Easter 4: Future, Built on the Past

Last week we saw that Paul, Peter, and the other disciples encountered Jesus and were called to a new ministry. This didn’t happen in a vacuum. Their new roles built on their lives up to that point. Saul did not stop being a smart teacher just because he started teaching about Christ instead of Moses. Peter and the others were equipped to speak to others about Jesus because of the time they spent with him.  

On this 4^th Sunday of Easter we hear about Tabitha (Dorcas) who used her talents to make clothes for the needy. In fact, that is her claim to fame. “All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was with them.” (Acts 9:39) She shared God’s love with the garments she made. We don’t know her ‘back-story’. We might infer that she was a widow like her friends, and probably had little money to sustain her, but still she offers love by making clothing for those even less fortunate. 

Jesus, in the Gospel, notes that “The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me; but you do not believe, because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:25-27) Tabitha’s work’s testified of her love of God. Jesus says that we are his beloved sheep when we follow him. Our lives will tell of God’s loving action as we are formed and transformed by that love into more fully obedient sheep. Then, as we saw in last week’s post, we’ll be called to ‘love my sheep’. All the sheep, not just those that look like us or inhabit the same ‘flock’. 

When we listen to the voice of the Shepherd, we are drawn closer to God and closer to home. Our real home is the Kingdom of God. We will probably be surprised at who else is in the Kingdom. Our lesson this Sunday from Revelation says, “there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb… the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of the water of life” (Revelation 7:9, 17)

Again and again throughout the Bible, we see the least likely people becoming God’s chosen. Liars, murderers, thieves, prostitutes, homeless refugees, adulterers-the list goes on and on. Our call as Christians is not to abandon all that has gone before. Instead, we are to let God build on that base to bring us closer to him. 

Sister Miriam Pollard, in her book The Listening God, compares her reaction to a ‘bad morning’ to a squirrel that steals corn. She says, “You can’t just bury a morning like that, or you shouldn’t. You are angry with it, you hate it, you hate yourself. But you must not go away in a hate…inside the nothingness there is,—calm, resolute, and of absolute reliability—a Providence that says, ‘Leave the pieces where they fell and let me make what I want of them’…Bless the morning, the noon, the squirrel, tomorrow, yesterday, and every hour that lies in pieces on the ground….these bones shall live.” (pg. 34-35)

We may think we’ve messed up too many times. Or we may say to ourselves, “God cannot love me, I have done (fill in the blank)”, or “God could not use me, I have too many problems like (fill in the blank)”. God loves us, scars, problems, dysfunctional as we are. God uses those very scars, bad days, and ‘mess ups’ to build the Kingdom. That is Grace and it’s a gift from God that we simply have to accept. None of us can earn it. None of us deserve it. Yet, there it is, falling from God’s open hands and visible in God’s open arms. 

God knows our past. God is our future. God is our Shepherd guiding us to “springs of the water of life, and God [wiping] away every tear.” (Revelation 7:17) God takes the broken pieces of our day and makes them into something beautiful!

What ‘dysfunction’ do you try to hide from God?

Do you have trouble believing God doesn’t care about your past?

Can you accept God’s grace and move forward?