St. Andrew’s Pictou, April 17^th 2005

 

Acts 2:42-47

1 Peter 2:19-25

John 10:1-10

 

Spiritual DNA

 

DNA: the acronym for deoxyribonucleic acid, the basic building block for our created biological world.

 

I remember sitting in my science class and the professor explaining what DNA was with a plastic model as an illustration.

 

The discovery of DNA has changed our whole world:

-each person has their own DNA which is a combination of their parents DNA,

-we are able to map it out and find what characteristics cause everything about us,

-it helps us to understand disease and how we might be predisposed for certain problems and they are trying to use this information for healing purposes,

-DNA has sent people to jail because it serves as a genetic fingerprint that pinpoints a certain individual to be at the crime scene because of the DNA that they left there.

-DNA has also released people in Canada from jail and over 100 men from death row in the US.

 

I remember hearing about Guy Paul Morin sitting on a high floor in his lawyer’s office in a downtown Toronto sky scraper waiting for DNA results to revoke his death conviction. He said something like, “If that result doesn’t show me to be innocent, I will jump through that window!”

 

The phone rang, the answer came, and he was exonerated, for the accusation that he had murdered a little girl Christine Jessup, who was his neighbour. He was declared innocent of the crime, but was forever scarred.

 

The day Guy Paul Morin was originally arrested, he was going out the door to band practice with his clarinet. He never played it again.

 

Isn’t it stunning to consider how many innocent men have gone to jail over the thousands of years that we human beings have constructed jails?

 

DNA has been a huge discovery for humankind and a dramatic demonstration beyond the possibilities of any sermon to illustrate the whole notion of “order” that the Creator has encoded in all biological Creation.

 

As dramatic as the discovery of DNA is, we have to remember that it was always there. It was there for millions of years, before human beings discovered it. So there is no reason for us to get all excited that we now know it all, because it doesn’t take much intelligence to figure out that the next million years will uncover even more of God’s order in Creation and what God has in store for us.

 

Each discovery of the magnificence of Creation should give us a renewed respect for the Almighty and humility for such incredibly created order and magnificence.

 

“Order,” there is an order in Creation. We also each live with a certain amount of order in our lives: we plan things as to how we are going to do them; we follow a certain sequence in our day. We have a sequence in how we meet people: “John this is Susan” Hands are shaken. “How do you do? Pleased to meet you.”

 

It might come as no surprise to you that in spiritual issues there is also an order.

 

The book of Acts is the history book of the early church, and there was an order as to how things progressed:

-after the message of Jesus was conveyed to the people,

-“They devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

-“Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the Apostle’s.”

-“All who believed were together and had all things in common:

they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.”

-“Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all people.”

-“And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”

 

There you have it! In this short list of verses, we have laid out for us, the Spiritual DNA sequence of how the early church unfolded.

 

You might like to call this “church DNA:”

 

1 The message of Jesus is conveyed.

2 The people devote themselves to learning, friendship, hospitality, and prayer.

3 People became aware of the reverence of God in the signs of wonders of what happened with this kind of fellowship.

4 A great sense of communion developed among the people.

5 The resources of the community were shared, so that no one was in need.

6 “Day by day” they continued to eat together at home, worshiped together at the temple with “glad and generous hearts… having the good will of all people.”

7 “Day by day” the Lord added to their numbers.

 

Seven easily understood steps to a healthy and growing church! We don’t have to bring in any church growth experts from Toronto or The Alban Institute from Washington, just those few verses in the book of Acts gives us the order and recipe for a healthy church.

 

As simple as those steps are, they of course are not detailed. There are glitches that we must face. In 1 Peter we get some of those harder details, like for example, suffering.

 

The writer explains that suffering for God’s purposes has merit; that God notates what we do on his behalf. Reference is made to Jesus and his suffering and what his suffering meant as being salvific for us.

 

Jesus’ martyrdom for us should not be misunderstood as being a model in the sense that we need to also need to choose to become martyrs; that we seek out martyrdom as our personal goal. I wouldn’t recommend it, the stakes are too high! Enough bad things will happen to us that we need to endure and suffer without any notion that we ever need to seek out martyrdom. Jesus’ martyrdom was done so that we didn’t need to seek it ourselves!

 

In the book of John, Jesus gives us another lesson on “order.”

 

“Very truly, I tell you anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit.”

 

We are not used to Jesus using such strong language. Calling someone “a thief and a bandit” calls for some examination. We have to look at what Jesus means by the difference between someone coming through the gate or over the wall.

 

The key comment on order here is that “The one who enters by the gate is the gatekeeper.”

 

This discourse is really like a litany of right relationship:

-“the one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.”

-the gatekeeper opens the gate for him and

-the sheep hear his voice.

-he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

-when he has brought them out, he goes ahead of them and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.”

 

There are two things we can learn from what Jesus outlines in the first part of this passage:

-who he is for us,

-and how we relate to others with a similar model of friendly relationship.

 

The text tells us that those listening didn’t understand what he was saying so he explained it further, by telling them that he was the gate and all those who came before him were bandits and thieves.

 

Good people give you abundant life; bad people destroy your life.

 

Jesus explains that while others come to seek and destroy us, he is the good Shepherd because he came to give us life and ever better than that: he came to give us abundant life!

 

The proof of Jesus’ testimony is that he did lay down his life for us, and that is his proof that he is the good shepherd. He also gives us context for his action: his loving actions for us were a reflection of the will of God.

 

But the same thing is true for us on a human level. There are good people who reach us through the gate and thieves and bandits who climb over the wall.

 

There are those who meet us face to face and there are the thieves and bandits who climb over the internet wall.

 

Did you know that there are over 100,000 child porn sites world wide on the internet? That is a lot of “thieves and bandits” climbing over the walls to children who we thought were safe behind the walls of our homes and the gate securely locked.

 

Have you noticed news items over the last few years about Enron and World Com and Martha Stewart, how exalted fraud has become as thieves and bandits climb over the walls of fraud, deceit and misrepresentation?

 

We really have a culture of fraud, because much of media time and TV space is dedicated to the elevation and veneration of fraud. The Academy Awards for example, are not given to people who are themselves. The awards are given with much fanfare for those who are the best actors; those who are the best pretenders at being someone else! The one, who fools us best, gets the prize!

 

There are no dramatic televised super awards given for people who are themselves. We might think that the Nobel Prize is a prestigious award, but any child could see that the Academy Awards are given higher billing and with more hype. Children might not even notice “Order of Canada” presentations at Rideau Hall for life-time achievement or saving someone’s life, because they are by comparison, so low key and understated.

 

The Creator has established order in Creation, an order with its fulfillment in Jesus Christ who gives us abundant life.

 

The life, death and resurrection of Jesus destroy our worldly notions of order and call us towards God’s higher order.

 

Let us embrace the Spirit of Christ in our lives, that we might experience the awe of the wonders and signs he can provide, the joy and gladness of friendship, and the communion of love with each other that will take us for ever, from this world to the next.

 

AMEN               Rev. Alan Stewart