“Living Above Transition and Change”
Rev. Dr. Ronald E. Braxton, Senior Pastor, Metropolitan AME Church
Sunday, May 16, 2010
www.metropolitanamec.org
Scripture Lesson Act 1: 1-11–To the Ends of the World 1-5Dear Theophilus, in the first volume of this book I wrote on everything that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he said good-bye to the apostles, the ones he had chosen through the Holy Spirit, and was taken up to heaven. After his death, he presented himself alive to them in many different settings over a period of forty days. In face-to-face meetings, he talked to them about things concerning the kingdom of God. As they met and ate meals together, he told them that they were on no account to leave Jerusalem but “must wait for what the Father promised: the promise you heard from me. John baptized in water; you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit. And soon.” When they were together for the last time they asked, “Master, are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel now? Is this the time?” 7-8He told them, “You don’t get to know the time. Timing is the Father’s business. What you’ll get is the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world.” 9-11These were his last words. As they watched, he was taken up and disappeared in a cloud. They stood there, staring into the empty sky. Suddenly two men appeared—in white robes! They said, “You Galileans!—why do you just stand here looking up at an empty sky? This very Jesus who was taken up from among you to heaven will come as certainly—and mysteriously—as he left.” The Message Bible translation
After the crucifixion and the resurrection, Jesus’disciples knew what it meant to live life daily in transition and change; there was never a dull moment for them. In the scripture, Jesus is about to leave the men he had been coaching for the past three years. They were filled with anxiety. They had somehow gotten through Jesus’ crucifixion; then they had to get through the resurrection; then he presented himself alive over a period of 40 days. Now, Jesus is taken away again, creating another moment of fear and frustration, and yet another transitional moment.
None of us is a stranger to change; transitional moments are constant. Before long, we come to realize that “if it ain’t one thing, it’s another”; it’s “here we go again” – losing people in our lives that we love; losing jobs; losing homes – transitional moments. It often seems as if we are living from heights…to depths….to heights.
In the scripture, the disciples watched as Jesus “was taken up and disappeared into the clouds.” Has life ever caught you in a moment and left you speechless? Has there ever been a moment when all you could do was just stand there and look? This event (of Jesus ascending into heaven) will linger in the disciples’ minds for the rest of their lives. The last picture they would have of their life with Jesus would not be one of suffering; the last picture would be of their glorious, triumphant Lord rising triumphantly into heaven, having overcome every obstacle, every shackle.
The message from the scripture is this: Keep your eyes fixed on the glorious, resurrected, exultant Jesus. When you encounter hell on earth, fix your eye on the triumphant Jesus. Throughout your life, you will always have to deal with transition and change, ups and downs, “questions marks” and “whys?”. But you don’t have to live in the cemetery. You don’t have to live faithless, without a paddle or a boat. Fix your eyes on HIM, and He will give you the courage and the strength to overcome every challenge. There will be moments when you wonder, “Is Jesus absent from my life?” There will be moments when it seems, Jesus is absent, so it takes a tremendous FAITH to weather transitions. It takes enormous faith to live through these moments.
The disciples wanted something to hold onto; they wanted to know what was going to happen tomorrow, after Jesus left. But Jesus said “You don’t get to know that.” You have to muster up every ounce of faith you can muster or you will end up drowning in your own misery and suffering. I don’t what they say on TV; I don’t care what the palm reader told you: you don’t get to know about tomorrow until you get to tomorrow.
It takes a whole lot of faith to get up in the morning, to deal with that child when you KNOW he’s on drugs. It takes a whole lotta faith to grin and bear it, to keep on smiling, to say “yes” when you want to say “no”. It takes a whole lotta faith to keep from telling people where to go. My dear mother lived every day on faith, not by faith, but on faith. She used to get up in the morning singing: “There is no secret what God can do, what He’s done for others, He will do for you!”
