The Easter
Realization: Your God Is Too Small
Pastor Mathew Magera – 5/6/18 – Sermon 286
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from
God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
When I'm in the driver's
seat on a long road trip, comfort is my enemy. When I'm comfortable for a long
period of time, my attentiveness to my surroundings begins to deteriorate, my
focus begins to fade and the weight of my eyelids seems to rise exponentially.
When I was in driver's education in my sophomore year of high school, I
remember taking a test on which there was the question: What should you do when
you feel drowsy while driving? I looked at all the possible answers and I
picked the one that made the most sense to me, the answer I had grown up with
and had been taught by experience and observation. What should you do when you
feel drowsy while driving? Turn up the volume on the radio, of course.
Unfortunately, while this had been the practice in my family, this was not the
answer my instructor was looking for. I should've said that I would stop the
car, get out and walk around or find a place to rest. Comfort while we are
driving can be dangerous. At some point, even the sudden illumination of the brake
lights in front of us, the yellow on the traffic light or even the passing
raccoon won't jolt us back to attention and we will succumb to the inevitable
instinct of our bodies to close our eyes and rest.
In the same way, too much
comfort can be dangerous to our faith. Too much comfort has the ability to
slowly narrow our understanding of God and the power of his message of love and
grace. Too much comfort can cause the message to become static and cold, not
that the message is no longer true but that it is no longer affecting us as it
once did. When nothing changes, much like while we are driving, we get tired,
bored. When our faith is not active, when it is not being nurtured, poked and
prodded at, I feel like it gets bored and it begins to fall asleep. When we no
longer allow any stimuli to affect us, to motivate us, to work on us, to make
us ask questions we risk our faith becoming so narrow that it is no longer
receptive to the grace of God that comes to us in the salvation story.
I happened upon a book this
week in my studies called, "Your God is Too Small." In this book,
author J.B. Phillips claims, "the trouble with many people today is that
they have not found a God big enough for modern needs. While their experience
of life has grown in a score of directions, and their mental horizons have been
expanded to the point of bewilderment by world events and by scientific
discoveries, their ideas of God have remained largely static."[1]
In essence, what he is saying is that in life when things change constantly we internally
seek to find something to remain constant and what better to make constant than
our faith in God. For we know that God does not change, right? There is truth
in that statement that God does not change but if we do not fully understand
God, any newly learned facet of God's existence or love or grace comes to us as
a change. God has not changed but instead our learning makes it appear as such.
These changes, this learning, then, is good for us and beneficial for our
faith.
In Acts chapter 10, a major
change appears to take place, a change that if Peter and Cornelius were not
open to would severely limit the ability for their faith to grow. Prior to this
point, the message of the resurrection was only true for Jews. The scope of
salvation was only for those whom God had chosen. For the Gentiles, for the
Samaritans, for the Romans, for anyone who was not Jewish, Jesus did not rise
from the dead for them, to their knowledge. The Jewish people had been saved,
their Messiah had come. However, this limited understanding of the resurrection
was about to change. Peter and Cornelius were about to discover that God was
bigger than they had ever imagined.
Acts 10 starts out with
Peter having a vision in which a feast is lowered down from heaven for him. God
invites Peter to kill and eat but Peter realizes that everything that had been
set before him was not kosher. Everything before him was unclean and as a
result he could not do it and so he refuses to follow God's direction. God rebukes
Peter at this point explaining that if God makes something clean then it is
clean. If God invites Peter to eat something then God has made it edible and
ritually clean. Peter here was being changed. Peter's understanding of God at
the time had been limited by the provisions of the Law. God had been in a box.
Peter was about to see that God was bigger than how he understood God to be.
At the same time, a man
named Cornelius receives a vision telling him to send for Peter so that Peter
might preach to him. Cornelius was a Roman soldier. He was not Jewish. Not
being Jewish, Cornelius must have known that even though he believed in God,
trusted God, feared God, he would never be acceptable to God because he was not
part of God's chosen people. So, he receives this vision to send for Peter so
that Peter would preach to him. God wants Peter to come to him. Peter, the one
whose God fit into a box. Peter, the one who would not eat a hot slab of baby
back ribs even if there was nobody around to watch him do it. This same Peter
was being summoned to preach to a Gentile, a waste of Peter's time.
But when Peter arrived we
can see in one simple statement that both of these men's lives and their faith
could be changed by a God who does not reside in a box, "I now realize how
true it is that God does not show favoritism." I like how it is said in
another translation, "Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but
in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to
him." God had come out of the box. The scope of salvation became larger
than either Peter or Cornelius could ever have imagined. Their God was too
small. The reality is that God was and is much bigger.
Are we done letting God
surprise us? Are we happy with what we have? Do we just want things to remain
constant? We already know salvation has been given to us, that’s not really
new. But, have we become convinced that experiences like that which happened to
Peter and Cornelius just don’t happen anymore?
