The Third Sunday of Easter, 15 April 2018

Acts 3:12-19
As Ron Allen points out in his excellent treatment of this scripture in the April 2015 Process and Faith commentary, it is important for the Process Preacher to point out the tone of Peter’s diatribe against the witnesses to the healing that he and John had accomplished on behalf of Christ and subsequent blaming of the crowd on Jesus’ death as the raw and emotional words of  a“family squabble.” Unfortunately, such texts are read today with 2000 more years of persecution against the Jewish people, and as such are heard by many as evidence of and furtherance of anti-Semitism laden in our scriptures.

Finding any content in this passage to preach from a Process perspective is difficult. Peter preaches apocalyptically, hoping to prompt his hearers to repentance. If we read beyond the mid-sentence break that the lectionary assigns, we at least get the potentially life-affirming “so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.” If we set the context for the argument Peter is giving as the healing of the lame man at the “Beautiful Gate,” we are presented with some imagery that might help us convey the chastisement that fills the selected text. Peter and John gazing intently at the man begging for alms, “what I have I give you,” and the man joyously bounding up and leaping after having “been raised,” by Peter and John all provide some beautiful narrative to set the stage here. As Cobb and Griffin state about the nature of God’s persuasive power,

for experience to be enjoyable, it must be basically harmonious; the elements must not clash so strongly that discord outweighs harmony. Also for great enjoyment, there must be adequate intensity of experience. Without intensity there might be harmony, but the value enjoyed will be trivial. Intensity depends upon complexity, since intensity requires that a variety of elements be brought together into unity of experience. To bring a variety o elements into a moment of experience means to feel these elements, to prehend them positively.  (Cobb and Griffin, Process Theology, An Introductory Exposition, 1999, 64.)

The Process preacher may choose to simply riff on this “intent gaze” which Luke describes occurring between the afflicted man and the apostles, and what that means for our own interaction with those in need of healing and humanization. The ignored are instead engaged with intent. Out of this ministry comes the “times of refreshing that may come from the presence of the Lord.” Indeed, Jesus points to these very moments when he is either recognized by the sheep or not by the goats (Matthew 25). It is out of this “Christ consiousness” that Peter addresses the gawking crowd with judgement and invitation.

Psalm 4
Seemingly a bedtime Psalm, offering us a glimpse of the breadth of the Psalms in the life of the believer. Sleep is a vital part of life, and some of our congregation will likely resonate with the dread and yearning for a sense of God’s blessing upon a “good night’s sleep.” The desperation with which some face exhaustion and sleeplessness helps the scripture cut through the centuries to resonate with our modern experience.  

“How long will you love vain words?” Loving ‘vain words,’ is a poignant and timely charge leveled by the Psalmist. We have a mandate to speak loving words and not “let what comes out of our mouths defile us.” Speaking truth to power in love is a good paradigm shift from “loving vain words,” especially in our divisive political climate.

“You have put gladness within my heart.” This statement seems resonant with Process theology to me, with God offering the best possible outcome in every moment. Gladness is perhaps the most compelling Divine Aim in Process theology.

1 John 3:1-7
This text might be a familiar one to congregations that have had a number of funerals, as many Books of Worship include it as opening words to the service. The confidence placed in the identity as children of God is met with the assurance that though we know not what we will become, (after death, ostensibly), it hasn’t been revealed to us but that the Christ and redeemed humanity bear the same image. We will forever be drawn into the perichoresis of the Triune God by the “Human one.”  This aspect of the text holds some fertile ground for the Process Preacher.

Our and the Divine “becoming” is a major theme of Process Theology, and we participate with God in this concrescence. Children grow up, and children of God become more and more like Christ through sanctifying grace. As Marjorie Suchocki says in Divinity and Diversity: A Christian Affirmation of Religious Pluralism,

God offers to each element in the world a way that it might most creatively respond to the influences it receives, and the world takes that influence into itself, becoming as it will, offering the result to the universe—and also back to God. God takes the results of the world’s becoming into the divine nature, there values it, integrates it judgmentally into the divine self, and on the basis of what the world is becoming and God’s own character, offers a possibility back to the world for the good once again.  (26)

Luke 24:36b-48
This story of Jesus’ appearance to the disciples follows immediately on the heels of the story of Jesus’ appearance to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. The process preacher may want to utilize both stories for the sake of continuity. The narrative builds, and one has the opportunity to focus on the “hidden in plain sight” nature of the Christ in both of these stories. The psychological principal of “selective attention” most entertainingly shown to a congregation in the research of Daniel Simons presented on the website www.theinvisiblegorilla.com. (counting basketball passes). As is shown in the social psychology principle, we tend to miss things, even when they’re obvious, when we are focused on something else. In the social science experiment, most viewers totally miss something quite obvious because they are told to simply focus on something else. The correlation can be made to the disciples not knowing it was Jesus they are walking with.

The process preacher might choose to expound on prehending the Divine Aim in the unexpected. God in Jesus “walks beside us,” or “eats broiled fish,” but at the same time, “goes on ahead,” or calls them”witnesses of all these things” before disappears. That alone should give the Easter Christian pause in making proclamations about God’s nature. Once again, humility and the Easter miracle go hand in hand. Process Theology is a heady, wordy perspective, but it is important to see through all the multi-syllabic words that a simple, profound, unknowing is read through the lines. Catherine Keller’s whole book, On the Mystery, touches on this, but particularly the “Speaking on the Mystery” section found in pages 17-20.

Our vision becomes clouded if we only focus on the troubles of the world around us. “Are you the only one in Jerusalem who has not heard of the things that have taken place in these days?” “What things?” asks Jesus. “You are witnesses of these things.” “What things?” we might ask. Our version of the events of Holy Week tends to overwhelm with negative and unfulfilled expectation. Meanwhile, what we miss is what we do not expect, and “oh how our hearts were burning when he was walking and talking with us.”

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Rev. M. Nathan Mattox graduated with an MDiv from Claremont School of Theology in 2005, and has since served United Methodist congregations in Arkansas and Oklahoma, most recently University United Methodist Church in Tulsa since 2011. A fellow of the Fund for Theological Education, National Council of Churches Ecological Justice Young Adult fellowship, Collegeville Writer’s Workshop, and the Hendix Institute for Clergy Civic Engagement, he also started the University Church Network, a collaborative resource for churches on or adjacent to university campuses. Nathan has been blending a family since July of 2017 with his wife Myranda, and enjoys the company of four chidren, a dog and a cat.