4th Sunday of Easter
April 17, 2016
Acts 9:36-43; Psalm 23; Revelation 7:9-17; John
10:22-30
(Or watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKKCkaHlZuM&feature=em-upload_owner)
My husband wanted me to title today’s sermon, “Huey Lewis
Almost Had It Right,” but that seemed a little too obscure. The band Huey Lewis
and the News had their first number one hit song in 1985, which was written for
and featured in the first “Back to the Future” movie.[1]
It was called “The Power of Love,” and, interestingly enough for a 1980s rock
band, includes a line about how “with a little help from above, you feel the
power of love.”[2] With
a little help from God, you can feel the power of love, and not just the power
of love, but the power of prayer. Prayer is, after all, one of our primary ways
of communicating with God. Since the relationship’s gotta be a two-way street,
then God’s gotta help out and do his part, too. After all, prayer isn’t simply
talking, or singing or whispering or yelling at God, but also listening to
God’s side of the conversation, too.
So, when we pray,
then we know Jesus’ voice, just as he explains in our Gospel reading this
morning. And we know his voice because we listen for it, we listen to him, we
read his Holy Word, and learn how to distinguish what is his voice and what is
not. In first century Palestine, shepherds often kept all the sheep of their
village all together in one place, in the same fenced-in yard. “When it was
time to separate the flocks, all the shepherds called their sheep, each using a
unique call. The sheep of each flock recognized their shepherd's call and left
the sheepfold only with that shepherd.”[3]
That’s the practice Jesus is referring to here when he says his sheep listen to
his voice, he knows them, and they follow him.[4]
How do we learn to distinguish Jesus’ voice from other voices? There are so
many voices we hear today. It’s not just
family and church and school and work, there’s also Facebook, Twitter, news
channels, “news” channels, movies, advertisements… So many voices telling you what to wear, what
to eat, what not to eat, what to drive, who to love, who not to love, do this,
don’t do that. How do you know who to
follow? How do you know whose voice to
listen to and which one is God’s? Usually, it’s pretty obvious
when the answer is definitely no and you can trust your gut for NO. There are things that are patently NOT of
God: lying, cheating, killing, abuse, and so on. You hear a voice telling you to run a red
light or be selfish and hoard everything you have for yourself, that voice is
clearly NOT God’s. One way we learn which voice is Jesus’ is through listening
to him in prayer.
Sometimes, though, it’s easy to mistake familiar
voices. When I was in high school, my
family went to visit friends over one long holiday weekend. While I was upstairs in the house, I heard my
name called. I thought it was my mom
calling me, “Heather!” and so I yelled back, “What?!” Well, then my mom’s friend came to the bottom
of the stairs and said my name again. I
was embarrassed at my mistake, because I never would have yelled so rudely as
my mom’s friend. What I’m more
embarrassed by now is that I didn’t think it was rude to yell at my mom that
way, just at other adults. One thing God
does say is to honor your parents. They
were the ones who taught me not to yell at other people and to treat adults
with respect, yet somehow, at least as a teenager, I never transferred that
lesson back to them. And there’s part of
me that can’t believe I didn’t recognize that voice as not my mom’s. You’d think you’d know your mother’s voice,
right? One youth Sunday at my previous
church, a youth asked me how I do it every Sunday, getting up in front of the
congregation to speak, and I told her that I hear my mom’s voice telling me to
“speak slow and clearly.” I know my
mom’s voice, I hear her in my head. But
apparently sometimes other people can sound like her, too. Sometimes identifying a voice you know isn’t
as easy as you’d think.
However,
there is one thing we know happens when we are listening to Jesus’ voice and
following his will, we know that when
Jesus is our shepherd, then we lack for nothing. Many of us can probably
recite from memory the King James Version of the 23rd Psalm, “The
Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul…” It’s
all an image and feeling of tranquility, of having and being enough, of feeling
calm and content. It’s a psalm often read, or prayed, at a funeral, meant to
offer comfort. If we read it in the translation found in our [Cowenton’s] pews,
it says, “The Lord is my shepherd; I have everything I need. He lets me rest in
fields of green grass and leads me to quiet pools of fresh water. He gives me
new strength. He guides me in the right paths, as he has promised.”[5]
He lets me rest, which means I have to take him up on that opportunity, or it’s
my fault I’m worn out. He leads me, which means I have to follow him. He gives
me new strength, which means it’s up to me to accept it. He guides me in the
right paths, as he has promised. Jesus upholds his side of the promise; it’s up
to us then to follow him in those paths. How do we know what they are? Through
prayer and discernment. How do we have the courage to follow him down those new
paths? That’s the power of prayer.
