture. He said he was weary of my feeling sorry for myself. He said that winter was coming, and that it was my job to put up the storm windows. ‘You get those windows up by suppertime tonight, or else!’ he shouted, and slammed the door on his way out.

“That made me so angry that I resolved to do it. Muttering and cursing to myself, I groped my way out to the garage, found the windows, a stepladder, all the necessary tools, and went to work. ‘They’ll be sorry when I fall off the ladder and break my neck,’ I thought. But little by little, feeling my way around the house, I got the job done.”

As John was telling this story he stopped, and his sightless eyes misted up as he said, “I later discovered that at no time during the day had my father ever been more than five feet from my side.”

There are times when I want to cry out, “Where are you God, when I need you the most?” This story reminds me that God is always near even when I may not feel His presence. I know He is near because He said He would be, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Until you and I become convinced that God wants to have a relationship with us and that God can act in our lives, then we will never be concerned about those who don’t know Jesus.

Jesus prayed, in our Gospel lesson today, “I do not pray for these only (the apostles and disciples), but also for those who believe in me through their word, that we may all be one.”

We have a Word to be taken to those who are wondering “what must I do to be saved?” We have a Word to those who are functional agnostics. We have a Word for the skeptics of this world.

That Word is that there is power in the name of Jesus, there is life in the person of Jesus, and there is eternal security in the only one to have ever died, rise again, and ascend to heaven. We can’t let them perish without letting them know that Jesus loves them and has a wonderful plan for their life.

If you are a functional agnostic today, I would encourage you to join my inquirer’s class on Tuesday nights, or make plans to join the Alpha Course in the fall. I can also recommend some references that can be helpful to you.

“If you seek me, you will find me. If you seek me with your whole heart”- Jeremiah 29:13