Prayer: Holy, inspiring God, may your word cut to our hearts today. May we respond in faith, in word, and in deed. Amen.

In the comic strip “Peanuts,” one strip has Lucy and Schroeder standing outside. Lucy says, “What’s that?” pointing to a record album that Schroeder has in his hands. “It’s a new recording of Brahms’ Fourth Symphony…” Schroeder says with adoration and love. “What are you going to do with it?” Schroeder replies, “I’m going to take it home and listen to it.” Lucy says, “You mean you’re going to dance to it?” And she starts to dance around. “No. I’m just going to listen to it.” “Are you going to march around the room while you listen to it?” “No. I’m just going to sit and listen to it.” “You mean you’re going to whistle or sing while you listen to it?” Getting miffed now, Schroeder turns and walks away saying, “No, I’m just going to listen to it.” Lucy watches him leave— “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!” she shouts after him (Short, Robert, The Gospel According to Peanuts, Westminster, Louisville, 1989, p. 21).

On the one hand, Schroeder’s right. Sometimes when you hear a beautiful thing, or you take in a marvelous sight, you have to sort of sit and enjoy it with no distractions. You shut off everything else and just sit there. Soak in it.

On the other hand, Lucy’s correct. When you are listening to something magnificent, sometimes the power of it just goes right to the heart of you, right to the center, and it’s all you can do not to call upon everything that you know and let that magnificence move you. Lucy expects that the joy, beauty, power of the music of Brahms’ Fourth Symphony could move Schroeder to dance, or to march, whistle, or to sing! To Lucy, having no such responses sounds utterly ridiculous!

When Peter was speaking to the Jews, they had an experience of the power of the Holy Spirit, and they were “cut to the heart.” The power, the joy, the meaning of the words pierced right through all their defenses. It moved them to ask Peter, “What shall we do?” They’ve heard the word, they were cut to the heart, now they wanted to know what to do. To have a ‘just sit and listen’ response might seem utterly ridiculous. But, is it?

Our responses to God’s Easter power in Jesus, to God’s spiritual presence as a result of Jesus’ resurrection, to the message that we can set our hope on God, might have a mixture of both Lucy and Schroeder, actually. I want to share four responses that we can have on our faith journeys to God’s good news of Easter power, two of which are related to Schroeder’s approach, and the other two are related to Lucy’s approach. The first R-word-response to God’s message is “Reverence.” Schroeder has this one right. Just as he wants to reverently let the gift of Brahms’ music soak into him, when we hear the message that we can trust the God of resurrection power and can set our hope on God, it is good to revere that word. It is good to let it permeate into our conscience and sub-conscience. It is good to do that here, in this place as we worship, for we can direct our reverence to God.

UCC pastor Martin Copenhaver reminds us that in here, we hear a word from God. That means, in here, preachers are not performers and congregations are not audiences. Rather, in worship, we are all performers before an audience of one—God. We reverently respond to the word, to God’s presence, to God’s Easter power. It is good to sit and listen to it, to soak in it reverently, placing our trust in God, our hope in God.

The second R-word response to God’s message is “Remembrance.” On our journeys of faith, we are invited to re-member what God has done. That word “remember” is a great word. It literally means to “again be mindful.” Parts of the past are put back together again in one’s mind. Messages, instances from the past. On our faith journeys we are called remember God and God’s actions in our history. We can put back together and re-attach to our thinking what God did for us in Jesus. What did God do? 1 Peter tells us: God ransomed us with “the precious blood of Christ.” It’s good to sit and remember that.

A woman in August, 1996 was diagnosed with a rare heart disorder which causes the muscles of the heart to become inflexible. It’s generally terminal. The only medical cure is a heart transplant. During the next five months, the woman became progressively weaker. Her active life gradually dwindled as she waited for the possibility of a new heart. Then one dark, cold December morning, at 2:00 a.m. she was awakened and told that a new heart was on its way. By 4:00 a.m. the heart was in place, and by 10:00 a.m. the next morning, she was out of surgery and in the ICU. When her pastor visited with her a couple of days later, they talked about the gift of this new heart. She said, “You know, this was the second time that someone died for me” (Harnish, James, A. “An Explosion of Joy,” December 24, 1996, Tampa, Florida, http://www.homileticsonline.com/subscriber/illustration_search.asp?item_topic_id=857). She remembered what God in Jesus Christ did for her and what the donor of her heart did for her. Remembrance.

The third R-word response to God’s message is a doing word. Just as Lucy thought Schroeder should do something upon hearing Brahms, this R-word asks us to “Repent.” The answer Peter gives to those believers who were cut to the heart was “Repent!” Turn around. Change your ways to God’s ways. Let the Spirit that lives in you start to change your actions. You can be reverent all you want, you can remember all you want. But, there comes a time to do something and make a change. Even when the temptation is to stay with old habits, repent anyway.

There was an e-mail going around a few years ago that’s worth repeating. It featured a little essay entitled “Anyway.” “People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Love them anyway! If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway! If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway! The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway! Honesty and frankness will make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway! The biggest people with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest people with the smallest minds. Think big anyway! People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for some underdogs anyway! What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway! People really need help but may attack you if you help them. Help people anyway! Give the world the best you have and you will get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway” (Kincaid III, William B. “And Then Came The Angel,” CSS Publishing Company, www.esermons.com, retrieved January 2, 2008).

The last R-word response to God’s message on our faith journeys is “Rejoice!” We can take time to sit reverently and remember. We can also respond by repenting and turning away from non-God-centered habits. But, an often overlooked response is to celebrate the message—to rejoice in the beauty of the Christian message that our hope is based on. We rejoice and trust in God who raised Jesus from the grave. We can celebrate with great rejoicing that our lives are redeemed. We can rejoice that God’s energy can come into our lives. We celebrate because God’s loving redemptive power is not energy that we keep—no, we give it away. We let that holy energy flow from us so as to affect others around us.

People might ask you as they sense this energy, “Why are you so content? Why are you so joy-filled?” Perfect opportunity to share God’s love and grace with others.

Pastor Terry Elwyn Johnson, of Margate Community Church (New Jersey), tells the story of Bonnee Hoy, a gifted composer, who died in the prime of life. At her memorial service, a friend told of how a mockingbird used to sing regularly outside Bonnee’s window on summer nights. “Bonnee would stand at her bedroom window, peering into the darkness, listening intently, marveling at the beautiful songs the mockingbird sang. Then, musician that she was, Bonnee decided to sing back. So she whistled the first four notes of Beethoven’s ‘Fifth Symphony.’ With amazing quickness the mockingbird learned these four notes and sang them back to Bonnee. ‘And in perfect pitch,’ Bonnee marveled. Then, for a time the bird disappeared. But one night, toward the very end of Bonnee’s life, when she was so terribly sick, the bird returned and, in the midst of other songs, several times sang those first four notes of Beethoven’s ‘Fifth.’” At that memorial service, her beloved friend, with a smile on her lips and tears in her eyes, said, “I like to think of that now, somewhere out there (in a big, big world) is a mockingbird who sings Beethoven’s Fifth because of Bonnee.” Is God calling us to live a life so full of song and joy that it brings out the music of other people’s lives? Perhaps so.

The Four R’s of Faith—reverence, remembrance, repentance, and rejoicing, all of which can be our faith-responses to God’s message that God, who raises new life in Christ, will surely raise new life in us. We can place our trust in such a powerful word from God. Amen.