Letting Go
Sermon
Sermons On The First Readings
Series I, Cycle A
Michael Crichton was a doctor. But he also had other talents and the itch to write. So he determined to let go of his ambition of a life of medicine and pursue a career as a writer. He says in his 1988 autobiography, Travels, he relates that he was following his passion. That's admirable. There are enough people trapped in jobs and occupations they don't like. Find what you like, what you want to do, and find some way to make that your life's work.
Crichton says at that time society gave doctors a lot of respect, and writers didn't get much respect at all. It is a hard--scrabble way to make a living, for the beginner. Most writers get more rejections than they get sales. While he was in medical school, the doctors and students pretty much left Crichton alone. "They admired my determination, but they thought I was pretty unrealistic."
Of course, that changed when he made his first sale. It was a book about a plague from space, called The Andromeda Strain. Suddenly, the loner in the med school cafeteria was surrounded by crowds. The wallflower thinker was plunged into popularity. He struggled with the idea of being a fantasy figure to the real people around him. He felt used, but just accepted the human foible that people think celebrities are superficial, when it's really them treating the celebrity as superficial. And it really was only his first book.
Crichton reflects that his early experience was just a taste of what was to come. It was also freeing. He reminisces about medicine and being a student, but rejoices in the new things he gets to do as he finds new places to explore, new things to write about, new issues to grapple with. He says, "Quitting medicine assured me that I would be forced into all sorts of changes I might not otherwise have made."1
Besides lots of books and movies such as Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park, Crichton is probably best known as the creator of the television series, ER.
One of the troubles with being human is our reach sometimes exceeds our grasp. You have to accept your limitations and let go of what is beyond you. Crichton had the courage to take the necessary action. He finds comfort in discovering that about himself. I suspect he sometimes wonders what was lost and what might have been. Maybe he'll find the wisdom to let go of it.
About 34 or 35 A.D., a year or two after Jesus was crucified and raised from the tomb, the Jerusalem church was growing by leaps and bounds. So much so, that the synagogue felt threatened. Christianity was still a part of Judaism, still part of the temple cult, and Christians were also members of synagogues. The disciples of Jesus found that the teaching and ministering took all their time, so they instituted the office of deacon. A deacon is someone who serves in a religious office - their job is to see that the poor and widows are not neglected - they bring physical comfort while the apostles are then free to preach and teach. Stephen was one of these. He showed himself to be a person of faith, a natural leader, and progressive in his ideas. Clearly he believed that all Christians are called to voice a strong witness to their belief in Christ, regardless of their office in the church. He might have been grooming to become an apostle or bishop, if he had lived until the 50s or 60s. But in the mid--30s in Jerusalem, it wasn't good to be a Christian who got attention.
Unlike the crucifixion of Jesus which coldly used the legal system to get a man hanged, the stoning of Stephen was a mob lynching, a crime of passion of the moment with no basis in law.
Ironically, it is the synagogue and not the Romans that bring the first persecution on the church, and it is not a disciple that is killed, but a deacon. Stoning was the customary means of execution in Israel from Old Testament times, and this emphasizes that it is Israel that does this, not the Romans, who would use crucifixion. The garments laid at the feet of an official signify an identification procedure. Your coat or your cloak were a part of you. The Saul mentioned is Saul of Tarsus, who later changes sides rather dramatically.
Thirteen epistles in the New Testament were written by Paul. We know that they are the earliest Christian literature that we have, and that these letters did much to shape the early church. Knowing this, it is difficult to remember that Paul was an enemy of the church and did what he could to snuff it out before it could get started well.
It was Hellenistic Jews who brought the charge against Stephen. The synagogue of the Freedmen (Cyrenean and Alexandrian former slaves) may have been Stephen's own synagogue. Some have discerned in his frequent references to "wisdom" (four times in his speech, nowhere else in Acts) a flavor of Alexandrian culture.
Well, there was something of a trial you can read about in Acts, and they stoned Stephen to death, a legal form of execution with a ritual attached. The accusers lay their coats at the feet of the person in charge and then cast the first stones. Then anyone who wants to join in can take part in the stoning. A good deterrent for criminals, but when a mob gets going, some mistakes can happen.
