{"id":121,"date":"2010-05-02T08:48:43","date_gmt":"2010-05-02T13:48:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newunionchristianchurch.org\/home\/?p=121"},"modified":"2010-05-02T08:48:43","modified_gmt":"2010-05-02T13:48:43","slug":"fifth-sunday-in-easter-signs-of-the-new-paradigm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.newunionchristianchurch.org\/home\/2010\/05\/02\/fifth-sunday-in-easter-signs-of-the-new-paradigm\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifth Sunday in Easter: Signs of the New Paradigm"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texts:<\/span><\/span> Acts 11:1-18; \u00a0Rev. 21:1-6; \u00a0John 13: 31-35<\/span><\/p>\n

I used a big word this morning in my sermon title that has become fashionable amongst management gurus and even scientists in the last few years.\u00a0 A paradigm<\/em> is a theoretical framework of a discipline within which theories, laws, generalizations, and experiments performed in support of them are formulated.\u00a0 It has also become a short- hand word that means a particular perspective or world view.<\/p>\n

Most of us have had experience with shifting and changing paradigms.\u00a0\u00a0 Think for a moment about how life was in this part of the world in the first 60 years of the 20th<\/sup> century.\u00a0\u00a0 The races were segregated, and we\u2014being white and generally na\u00efve\u2014probably didn\u2019t think a whole lot about it.\u00a0 When Rosa Parks declared that she had had enough of it and wouldn\u2019t go to the back of the bus, it was like a rumbling volcano indicating that it was about to erupt.\u00a0 And so it did.\u00a0 The foundations of southern life were shaken, rearranged, and changed forever. \u00a0Thank goodness!<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I caught just a snippet of Bob Edwards\u2019 radio show on NPR, when he was talking about one of the old \u201cThis I Believe\u201d essays.\u00a0 He and the archivist for the series were discussing Red Barber\u2019s essay.\u00a0\u00a0 Red, you may remember, was the baseball announcer for the Cincinnati Reds at one time.\u00a0 He believed, quite profoundly, that a great athlete had to also have great spiritual substance.\u00a0\u00a0 Red, a professed Christian, became one of the sportscasters who welcomed Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers.\u00a0 I heard Bob Edwards say something like:\u00a0 \u201cRed Barber discovered that Jackie Robinson and other black men were men just like himself.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Red Barber\u2019s paradigm of social reality changed.<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we heard how the Apostle Peter was challenged by the Christians in Judea about the fact that he had broken some rules and boundaries in his ministry with the Gentiles.\u00a0\u00a0 So Peter had to explain to them about his vision, of all the unkosher things let down from heaven in a sheet, and how he was told in the vision to eat from it.\u00a0 This early church fight was\u00a0 ostensibly over food, and Peter connected this experience in which his world-view, his paradigm for understanding social and religious relations, had been transformed, to the very ministry and practices of Jesus.\u00a0\u00a0 Luke intends us to see the three-fold experience of the vision to match Peter\u2019s three-fold betrayal of Jesus.<\/p>\n

Just as in the early church, so now, most church fights are about who will be in and who will be out.\u00a0 The sign of the new paradigm, of Christianity\u2019s perspective on the world threatens all our perceived notions of status, righteousness, and the nature of God\u2019s work and the scope of God\u2019s concern.\u00a0 Christianity, if it be true to its founder, should be itself a volcanic force for changing people\u2019s preconceived notions, their prejudices, their closed minded approach to living.<\/p>\n

The book of Revelation, too, speaks of God\u2019s paradigm in a way quite different from what most people think the book of Revelation is about.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Revelation is a mysterious piece of\u00a0 writing, called apocalyptic, or veiled speech.\u00a0 Many of its allusions and metaphors are lost to modern people.\u00a0 There have been many famous church leaders who would not have included it as Holy Scripture, including Martin Luther who only included it reluctantly and as secondary in stature; Ulrich Zwingli, who flat out denied it scriptural status; and John Calvin, who largely ignored it.\u00a0 Revelation was NOT the last document of the New Testament to be written, nor did its author know that it would someday conclude the Christian Bible.\u00a0\u00a0 Marcus Borg says in his book, Reading The Bible Again for the First Time<\/em>, says that we should remember that it is a letter written to seven specific churches that are about one generation old and already straying from their original vision.\u00a0 \u201cThe issues facing the communities,\u201d he writes, \u201care persecution, false teaching, and accommodation to the larger culture.\u201d\u00a0 Persecution may not be a contemporary problem for those who call themselves Christian in America, but false teaching and cultural accommodation continue to plague us.<\/p>\n

Today there are many who think that Jesus is coming again soon, and that this earth is destined for destruction.\u00a0 Therefore it doesn\u2019t matter how we treat the earth and its resources.\u00a0\u00a0 But this reading, so familiar to us from funerals, where we think the focus is on heaven<\/strong>, challenges us with God\u2019s paradigm:\u00a0 it is actually the new earth<\/span><\/strong> that will be OUR home and God\u2019s as well.\u00a0\u00a0 There is not an emphasis on heaven, but an earthly quality to our future hope.\u00a0 Marcus Borg says that this passage is best understood as \u2018the dream of God\u2019 for \u201cthis earth,\u201d and not for another world.\u00a0 For the author of this strange letter,\u00a0 it is the only dream worth dreaming.\u00a0 In Jerusalem the Golden every tear will be wiped away and we will see God.<\/p>\n