If you want to live through life’s changes and transitions, if you want to live your life above gloom, live every day anticipating a blessing. No matter how hopeless things seem,, when you go to bed tonight, anticipate a blessing! When you wake up tomorrow morning, anticipate a blessing!
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Rev. Dr. Ronald E. Braxton, Senior Pastor, Metropolitan AME Church
Sunday, April 18, 2010
www.metropolitanamec.org
Scripture Lesson – Acts 9: 1-11, Saul’s Conversion. The Blinding of Saul 1-2 All this time Saul was breathing down the necks of the Master’s disciples, out for the kill. He went to the Chief Priest and got arrest warrants to take to the meeting places in Damascus so that if he found anyone there belonging to the Way, whether men or women, he could arrest them and bring them to Jerusalem. 3-4He set off. When he got to the outskirts of Damascus, he was suddenly dazed by a blinding flash of light. As he fell to the ground, he heard a voice: “Saul, Saul, why are you out to get me?” 5-6He said, “Who are you, Master?” “I am Jesus, the One you’re hunting down. I want you to get up and enter the city. In the city you’ll be told what to do next.” 7-9His companions stood there dumbstruck—they could hear the sound, but couldn’t see anyone—while Saul, picking himself up off the ground, found himself stone-blind. They had to take him by the hand and lead him into Damascus. He continued blind for three days. He ate nothing, drank nothing. 10There was a disciple in Damascus by the name of Ananias. The Master spoke to him in a vision: “Ananias.” “Yes, Master?” he answered. 11-12″Get up and go over to Straight Avenue. Ask at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus. His name is Saul. He’s there praying. He has just had a dream in which he saw a man named Ananias enter the house and lay hands on him so he could see again.” The Message Bible translation
The scripture is one of a number of post resurrection stories of conversion of many people who either saw Jesus and believed, or whose eyes were opened to the truth of Jesus as a resurrected Messiah through the work of his disciples.
Jesus appeared for Doubting Thomas, the disciple who did not believe the report that Jesus was alive until he put his finger through Jesus’ side. Luke continues to tell the stories of conversion in the Book of Acts. There is the story of the conversion of the crippled beggar who had been begging for alms at the gate all his life, until he saw Jesus; there is the story of the conversion of the youth sitting by the roadside reading, but who did not know what he was reading until Phillip read to him; boy jumped up and shouted “Baptize me now!” Here in Book 9 of Acts, we have the famous story of the conversion of Saul, later called Paul, and the events on the “Road to Damascus”.
Saul/Paul’s story is a powerful story of the transformative power of God, through Christ, to reshape a life; the power to change the entire course of someone’s direction in life. It is rare for such a dramatic transformative experience as that of Saul/Paul. The story of your conversion may not be that dramatic, but it is as legitimate as Saul’s. Some of us have a “faith inferiority complex” because our conversion is not as dramatic as Saul’s. But God finds each of us “where we are”; God knows how each of us can best witness the transforming power of God, and some of us could not handle a dramatic witness as Saul’s. As the elders used to say: “Lord, let me get as close as I can bear.”
In the scripture, Luke tells the story of how awful Saul was to the post-ascension followers of Christ. In verses 1-2, we learn that Saul was a zealous persecutor of the disciples, “breathing down their necks…out for the kill”. The scripture teaches several lessons about what happens “When God Goes to Work in a Life”.
1. There is no life that is exempt from the transformative touch of the power of God. When God decides to work through you, there are no excuses. Whether you are an Anglican preacher named John Wesley, an Israelite named Esther, a freedom fighter known as the Black Moses, the son of a Baptist preacher named Martin Luther King, the son of a freed black slave named Richard Allen, or a poor black boy of single mother from a public housing project [named Rev Ronald Braxton], others can witness through the hand of Jesus touching YOU. Nothing and no one is too small, too big, too rich, too poor, too high, or too low that God cannot transform it.
