Unexpected Life

Sermon: Easter ‘12 Years ago I had a homiletics professor, (that’s a preacher-teacher) who said we should prepare our sermons with the Bible in one hand and the daily newspaper in the other. That’s what I did this week, only I hadn’t planned it that way. First, let’s talk about the Bible. Then later the newspaper. Jesus, who is featured in the Bible, made a habit of doing the unexpected, the counterintuitive, not what the ordinary person would do. At the age of 30 he walked up in his local synagogue and started interpreting the scriptures with such power that people wondered where he got such authority. He basically declared himself the messiah. They tried to kill him then and there. This was all so unexpected, this knowledge and this effrontery that even his brothers and sisters didn’t take Him seriously. It didn’t stop there. He continued to do one thing after another over the next year or three before he was killed, unexpected things. He hung out, even dined, with disreputable people, like internal revenue agents and escort girls. He conversed with the hated enemies of the Jews, healed them and held them up as examples of neighborliness, the Good Samaritan. He did terrible things to break the Sabbath rest, like healing people in pain. And when his followers urged him on to be a kingly messiah he forbade them to tell anyone of his mighty deeds because he came to establish a different kind of kingdom. Oh and after he was tortured and put to death in the cruelest possible way as a common criminal he had the effrontery to rise from the dead, that is if you choose to believe in the resurrection. His closest associates, Mary Magdalene and the Apostles, didn’t believe he would rise, even after he had been telling them repeatedly what exactly would happen. One of the most unexpected things He did was forgive those who tortured and put him to death. That is, if you choose to believe these things. Oh, many of us, maybe most of us here today say we believe in the resurrection because, well in Christian circles, it’s kind of taken for granted. Belief is more than an intellectual assent, however; faith goes well beyond just saying “I believe.” Faith demands a commitment to live the life of the risen lord, to follow His example, to change the way we go about doing thing. You say, “If believing in the resurrection means doing what he did, that’s impossible. I can’t walk on water, change water into wine, feed thousands with a few loaves of bread and fish and heal everyone who comes to me.” No, but you, we, can do some of the things he did, like forgiving those who tortured him. Let me give you an example. This is the newspaper part. I came home from church on Palm Sunday picked up the Free Press and there front page and center, was my sermon. The headline said “Power of Forgiveness.” It was hard to miss. Sometimes God has to hit me right in the middle of the forehead to get the message through. It was the story of Novi jeweler, Gary Weinstein, who in May of 2005 lost his entire family, wife and two sons, at the hands of a drunken driver. That driver, Tom Wellinger, with a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit was going 70 mile an hour in a 45 mile zone on 12 mile near Orchard Lake Rd. when his Yukon SUV rear-ended the Honda Accord carrying the Weinstein family, minus Gary, on their way to the orthodontist. These were two Farmington Hills families with children in the same schools, whose parents at least had never net. At first Gary Weinstein wanted vengeance, justice to the fullest extent of the law. But he gradually he learned some things about Tom Wellinger, like he was a recovering alcoholic with several years sobriety that life had recently hit hard and he had relapsed. Ironically that very day his family of origin was gathering from around the country to do an intervention to get him back into treatment. Before the year was out Gary Weinstein visited Tom Wellinger in the Oakland County Jail before Tom began his sentence of 19 to 31years in the penitentiary. All Gary could think to say to him was “How are your kids?” The response was “I haven’t seen my son in over a year.” “I haven’t seen mine either,” said Gary. Tom asked, if he could ever forgive him and Gary asked if he could forgive himself. Well, Gary did forgive. At first he wanted punishment to the fullest extent of the law, but later he testified in favor of early release. How he got to that point is a long and inspiring story, which you can find on line at www.freep.com for Sunday, April 1. He is now participating in a documentary about forgiveness in the hope that Tom Wellinger can speak and the world will not consider him a monster. And that his children can heal. Today Gary Weinstein is free of vengeance and resentment. Resentment is a toxin. It was Malachy McCourt who said “Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the other guy dies.” So, Jesus isn’t the only one who can forgive those who inflicted pain on him. Because of who he is and what he did we can do the same. You say, “Wait a minute. With a name like Weinstein Gary is probably not Christian.” And I say “Wait a minute. Who said Jesus died and rose only for those who claim to be Christian?” If you have chosen or do now choose to believe, I mean really believe, not just the formality, you have been amazed or will be amazed at what can happen, like forgiving your enemies, especially on a beautiful Easter Sunday.