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May 6, 2018 “Chosen” a Sermon by Cynthia M. Campbell Acts 10:44-48 J

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May 6, 2018 “Chosen” a Sermon by Cynthia M. Campbell Acts 10:44-48 J Highland Presbyterian Church 6th Sunday of Easter – May 6, 2018 “Chosen” A Sermon by Cynthia M. Campbell Acts 10:44-48 John 15:9-17 Back in 2005, a prominent Pentecostal pastor was denounced as a heretic and effectively disfellowshiped by this colleagues. Carlton Pearson was the founder of the Higher Dimensions megachurch in Tulsa and a protégé of Oral Roberts. An award-winning gospel singer, he preached to over 6,000 people a week. He was on the A-list of religious leaders in the Bush administration. Carlton Pearson had a high-profile, financially-rewarding ministry – until he stopped believing in hell. For decades, Pearson had preached pretty standard evangelical theology: salvation is for those who believe in Jesus. In fact, it is only for those who profess faith in Christ. All others are condemned to hell – eternal punishment and torment. Hell, in this view, is not just punishment for sins committed in one’s lifetime; hell is the fate of nonbelievers. Thus, the whole point of ministry is to get people saved and to keep them from backsliding. Your goal as a preacher is to convert. Your job is to get people saved from God’s promise of punishment. All of this worked pretty well for Carlton Pearson until one day when he was holding his baby daughter and watching news coverage of famine in Africa. There he was, in his luxurious home in Tulsa, a happy and healthy baby in his arms, watching children – bellies distended, trying to nurse from mothers with no milk – dying of starvation. All of these children were in a Muslim part of Africa, so (according to Pearson’s theology) they were all going to hell. They didn’t believe in Jesus, so their fate (he had always thought) was sealed. But then Pearson found himself saying, “But they are already in hell. This is their hell. And if God is good; if God is loving; if God is just and fair – how in the world could God decree that these tormented children be tormented for eternity? And if my job is to convert these people, to get them saved, then why am I not putting my child down and getting on the first thing that flies to Africa?” Then, Pearson says, he heard a voice – God’s voice – saying, “You don’t have to save them. We already have.” Carlton Pearson’s story was first profiled in 2005 on the radio program “This American Life” with Ira Glass. Last year, it was made into a movie entitled “Come Sunday,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and is now available on Netflix. It’s not a great film, but it is a fascinating story, and Martin Sheen appears as Oral Roberts, so that’s something. One of the lessons to be learned from this story is that beliefs have consequences. Theological ideas can have a profound impact on life choices. When Pearson changed his mind about hell, he lost his church, his community, his life-style; and for a while, he lost his moorings. But the saga of Carlton Pearson also illustrates that it is possible to find different (even divergent) theologies in the Bible. What is a “theology?” It is an attempt to explain in ideas or concepts what is presented in the Bible as narrative. Matthew and Luke tell us the story of the birth of Jesus. Theology calls that “incarnation” – the Word made flesh – and tries to explain what that means. To be a Christian is to affirm that Jesus is both Savior and Lord. What this means depends on your theology of salvation. And that depends on your starting point. In evangelical theology, it often 1 begins with a text like John 3:16: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” For evangelicals, the emphasis is on the word “believe.” It becomes an “if” – “then” proposition: if you believe, you are saved; if you don’t, you aren’t. Because (in this theology), it’s all about you believing. In the Reformed tradition, we tell the story a little differently. In the first place, when we read John 3:16, we emphasize God: “God so loved the world.” It is God who takes the initiative, and God’s motive is love. Another verse from John, one we just read, actually sums up our way of explaining salvation even better: “You did not choose me; I chose you.” In John’s gospel, Jesus is speaking to his followers, his closest friends, in the Upper Room just before his betrayal and death. These chapters contain some of the most beautiful and comforting of his sayings. “In my Father’s house there are many rooms …. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. Love one another as I have loved you.” And these incredible words: “you did not choose me; I chose you.” Jesus was speaking to his anxious friends in a time of great danger, but people of every age have heard him speaking directly to them (as he speaks to us) as well: “You did not choose me. Following me was not your idea; it was mine. You did not love me first. From the beginning, I loved you. I do not belong to you. You belong to me.” The initiative always belongs to God. Humans respond, yes; but it is always God who calls. It is the Good Shepherd who searches for the one lost sheep; the woman who scours every corner of the house until she finds her lost coin. This is how the story of Jesus and his followers unfolds: he invites Peter and Andrew, James and John; Mary Magdalene; the rest of the twelve; others we know by name and many we do not: “Come, follow me.” It was customary in the ancient world for students to choose their teachers, just as it is today – you decide who you want to study with; whose ideas you like; whose methods of teaching piano or voice or dance or painting you like best. You choose. But that’s not how it was with Jesus. He did not sit back and wait for them to find him. “You did not choose me; I chose you.” That’s how it is with God. This pattern of God’s divine and loving initiative goes back to the very beginning of the story. Abraham and Sarah are living out their lives in peace and quiet, when God comes to them and says, “Go – go to the land I will show you and I will make of you a great people, and through you all the families of earth will be blessed.” Moses was keeping the flocks of his father-in-law Jethro when a voice came from a burning bush calling him to become the shepherd of God’s people. And to those people in the wilderness, God said, “I have chosen you and you are mine. And this is the covenant I make: I will be your God and you will be my people.” Chosen. This is how we read the biblical story: that God acts in sovereign love; that God chooses us before we can choose God, that God’s love is free and unconditional and available to all. Now, sometimes people hear in this idea an exclusivism or elitism that is not there. It is abundantly clear in the biblical story that Israel is chosen for service, chosen to follow God’s path and thus to show the world what the path is that leads to life in all its abundance. I chose you, Jesus says to his disciples, so that you (your lives) might bear fruit, fruit that will last, fruit that will nourish others. We are not chosen for privilege; we are chosen for service. 2 You did not choose me; I chose you. This is the cornerstone on which we build our understanding of salvation and what it means to belong to God. This is why we baptize infants and young children: because we believe that, in Christ – through his love poured out for all – our children are claimed by God, chosen and precious, long before they can choose on their own. In the Reformed Church in France, there is a part of their baptismal liturgy that summarizes this beautifully. After baptizing the child, the pastor says: “For you, little child, Jesus came into this world. For you he suffered and died; for you he rose from the dead. And you, little child, do not yet know anything about this.” And that is our job: to tell each baptized child – each child – that she has been claimed by God; that he is chosen of the Lord and precious. Some time ago, one of you shared with me the words that Benny Benfield (pastor of this congregation in the 1950’s) always used as his benediction It summarizes the way we tell the story of Christian faith perfectly: “Depart now in the fellowship of God, and as you go remember – in the goodness of God you were born into this world. By the grace of God you have been kept all the day long, even until his hour. By the love of God you are redeemed.” Amen. Copyright by Cynthia M. Campbell 2018 3 4 .
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