Now, I want you to look at how Stephen lets go. He sees into heaven; sees the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and he says so. As Luke reports it, this is the statement that angers the mob and turns a routine execution into a near lynching. And the last thing he says is, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."
He let go his life serenely. He even let go his anger and hate and self--pity and everything else, and clung to Jesus - even to imitating the last words of Jesus, "Father, forgive them."
This is a great example of what Jesus is talking about to the disciples in today's Gospel Lesson. You know the way. The way is Jesus.
When Jesus says he is the way, doesn't that change the direction of our lives? Isn't our destination important enough to have some serious conversation about it? How many sermons do you hear about heaven outside of a funeral?
C. S. Lewis asked this question in his 1940 work, The Problem of Pain. Professor Lewis was an atheist. But in searching himself with intellectual honesty, he became a Christian. He used his great intellect and talent for writing to produce some of the greatest modern Christian classics. One of the problems of believing, he says, is that heaven sounds like "pie in the sky, bye and bye." In the modern age, it's embarrassing to talk about heaven. To imagine a happy world in the hereafter is an escape from unhappiness in this world. It shirks the duty of making this world better. Also, it raises a question of the character of God: What kind of God would create a world where the creatures a world where the creatures have to be bribed into believing? He says:
Heaven offers nothing that a mercenary soul can desire. It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to. There are rewards that do not sully motives. A man's love for a woman is not mercenary because he wants to marry her, nor his love for poetry mercenary because he wants to read it, nor his love of exercise less disinterested because he wants to run and leap and walk. Love, by definition, seeks to enjoy its object.
Now, that's what Christianity is really all about. Letting go of this world and latching on to God in Christ, so much so that he becomes the way for us to go. In fact, the way and the destination. To be one in Christ and one with Christ. To lose yourself in him.
R. Buckminster Fuller upon meditating on losing over 150 pounds, asked the question: "Since that is as much as a person weighs, was that person me? If so, where did I go?"
The Christian knows where and he knows the way. He lets go of himself and latches on to Jesus.
____________
1. Michael Crichton, Travels (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988), p. 79f.
2. C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillan, 1962), p. 145.
Crichton says at that time society gave doctors a lot of respect, and writers didn't get much respect at all. It is a hard--scrabble way to make a living, for the beginner. Most writers get more rejections than they get sales. While he was in medical school, the doctors and students pretty much left Crichton alone. "They admired my determination, but they thought I was pretty unrealistic."
Of course, that changed when he made his first sale. It was a book about a plague from space, called The Andromeda Strain. Suddenly, the loner in the med school cafeteria was surrounded by crowds. The wallflower thinker was plunged into popularity. He struggled with the idea of being a fantasy figure to the real people around him. He felt used, but just accepted the human foible that people think celebrities are superficial, when it's really them treating the celebrity as superficial. And it really was only his first book.
Crichton reflects that his early experience was just a taste of what was to come. It was also freeing. He reminisces about medicine and being a student, but rejoices in the new things he gets to do as he finds new places to explore, new things to write about, new issues to grapple with. He says, "Quitting medicine assured me that I would be forced into all sorts of changes I might not otherwise have made."1
Besides lots of books and movies such as Andromeda Strain and Jurassic Park, Crichton is probably best known as the creator of the television series, ER.
One of the troubles with being human is our reach sometimes exceeds our grasp. You have to accept your limitations and let go of what is beyond you. Crichton had the courage to take the necessary action. He finds comfort in discovering that about himself. I suspect he sometimes wonders what was lost and what might have been. Maybe he'll find the wisdom to let go of it.
