When Was the Last Time You Thanked a Telephone Pole?
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
Rev. Lou Nyiri
Acts 11:1-18
August 16, 2009

If you’re like me you take a lot of things for granted.
And sometimes you pass by them without a second thought.
You see them there and you always expect to see them there.
They are a part of the landscape and that landscape changes very little.

I’m talking of course about Telephone poles.
We don’t think about them too much.
In fact we don’t even thank them for all they do.
I mean come on, when was the last time you thanked a telephone pole?

You might think about telephone poles a little more highly if you were living in New York City or Buffalo, Toronto or Toledo on August 14, 2003, 4:09PM, Eastern Standard Time, because that’s when the lights went out on the entire Northeast corridor causing one of if not the largest blackout in United States history.
The incident shut down planes, trains and automobiles…even buses and subways.

No one panicked though.  In fact there was little looting and no price gauging.  Shopkeepers sold candles and bottled water at reduced prices.  People shared cab rides and cell phones.  Almost everyone got home from work late.  On the upside, one woman living in Manhattan reported that she saw the Big Dipper for the first time in her life.

The reason for this massive collapse of the Lake Erie Loop which involved over 100 electric plants was traced, in part, to a failure to trim tree branches in Cleveland and a telephone pole that brought down some electrical lines.

We can’t let go of the telephone pole.  In fact, our supercharged, high-tech world relies a great deal on a quaint, low-tech, 19th century invention – the telephone pole.
First installed in the mid 1800s to run copper cable telegraph wires from Washington, DC to Annapolis Junction…they have since become the means by which telephone service and cable television, Internet and electrical power are brought into our homes.
This simple pine pole has taken on ever-growing responsibility in its life span.

And yet, no one thanks the telephone pole.
But it still does its job – it brings into our lives items we need – items we’ve come to depend on.

All because somebody had an idea (a vision, if you will) and they put it into practice and the world has been forever changed.

The church in its infancy some 2,000+ years ago faced an enormous amount of changing views and ways of doing things.
Some back then might have said it would be a whole lot easier to build a system of interconnected wires which bring electricity to homes all across the United States than it is to change the mindset of generations of thinking.  (And they didn’t even know about electricity or the United States back then.)

Some might contend that kind of thinking as true then as it is now.

One might wonder if it’s easier to topple governments with superior firepower and overwhelming numbers than it is to win the hearts of people.
Another might ponder why it is we can pass laws protecting the less fortunate or that create an equal playing field for minorities and yet can’t seem to eradicate racial bias.

It’s this type of thing that Peter discovers when he returns to Jerusalem after his coastal swing through Lydda and Joppa.  Back home in Jerusalem, in the center of religious and cultural life, Peter recounts and processes through his activities in the homes of non-Jewish persons who, it is rumored, had received the good news with enthusiasm.

During this conversation, Peter retraces his steps by recounting the curious story on the rooftop.
Peter took this to mean that God was doing a new thing – making the unclean clean – which is to say, extending the good news even to the non-Jewish world.

He then cites a case study.  Three non-Jewish persons, or Gentiles, had arrived at the place he was staying, and invited him to visit a Roman military official named Cornelius.  Peter was compelled to go with them, and shortly thereafter, he was face to face with Cornelius.  After some discussion and a brief recounting of the gospel’s heart, the Holy Spirit took over.

Peter then says to his Jerusalem colleagues:  “If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”  (v. 17)

It’s a good question.

Until then, the early church had positioned itself solidly within the traditional Jewish milieu.  This experience, however, began a separation process in which the new, young faith would be known as The Way.  Followers of The Way would soon be called Christians in the non-Jewish city of Antioch and soon they would emerge with their own identity.  An identity quite distinct and apart from its Jewish roots.

The Jewish laws and customs that had been part and parcel of every person’s life at that point, were major barriers that hindered faithful people from seeing what God could be doing in their midst.  It was a huge challenge for these early Christians.  But since God is in the business of clearing the way for His Way or His Will to be done, then who are we to hinder God?

In fact, throughout history, dramatic change has always been preceded by the dismantling of stumbling blocks.  They were given the name of paradigm shifts in the late 80s and early 90s and come to represent when people begin looking at the world in a new way – reframing their point of reference based on some change of thinking usually precipitated by some event.

Galileo.  Martin Luther.  Louis Pasteur.  Thomas Edison.  Alexander Graham Bell.  Orville and Wilbur Wright.  Henry Ford.  Albert Einstein.  Rosa Parks.  Martin Luther King, Jr.  Steve Jobs.  Bill Gates.  The Apostle Peter. 

All people who had paradigm shifts.
All people who brought about dramatic change
All people who looked beyond barriers to the possibilities beyond.

As people of faith – as devoted followers of Jesus the Christ – our model for living has to be that of our Savior, Lord and Friend – Jesus himself.
The example he set in his earthly ministry was to “love those around us and by that the world will know we are Christ’s disciples.”  (John 13:35, my paraphrase)
Jesus was willing to break established purity laws in order to minister to those society often overlooked.
Remember that Jesus healed on the Sabbath, touched menstruating women, put the needs of children before the needs of adults, and preferred the company of sinners over saints.

