Proper 5+Year C The Reverend Robert R.M. Bagwell+
9,
June AD 2013 St
Thomas Parish Isle of Hope GAI Kings 17:17-24 Psalm 30
Galatians 1:11-24 Luke
7:11-17
After a long life, dutifully serving his parishioners, the elderly priest died. He found himself in Heaven, where he was warmly greeted by St. Peter. "Welcome," St. Peter said, "You have lived a good life. Let me take you to your quarters, and then I'll show you around Heaven."
St. Peter took the man to a rather plain building, and escorted him to a small room. The room was humbly furnished, but was functional. The priest was a bit surprised, having expected Heaven to be a bit more extravagant, but he was happy to be there.
They then began their tour of Heaven, and it was absolutely beautiful. The priest felt silly for his initial resentment over his room.
Finally, they came upon an enormous mansion. A butler opened the door to the mansion and a man came out, dressed to the nines, and proceeded down a long walkway to the front gate, as servants rolled a red carpet before him. When he reached the gate, a chauffeured limousine pulled up, and the man got in. It drove off.
"Was that God," the priest asked, stunned by the display.
"Oh heavens no," replied St. Peter. "That was a lawyer."
"I don't want to seem ungrateful, but can you answer a question for me?" The priest continued, "I spent my entire life devoted to my parishioners, and teaching the gospel, and I have very humble quarters in Heaven. I just don't understand what that lawyer did, which would merit such a beautiful mansion."
"It isn't what he did," St. Peter replied. "You see, we have thousands upon thousands of priests up here. But he's our first lawyer."
__________________________________________________________________________
In a book first published in 1930,
a British author, Frank Morison, a skeptic of the Christian faith, thought to
write a book dismissing the 'miracles' of the last week of Jesus' life on
earth.
Coming from his background in the legal system, Morrison takes us through
each event pointing out the inconsistencies and abrogation of Jewish law. Morison
ended up writing a book that was completely the opposite of what he had
originally set out to prove. That was not at all his intention. He was not a
religious fanatic or even a highly spiritual person. He was like a lot of people with some remaining
veneer of religiosity left over from his
childhood. The peculiar thing is that instead of disproving the
Resurrection, Morison writes that having
seen all the facts one is left with only one ultimate conclusion - yes it
happened. The title? "Who Moved the
Stone.?"
He is one in a long line of those who scorned the gospel of Christ and later
were turned into followers. The first in
a more famous list is St Paul who tells of his conversion in the Newer
Testament reading from the letter to the Galatian Christians this morning.
Another was C. S. Lewis (perhaps you've read or recently seen one of
his books from the Chronicles of Narnia at the theatre). An Oxford professor
and writer, he became an atheist as a younger man. Persuaded by arguments made
by Christian thinkers, he, "...came into Christianity kicking and
screaming." Lee Strobel , for many
years as a hard-nosed journalist and atheist, set out to confirm justification
for his atheism, instead he found that
the evidence he encountered led him to the Christian faith. Francis S.
Collins M.D. Ph.D. is a physician-geneticist, famous for his landmark discoveries of
disease genes, and his leadership of the Human Genome Project, was an atheist when
he finished graduate school, He later became a believer as a result of
philosophical and scientific reasons. His conversion and reasons for belief are
his book "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for
Belief". Dr. Hugh Ross, the youngest
ever to serve as director of observations for Vancouver's Royal Astronomical
Society. Testing the scientific and historical data, Dr. Ross became convinced
that the Bible is truly the Word of God. Malcolm Muggeridge, a British
journalist, author, satirist, media personality, soldier, and spy. A professed
agnostic for most of his life, he became a Christian, and 1969 published several
books on the faith. Even Charles Colson of the Watergate scandal went into
prison an unbeliever and found Jesus Christ;
And finally and even surprising to me (!) Anne Rice a best-selling author of Gothic and spiritual
books. Anne, a self-described atheist, returned to her Christian faith which
she had not practiced since her youth. She has stated that she would
"write only for the Lord" from this point forward, and there are a
myriad of others who tried with their intelligence to disprove the Christian
faith and ultimately became believers.
The Lord has been
called the "hound of heaven" who pursues the peoples of the earth
out of passion and love. The scripture
says: "This is love: not that we loved God, but
that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins"
(I John 4:10) Salvation begins and ends
with God initiative.
We see in the readings today a series of
"miracles" or 'signs' as the word really means in the Greek
language. What does a sign tell
you? It points to something greater than
itself. It communicates a message. Each
of these signs speaks of someone coming from death to life. Two of them were physical but the really
significant one comes from Paul who was once known as "Saul" before
he became a follower of Jesus Christ. Two were resuscitation-- miraculous
enough, but one was transformation coming spiritually alive from spiritual
death forever!.
When but a junior
high student I went through a crisis of all of the major issues of any
religious faith, especially Christianity. How do I know God exists? the Bible
is true, Jesus was born of a virgin? Jesus rose from the dead? Several books
were helpful to me regarding the 'proofs' of that which we believe or at least
the reason behind them, well substantiated particularly a older writing called:
"Know Why You Believe." That would be my challenge to each of us
today. Not why the priest believes or if
you're young, why your parents believe, but why YOU believe! Know why and what you believe. What brings you to Church on Sunday? The
respectable Christian thing to do on a Sunday morning on the Isle of Hope? Or
could it be, an encounter with the living Christ? You see we live in a
relativistic, get along society. But
will social pressure keep us from Christ Jesus? Will the loud promises of
wealth, fame and pleasure as we see every day on TV and the net, distract us
from engaging that faith into which we were baptized? The beatitudes say in one translation: "blessed are they who know their need
of God for theirs in the kingdom of heaven."
Perhaps you've
heard this verse? " For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,
that whoever believes in him shall not
perish but have eternal life." But
have you heard the next..." For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world
through him." That is the gospel, literally the "good news." That is why for 2000 years we have
proclaimed "Alleluia! Christ is Risen!" Amen
AD MAJOREM DEO GLORIAM
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