About 34 or 35 A.D., a year or two after Jesus was crucified and raised from the tomb, the Jerusalem church was growing by leaps and bounds. So much so, that the synagogue felt threatened. Christianity was still a part of Judaism, still part of the temple cult, and Christians were also members of synagogues. The disciples of Jesus found that the teaching and ministering took all their time, so they instituted the office of deacon. A deacon is someone who serves in a religious office - their job is to see that the poor and widows are not neglected - they bring physical comfort while the apostles are then free to preach and teach. Stephen was one of these. He showed himself to be a person of faith, a natural leader, and progressive in his ideas. Clearly he believed that all Christians are called to voice a strong witness to their belief in Christ, regardless of their office in the church. He might have been grooming to become an apostle or bishop, if he had lived until the 50s or 60s. But in the mid--30s in Jerusalem, it wasn't good to be a Christian who got attention.
Unlike the crucifixion of Jesus which coldly used the legal system to get a man hanged, the stoning of Stephen was a mob lynching, a crime of passion of the moment with no basis in law.
Ironically, it is the synagogue and not the Romans that bring the first persecution on the church, and it is not a disciple that is killed, but a deacon. Stoning was the customary means of execution in Israel from Old Testament times, and this emphasizes that it is Israel that does this, not the Romans, who would use crucifixion. The garments laid at the feet of an official signify an identification procedure. Your coat or your cloak were a part of you. The Saul mentioned is Saul of Tarsus, who later changes sides rather dramatically.
Thirteen epistles in the New Testament were written by Paul. We know that they are the earliest Christian literature that we have, and that these letters did much to shape the early church. Knowing this, it is difficult to remember that Paul was an enemy of the church and did what he could to snuff it out before it could get started well.
It was Hellenistic Jews who brought the charge against Stephen. The synagogue of the Freedmen (Cyrenean and Alexandrian former slaves) may have been Stephen's own synagogue. Some have discerned in his frequent references to "wisdom" (four times in his speech, nowhere else in Acts) a flavor of Alexandrian culture.
Well, there was something of a trial you can read about in Acts, and they stoned Stephen to death, a legal form of execution with a ritual attached. The accusers lay their coats at the feet of the person in charge and then cast the first stones. Then anyone who wants to join in can take part in the stoning. A good deterrent for criminals, but when a mob gets going, some mistakes can happen.
Now, I want you to look at how Stephen lets go. He sees into heaven; sees the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and he says so. As Luke reports it, this is the statement that angers the mob and turns a routine execution into a near lynching. And the last thing he says is, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."
He let go his life serenely. He even let go his anger and hate and self--pity and everything else, and clung to Jesus - even to imitating the last words of Jesus, "Father, forgive them."
This is a great example of what Jesus is talking about to the disciples in today's Gospel Lesson. You know the way. The way is Jesus.
When Jesus says he is the way, doesn't that change the direction of our lives? Isn't our destination important enough to have some serious conversation about it? How many sermons do you hear about heaven outside of a funeral?
C. S. Lewis asked this question in his 1940 work, The Problem of Pain. Professor Lewis was an atheist. But in searching himself with intellectual honesty, he became a Christian. He used his great intellect and talent for writing to produce some of the greatest modern Christian classics. One of the problems of believing, he says, is that heaven sounds like "pie in the sky, bye and bye." In the modern age, it's embarrassing to talk about heaven. To imagine a happy world in the hereafter is an escape from unhappiness in this world. It shirks the duty of making this world better. Also, it raises a question of the character of God: What kind of God would create a world where the creatures a world where the creatures have to be bribed into believing? He says:
Heaven offers nothing that a mercenary soul can desire. It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to. There are rewards that do not sully motives. A man's love for a woman is not mercenary because he wants to marry her, nor his love for poetry mercenary because he wants to read it, nor his love of exercise less disinterested because he wants to run and leap and walk. Love, by definition, seeks to enjoy its object.
Now, that's what Christianity is really all about. Letting go of this world and latching on to God in Christ, so much so that he becomes the way for us to go. In fact, the way and the destination. To be one in Christ and one with Christ. To lose yourself in him.
R. Buckminster Fuller upon meditating on losing over 150 pounds, asked the question: "Since that is as much as a person weighs, was that person me? If so, where did I go?"
The Christian knows where and he knows the way. He lets go of himself and latches on to Jesus.
____________
1. Michael Crichton, Travels (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988), p. 79f.
2. C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillan, 1962), p. 145.