Jesus wasn’t afraid to topple a barrier or two in his day.
Jesus wasn’t afraid to show us a new and better way to live in relationship with God, ourselves and with one another.
Jesus took an old approach and replaced it with a new and better way.

There is a great story from World War II:
In France some soldiers brought the body of a dead comrade to a cemetery to have him buried.
The priest gently asked whether their friend had been a baptized Catholic.
The soldiers didn’t know.
Sadly, the priest informed them that in that case he could not permit the burial in the church yard.

So the soldiers dug a grave just outside the cemetery fence.  And they laid their friend to rest.
The next day the soldiers came back to add some flowers – only to discover the grave was nowhere to be found.
Bewildered, they were about to leave when the priest came up to speak to them. 
It seems he couldn’t sleep the night before.
He was so troubled by his refusal to bury the soldier in the parish cemetery that early in the morning he got out of bed and with his own hands moved the fence – in order to include the body of the soldier who had died for France.

Jesus moved boundaries outward to include people.
Jesus knocks down the old law in order to replace it with a new love.
A purity of law turns into a purity of love which is embodied in the gracious and hospitable ministry of Jesus Christ.

We have that same opportunity before us today.

To that list of names I mentioned previously who have made noticeable change in this world I will add the congregation of the Gettysburg Presbyterian Church and our ecumenical cadre of brothers and sisters in Christ here in Adams County who will rise to the occasion and help out those who need to witness the love of Christ in action locally as we move through this time between our State’s budget impasse and its eventual adoption.

We have an opportunity before us to rise to the occasion and be the change makers in this world God is calling us to be.
We have an opportunity to rise to the occasion and offer the love of God in action.
We have an opportunity to become the “hands and feet of God at work in this community.”  (This phrase is taken from Eugene Peterson’s translation of John 1:14 in The Message.)

When the SCCAP offices are forced to close their doors or at the very least cut back their hours of operation immensely starting next Friday the 21st (and I know this is all tentative as the news of what is affected changes almost daily – and community support is growing and talk of possible no-interest loans are out there which will afford things like the homeless shelter to stay open nights but with a skeleton crew)…but make no mistake there is very real potential for this closing to happen. 

No one knows how long it will be but until a budget is signed there will be no money coming in.  And people will be affected?  Lives will be impacted.  Families will be facing life changing circumstances.

We can help.
WE can respond with hospitality and grace.
We can move the boundaries of the fence a little further outward.

It could be money.
It could be volunteering at the shelter.
It could be organizing and overseeing a food pantry.
It could be making more casseroles to serve at the Soup Kitchen.
It could be harvesting vegetables in the Seeds to Success garden.
It could be offering the harvests of our own individual gardens to the food pantry or soup kitchen to give out to those who come through their doors.
It could be offering to help with daycare for under-employed persons who need to work if they are to put food on the table and a roof over the head of their family.

We don’t know the full extent of the need right now, but we need to be ready.

Phone calls have been made to SCCAP from this church office and other church offices in the Adams County Area.
We’re talking about possibilities of maybe one church becoming the food pantry or at least overseeing the food pantry in the SCCAP offices…one church being the center for clothing needs…there could be the possibility of churches such as ours who have been blessed with the gift of gymnasium space to being willing to open our doors for folks to sleep in overnight…it could who knows what.

We might not be able to meet all the needs but we’ve got to make a concerted effort.

Plans are being made as to how we can meet this need head on and be ready for it when it happens.

We’ll need people to turn to when the needs are known, which is why we’re asking you today – to put your name and phone #/Email on the sign-up sheets in the Narthex or Fellowship Hall if you are willing to be contacted when we learn of the needs.  [You could also put your name and contact information on a note card there in your pew rack and drop it in the offering plate or return it to me or another pastor this morning or call/email me in the church office later this week (334-1235, ext. 4; gpclou@embarqmail.com).]

It’s going to happen quickly when it happens and we need to be ready.

The way it would work is probably like this:  we learn the need here – we send a mass email and/or phone calls of the need – if you can help out respond back and we’ll connect you to the appropriate person.

We can help.
WE can respond.
We can be the hands and feet of Christ at work in this community?

Will we do so?

I believe we will.

I truly believe we will.

Because maybe we’re like telephone poles – people called upon by God – to break down barriers – people who are needed to bring into other peoples’ lives something they need – items they depend on – and in the process maybe, just maybe through power of the Holy Spirit, God will work a transforming miracle in someone’s life. 

Maybe someone who is helped by churches rising to meet the level of need and whose combined efforts make healing and hope a reality will come to believe in the gift God gives us all through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ.  (vv. 17-18) 

• Because we’re not going to do this for the glory or the recognition…we’re doing it because it’s what Christ calls us to do –
• Remember Christ’s words to Peter on the beach at the end of John’s gospel when he asked him three times, “Do you love me?...Feed my lambs – Tend my sheep - Feed my sheep”  (John 21:15-17)
• I’ll paraphrase those three answers like this, “Take care of the people I love.” 

And if we think the people Christ loves are only those already inside the church walls – well then maybe, the miracle will be in having our minds changed as to what really separates us.

Maybe the miracle will be having our minds changed as to what really separates us.

Either way, who are we that we could hinder God? 

Amen.

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