05/03/2026
This is the message that Paul Barbour Shared this morning at the church.
Today’s is a comforting Gospel reading. Just to give you a bit of context, this particular part of John's Gospel comes on the night of the Last Supper. Our Lord had washed His disciples feet, predicted that Judas would betray Him and that Peter would deny Him three times.
Even during this time of betrayal, Jesus is comforting his apostles. He is telling them, and us, that we don't have to be afraid. There’s plenty of room in heaven, and He is going to prepare a room for us. He won't forget us, no matter what happens. How nice is that?
But did the disciples just say: “Awww. Thanks, Jesus! That’s really comforting?”
No! Instead, Thomas…who hasn’t had a great few weeks in the Gospels, by the way, took him literally. He wanted to know where the Father’s house is. As in, what is his physical address.
“Lord, we do not know where you are going”, Thomas said. “How can we know the way?” Jesus then said to him, “No. Look. I AM the way. I’m the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
He also told them that since they know Him, they know the Father. Philip then said: “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus must have smacked his own forehead at this point.
“Look,” he must have wanted to say, “the Father and I are one. Since you have seen me, you have seen him. What part don’t you get?” But, being Jesus, he had more patience with them than I would have had.
Fortunately, the apostles would eventually get their acts together. After Jesus ascended into heaven, they would be the ones to begin to build His church. And as we see in today's first scripture reading, from the Acts of the Apostles, they were actually doing pretty well.
It says: " Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.
Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." Yes, Jesus was the way in which people were finding their path to God.
Today, just like back in biblical days, we need to make sure that we only follow the path that the Lord has led us to. We need to make sure that what we are being led to believe by those in a position of power, is real.
I once heard someone talk about children who have been raised on artificial food. He said that if the child is raised on this food, it will rewire their taste buds and their brain.
When they become adults and taste real food...because their taste buds and brain have been rewired, they will reject what is real, fresh, and healthy and crave what is artificial, processed, and bad for them.
In other words, they will not be able to discern what is fresh, real, and healthy because their taste buds crave what is artificial, chemical, and harmful. They will dislike the organic, freshly picked oranges or apples. Instead, they will crave artificial, chemically and genetically altered, lab-created food designed to be addictive.
That idea got me thinking about American religion. America, I would say, is becoming less of a Christ-centered nation. I would submit to you, this nation has ingested too many artificial things to believe in. Market-driven, processed religion masquerading as redemptive faith to the extent that America sometimes doesn't even know what the real thing is.
Empire religion is what some people call it. Empire religion is centered on power. Empire religion is not concerned with grace nor mercy, love nor liberation, justice nor righteousness.
I would say it this way...that Empire religion wants Jesus to be a mascot, not a messiah. You see, a mascot is a character or an animal to be used by fans of a particular team.
The mascot is deployed to entertain and celebrate. But mascots have no power. Mascots do not have authority. They are simply characters that are deployed to hype the crowd and make them feel good.
And I'm afraid that much of American religiosity is more comfortable with Jesus being a religious mascot than a redemptive savior that can change your life. The mascot shows up to hype the crowd because in America, people love to talk about Jesus but don't want to preach what Jesus preached.
Empire religion merges government goals with religious language. Empire religion makes the claim that the government and God's work are the same thing. Empire religion is harmful. Our redemptive faith needs to be about working together to make things better.
Our community, here at this church, is strong in faith. And we need to be resolved to make as big of a difference as we can in our community.
If you were to go back to those days of the early church that we read about today, I can tell you that no one house-full of Christians could build Christ's church on their own. They had to join with the house-full of Christians down the road, in the next town, in the next country.
Because each of us, we do not have the whole answer. Each of us, we are part of a mosaic. We are part of a broader, divine and sacred mural. That is why we've got to partner with other people, other churches.
We have to partner because, you see, the Believer's Chapel can reach people we'll never reach. The Catholic Church in town can reach people we'll never reach. Every other church in our community can reach people we'll never reach. So will the new Boonville Life Center.
Individually, this church can only do so much. But when we decide to partner together... there's power when we partner together. There's Holy Spirit power when we partner together.
