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Saturday 7 May 2016

" SURRENDER" A Hard Pill To Swollow"





Readings:  Acts 16: 16-34,  16-21, John 17:1-26

I know that we all come from a generation that frowned on the idea that you could speak out loud in church.  I don’t know about you but I was taught to speak only when spoken too?  Well, as you gotten to know me, I have change the rule, folks it’s OK to speak aloud in church.  So then let me ask you a question?   How many of us here today can remember specifically who it was that lead you to become involved in a church, and what were your circumstances at the time?  Would anyone like to share a little?     

I tell this story not to boast but to expose you to something that touched my spirit deeply.   The musical trio I once sang with was singing at a service in a United Church in Pugwash one summer Sunday morning.  During the service someone announced that a lady from the Sunset home had passed away.  Sunset is a home for the mentally challenged that is situated in Pugwash.  A women two rows back began to sob and cry aloud.  It was loud enough that it startled the congregation.  I turned and saw a young women in great distress so I got up from my pew and when to her, sat beside her and held her hand, she gently lay her head on my shoulder and the sobbing stopped.  At first I must say, I felt a little uncomfortable, but I stayed with her until the end of the service.    After the service was over I was told that she was one of the residences at Sunset, a church elder would go and pick her up and bring her to church on Sundays.   A day of so after the service I received a small post card in my mail box.  It wasn’t sign just said I saw Jesus in church today.  That post card had a profound effect on my person-hood and my faith.  I realized that day that there is something of God in all of us and that people are introduced to the risen Christ through us.   That was part of Jesus’ message found in the Gospel reading this morning. 

In the Acts reading, we have a lady who apparently has some insight into the future, she was a fortune teller.  Paul takes her ability seriously.   She has never met this traveling duo, but is telling everyone the truth about who He and Silas are.  She repeats it over and over again,  “these are servants of the Most High God,”   She has never meet the risen Christ  personally but something in her has, and it, her uncorrupted spirit  responds when Paul speaks His name.  “In the name of Jesus the Christ I command you, to come out of her”  At that moment the scripture indicates that the corrupted spirit recognizes the name and leaves her person.  I would like to suggest that this happened because she has encountered the power of the risen Christ through Paul.     
             Song:  “THERE SOMETHING ABOUT THAT NAME”
                                              Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
Can you recall when it was that you first met the risen Christ?  If you can it might be a good time to stop and reflect on the circumstances surrounding your encounter.   
Next we here that Paul and Silas are beaten and thrown into prison and put into chains, for introducing the women to the risen Christ.  About midnight, as they are praying and singing hymns and with other prisoners listen in, a violent earthquake shakes open the cell doors, and the chains that held them in bondage fall away.  The jailer thinking the prisoners had escaped, in fear decides to take his own life.   Paul assures the jailer, do not kill yourself for we are all still here, no one has left.   The Jailer in turn shows Paul and Silas great compassion, invites them to his home where he and his whole family are baptized.   Through these men the Jailer and his family have met the risen Christ.   Again I ask the question:  Can you recall when it was that you first met the risen Christ.  What were the circumstances around your encounter?    

In the Gospel of John today, Jesus prays for himself first, then for those who have seen him and believed, then he has prayers for all those who will come to Him through the words and actions of believers.   They will meet Jesus through one another, they will see the risen Christ when acts of compassion, social justice, forgiveness and love are shared.   As in the stories shared earlier this morning.  Jesus prays that we might literally become united together in one faith, one Lord, one baptism, united in Christ.   This is the goal of “The Christ” for our world.  That we might become on people united by faith not religion.

An old seminary professor tells a story of how he ministered in a church that had a major fight over wood piles.  This church had a wood stove in the center of the sanctuary that heated the building.  Two groups that didn't get along with each other took turns stoking the fire and keeping it lit.  However, one group claimed that they were working harder and provided more wood.  As a result, both groups had separate wood piles.  A youth elder when reading the scripture one Sunday morning used his own version of the well-known text from Ephesians 4:5 "One faith, one Lord, one baptism, and two wood piles."   Not only in the church are we divided and splintered but many families struggle when it comes to unity, one for all, and all for one. 

Do you know the Song: "Bind us together Lord"   Bind us together Lord, Bind us together: With cords that cannot be broken. Bind us together, Lord, Bind us together, Bind us together with love:  There is only one God, There is only one King,  There is only one Body,  That is why we sing: Bind us together Lord.
One of the cords that can bind us in this unity is the cord of surrender.   BUT!!  if we are told to surrender, and that this is the only true way to freedom and unity, many of us reject that cord.  I will give you a good example: just try telling to family or a newly married couple that Spirit-Guided Relationships only really occur when we submit to one another out of reverence for Christ Ephesians 5:21    .  Try telling that to members of a hockey team, an enterprising business man or women, or a group of war veterans.  Folks!! We are conditioned not to surrender.  A colleague of mine recounts sitting around a table at a local legion with some veterans who served in the first and second world wars.  They were having a heated discussion about the idea of surrendering.   Surrender was out of the question for a vet.  Why to surrender was to give up, to be stripped of your freedoms, thrown into a prison camp, or worse you could be shot.   They were quite convinced that God would never have meant for them to surrender.    Many civilians have a negative feeling and outlook when it comes to the word surrender.   Our human logic and nature tend to see surrendering as failure, weakness, or loss of self-control.  So when we hear passages like Ephesians 5: 22 wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord.  For many this scripture, well, it is just not palatable because of the abuse may have faced.    Yet we can imagine a world where we submit to serve one another in reference and in respect of one another.  Where everyone’s concern is always for the other.  That no one would be without a servant to fill their needs.  That is what Jesus is praying for, that we, the believers, might become the example to show people the risen Christ.  So people will come to Him and surrender their lives to Him, that we might become one in Him as He is one with the Father.   This my friends, would be heaven on earth, a world of people serving one another.  No more hunger, war, fighting, killing or bickering, a place where the Lyon and Lamb lie down together united, one in Christ.   So I say to you today submit your life to Christ, become the example and help change the world forever.        
                                             “I Surrender All"



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