30 April 2006
Carolyn L Roberts
Acts 3.1-21

I couldn't have been in more than first or second grade. Our class was in the gym on a winter day, playing kickball, and I was 'up.' I'd already been 'up' once before, and made a rather poor showing of it. But this time, the PE teacher that traveled around from one school to another knelt down beside me and told me to kick that ball just as hard as I could, then run equally hard. It was a home run. I don't remember a thing after that. Even if it hadn't been a home run-it wouldn't have made any difference. My astonishment was that I'd done it at all. That nameless teacher had called something from within me I didn't even know was there, and freed me-at least for that moment-from a niggling message that girls couldn't do such things.

I have shared from this pulpit before that years later, several of the young men in our youth group were invited into the youth minister's office and asked to consider whether they were called to ordained ministry. I was invited into that same office as well-and asked to consider going into Christian education. But in spite of the model of an outstanding Christian Ed Director, that was not my call, and I had enough sense to recognize it. It would be many more years before that call became clear.

In our scripture this morning, a man lame from birth asks Peter and John for alms. In Jesus' name, they give him the ability to walk. They command the man to really look at them-almsgivers dispensing charity can be just as anonymous as the one to whom they give-and do not give him the alms for which he begs, call the man into a new relationship with the holy; they offer him a new story about who he is. The subversive seed is planted, and takes root and produces fruit immediately. He walks - and wastes no time praising God and sharing his story with all who will listen.

David Giuliano tells of his own first-grade experience of the dress rehearsal for the school's spring concert. His teacher "circled like a shark on the scent of bloody bad notes" as she quietly tapped some of the students on the shoulder as their cue not to sing, but simply to pretend. That was the day that Guiliano learned he could not sing. For years he believed it.[1]

But many years later, when he was working at a psychiatric hospital, a grad student in music challenged his "I can't sing" pronouncement with the flat contradiction: "Everybody can sing." The subversive seed was planted. In time, he quietly sang along in church, eventually swallowing all pride and showing up for choir practice. He didn't have to audition or know how to read music. He didn't have to know what part he could sing. Giuliano only needed to be vaguely aware "that there was within [him] a song [he] needed to sing. And in the singing he was set free from old stories about who he is.[1] The man lame from birth in our scriptures had a leap of praise he needed to dance. And the moment he did so, he was set free from old stories about who he was. Whether it was the lame man or the shoulder-tapped Giuliano, they needed to hear the radical news that they can sing, they can walk, they are part of the family.

Today we welcome six new members into our growing community, our family. In a few weeks, we will welcome a seventh new member at the second service. Like each person who comes through these doors, they have been welcomed at this table. Their experiences mirror those of many of the rest of us. Some of us have been nurtured within other faith communities and have been helped by those communities to grow into the persons God calls us to be. We have found within this congregation those with whom we can laugh and cry and work and play and be faithful together as we continue our faith journey. Others of us have needed to welcomed and loved so that we can trust the community enough to hear God's call through the old messages that tap our shoulders and tell us we can't sing. We also have found within this congregation those with whom we can laugh and cry and work and play and be faithful together as we continue our faith journey.

There's no single way to come to the table. What is important is that those who come find a place of welcome and nurture. It is my prayer that this congregation will continue to be:

• a place of welcome
• a place in which we can learn from each other
• a place where we can be corrected by one another where necessary
• a place where the light of God's love shines.

***

[1] "Everyone Can Sing," David Giuliano, The Clergy Journal, March 2006, Volume LXXXII, Number 5, Logos Productions Inc., pages 31-32