Weekly Sermon

Open the Door

Psalm 127:1-2; Acts 12:1-17

The Reverend Anne Benefield

Geneva Presbyterian Church, October 13, 2002

About that time, King Herod laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church. He had James, the brother of John, killed with the sword. After he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. (This was during the festival of Unleavened Bread.) When he had seized him, he put him in prison and handed him over to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending to bring him out to the people after the Passover. While Peter was kept in prison, the church prayed fervently to God for him. The very night before Herod was going to bring him out, Peter, bound with two chains, was sleeping between two soldiers, while guards in front of the door were keeping watch over the prison. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him, saying, "Get up quickly." And the chains fell off his wrists. The angel said to him, "Fasten your belt and put on your sandals." He did so. Then he said to him, "Wrap your cloak around you and follow me." Peter went out and followed him; he did not realize that what was happening with the angel's help was real; he thought he was seeing a vision. After they had passed the first and the second guard, they came before the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went outside and walked along a lane, when suddenly the angel left him. Then Peter came to himself and said, "Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hands of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting." As soon as he realized this, he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John whose other name was Mark, where many had gathered and were praying. When he knocked at the outer gate, a maid named Rhoda came to answer. On recognizing Peter's voice, she was so overjoyed that, instead of opening the gate, she ran in and announced that Peter was standing at the gate. They said to her, "You are out of your mind!" But she insisted that it was so. They said, "It is his angel." Meanwhile Peter continued knocking; and when they opened the gate, they saw him and were amazed. He motioned to them with his hand to be silent, and described for them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he added, "Tell this to James and to the believers." Then he left and went to another place. Prayer: God of all miracles, may we read your voice at the gate and respond by letting you in. Amen. It doesn't matter whether you believe this was a miracle complete with an angel or a miracle carried out by people. Either way, a miracle took place. Albert Einstein said, "There are only two ways to life your live. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is." I try to live as if everything is a miracle. [As quoted by Dan Wakefield, Expect a Miracle, (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1995), p. 35] There are a number of things to notice about this story. First, let's take a minute to note what happens before the miracle. Herod has James, the brother of John, executed. Luke writes, "About that time King Herod laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church." What a phrase that is, "laid violent hands." In the Bible study on this passage last Sunday, Sheri Sankey fixed on that phrase and pointed out what a contrast there is between laying violent hands on someone and laying healing and empowering hands on them. It struck me that we in the church need to examine whether we aren't guilty of sometimes laying on violent hands instead of healing hands. In her book, The Preaching Life, Barbara Brown Taylor told of her first experience of the church. She writes about the first pastor she knew who was "young and vital without a family of his own…[he] soon became a regular guest at our supper table…He listened to me when I talked and let me lead him on tours of my projects around the house. He seemed able, when he looked at me, to see a person and not only a child and I loved him for it." The pastor showed her feel that she was important to God. She was transformed, but things changed. She writes, "I was a willing student until the day I lost my teacher. At first, all I knew was that something was wrong. Threat hung in the air as it had on those dark afternoons in Kansas [where we lived before], only this time it was not the weather. 'Civil rights' had come to Ohio, a phrase that made adults talk loudly and lose their tempers. They chose sides and defended them; they wanted my friend [the pastor] to choose sides too, and he did. The doors of the church were open, he said. He would stand there to make sure they remained open, he said, so that is where they hung him-in effigy-a grotesque stuffed figure that bore no resemblance to my friend, swaying in the heat as he packed and left town." [Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life, (Cambridge: Cowley Publications, 1993), 14-15] Over the years when we have had differences in the church, we have often laid violent hands upon each other. I know we don't have fistfights in the parking lot, at least not most of the time, but we do violence to each other's souls and hearts. In our passage, Herod lay on the violent hands. We can't control the violence perpetrated outside the church, but within the church, we have a call to share healing care for each other, for our community and for our country. The next thing that I want you to notice in this passage is that the Lord can set us free. Even before Peter is led out of the prison, he is at peace. Peter, the man famous for his passion, is sleeping peacefully on the eve of his execution. He knew he was going to die the next day; he was in prison chained to two soldier guards. It would have been cold and uncomfortable. They were resting on hard, cold stones or a hard-packed dirt floor. Rats were scampering around. His friends would have brought his only food, but the guards would have eaten most or all of it. (In those days, prisons didn't provide food for prisoners.) Among all this misery, Peter was sleeping peacefully. That is the first miracle. Peter was calm and able to sleep on the night before he was to be executed. The idea of sleeping soundly