Acts 3: 12-19; I John 3:1-7

You will have heard the term non-sequitur. In everyday speech, a non sequitur is a statement in which the final part is totally unrelated to the first part. For example: “Life is life and fun is fun, but it’s all so quiet when the goldfish die.”( —from:” West with the Night”). It can also refer to a response that is totally unrelated to the original statement or question: Mary says: “I wonder how Mrs. Knowles next door is doing.” Jim says: “Did you hear that the convenience store two blocks over got robbed last night? Thieves got away with a small fortune.”(Wikipedia)  Our lives are so full of non-sequiturs these days.  It is so hard to get people to pay attention to each other anymore, we’re just not listening, so that there are these strange remarks we make. What the person said just hasn’t sunk in.  All these comedy shows are full of interactions where people aren’t connecting with one another.  This is what life has begun.  One of the people in our church was talking how when young people are together they are not talking to one another, they are texting someone else.  So welcome to the world of non-sequiturs.

But, friends, non-sequiturs are as old as time.  And besides the fact that they can be funny, they can also be maddening. The whole internment decision (executive decision 9066) was a non-sequitur. It goes something like this: “The Japanese armed forces have attacked Pearl Harbor, so let’s incarcerate American citizens of Japanese ancestry, but really only those on the West Coast.”  It is one of these governmental non-sequiturs. Fortunately people can often smell out these non-sequiturs.  Take the Trayvon Martin case.  Let me say that we may not know all the facts, but George Zimmermann reasoning seemed to be one: “you seem threatening to me therefore I have the right to shoot and kill you.”  Friends, the world has gone to war time and time again on non-sequiturs: The First World War was a huge one and the Spanish American war seems to be another examples. When the Dutch fought the Indonesians in the Indonesian war of independence the Dutch non-sequitur was:  “We have occupied this land three hundred years, so this land is ours. “

Friends, when we look at today’s  text we are running in to what seems to be a great non-sequitur and it is the following: “ People have behaved badly and therefore God will come among us as Jesus the Christ because God loves us.”  The two passages from the lectionary I have chosen create a great non-sequitur. One does not follow from the other it seems.  It is almost as if we are being rewarded for bad behavior. That does not happen in the real world. We are never rewarded for our bad behavior are we?  In Acts Peter is very clear about what the people have done: they have let Jesus down after God sent Him. They have allowed Him to be murdered and add insult to injury have asked for a murderer to be released instead of Jesus. “You disowned the Holy and Righteous One,” Peter blurts out.  Then we go to the second text and there we find a real contract. In I John we hear:”See how great a love the Father (Parent) has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God, and such we are.”  The text says that this gives us a special status, as people whom the world does not recognize. It even goes on to say that we will be like Jesus for beyond this life we can see Him as He is.  In addition the text tells us that if we hope In Jesus we purify ourselves.  What a contrast: the people are ingrates, hypocrites, traitors and low lives. In the next the young church is deeply beloved, special, pure of vision and pure of heart.  Isn’t this a non-sequitur? Yes, in the terms of the world it is, but in theological terms it isn’t.  It isn’t that we are being rewarded for bad behavior, no because of God’s love as made so clear in Christ our bad behavior becomes irrelevant, wiped out.  After all even Peter himself had betrayed Jesus. So instead of saying: ”you behaved badly, therefore I will save you,” we now hear:”your behavior was bad, but it has been wiped away, taken off the books.”

Friends, earlier we reflected on our own insecurities and our flaws and now it becomes clear that because of our flaws and our bad behavior, we are more able to understand God’s love. In other words the scope of our bad thoughts and actions makes God’s love even greater.  This sounds strange to us.  We live in a world where we get rewarded if all goes well” rewarded for hard work, rewarded for being nice, rewarded for looking good, rewarded for being a good friend.   This may not always work, but unless we are a con man we seldom get rewarded for being or acting bad.  So, friends, today, feel free to embrace the most pathetic part of yourself.  The more you embrace it the more you realize how great God’s love us, so great that, as the text says, we are called children of God. Thanks be to God. Amen.