And I declare right here that something's happening in Boonville right now. Not every church has yet gotten together, but I'm here to let you know that we're working on getting together. And we are going to tear down some of the things that are keeping us from being who God calls us to be. God is doing great work through us when we choose to be in partnership.
Let me say it this way. There is not one organization. There is not one church. There is not one group. There is not one person who will be able to set us free. But I tell you this, our power to get us out of these problems that this nation, this world find ourselves in, is not in our individuality but in our solidarity.
When we work together, when we build relationships together...the enemy fears us getting together. They can handle one church. They can handle one activist. They can handle one group.
But when we lock arms together, whether you are Latino or Lutheran, whether you are agnostic or whether you are Anglican, whether you are Baptist or Catholic, whether you are black or white...when we get together and partner together, the enemy has no authority over us because we are unashamed, unapologetic, and committed.
In our first reading today, it says that day by day, new people were added. Day by day they were praising God. But who were these new people. Well, they were not perfect people. They added people who were progressing. People that were thankful.
Thankful that they were not who they used to be.
They are people who were redeemed. See, to be redeemed is when everybody else thought you were worthless, but God said, "I will redeem you." That's why the scripture says, " Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy". For those who've been redeemed by God may be those left on the trash heap of life, but our God redeems us.
When we come to the 42nd verse of Chapter 2 of the Acts of the Apostles, we see that the people are devoted to the teaching and the fellowship and breaking bread together. And AWE came upon everyone because of the many wonders and signs that they had seen. All who believed were together and had all things in common, they would sell their possessions, and anybody who was in need would receive exactly what they needed.
There was something happening in that community, that church. And I love that word "awe". In this context, it means a sense of reverence. When you encounter something so awe-inspiring, it causes you to have a sense of reverence and humility because you don't even have the words to describe what you just encountered.
I want to ask each of you sitting here today...please just take a moment in silent reflection. Think about a time that God has just filled you with awe. Maybe it was the first time you saw your child's face.
Maybe you were out in nature on one of those beautiful summer days, that we have in our amazing corner of the world--you know, a few days out of the year. Think about a time when you just stood there are said: "My God, what hath thou wrought? I am amazed by your creation."
If you can think of a time that you were filled with this feeling, take just a moment to remember it. Hold on to it. Let it fill your heart.
This is especially meaningful to me these days, because we all know of four people who have recently experienced a moment of awe. Their names are Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen, Reid Wiseman and Christina Cook. They are the brave astronauts who just traveled to the moon on Artemis II.
Victor Glover, who was the pilot, made news when he was interviewed while aboard the spaceship on Easter Sunday. Glover reflected on how the experience of leaving Earth has reinforced his faith.
He said: "When I read the Bible and I look at all of the amazing things that were done for us who were created by God… we’re in a spaceship really far from Earth, but you’re on a spaceship called Earth that was created to give us a place to live in the universe, in the cosmos.”
“You are special in all of this emptiness,” Glover said. “This is a whole bunch of nothing, this thing we call the universe. You have this oasis, this beautiful place that we get to exist together.”
He concluded his remarks by telling CBS News, “Whether you celebrate it or not, whether you believe in God or not … this is an opportunity for us to remember where we are, who we are and that we have to get through this together."
This is the same mindset, the same faith that the early church members had when they celebrated in their homes, shared all of their possessions, and joined as a family of faith for meals. During a press conference at Johnson Space Center, Astronaut Reid Wiseman described the emotional impact of the experience, once they had splashed down and been taken to a Navy ship for evaluation.
"I'm not really a religious person", he said. "but there was just no other avenue for me to explain anything we experienced. So I asked for the chaplain on the Navy ship to just come visit us for a minute. And when that man walked in, I'd never met him before in my life, but I saw the cross on his collar and I broke down in tears."
He said, "I experienced something I can't describe with the human vocabulary. I experienced something. I wish everybody could have seen what I saw. I saw something there. There's something bigger than me. There's something more powerful than me. There's something greater than me that I had a sense of awe."
This week, I pray that God will strike you with moments of awe. May God take your breath away...when you view his awesome glory in our world, the acts of our neighbors, or in a peace that comes to our hearts. That is what I pray for you, for this community, for our nation and our world.
And may the Lord Bless you and keep you, this week and always.
