Roll Away Your Stone
The Rev. Amy Morehous
Easter 5, Year A
May 22, 2011
Church of the Ascension
Roll Away Your Stone
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone....
----- Bob Dylan
Roll away your stone, I’ll roll away mine
Together we can see what we can find.
Don’t leave me alone at this time,
For I am afraid of what I will discover inside.
You told me that I would find a home,
Within the fragile substance of my soul.
And I have filled this void with things unreal,
And all the while my character it steals.
The darkness is a harsh term don’t you think?
And yet it dominates the things I seek.
It seems as if all my bridges have been burned,
You say that’s exactly how this grace thing works
It’s not the long walk home that will change this heart,
But the welcome I receive at the restart.
---- “Roll Away Your Stone,” Mumford and Sons
Well, how many of you were surprised to wake up this morning and find that the world hadn’t ended? Anyone? I would guess that Harold Camping and his supporters are pretty surprised. And very disappointed. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, Harold Camping is the self-taught Bible scholar and Christian radio network owner who bought 1,200 billboards across the country. His organization spent more than $1 million dollars to tell us that the world was going to end yesterday. (You’ll be happy to know I did write a sermon anyway, just in case he was wrong.)
Well, we can laugh at poor Howard Camping and his followers all we want. I will admit that I did when I first heard the story a few days ago. So did Jay Leno, and David Letterman, and John Stewart and Stephen Colbert. But he isn’t an isolated case. There are lots of Howard Campings in the world, motivated by many different things. Some of them are sincere. Some of them are mentally ill. Some of them just like the attention. But most of them really believe what they’re telling you, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. There are times when emotion takes over, and facts become irrelevant.
There’s one particular emotion that comes into play, one that seems to make reasonable people into unreasonable mobs. It’s woven through many of our readings today, and it’s in many of the comments that Harold Camping’s followers made to the media before this most recent “Day of Judgement”. One follower said, “We just want people to be afraid for the fate of their immortal soul, and know that there are still a few hours left to cry out to God for mercy.”
Fear. That emotion is fear. “We just want people to be afraid.” It’s the thing that resonated through the readings for me, as I wrestled with them. A crowd stones Stephen to death out of anger, and fear. Jesus has just told the disciples of his death, and they are perplexed and fearful about their future. That’s a very human reaction, to be afraid of things we don’t understand. I think the idea of the apocalypse makes us uncomfortable, and we laugh at it, because somewhere in our heart, there’s a tiny shiver of fear. “What if they’re right? What if we really don’t have as much time as we think we do?”
The crowd that murders Stephen is furiously angry with him, and afraid that the things he’s been saying just might be true. It’s not immediately obvious why the crowd is already angry, because the lectionary editors left out most of Stephen’s sermon that leads to his brutal death. If you don’t know who Stephen is, he’s one of the seven who are called by the apostles to be set apart, to help take care of widows and orphans, to help serve at the table, and to preach the Gospel of Christ’s resurrection. That group of seven were the first deacons. You ask any deacon about Stephen, the patron saint of all deacons, and we all suppress an urge to mutter dire warnings about shooting the messenger. Indeed one of the cornerstones of a call to the diaconate is the willingness to speak the Gospel truth, even when it is unpopular. When I agreed to take up the call of the diaconate, I foolishly agreed to stand up here and tell you things you don’t want to know.
Stephen is dragged before the council because people are upset with his preaching about Christ’s life, death and resurrection. Responding to their accusations, Stephen gives a very long and mostly boring sermon that is primarily a history lesson, demonstrating how their ancestors had a long history of ignoring God and God’s prophets at crucial moments in history. But suddenly at the end, Stephen’s sermon changes course, and goes straight to the juicy parts.
Stephen says, “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers.”
Now you know why the crowd is so angry. Few people respond well to being called stiff-necked murderers. Then to add insult to injury, Stephen has a vision of Jesus at the right hand of God. Stephen’s claim that he can see God is the ultimate blasphemy, and brings about his immediate and violent death.
Walter Brueggeman says that Stephen was talking to people who “didn’t want to hear the Easter news. They wanted to keep the world the way it had been, under old management, with a certain set of assurances and practices that they treasured.” Stephen, like Jesus, threatens the status quo. That’s what the resurrection of Christ does - it radically rearranges the order of things. The last suddenly become first. Grace outweighs judgement. Darkness become light. Those who want to hang on to the world just as it was become fearful, because their whole way of life will change.
The disciples are also full of fear. They have just been told that their friend Jesus, their hope for a new life, their possible Messiah will be betrayed by one of his friends, that he will suffer, that he will die. They feel as if all their hopes were in vain. But don’t worry, Jesus tells them. Don’t worry, because I go ahead of you, to make a place for you. For all of you. You will see me there later, and there will be room enough for everyone.
But the disciples reply out of their disappointment, and confusion, and fear. Worry? Of course we’re going to worry. We don’t understand. We don’t know where you’re going. We don’t know how to get there. How can we know? Why don’t you just show us God, so that we can really understand? So that we can believe?
