{"id":268,"date":"2019-05-26T12:54:53","date_gmt":"2019-05-26T12:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/?p=268"},"modified":"2019-05-28T00:57:56","modified_gmt":"2019-05-28T00:57:56","slug":"sixth-sunday-of-easter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/2019\/05\/26\/sixth-sunday-of-easter\/","title":{"rendered":"Sixth Sunday of Easter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Acts\n16:9-15, John 5:1-9<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace to you and peace\nfrom God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nis something in the stories we read today, about the immediacy of the reactions\nof the sick man by the pool of Beth-za\u2019tha and the Apostle Paul\u2019s decision to go\nto Macedonia. We it seems are of a very different mind-set today. Maybe it\u2019s\nthe culture of our time, maybe it is just our inbred resistance to blind\nobedience, something that seems to be a part of our American way. I can imagine\na sick person (in our time), laying by a healing pool, having waited for the\nopportunity to get into the pool for 38 years, being approached by Jesus; and\nlet\u2019s say that the person recognizes Jesus as the Messiah and as a healer; I\ncan imagine the sick person when told by Jesus to get up, looking at Jesus and saying,\n\u201cYou mean me?\u201d and then, \u201cAre you sure, I haven\u2019t walked for a long time, can I\nthink about it? Let me just steady myself first\u201d. In our time, in our culture, almost\nno one would get right up, no matter how wonderful the result might be; maybe\nit\u2019s that \u201cparalysis of analysis\u201d thing; we have to think everything through. It\u2019s\nalmost as though we want to argue about everything. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nsick man from our story in John\u2019 Gospel and Paul in our story from Acts did not\nhave this problem; Jesus told the sick man to get up and he did so immediately;\nPaul had a nighttime vision of a man from Macedonia calling for him to come to\nhim; Paul interpreted the vision as a call for him and his followers to go to\nMacedonia and preach to the people there. And what did he and his followers do?\nThey got right up, got on a boat and went there. I\u2019d be looking for another\nexplanation to the vision, like maybe I should stay put and wait for a man from\nMacedonia to find me. If I decided to go, I would first check prices for the\nbest deal; I would carefully pack my things and then when I had convinced my\nfollowers, who would also be asking questions, checking prices and gathering\ntogether their things, then, maybe weeks later, we would go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

No\none today, just gets up one morning and decides and then leaves on that same day.\nIt took our Church Council, doing its due-diligence, three months to, in the\nend, decide to stay with our current insurance carrier. How many meetings and\ndiscussions, and how long did it take for us to decide what colors to paint the\ninside of the church? The result was good, but the point is, we do not get up\nand just do anything. It\u2019s our way to question and angst over every move that\nwe are going to make. And this is being said by a person that often acts\nspontaneously, sort of. If it is local, I\u2019ve been known to visit a person, who\njust moments before, came to mind; if it is local and if I\u2019m in the right frame\nof mind. I attribute such visits to the Holy Spirit\u2019s urgings, because of how\noften, I seem to show up at a time of need, a need that I knew nothing about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is\nit possible for us, to when we hear Jesus\u2019 word, to just get up and do as his\nword directs us? Is it within us to respond to the visions put before us by the\nHoly Spirit and not question, and not delay? One person, here, told me how she\nwas moved to forgive a family member, by what she heard here in church and how\nit has made things better for her, much as the sick man, by responding to\nJesus\u2019 words, was healed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s\nnot easy for us to just accept the word of God and immediately act upon it. I often\nwonder how often I have failed the Lord, by not moving immediately to make a\ncertain visit, or phone call, because I was being stubborn that day or because\nI just wanted to sit and think about it, or because I couldn\u2019t fit it into my\nbusy schedule or because that day I was simply lazy. It\u2019s not our way to jump\nto, and do things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\nwant to plan; don\u2019t get me wrong planning is good. But we also use planning as\nan excuse. How many of us have missed opportunities, how many opportunities has\nthe church missed, because we first had to moll things over, and plan things to\nthe \u201cnth\u201d degree, when such planning may not have been (so) needed. We as the\nchurch, it seems, have to walk a fine line between spontaneity and planning. Spontaneity\ncomes in response to the Holy Spirit\u2019s call to action. Planning is necessary\nfor those things that involve the organization, we call the Church; we need to\nplan for our financial stability, we need to plan for the care of our church\nbuilding and grounds, we need to plan our educational and fellowship programs,\nwe need to plan ways to reach out to the community to share Jesus\u2019 word and we need\nto plan our programs of outreach that share Jesus\u2019 love with the community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\nare times when the sharing of Jesus\u2019 word and love needs to be done, when the\nHoly Spirit calls us, when there is no time to plan, when planning may keep us\nfrom making known Jesus\u2019 word and love as the Holy Spirit sees the need. I was\njust a student at the time, but there was a situation when my pastoral\nsupervisor, was looking at the clock, doing some church work, when he should\nhave been listening to the Spirit\u2019s guidance (by way of a funeral director) and\nstarting the funeral service, not as scheduled but as needed, before the\nemotions took hold and the mother of the deceased teen ran out of the church\nand the teens sister as well. As emotions rose, the service was now delayed\nbecause the family needed to search for their missing family members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God\u2019s\ntime, is sometimes, right away! We need to listen for what the Spirit has in\nmind for us and our church, and be ready to act when the moment is now, much as\nour soldiers learned to act immediately as ordered, responding in battle with\nimmediacy. We remember those today who gave up their lives doing as was needed\nwithout delay, without questioning their leaders (leaders who were flawed human\nbeings). Can we learn to follow the Lord (who is not flawed) with as much\nfervor and commitment and a desire to share, not injure, but share Jesus\u2019 love?\nToday and each day, share Jesus\u2019 love, help those that you can, forgive those\nwho hurt you, give to the ministry of Jesus as you are able and share the good\nthat you have experienced and learned. The opportunities are there, begin doing\nthis today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Acts 16:9-15, John 5:1-9 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ There is something in the stories we read today, about the immediacy of the reactions of the sick man by the pool of Beth-za\u2019tha and the Apostle Paul\u2019s decision to go to Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":269,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268\/revisions\/269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}