Easter 7 - Transformed by the love of God,

 Acts 16: 16-34,   John 17: 20-26

I was very moved when I first saw some of those ‘cardboard testimonies’ which show the power of God to transform lives. 

eg. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrx-tJz_BtM 

 

Seeing what was written on those bits of cardboard and especially seeing the faces of the people holding them light up as they showed their testimonies made me feel that I would want all churches to be a channel of that transformative grace, through our worship and through service of the world around.

How can we help people to move from brokenness to peace?

 

When we look at the story from Acts it seems that there are many transformations in this story – or at least changes from one state to another – from brokenness to peace.

Paul has toured to every city in which he has preached, to see how they are getting on. Then Paul sees the vision of a man from Macedonia (what we would call Greece) calling for help, so he and Silas travel there, where Paul baptises Lydia (the dealer in purple cloth) and her household.

Then we come to the chain of events we heard today.

 

The first to experience change is the slave girl, whose spirit of divination is driven out by Paul. 

But why does he heal her? Because Paul is ‘very much annoyed’. A change from brokenness to peace because the healer is fed up with the person he heals.

This in turn annoys the owners of the girl, who stir up the crowd who change from listening to Paul & Silas to attacking and imprisoning them.

 

We are told that about midnight, Paul & Silas are praying and singing “and the prisoners were listening to them”. There is an earthquake, the doors fly open and the chains restraining the prisoners are broken.

Yet the prisoners do not make a break for it. Maybe they have experienced a change, listening to Paul & Silas?

 

The jailor, fearing the worst, is ready to kill himself rather than face the consequences for losing all his prisoners, but is reassured by Paul that there is no need for panic.

Then comes the focus of the whole account, as the jailor asks “sirs, what must I do to be saved?”.

 

Here is a man looking for transformation.

Paul & Silas preach to him and his household; the jailor washes their wounds and then he is baptised (in the same water?) and they all rejoice.

 

Whether any of these events change Paul or Silas is not recorded. Surely Paul, in particular, might need some change in his life – he has been in dispute with some of his friends, he gets irritated by the slave girl who’s following him round… yet in the midst of it he is preaching and baptising and seeing people change.

 

As we hear these stories of change from brokenness to peace we see that

They are not always straight-forward

Not always welcome

Not always done in a spirit of love and kindness

Yet it seems that God’s power makes change possible in even the most unlikely people.

 

How does this change happen? In the name of Jesus Christ.

 

So what is Jesus saying, in the gospel reading we heard?

In John’s gospel, Jesus prays for us. He makes it clear he is praying for the disciples in the room and those who believe through them.

And for what change does Jesus pray? That they – we – may be one.

This is not a shallow ‘getting along’ – never disagreeing, always smiling – it is a oneness that sees us all properly encorporated into Jesus as one body.

From this rag-tag bunch – to this people who are in Jesus and who know Jesus is in them. People who are one with the Father. Who share God’s glory, see God’s glory and show God’s glory. People who know they are properly loved and held.

 

How does this change happen? Through this prayer of Jesus.

But when does it happen? Not immediately, because the very next thing that John tells us is that Jesus goes out to the garden of Gethsemane, where he is betrayed and arrested. Then follows crucifixion, resurrection and (finally) the coming of the Holy Spirit.

The change from brokenness to peace comes, but not immediately.

 

So how can our worship  - even this worship as we gather today - bring change, even transformative grace, in the lives of God’s children?

There are, of course, dramatic testimonies of lives where God’s love rushes in and changes a life. But I want to tell you a quieter, more gradual story – of Dorothy.

 

Dorothy started coming to the 8am communion service at one of the Anglican churches where I was minister several years ago. It was a spoken service, using a fairly simple order, in an unheated church, and usually there were about 8 people kneeling to receive communion. 

As I gave the chalice to Dorothy I noticed that she was crying. The next week, the same things happened – because it was a large chalice, her tears were falling into the wine. I went to see her and she explained that she had no church background but had started coming to church for some peace and quiet after her husband had died. She said ‘I’m still not sure what I believe, but when I kneel for communion I know that God is there and I am loved and everything changes. I am so grateful, all I can do is weep’. For the next 6 years she continued to weep, silently, into the chalice in pure gratitude for God’s presence. As far as I know, she still does.

 

Through the grace of God, we are changed by worship.

When we rehearse God’s worth – whether we praise God in beauty, in silence, in music, in movement, in breaking open the Word, in communion… – we remember who God is and what God has done and we are changed. 

 

We are made one with the creator of all things, welcomed as beloved children, become channels of the grace and power of healing of the Holy Spirit. We are changed.

 

We come with our real lives of pain and doubt and busy-ness and worry, and we receive Christ, in word and sacrament, and we are changed.

 

Jesus promises us hope, healing, wholeness, as we are made one in him. Come and receive bread and wine today.

And as we travel Christ’s path, may his love help us to  show others the way - from brokenness to peace.

Amen.