2. When God goes to work in your life, you will never see life the same way again. In verse 8 of the scripture, Saul got up from the ground; his eyes were open, but he could see nothing. Ananias laid his hands on Saul, and suddenly he could see again.
There are a lot of folks living with their eyes open, but they can’t see God at work in their lives, and in the world. There are too many people suffering from an “eyes-wide-open-blindness syndrome.” Their eyes can’t see God, and their eyes can’t see the needs of others. On the healthcare issue, many people’s eyes are open, but they can’t see.
When God opens your eyes, He will show you new eyes, new hopes, new paths, new visions, new dreams. You will be able to do what you thought you could never accomplish. You will be able to walk through doors you never thought you could go through. You will see people differently – you will see joy, hope, missing power, potential for healing. You will suddenly see all the young boys and young girls losing their way, and you will reach out to them.
Ananias had no power of his own to open Saul’s eyes. He was but an instrument to send out the glorious power of a resurrected God. God opens eyes, changes lives, breathing through to a champion of the faith. It’s God, we don’t have the power on our own. It’s not until God steps in and puts his hands on your soul and opens your eyes, that we can see Jesus as our Lord. As the hymn goes: “What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought, since Jesus came into my life!”
3. When God goes to work in a life, it’s not a “cake walk”. It’s not a cake walk when God goes to work in a life; when you have to start dealing with your own sins. It’s not a cake walk standing up here preaching; it’s not a cake walk singing in the choir, after being careful about where you were last night. It’s not a cake walk calling yourself a Steward or a Trustee, while you’re living ungodly, shabby lives. It’s not a cake walk coming to church on Sunday, because when God goes to work in your life, you can’t go home and beat up on your spouse; you can’t cuss out everybody on your job. It’s not a cake walk to live standing for Christ. It’s not a cake walk, but if you let Him go to work in your life, God will touch you and He will walk with you the whole way through.
I keep on learning that when God touches your life, the lives of unlikely people from diverse backgrounds will rise up to heal, to help to provide. I got news for a lotta folk in here: Ananias didn’t want to have anything to do with Saul/Paul; he protested God’s telling him to lay his hands on that “no good scoundrel” Saul. But he did what God told him to do, and the scales fell from Saul’s eyes.
When God goes to work on you, He puts people in your life; He’ll surround you with folks who will pray for you, who will have your back. He’ll stand by you when the storms of life are raging; when the world has tossed you HE will stand by you. Amen
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Rev. Dr. Ronald M. Braxton, Senior Pastor, Metropolitan AME Church
Sunday, March 7, 2010
www.metropolitanamec.org
Scripture Lesson: Psalm 63: 1-9. A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah. 1 O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. 2I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. 3Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. 4I will praise you as long as I live, and in your name I will lift up my hands. 5My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise you. 6 On my bed I remember you; I think of you through the watches of the night. 7 Because you are my help, I sing in the shadow of your wings. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.9 They who seek my life will be destroyed; they will go down to the depths of the earth.
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The Commentary on the scripture provides the background in which David, a young lad before he was king, had become a great warrior in Saul’s court. King Saul was jealous about David being a better warrior than he was. His mind was playing tricks on him – stable one minute, in a rage the next; he kept trying to kill David – he even sent an army after him. He seemed to be suffering from bipolar disorder, or maybe he was dealing with the early onset of Alzheimer’s. In any event, David fled into the desert to escape King Saul’s wrath. There, he moved from place to place. He needed food, shelter, water; he was afraid for his life; he was dehydrated and hungry. In the scripture, David is recalling what this experience in the desert was like. He equates his hunger and thirst to a hunger and thirst for GOD.
Brothers and Sisters, we are living in a big world – big accomplishments, big portfolios, big master bedrooms, big screen TVs, big appetites, March Madness, the SUPERbowl, MEGAmillions – not just the lottery: POWERBALL. We live in a robust, big-craving society. We measure our churches by the size of the building, the choir, the membership, the usher board, the pastoral staff. We don’t talk about country churches anymore. The only thing that matters is the MEGA-church, not the size of our ministry. The scripture provides insight on how the presence of God in your life can more than satisfy your hunger and thirst.
