Reflections on "Signs" Acts 2: 42-47

If you were looking for some pre-sermon reflections, you did not find them.  The blog was down one time when I tried to offer some thoughts, and then I never returned for a second try.  That may be fitting since this will be my last blog until after August 15th.  

As I have mentioned previously, the chapel and sanctaury gatherings often have a very different feel to them.  This was particularly true last Sunday as I shared the illustration taken from the Pastor Nominating Committee's interview of me 12 years ago.  In the chapel, the illustration seemed to capture the congregation's imagination; in the sanctuary, it came across like a ho-hum story that the congregation couldn't wait for me to finish.  Of course, I never know if that is related more to my delivery or more to the moods of the people gathered in the pews.

After the service, someone asked me if by definition a sign from God ought to be so clear and obvious that there is no chance for differing interpretations.  While I like that sound of that (I suspect most of us would like the idea that we cannot miss signs from God), I do not believe that is true to how we experience God.  Of course, you can push the other direction and end up with the sense that signs from God are purely human imagination.  I do not believe that to be true either.  Although I did not makes this point, I wonder if the gospel  is found in the effort we make to interpret the sign or follow the sign.  In other words, I'll take my chances with someone who is focusing on what signs God might be sending them, particularly if the person is doing what those early Christians did and praying, gathering around the Lord's Table, and being in fellowship together.  In fact, the sermon would have been stronger if I had emphasized more how we create an environment for seeing signs from God.

“Signs” May 15, 2011; Acts 2: 42-; FPC, Troy

Introduction: I preached my first sermon on this text from Acts at the church I attended during college. After 4 years of participating in the life of the church and being nurtured by that congregation, our college group was asked to lead worship, including preaching the sermon.

I shared that sermon time with two classmates. We picked this text from Acts that describes the first Christian community of faith because of the important role that particular church had played in our lives during our college years.

I have preached on this text on several occasions over the years, and I am always drawn to the powerful description of community it provides. If we were to look this text up in most Bible commentaries, we would read about community.

But as I read this traditional post-Easter text recently, the phrase “awe and wonder came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles,” captivated me.

“Signs and wonders....”

To add to the mix, in the last few weeks I have had more conversations with people about signs they have noticed and how to know whether it is a sign from from God than I can remember.

Maybe that was sign that I ought to preach about signs!

A few thoughts on signs.

Move 1: If you are looking for signs, you can often find them.

a. Author quoted Dr. Richard Wiseman who studied lucky people in his 2003 book the Luck Factor. Wiseman did an experiment where he asked two groups of people (self-ascribed lucky or unlucky) to count photographs in a newspaper. The unluckies spent several minutes flipping through and carefully counting the pictures. The lucky knew the answer in a few seconds. How? On page two, Wiseman had inserted a printed message in two-inch-tall type: “Stop counting. There are forty-three photographs in the newspaper.” The lucky people, always on the lookout for the unexpected good fortune, spotted it right away. The unlucky people, whose minds are usually closed to such signs, missed it completely.” Rich Like them: My Door-to-Door Search for the Secrets of Wealth in America’s Richest Neighborhoods, Ryan D’Agostino (27)

b. Consider those early Christians who saw signs and wonders.

1. Most of them had never seen Christ his first go around.
2. Most of them had never seen the resurrected Christ.
3. But they had heard these stories – stories about the Son of God who lived among the people; stories about his crucifixion; stories about the empty tomb; stories about the resurrected Christ.
4. The stories compelled them to believe in the the Risen Christ and the God who sent Christ.
5. They believed in a God who was alive and in their midst.
6. They looked for signs of God's activity.
7. They discovered signs.
8. Not to say that the signs were merely something created by the imagination of those early followers of Christ.
9. But, expecting to see signs of God at work opened them up to what God was doing.
   c. Notice that these followers were not just sitting around hoping that they would see signs.
   1. Acts describes them as devoting themselves to the apostles' teachings and fellowship, breaking bread together and praying.
   2. They created an environment in which they could see the signs from God.

Move 2: Interpreting the signs often works best after the fact.

a. Snowy, January night in Troy, OH. The Pastor Nominating Committee gathers at the church for a phone interview. At the appointed hour, the phone call is made to an interviewee in KY.

I was the person to be interviewed. I have been at my office with the door closed for 15 or 20 minutes to make sure that the Pastor Nominating Committee from First Presbyterian Church in Troy, OH.

Introductions; about 5-7 minutes into the first answer, John cousins interrupts.

I called home as I waited. “Leslie, you're not going to believe this.. Maybe it's a sign from God!” we ministers look for signs, too.

15-20 minutes later. Another phone call; briefer introductions; start to answer the first question again; 3-5 minutes into it; John Cousins – this still isn't working; we care going to have to go to a committee member's house; roads are awful due to bad weather; may take awhile;

Another call home; another guess that God might be saying we shouldn't even have the interview;

Over an hour later, on the third phone call, after answering the first questions for the third time, everything seems to be working.

To top off the evening, the hour long phone call never showed up on the committee person's phone bill.

I have heard that story told as an affirmation of God's call for this congregation and me as its minister. “if we could make it through that interview, it had to be the right call!”

I'm glad we did not have to find out, but I suspect that if things had not worked out here and the congregation has sent me packing shortly after my arrival, the story of those phone calls would have been interpreted as a sign that the committee had ignored.

b. The Greek word for “awe” used in this morning's text can also be translated as “fear.”

1. what is the difference between “fear” and “awe” as this story of the early church is told?in this story?
2. The context in which the early church looks back and says, “Yes, God has been in our midst.”
3. They tell the story as people who have experienced the power few the Risen Christ in their lives and their world.

100. Part of growing in our faith is telling our story and interpreting how we have seen God at work.

1. There is great power in identifying the signs of God's presences as we reflect over our lives.
2. The Risen Christ comes alive for us and for others as we interpret what God has done.

Move 3: Act in faith in the moment.

a.

a. Think about those Israelites whom Moses was preparing to lead.

1. Here comes this guy with a story about talking to a burning bush.
2. This guy who tells them that the God who sends him is named, “I am who I am.”
3. What will it take for them to believe him and follow him into the wilderness?
4. Moses knows the people are going to need a sign or two.
5. God gives him a couple of signs.
6. Put your self in their place – Moses tells the story; he then offers a couple of signs.
7. What are you going to do?

b. Step out in faith.

1. The Israelites could refuse to follow and write those signs off as magical tricks.
2. The Israelites could ignore the signs and tune Moses out.
3. Ultimately, the Israelites have to act in faith.
4. They have to believe that what Moses does is a sign from God./

5. Later, in the Promised Land they can look back, tell the story and confirm that it was a sign from God.
6. But in that moment, they have to act in faith.

100. The good news we hear this morning is that God sends signs for us.
101. The challenge – we have to act in faith

Conclusion: In the opening pages of Willa Cather’s wonderful novel, Death Comes for the Archbishop, one priest says to the other, “Where there is great love, there are always great miracles.”

There is no greater love than that we God has for us that we have discovered in the resurrected Christ.

There will be signs.