reminds me of a story that Fred Craddock tells. One time when he was waiting for a plane at the airport in Kansas City, he "fell into conversation with a fellow from a [university] in the Netherlands. He was in this country completing a…study on the influence of the conversation between doctors and nurses with the patient in surgery who is under anesthesia…He found that if the doctors and nurses were negative and gripey and grumpy, then the patient in post-operative conditions was depressed and pessimistic. If the doctors and nurses were upbeat, happy, merry, and cheerful, then the patient in post-operative care was euphoric and optimistic and proceeded to recover quickly. The time came when Reverend Craddock had to catch his plane. He thanked the young man for the conversation, and the young man said, 'Why, are you a doctor?' "Reverend Craddock said, 'Oh, no, I'm a preacher. But if it'll work in surgery, it'll work in the sanctuary.' So when Reverend Craddock goes somewhere to speak, and people are asleep, it doesn't bother him, because he knows that several days later they may get a little Christian twitch. They won't know what caused it, but Reverend Craddock will know." [Fred Craddock, Craddock Stories, (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), 29.] It is very easy for all of us to become entrapped by the world-to worry about status and money. This is the time of year when I start worrying about the budget and the pledges. It's interesting how we personalize our worries. I'm sure that we'll all pledge what we can. I'm sure that each of us will do our best. My worry is that the total of our best won't be enough. Then I'm afraid that people will be disappointed in me for not inspiring them enough. See how that happens. I, a person of faith, begin to worry about how I will look. That's about as sinful an approach to a pledge drive as I can imagine. It reminds me of a story that Tony de Mello told in his book The Song of the Bird. He wrote, "Uncle Tom had a weak heart and the doctor had warned him to be very careful. So when the family learned that he had inherited a billion dollars from a deceased relative they feared to break the news to him lest the news give him a heart attack. "So they sought the services of the local pastor, who assured them he would find a way. 'Tell me, Tom,' said Father Murphy, 'if God, in his mercy, were to send you a billion dollars, what would you do with it?' "'I'd give half of it to you for the Church, Father.' "When he heard that, Father Murphy had a heart attack!" [Anthony de Mello, S.J., The Song of the Bird, (New York: Image Books, Doubleday, 1982), 110. We are imprisoned by our desire to accumulate prestige and wealth. It keeps us from sleeping at night. Only Christ can guide us beyond our personal prison guards. It is only in Christ that we are freed to accept each other in peace, and it is only in Christ that we can be set free from our worries. I have to admit that I must ask Christ to free me again and again and again-not daily, more like hourly. My favorite part of this story is what happens when Peter gets to Mary's house where people are praying for him. Did you notice? Peter knocks on the outer gate and waits for an answer. Rhoda, a maid, goes to the door and asks, "Who's there?" When Peter answers, she is so flustered that she doesn't open the door. She runs back and announces that Peter is at the door. No one believers her. The situation is reminiscent of when Mary and the other women ran back from the tomb to tell the disciples that Jesus' body was gone. I think that what Rhoda does is so much like what we do. God speaks to us and we won't open the door. If we realize that God is speaking to us, we get stuck in that miracle. We don't open the door; we just stand by the door and marvel that God has spoken to us. Tony Campolo tells a great story about how long it can take us to open the door. "He was a bus driver in London. One day his boss told him that Billy Graham, an American evangelist, had come to town, and that a lot of people had to be bused in from towns and villages around about London, so they could hear him speak at Wimbley Stadium…[So the bus driver went to pick up some of the people.] As they were getting off the bus to go into the stadium, one of them turned to him and asked, 'Why don't you join us? Why don't you come in and listen to Billy Graham? I'm sure you need what he has to say.' The bus driver turned down the invitation. "The following year he moved to New York City, got a temporary work visa and again took a job as a bus driver. One day he was told that Billy Graham was going to speak at Madison Square Garden, and that people in communities as far away as Philadelphia were coming to hear him…[He was assigned to pick up some people who were coming.] As people were getting off his bus, one of them stopped and asked him to join them. The passenger said that the bus driver would benefit a great deal from what Billy Graham had to say, but he turned him down. "The bus driver married an Australian, and a few years later found himself in Sydney, Australia. Once again, he took a job driving a bus. And once again, he was told that Billy Graham was in town and that he was to drive some church folks to the stadium where the evangelist would be preaching. He did, and as the people were getting off the bus, a man said, 'Why don't you come in with us? It would do you a world of good, and it would make me very happy. You really need to hear what this man has to say, mate!' The bus driver 'figured there was no escaping it. No matter where I went, I was confronted with this Billy Graham. So I went in to hear him speak. It was then that I fell under conviction and made a decision to give my life to Christ.'" [Tony Campolo, Let Me Tell You a Story: Life Lessons from unexpected places and unlikely People, (Nashville: Word Publishing, 2000), 10-11. The Lord can set us free from our hatred and from our longing for the things of the world that imprison us. He knocks on the door, but he will not come in unless we open the door. He is always waiting there, but he honors our free will. Today, as everyday, he asks, "Are you ready to be a part of the miracle I've planned for you? Today?"