Sermon for April 22, 2108; Acts 4:1-13

Rev. George N. Miller
Acts 4:1-13
April 22, 2018

A woman went to her mother to talk about her life and how things had become so hard for her.

She didn’t know how she was going to make it. She wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting, struggling, and it seemed as one problem arose right after another problem was solved.

Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high flame.

Soon the pots came to boil.

In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans.

She let them sit and boil. Twenty minutes later, she turned off the burners.

She fished the carrots out and placed
them on a plate. She pulled the eggs out and put them in a bowl. She ladled the coffee out and into a mug.

Turning to her daughter, she asked, "Tell me what you see."

"Carrots, eggs, and coffee," she replied.

Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She noted that they were soft.

The mother asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the egg was hard boiled.

The mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma.

The daughter asked "What does it mean?"

Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. But each reacted differently.

The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, in the boiling water, it softened and became mushy.

The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its interior, but after enduring the hot water, its insides were hardened.

The ground coffee beans were unique. After being in the boiling water, they changed the water, infusing it with their own rich uniqueness.

"Which are you?" the mother asked her daughter. "When adversity boils around you, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?"

Which are you?

Are you most like the carrot that seems strong, but with adversity wilts and loses strength?

Are you the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did you have a fluid spirit, but after a hardship you become hardened and tough?

Are you the coffee grounds, changing with the situation, able to transform the surroundings and yourself through the process?

When the hour is the hottest and trials are their greatest, can you elevate yourself to another level?

In today’s reading, the disciples find themselves in hot water.

The disciples are continuing the ministry of Jesus Christ. They’ve healed a lame man inside the Temple. But the people in power aren’t too happy about this, so they’re locked up.

The next day Peter and John are brought before the high court, and they’re asked “By what power do you have to do what you’ve done?”

Peter, cool as cool can be, says to the court “The good we have done was done through the power of Jesus Christ, the one you treated like a common crook. It is Christ alone who offers salvation.”

This surprises the council.

Here they are, a court made up of the wealthiest, most powerful people, and they have just been told off by a fisherman.

The court wants to punish the disciples, but they knew it would make matters worse, so they let them off with a warning.

But the disciples go right back to preaching, teaching and healing.

By the next chapter they are arrested again. Peter tells the court “We must obey the God of our ancestors, the one who raised Jesus from the grave.”

This time the court wants to kill them, but one man convinces them “If you pay them no mind, eventually they will fade away.”

So the disciples are given another warning, along with a brutal flogging.

But being as stubborn and sure of their faith as they are, the disciples go right back to teaching, preaching and healing.

Here we witness the awesome power of Christianity. After having Jesus crucified, after the disciples are arrested and flogged, everyone should have just called it a day, given up and gone home.

But our spiritual ancestors were not carrots or eggs, they were more like coffee, and because of this Christianity grew from 12 to 100 to 5,000 and beyond.

How could this possibly be?

So many other religions have come and gone, but Christianity grew and thrived, even while existing in social and political pots of boiling water.

Not only has our faith survived, but it has changed the culture around it.

This story is part of our collective heritage, and it is an example of what life is like.

If you read the Book of Acts, you’ll witness how the disciples are always meeting and overcoming obstacles.

In Acts we come across every day folk that begin as no different than us, who allow themselves to be empowered by the Holy Spirit in all situations.

Acts is an adventurous book with scenes of miraculous healing, heart pounding ship wrecks, and constant run-ins with the law.

In many ways the disciples become models for how we can face challenges.

Now, some of you may be wondering- when will we stand before a court due to our faith?

When are we ever going to be flogged because of our faith?

But we do stand before a court almost every day, don’t we?

It’s called the Court of Life.

The Court of Circumstances.

The Court of Cancer and Chronic Illnesses.

The Court of Accidents and Economics.

The Court of Prejudice and Sexism.

The Court of Aging and Mortality.

We symbolically stand before all kinds of courts all the time even if we don’t realize it.

There are those of us who are standing before the Court of Health. Our bodies are changing and going through things we never signed up for.

We age, our eyes dim, our hearing goes. We stand up and something squeaks, we sit down and something else pops.

We stand before the Court of Health which says “You’re in hot water and look what you got. God is not real, Jesus is a lie, and you are forsaken.”

We can choose to say “It appears that you are right.”

Or like the disciples we can find a way to say “I know my God is real, Jesus loves me so, and as long as I have hope I will never be alone.”

There are other courts we stand before.

Some of us may be standing before the Court of Family Life.

This particular court tells us that our children are struggling or our parents are aging. It tells us that our siblings are dealing with sickness, memories are being erased, and feuds are continuing to pull apart and destroy.

We stand before the Court of Family which tells us that “You’re in hot water and look what you got. God is not real, Jesus is a lie, and you are forsaken.”

We can choose to say “It appears that you are right.” Or we can reply “I know my God is real, Jesus loves me so, as long as I have hope, I will never be alone.”

There is also the Court of Cultural Climate.

It tells us that no one will ever get along, that one side is wrong all the time, that the issues are too great, our differences are too divisive, and our nation is doomed to not survive.

This court tries to scare everyone and says “You’re in hot water and look what you got. God is not real, Jesus is a lie, and you are forsaken.”

We can choose to say “It appears that you are right.” Or we can find our own way to reply “I know my God is real, Jesus loves me so, as long as I have hope I will never be alone.”

We each live our lives in symbolic pots of water.

Sometimes everything is OK and we are not even aware that water is around us.

Sometimes the pots are lukewarm; sometimes they are boiling hot.

When this happens, and the initial shock of our situation subsides, what do we do?

If we’re not careful, we can be like the carrots and become soft and weak, leached all of valuable nutrients.

We can be like the egg and create such a tough interior that no one else can ever get through or make us feel good again.

Or, we can learn to faithfully ride the scalding current and work with the situation, like the coffee beans, finding a way to both transform the situation and to be transformed by it.

Through the Book of Acts and the example of the disciples we see one way to do it.

We see how we can welcome the Holy Spirit, trust it to move in our lives, and to fill us with that cool courage that Peter and the others had.

We also learn how to see our troubles through the scope of time.

To realize that we are all involved in the Christian story, and we already know the ultimate outcome: God prevails, evil loses, and the joy of Christ endures forever.

Life is difficult. Just as much as we win, there is also defeat.

But even situations that seem to be absolute defeat, God can turn into victory.

Even with despair, God can bring out hope.

Even when there seems to be astounding loss there can be ecstatic love.

Today we experience the disciples in boiling pots of water, but instead of becoming mush or hardening their hearts, they became coolly courageous.

No matter what court they stood before, they survived the situation and in doing so they changed the world around them.

When the waters around us begin to boil, may we muster up our courage, harness our strength, and allow God’s Spirit to take us to that higher level, in which we too can change and flavor the world around us.

For that we can say thanks be to God who gives us strength, to Christ who offers us salvation, and the Holy Spirit that fills us with courage.

Amen and amen.