1. Only the presence of God in your life can satisfy your hunger and thirst. I submit that our quest for the “big” things is actually a craving for a BIGGER GOD. We are vulnerable creatures, always searching. Ours is a “bipolar” world – sunshine one day, blizzard, earthquake, tsunami-type waves the next . Exercising every day – then your heart stops. At a point, in the midst of all this craving for BIG things, the only thing that will matter is a God who is accessible.
In verse 5, the Psalmist says his soul will only be satisfied with the richest food – such as a prime rib so tender you don’t need a knife. Only God can satisfy your craving for such things. What would your world be like if you just hungered and thirsted for the presence of God in your life? “Blessed are you when you hunger and thirst for God,” for only He can satisfy your craving.
2. God not only satisfies your big hunger and thirst, but when you seek Him, He provides more than you can ask for. The Psalmist found himself drinking the glory of the generosity of a living God. I thought I was living big, but I’m really living now. We don’t know joy until God shows up in our lives. We don’t know joy in our lives until we can declare “He walks with me and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own.”
If you take the first step outside your door, God walks with you the whole way. He has already gone ahead and will be where you are trying to get to. Psalm 23: “He prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies…my cup overflows.” When God shows up in my life, my cup runs over. When God is present, I can reach up through this wilderness and praise Him.
When God is present in your life, it’s time to show praise, to bring forth refreshment, to CELEBRATE. Because He has always stood up for me, I’m not going to wait for the doctor’s report, for Congress to pass a healthcare bill, for the renovations to be complete; I’m going to show praises while the scaffolding is still up, while the floors are still being worked on! After all I’ve been through – after I’ve been “sometimes up, sometimes down, sometimes level to the ground” – when I look back over my life and see how good God has been to me, I know it’s time to shout!
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Rev. Ronald E. Braxton, Senior Pastor, Metropolitan AME Church
Sunday, January 17, 2010
www.metropolitanamec.org
Scripture: Psalm 18: 1-6
1I love you, O Lord, my strength.2The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. He is my shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. 3I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, and I am saved from my enemies. 4The cords of death entangled me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. 5The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me. 6In my distress I called to the Lord; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.
We are surrounded by so many events right now – the earthquake in Haiti, Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday, Social Justice Month – and our church is an active participant in these efforts. I would like to acknowledge the important work of the ministries of our church – ministries such as the Mighty Men of Metropolitan, who are actively involved in recovering the lives of men and women who are in prison or coming out of prison through the Daniel Alexander Payne Reclamation Program (“DAPRP”, pronounced “DARP”). The Mighty Men are also ministering to young men who are incarcerated at the Oak Hill Youth Center, and they are ministering to ex-offender fathers to help them to become good viable parents and role models to their children through their Fatherhood Initiative Program. The Mighty Men are God’s way of showing up in the rubble places of other men’s lives.
The scripture in Psalm 18 shows us how, no matter how devastating a situation might be, God shows in the “rubble places” of our lives – the places that are broken, from physical and emotional devastation, quakes, confusion. The scripture shows us how God always shows up in these rubble places of our lives, and how He always shows up on time.
1. God Will Show Up in the Rubble Places.
God Showed Up in David’s Rubble Places. Psalm 18 is a Psalm of David’s cry out to the Lord to deliver him from his enemies; to deliver him from the hands of King Saul who was determined to destroy David. King Saul was determined to end David’s life after making several attempts. Psalm 18 shows how the Lord delivered David from Saul’s attacks on his life. God showed up in David’s “rubble places”. The message from the scripture is that you can always depend on God to show up in your rubble places.
