Sermon from August 18

So…

Sometimes God can use what looks to us to be a disaster, as a new beginning. Amazingly, God uses willing disciples to make that beginning.

Are you willing?

Lots of us, as I said last week, are willing to listen to God and to consider God’s claims on us. But we aren’t always willing, like Ananias, to get up and go and do and make a difference!

Not all of us are willing to go to Namibia and start an elephant proof garden. Or to New Bern North Carolina to rehab houses. Or go to Purdue for the Triennium with a bunch of crazy teenagers.

For some of us, even just making up bags of food for our local food scare families with our Deacons seems a step to far.

Our willingness is weak, partly, because while the Holy Spirit in us is willing, we are holding back.

Unlike Philip, the Deacon, who showed us two weeks ago how to get up and go and share your faith with even folks like the heretic Samaritans and then last week how to run a marathon while sharing your faith with an Ethiopian.

Now, like I said the challenges can be easier and harder. Teaching a group of kids in the EMPOWERkids Sunday morning program, isn’t too scarey, or shepherding around a group of teens to a corn maze and pumpkin picking? Really, that is pretty safe stuff.

But how about sharing your faith with a guy who has come to your city to hunt you down and take you to court, have you tried by the Sanhedrian, and possibly executed for believing that Jesus is the Messiah!

That’s why Ananias is a fascinating example of a true disciple.

Note, he isn’t flashy. He doesn’t appear in the gospel stories before this incident and never appears in the scripture story again. He is there just to do what God has asked him to do at that moment in time! Kairos, that sacred moment.

It has got to make you wonder, what is it that God is asking you to do?

What is it that you have been being prepared for that God is asking you to get up and go and do and make a difference?

It is easy, really easy to just do what you have always been doing. It is easy to not rock the boat of our simple faith. It would be just crazy to jump in and do the next hard thing God is calling us to do, because what if it stretches and grows your faith? Stretching hurts!

Recently I have been to see a Physical Therapist because my back was hurting.

When I bent over my back would catch and I would get this fiery sensation across my backside down the back of my leg and calf and leave me with tingling in my foot for maybe 15 minutes or more after I straightened up.

So the PT and the PT Assistant both made me stretch in directions that quite frankly hurt! Now, I realize that stretching is for my own good, but there is this deep-down human cry that comes into my brain that says if stretching hurts I shouldn’t do it.

But stretching has the power to relieve hurts. It untightens muscles and make flexible what wasn’t flexible. New freedom of motion follows and the possibility of new growth, and even relief from the pinching pain that debilitated.

But the only way there is to stretch and to hurt what hadn’t been stretched in a long time.

And as a somewhat unwilling participant, I might have been not working very hard on it! So Shannon the PT assistant reminded me of the PT motto, “feel free to hurt yourself so I don’t have to hurt you!” Okey dokey!

Stretch! Work harder! Go the extra mile so that you can grow, even if that means doing what is really hard! Even if that means going to see Saul.

Don’t be that comfortable disciple! Be like Ananias! Stretch! 😉

Ananias, is to talk with and care for Saul, a well-known agent for those who would persecute the church, of whom Ananias says, “Lord, a lot of people have told me about the terrible things this man has done to your followers in Jerusalem! Now the chief priests have given him the power to come here and arrest anyone who worships in your name.”

To which God replies, “Go!”

Don’t be that comfortable disciple! Be like Ananias!

Go and take the good news of Jesus to this man who has persecuted other disciples just like you, and help him as he struggles with his new found understanding of who Jesus is.

Stretching your faith is essential to having faith. Use it or lose it may not be completely accurate, but its close enough. You can forget how to ride a bicycle, and when you get on one after lots and lots of years, you can crash and need 10 stitches. Just ask Deb O’Connell.

Use your faith, stretch your faith, put it to work on a new adventure. Listen to the Spirit when it invites you to step out and step it up. Teach, lead, help, support, go, do, and be like Ananias.

Because, sometimes God can use what looks to us to be a disaster, as a new beginning. Amazingly, God uses willing disciples to make that beginning. Like Ananias. Like you!

Are you willing?

Amen.