WE WILL BE FAITHFUL, WITH GOD'S HELP

While I was in seminary, in New York City, I got hooked on the Times. Coffee, bagel, the New York Times. Ah, the student life. What luxury! The Washington Post may win more awards, but I didn't live there for three years. Someday, maybe I'll also get their catchy headlines via e-mail. My wife says that, if the first sentence of a book doesn't grab her, she may not read further. Headlines are like that. Here are two headlines that grabbed me recently.

"Seattle is the Dalai Lama's Kind of Town." "In a town where 'oms' often drone out 'hallelujahs,'" the story goes, "more than 150,000 people were expected to flock to hear the Dalai Lama during a five-day conference" (NYT, 4/11/08). It seems that more than 100,000 people practice Tibetan Buddhism in that part of the world. Buddhism is described in the story as "a spiritual way of being in the world, a way of non-violence and peace."

Here's another headline: "Candles, Clergy and Communion for 57,000." Tomorrow Pope Benedict XVI arrives for a six-day visit to Washington, D.C., and New York, where there will be a mass at Yankee Stadium. "Among the profound - and mundane - questions they are confronting: How do 530 priests and deacons give communion to 57,000 people in 14 minutes?" (NYT, 4/12/08).

What, besides a lesson in sacramental distribution, do those visits have to do with us? Will anyone here be dropping what they're doing this week and go to the District to see the Pope? Most of us will be following things electronically. The former director of an Asian museum in Seattle, a member of the steering committee for the Dalai Lama's conference, said he was still deciding whether to attend the main event. "Somebody was joking with me," he said. " 'I think I can feel the compassion (by)…sitting in my house, watching it on cable.'"

Just before I was ordained, I went on retreat at a Catholic monastery. One morning, as I walked down the hallway, I turned a corner. A photo on the wall grabbed me like one of those headlines. It was a picture of Pope John II and the 1979 Grant Park Mass. That was his only visit to Chicago. More than a million people came. The phrase used by reporters to describe the mood was "love fest." The Pope's headline? "We, though many, are one body in Christ." After mass, police officers gathered up the 17,000 chrysanthemums from around the altar and gave them all away to nursing homes. The news story, now on the internet, said, "Whether they were among the 1.2 million in the crowd or only able to watch the mass on television, Chicago's Roman Catholics - and many of other faiths - were overjoyed."

That photograph grabbed me, as I remembered how watching the Grant Park Mass on TV had moved me so deeply. "Wow," I said the day of the broadcast. "Look at that! What's going on there? What's that all about?" Yet even though I made spiritual connections through TV, even though watching that event changed my life, even so. . .God had more in mind. God always does.

We have become a culture of virtual reality, which for some is now nearly their entire reality. Tom Brokaw put it this way: "Life away from the keyboard, the PDA and the cell phone is a life in which you connect to the websites of your personal convictions…It will do us little good to wire the world," he said, "if we short-circuit our souls" (Commencement address, Stanford University, June 18, 2006). Sooner or later, we have to engage in something other than electronics. We can't stay forever outside, looking in. Our souls need more. God wants more for us and from us.

The God who knows us each by name, the God who revives our souls, our God wants to connect with us, at a deeper, soul level, There is so much more to our relationship with God, each other and the rest of creation than what we see on a screen. Life with God is more than "dancing with the stars." It's not about celebrities, not even heavenly bodies like the Dalai Lama or the Pope. Real life with God is about experiencing what God does in the lives of real people, ordinary people, people like you and me. The real excitement, the real buzz is about what God does when we, people of faith, are faithful.

God calls us, not to success or celebrity, but to faithfulness. After Easter, especially after Pentecost, some awesome things began to happen in the early church. But all of those signs and wonders began with taking some simple steps. Today's story from Acts starts this way: "Those who had been baptized devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers." Teaching, fellowship, worship, prayer. The disciples discovered that following Jesus was really that simple. The Acts passage ends with this headline: "Day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved." About three thousand, we're told. Signs and wonders galore. And they shared everything they had. Wow. What's going on there? What's that all about?

It's about faithfulness. It's about faithfulness in the God who is faithful to us. Sometimes it has something to do with a dramatic entrance, like Jesus appearing to Thomas or to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, like the Pope coming to a stadium near you. More often, though, it's about what Mother Teresa called "doing small things with great love." Little, loving things. Like when we smile at or talk to our neighbor. Like when we express our difficult feelings non-violently. Like when we invite someone to come to our church.

If we truly want our church to grow, if we truly want our church to be healthy, if we truly want our church to be faithful, then we will be faithful. We will keep the main thing, as they say, the main thing. We will remember that it is not we who save and heal others. It is God who saves and heals us, so that God can save and heal others and do other signs and wonders through us.

If we really want to be in the "God business," we will do little things with great love. We will read our Bibles and come to classes. We will come to church - even in the summertime! We will invite a friend to church and hang out with our church and other friends. We will pray. And when we pray, we will dare to ask God to open our hearts and our minds, that we might do what God would have us do. Then we will get up, go into our world and do it.

Yet being a disciple of Jesus Christ is not easy. In all of this, we need help. We need God, and God will help us. We need each other. And believe it or not, we need to remember some headlines. In our Baptismal Covenant, those promises we make and renew at each Baptism, the first question asked is this: "Will you continue in the apostles teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in the prayers?" Our answer? It's a headline: "I will, with God's help." Say it with me: "I will, with God's help."

Let us pray. Lord Jesus Christ, the believers in your day devoted themselves to small things with great love. They followed you, both before and after your resurrection. Jesus, we are your believers now. We believe; help our unbelief. We know you know each of us by name. We know you have more in mind, so help us. Help us to ask for your help. Help us to know you. Help us to say, "I will, with God's help." Help us to be faithful, to be a community of faith and of faithfulness. Help us to see the signs and wonders all around us. And Jesus, help us to be one body, YOUR body. We will be faithful, with your help. We will be faithful, with your help. In your name we pray it. AMEN.