God Showed Up in the Rubble Places of the Segregated South. Rev. Martin Luther King wrote of the dilemma he faced after he had completed his residency requirements for a PhD, and needed to find a job while he wrote his doctoral thesis. He was torn in several directions: should he accept a teaching position, a deanship, or a position in administration? Should he pursue the pastorate, or should he pursue a career in education? If he pursued the pastorate, should he accept an assignment at a church in the north, or in the segregated south? He confessed that “I resented segregation”. However, he also felt that some of those who had been educated in the north should “return to the south to assist in changing the landscape. So I went back to Montgomery.” Dr. King soon discovered that God was in the rubble of the segregated south.
God is Showing Up in the Rubble Places of the Men, Women and Youth Who have been Incarcerated. I mentioned the work of the Mighty Men of Metropolitan’s DAPRP program, and their laudable efforts to help men and women coming out of prison to reclaim their lives. This morning, some of the Mighty Men are not here because they are helping to organize the worship services at the Oak Hill Youth Center. They have partnered with the District of Columbia and the Federal Government through the CSOSA program to help men and their families to reclaim their lives upon release from prison. Through their efforts, we have brought 34 affiliate churches into this program for the combined purpose of: 1) strengthening the family unit, and 2) recovering the lives of men coming out of prison. In order to prevent recidivism, the Mighty Men’s DAPRP program provides job training, mentoring, counseling, and other services. This is an example of how God has shown up in these rubble places.
God is Showing Up in the Rubble Places in the Earthquake in Haiti. Across the globe, money, health supplies, water, and food are being shipped to Haiti. Billions will be spent to help to rebuild the poorest nation. We see men and women feverishly digging through the rubble to rescue lives during a critical 72 hour window; uncovering both the dead and the living. We see rescuers coming out of the rubble PRAISING GOD for the miracle of lives that were spared in the rubble. Through the rubble in Haiti, the world will uncover and discover God because God shows up in the rubble places.
Unlike the preacher who attributed the devastation in Haiti to God, I will never believe that God was just waiting to “dump” on His creation. We are all subject to hurricanes, and wickednesses of our own doing – lack of healthcare, social and economic injustice – are as devastating as any natural disaster. If all we have to depend on is us, if all we have to depend on are our own natural resources, we are in trouble.
If you have ever been there in the rubble places, no matter how bad it gets in your life, you must never forget the lesson from our ancestors: GOD IS A ROCK. This is a message for the people of Haiti: death and destruction might to be all around you, but God is there in those rubble places.
2. God Always Shows up, and He is Always on Time.
Some time ago, I visited Martin Luther King’s house in Montgomery, Alabama. Though it was probably a fine house in its day, it is actually a modest, one story house. There is a little kitchen; there is plastic on the furniture like our grandmothers used to have. Dr. King said he spent all night in that little kitchen, calling to the Lord for direction and help. In the scripture, David says: “In my distress I called out to the Lord”. The familiar hymn goes: “I prayed…I cried all night long…until I head the Lord”.
In Haiti, the 72 hour window is closing now; the workers have moved from rescue to recovery. The people are living among the dead bodies, with no places to relieve themselves. Some might ask: why is God so slow to answer?
Many of the men and women coming out of prison are coming back home with no jobs. Some might ask: Why is God so slow to answer?
In our own personal rubble situations – diabetes, cancer, HIV AIDS – we might ask: Why is God so slow to answer?
Brothers and Sisters, when we cry out from our rubble places, God moves in mysterious ways, and He is always right on time. How else could China, Cuba and America come together to answer Haiti’s cry of distress? How else could an African American president call upon his Democratic AND Republican predecessors to come together to rescue a broken nation wracked by earthquakes?
When we cry out to God, God hears our cry; He moves through the rubble, in His own way, in His own time. God rebuilds from rubble places. It may seem that God isn’t moving fast enough, but God is using the time in the rubble places to rebuild humanity. God is in all of these things.
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