We’ve all asked that, haven’t we? We’ve shaken our fist at God and said “Show yourself!” - after a terrible diagnosis, or a terrible loss, after the very fabric of our lives has been rewoven into a pattern we don’t recognize. “Show us your Holy self, God, so that we may believe, so that we won’t be afraid any more.”
We may think we know more than those followers of the apocalypse whom we ridicule. We may believe that we are far more civilized than the crowd that stoned Stephen. We may assume that we are more full of faith than the perplexed disciples. But I’m not sure any of those are true. I think we all fear a great number of things these days. We fear that the world we know is changing into a world we don’t know. We’re afraid that we don’t know enough, or that we know too much. We’re afraid of people who are different than ourselves. We all fear that at some deep level there will never be enough to go around. Not enough food. Not enough money. Not enough time. Not enough love. We fear that we ourselves will not be enough, that we will be weighed and found wanting in the sight of God, and our neighbor.
So, my Gospel challenge and question to you today is this: Do you approach the Good News that Christ brings us from a place of love, or from a place of fear? Because the reality is that we aren’t enough. We will never work our way into God’s good graces, we will never earn our way into heaven, we will never accumulate enough stuff to validate our existence. No matter how smart we think we are, we will never be smart enough to think our way into heaven. No matter how much time we have with those we love, it will not ever be enough. All our worst fears are true.
But here’s The Good News of Christ: we don’t have to be enough. The grace of God is a free gift, and there is always enough of it to go around. God loves each of us with such a great love to be beyond our comprehension. God does not parse it out, drop by tiny drop, but unleashes it on the world. The Rev. Mike Kinman once wrote “We don’t have to worry that our lives will not be enough...because our lives don’t belong to us. They belong to Christ. All we have to do is to sit at Christ’s feet and ask, “What would you have me do? How would you have me love?” Then all we are asked to do is to give it our best shot, and know that it will always be enough, that it will always be okay,” (even when it isn’t) “and that God will always provide what is most important: God’s loving embrace.”
We don’t have to hold on to the good news of the Gospel tightly, because it’s meant to be shared. Because Christ came not just for the meek, and the mild, and the righteous - he also came for the angry, and the frightened, and the incomplete and the envious. God loves our neighbor - all our neighbors, no matter who they are - and God also loves us. Each of us.
So if you live in fear, for whatever reason, I urge you to bring that fear forward today when we celebrate Holy Communion, and drop it. Leave it at the altar with Christ, and go forth from here with the assurance that God can hold all those fears, and more. Go forth knowing the Good News of Easter - that perfect love has cast out fear. “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.” Go forth from here “to proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people.”
And all of God’s people say, “Amen.”
Easter 5, Year A
May 22, 2011
Church of the Ascension
Roll Away Your Stone
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone....
----- Bob Dylan
Roll away your stone, I’ll roll away mine
Together we can see what we can find.
Don’t leave me alone at this time,
For I am afraid of what I will discover inside.
You told me that I would find a home,
Within the fragile substance of my soul.
And I have filled this void with things unreal,
And all the while my character it steals.
The darkness is a harsh term don’t you think?
And yet it dominates the things I seek.
It seems as if all my bridges have been burned,
You say that’s exactly how this grace thing works
It’s not the long walk home that will change this heart,
But the welcome I receive at the restart.
---- “Roll Away Your Stone,” Mumford and Sons
Well, how many of you were surprised to wake up this morning and find that the world hadn’t ended? Anyone? I would guess that Harold Camping and his supporters are pretty surprised. And very disappointed. If that name doesn’t ring a bell, Harold Camping is the self-taught Bible scholar and Christian radio network owner who bought 1,200 billboards across the country. His organization spent more than $1 million dollars to tell us that the world was going to end yesterday. (You’ll be happy to know I did write a sermon anyway, just in case he was wrong.)
Well, we can laugh at poor Howard Camping and his followers all we want. I will admit that I did when I first heard the story a few days ago. So did Jay Leno, and David Letterman, and John Stewart and Stephen Colbert. But he isn’t an isolated case. There are lots of Howard Campings in the world, motivated by many different things. Some of them are sincere. Some of them are mentally ill. Some of them just like the attention. But most of them really believe what they’re telling you, even in the face of evidence to the contrary. There are times when emotion takes over, and facts become irrelevant.
There’s one particular emotion that comes into play, one that seems to make reasonable people into unreasonable mobs. It’s woven through many of our readings today, and it’s in many of the comments that Harold Camping’s followers made to the media before this most recent “Day of Judgement”. One follower said, “We just want people to be afraid for the fate of their immortal soul, and know that there are still a few hours left to cry out to God for mercy.”
Fear. That emotion is fear. “We just want people to be afraid.” It’s the thing that resonated through the readings for me, as I wrestled with them. A crowd stones Stephen to death out of anger, and fear. Jesus has just told the disciples of his death, and they are perplexed and fearful about their future. That’s a very human reaction, to be afraid of things we don’t understand. I think the idea of the apocalypse makes us uncomfortable, and we laugh at it, because somewhere in our heart, there’s a tiny shiver of fear. “What if they’re right? What if we really don’t have as much time as we think we do?”