A number of years ago, a little boy, Nicholas, was the first child born to a young couple who had been rather unclear about what they were to do in life or even about whether their marriage would survive.\u00a0 Nicholas was born with anencephaly\u2014his tiny skull had been knit so tightly in the womb that his brain could not develop.\u00a0 When he was born his head was about 1\/3 the size that it should have been.\u00a0\u00a0 Nicholas lived to be 3 years old.\u00a0 He could never turn over.\u00a0 He could never smile.\u00a0 He could never even suckle.\u00a0\u00a0 When he died, his parents had by then had another baby, but they said of Nicholas:\u00a0 \u201che was the most precious.\u00a0 He taught us what life is all about, and what it means to love.\u00a0 I could see God in Nicholas,\u201d his mother said.<\/p>\n

All things new\u2014new heaven, and a new earth.\u00a0\u00a0 It always astounds me to hear people who claim to be devout Christians argue from the \u201cold order\u201d\u2014in which a man is supposed to be the head of his family (by which they mean the dominant member), or in which execution of criminals is justified on the basis of an eye for an eye (a misreading of that ancient law which was meant to put a limit on revenge, not to set the actual punishment), or even the fellow down in Somerset who thinks that because \u201che was bought with a price and HIS body is the temple of the Lord,\u201d that it would be ok to carry a gun on church grounds to shoot someone else in whom he cannot see the tabernacle of God.<\/p>\n

Jesus urged his disciples to have love for one another so that \u201ceveryone will know that you are my disciples.\u201d\u00a0 The ability to love all\u2014even the most unlovable of sorts, has always been the test of this discipleship-love.\u00a0 Dorothy Day put it this way:\u00a0 \u201cI really only love God as much as the person I love the least.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0After the crowds had stoned Jesus, mocked him, spit upon him, screamed \u2018crucify him\u2019, Jesus could still cry out in love, \u201cForgive them, they know not what they do\u201d<\/p>\n

Peter went through the experience, too\u2014and found his world reconfigured, his world made new.\u00a0 His dream sent him off to be with people who were deemed unclean.\u00a0 His action created controversy, as the redefining of boundaries always will.<\/p>\n

Peter asked himself this question\u2014the question every church should ask:\u00a0 \u201cWho am I that I could hinder God?\u201d\u00a0 God will work God\u2019s wonders in this world\u2014with and without our help, our interest, our awareness.<\/p>\n

A decade and a half ago, when the fighting\u00a0 was fierce and sniping was a frequent occurrence in Sarajevo, I heard a story of\u00a0 a reporter \u00a0who was covering that conflict when he saw a little girl shot by a sniper.\u00a0 The reporter threw down his pad and pencil, and stopped being a reporter for a few minutes.\u00a0 He rushed to the man who was holding the child and helped them both into his car.<\/p>\n

As the reporter stepped on the accelerator, racing to the hospital, the man holding the bleeding child said, \u201cHurry, my friend, my child is still alive.\u201d<\/p>\n

A moment or two later, \u201cHurry, my friend, my child is still breathing.\u201d\u00a0 A moment later,\u00a0 \u201cHurry, my friend, my child is still warm.\u201d\u00a0 Finally, \u201cHurry, O God, my child is getting cold.\u201c<\/p>\n

When they got to the hospital, the little girl was dead.\u00a0 As the two men were in the lavatory, washing the blood off their hands and their clothes, the man turned to the reporter and said,\u00a0 \u201cThis is a terrible task for me.\u00a0 I must go and tell her father that his child is dead.\u00a0 He will be heartbroken.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reporter was amazed.\u00a0 He looked at the grieving man and said, \u201cI thought she was your child.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man looked back and said, \u201cNo, but aren\u2019t they all our children?\u201d\u00a0 Yes\u2014they are all our children.\u00a0 They are also God\u2019s children as well\u2026whether they are less then 10 years old, or whether they are 90 years old; whether they live in Sarajevo, or down in the trailer park below us, whether they are Mexicans who have come to this country without documents, or whether they are some descendant of the Mayflower pilgrims, or the first settlers in what was to become the state of Georgia, prisoners from overpopulated English jails.<\/p>\n

Just so, in a church, when all people are welcome\u2026regardless of their jobs, their skin color, their sexual orientation, their marital status, their physical condition, their gender\u2026when all are loved as Christ loved even the weakest and sickest among those in his world\u2014then the world will know we are his disciples.\u00a0\u00a0 And\u2026God\u2019s work of making all things new, of creating a new heaven and a new earth, the new holy paradigm, \u00a0will shine through us.<\/p>\n

\"Share<\/a>Share on Facebook<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texts: Acts 11:1-18; \u00a0Rev. 21:1-6; \u00a0John 13: 31-35 I used a big word this morning in my sermon title that has become fashionable amongst management gurus and even scientists in the last few years.\u00a0 A paradigm is a theoretical framework<\/p>\n

\"Share<\/a>Share on Facebook<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newunionchristianchurch.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newunionchristianchurch.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newunionchristianchurch.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newunionchristianchurch.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newunionchristianchurch.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.newunionchristianchurch.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122,"href":"http:\/\/www.newunionchristianchurch.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121\/revisions\/122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.newunionchristianchurch.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newunionchristianchurch.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.newunionchristianchurch.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}