Any single one of us can
come into worship and speak the words on the page, we can recite the creeds,
sing the hymns and hear the absolution. Any one of us can do this in worship
and just let them pass over you as if they meant little to nothing. In fact,
people are leaving the church across the country because it seems old and
repetitive. I mean, if you set your LBW down, how many of them would
automatically open to page 56? I’m kidding, of course. But, at the same time,
I’m not. Now, I’m not saying that the repetition is bad. It is a language and a
language that we need. But, do we ever focus hard enough that we see something
different or something that we have never seen before? Likewise, what do the
words we speak in here do for us out there? We hear the words of forgiveness in
here. We hear Jesus’ teachings for us in here. How much of that do we
experience out there? Anyone of us can say Christ is risen. Any one of us can
hear those words. But, using those words as a foundation, how does it affect us
out there? Where are we seeing fingerprints of that message out there? Experiencing
the effects of the resurrection in our own personal lives makes the Easter
story that much more powerful and influential for us. It makes it real and it
makes it new.
There are so many parts of
our week where we just don’t want God to be or don’t think he would want to
touch with a ten foot pole. If we would just let him into those parts, we might
have a Peter and Cornelius kind of experience. I need to know that I am covered
with the blood of Jesus when I feel like an unworthy person, when I feel like a
bad husband or father. I need to know that I am covered with the blood of Jesus
when I'm dabbling in sin yet again. I need that understanding of grace in that
moment. I can't wait until Sunday for it nor should I let anyone else wait
until Sunday for it. These are the moments God was made for. Not that God was
made, but I think you know what I mean. These are the moments that God excels
at bringing grace and freedom, in those everyday mundane kind of moments and if
we aren’t looking for him, it’s as if we have just gotten comfortable with the
way things are, that they are just meant to be disappointing, depressing, draining.
The arguments, the stress,
the spontaneous change of plans. That’s where God wants to be. When you’re
alone and struggling with your thoughts. That’s where God wants to be. We sit
there in the middle of the week getting twinges of guilt about our lack of abilities,
what we haven’t done, what we haven’t said. That voice in our head says we
should be better and we listen to that voice and believe it. During those times
when we forget to bake a cake for a party, neglect to cherish those moments
with our children, when we don’t get the chores done we were asked to do a
million times, when we burn dinner, when we accidentally lash out at our
spouse, these moments are when God wants to come to us, change us and to show
us that he is bigger than we ever imagined.
When Jesus died on the cross
and rose from the dead, he did not do it in spite of the messiness of our weekly
lives. When Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead, he did it knowing
full well that our weekly lives would remain exactly what they always have
been. Burdensome. Lonely. Mundane. Repetitive. But, though our weeks may
continue in this way, moment by moment, day by day, these are the places into
which God’s gracious, hospitable, loving Spirt can pour forth. In the middle of
our week when we are stuck, we too can be changed by the grace and love of God.
God brought Jesus back from the grave to usher us into His heavenly kingdom,
yes. But, beyond the theology, beyond the sanctity of our worship, beyond the
candles, the standing, the sitting, beyond the organ, the altar, the pulpit,
the pews, beyond all these God brought Jesus back from the grave so that he
could live in us, so he could whisper into our hearts on those less than
perfect days so that we may feel his presence and be changed in the midst of
that which we feel cannot be changed.
When Peter spoke those
monumental words to Cornelius, “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality”
there is no doubt that Peter and Cornelius were both changed in the simple-ness
of their daily lives but these words hold truth and promise for us too. God
does not limit himself to the Jews. God does not limit himself to Lutherans.
God does not limit himself to regular church attendees. God does not limit
himself to those who are clean and sober. God does not limit himself to those
who are strong and healthy. God does not limit himself to those who put money
in the offering plate. God does not limit himself to those who are confident
and outgoing. God does not play favorites. God shows no partiality.
By all means, we should
experience the Gospel here. Let it change you here. Be fed with the Word, be
fed with the bread and wine, be fed by remembering your Baptism and the
promises attached to it. But do not prevent the Gospel from changing you out
there too and meeting you wherever you happen to be. Do not prevent it from
entering your life out there because out there is just as real as in here. If
sometime this week you feel the presence of God coming to you in some way,
don't be like Peter and say, "No, God, this isn't right, you can't do
this." Instead, be open to how God is trying to work in your life. Let it
poke at your faith and move around a little. Let it unsettle you, let it allow
you to ask questions and to be unsure. In all of that remember that God is
still bigger than we can imagine. And if God is bigger than we can imagine, you
better believe that his grace is bigger too.
Don't get comfortable with
your faith. Like driving on a road trip if we become too comfortable we may
miss what is going on around us and fall into a deep sleep, oblivious to what
God is trying to do in us. Always be on the lookout for where he is trying to
bring you into the freedom of the Gospel. Look beyond these walls and if it
feels like God is trying to pop out of the box, go ahead and let him do it.
Where else is God extending
salvation to you within your world? How might your answer to that question lead
you to discovering new, corresponding meaning to the Easter story in the same
way that led Peter to preach to Cornelius with the proclamation, “Truly I
understand that God shows no partiality?” To God be the glory, now and always.
Amen.