The crowd that murders Stephen is furiously angry with him, and afraid that the things he’s been saying just might be true. It’s not immediately obvious why the crowd is already angry, because the lectionary editors left out most of Stephen’s sermon that leads to his brutal death. If you don’t know who Stephen is, he’s one of the seven who are called by the apostles to be set apart, to help take care of widows and orphans, to help serve at the table, and to preach the Gospel of Christ’s resurrection. That group of seven were the first deacons. You ask any deacon about Stephen, the patron saint of all deacons, and we all suppress an urge to mutter dire warnings about shooting the messenger. Indeed one of the cornerstones of a call to the diaconate is the willingness to speak the Gospel truth, even when it is unpopular. When I agreed to take up the call of the diaconate, I foolishly agreed to stand up here and tell you things you don’t want to know.
Stephen is dragged before the council because people are upset with his preaching about Christ’s life, death and resurrection. Responding to their accusations, Stephen gives a very long and mostly boring sermon that is primarily a history lesson, demonstrating how their ancestors had a long history of ignoring God and God’s prophets at crucial moments in history. But suddenly at the end, Stephen’s sermon changes course, and goes straight to the juicy parts.
Stephen says, “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers.”
Now you know why the crowd is so angry. Few people respond well to being called stiff-necked murderers. Then to add insult to injury, Stephen has a vision of Jesus at the right hand of God. Stephen’s claim that he can see God is the ultimate blasphemy, and brings about his immediate and violent death.
Walter Brueggeman says that Stephen was talking to people who “didn’t want to hear the Easter news. They wanted to keep the world the way it had been, under old management, with a certain set of assurances and practices that they treasured.” Stephen, like Jesus, threatens the status quo. That’s what the resurrection of Christ does - it radically rearranges the order of things. The last suddenly become first. Grace outweighs judgement. Darkness become light. Those who want to hang on to the world just as it was become fearful, because their whole way of life will change.
The disciples are also full of fear. They have just been told that their friend Jesus, their hope for a new life, their possible Messiah will be betrayed by one of his friends, that he will suffer, that he will die. They feel as if all their hopes were in vain. But don’t worry, Jesus tells them. Don’t worry, because I go ahead of you, to make a place for you. For all of you. You will see me there later, and there will be room enough for everyone.
But the disciples reply out of their disappointment, and confusion, and fear. Worry? Of course we’re going to worry. We don’t understand. We don’t know where you’re going. We don’t know how to get there. How can we know? Why don’t you just show us God, so that we can really understand? So that we can believe?
We’ve all asked that, haven’t we? We’ve shaken our fist at God and said “Show yourself!” - after a terrible diagnosis, or a terrible loss, after the very fabric of our lives has been rewoven into a pattern we don’t recognize. “Show us your Holy self, God, so that we may believe, so that we won’t be afraid any more.”
We may think we know more than those followers of the apocalypse whom we ridicule. We may believe that we are far more civilized than the crowd that stoned Stephen. We may assume that we are more full of faith than the perplexed disciples. But I’m not sure any of those are true. I think we all fear a great number of things these days. We fear that the world we know is changing into a world we don’t know. We’re afraid that we don’t know enough, or that we know too much. We’re afraid of people who are different than ourselves. We all fear that at some deep level there will never be enough to go around. Not enough food. Not enough money. Not enough time. Not enough love. We fear that we ourselves will not be enough, that we will be weighed and found wanting in the sight of God, and our neighbor.
So, my Gospel challenge and question to you today is this: Do you approach the Good News that Christ brings us from a place of love, or from a place of fear? Because the reality is that we aren’t enough. We will never work our way into God’s good graces, we will never earn our way into heaven, we will never accumulate enough stuff to validate our existence. No matter how smart we think we are, we will never be smart enough to think our way into heaven. No matter how much time we have with those we love, it will not ever be enough. All our worst fears are true.
But here’s The Good News of Christ: we don’t have to be enough. The grace of God is a free gift, and there is always enough of it to go around. God loves each of us with such a great love to be beyond our comprehension. God does not parse it out, drop by tiny drop, but unleashes it on the world. The Rev. Mike Kinman once wrote “We don’t have to worry that our lives will not be enough...because our lives don’t belong to us. They belong to Christ. All we have to do is to sit at Christ’s feet and ask, “What would you have me do? How would you have me love?” Then all we are asked to do is to give it our best shot, and know that it will always be enough, that it will always be okay,” (even when it isn’t) “and that God will always provide what is most important: God’s loving embrace.”
We don’t have to hold on to the good news of the Gospel tightly, because it’s meant to be shared. Because Christ came not just for the meek, and the mild, and the righteous - he also came for the angry, and the frightened, and the incomplete and the envious. God loves our neighbor - all our neighbors, no matter who they are - and God also loves us. Each of us.
So if you live in fear, for whatever reason, I urge you to bring that fear forward today when we celebrate Holy Communion, and drop it. Leave it at the altar with Christ, and go forth from here with the assurance that God can hold all those fears, and more. Go forth knowing the Good News of Easter - that perfect love has cast out fear. “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people.” Go forth from here “to proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people.”
And all of God’s people say, “Amen.”
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