And it’s more than just the comfort and rest of having
everything we need, we read in Revelation about this vision of heaven of an
enormous crowd, so many people that no one could count them all! They were from
every race, tribe, nation, and language, and worshiping God all together with
one voice. Imagine that, people from every background, worshiping together,
with one voice. And we’re told that this people “will hunger no more, and
thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat; for the
Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them
to springs of the water of life, and God will wipe away every tear from their
eyes.”[6]
When we pray, when we come together here to worship, we are joining our songs
and voices with that great company in heaven, where God wipes away our tears. That’s
the power of prayer.
Finally,
when we pray, then we have the power to
raise the dead, in Jesus’ name. In
our Acts reading this morning, which I said we’re going to be reading from now
through the day of Pentecost, we read the story of Tabitha, a disciple, who “spent
all her time doing good and helping the poor.”[7]
She was probably one of those who stayed up late at night thinking of ways to
help and got up in the morning with fresh ideas for good works. We probably all
know someone like her, always serving, always helping out, and seemingly
tireless in her efforts and enthusiasm. Well, we’re told she got sick, and she
died. They washed her body, put her in the upstairs room, and then sent for
Peter, who was in a neighboring town. “Peter sent everyone out of the room,
then knelt and prayed. He turned to the body and said, ‘Tabitha, get up!’ She
opened her eyes, saw Peter, and sat up.”[8] This
was the first time an apostle had raised someone from the dead. These guys
would have known about the prophet Elisha raising the widow’s son from the
dead.[9]
And many of them were there when Jesus brought back Lazarus, who’d been dead
for so long that he “stunketh.”[10]
They all know and believe in Jesus’ resurrection. There are other accounts
later on in Acts about bringing someone back from the dead, like the kid who
fell asleep while Paul was preaching and fell out the window and died, and Paul
resurrected him.[11]
But this is the first time one of the
twelve brought someone back. And what did Peter do to prepare for it? He
knelt down in silence and solitude, and prayed. When we pray, then we have
faith that can move mountains, that can uproot bushes and replant them
elsewhere, that can do all kinds of things, in the power of prayer. Resurrection
power. New life power. That’s what happens when we ground ourselves in a life
of prayer. Prayer when we rise in the morning, “Thank you, God, for another new
day!” Prayer before we eat, “Thank you, God, for this food.” Prayer for this
beautiful weather, “Thank you, God, for the sunshine!” New day, new strength
that comes from eating our daily bread, new energy, feeling revitalized when
the sun comes out after the rain, this is all part of the resurrection.
After
we moved here and I had new business cards made up, my husband suggested I list
my title as “Resurrection Expert.” I balked a little bit, because I am not an
expert in resurrection. I trust God can raise the dead, I believe it; I don’t
know that I’m the expert. So, if you see my business card, what I put was that
I’m “in the resurrection business,” because that I am comfortable claiming. It’s what any of us who follow Jesus can
claim, because we follow the God of new life, the God of the living, not of the
dead, the God who can make a way where there seems to be no way, the God who
doesn’t give up on things and toss them out, but instead prunes, and molds, and
shapes, into something better. We’re not in the business of ho-hum, business as
usual. We’re in the business of new life, in the resurrection business. And the
only way we can dare claim that is through the power of prayer. Our efforts
only go so far, we must make sure we know Jesus’ voice, which we hear in
prayer; we must listen to what he says, which is that we have enough and we are
to follow him; and in following him, we find new life, resurrection. “The old
has gone, the new has come!” And, unfortunately for those of us who get tired
of always adapting, the new keeps coming. Change is good. Jesus doesn’t leave
us the same after each encounter with him. That’s the power of prayer.
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