Summary of RESTART
Sunday Lesson on January 24, 2016
Rev. John Strickland
Bible Verses: John 21: 15 – 17
www.UnityAtl.org
I have mentioned Dr. Frank Rasler, one of our congregants, several times in
recent weeks. He is an Emergency Room Physician and is in fine physical shape.
He gave a TED talk on fitness that resonated with me. He and I are working on
finding a time to encourage all of us to change our lives for the better. The megachurch minister Rick Warren, in Southern California, challenged his congregation
a couple of years ago and the results were outstanding.
One of the things Dr. Rasler mentions in his TED talk is “restarting”. A lot of us
will take several starts to change our life. My purpose this morning is to
encourage you to begin again if you have started a self-improvement project and
failed. No failure needs to be permanent. Let’s start again.
Allow me to touch on Jesus and the Disciples. In His greatest time of need,
Jesus’s Disciples failed miserably. I will particularly focus on Peter. Peter denied
Jesus three times. Jesus knew that he would, but He did not give up on Peter. In
the 21st chapter of the Gospel of John we read this account of a breakfast meeting,
after Jesus was resurrected: When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon
Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him,
“Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” A
second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him,
“Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He
said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt
because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him,
“Yes, Lord; you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him,
“Feed my sheep.” What does this inter-change between Jesus and Peter mean? It
is teaching us that Jesus is allowing Peter to cancel his previous three denials so
that he can restart his work. Eventually Peter becomes the Bishop of Rome. The
Roman Catholic Church considers him its first Pope. There is a church in Israel
known as Saint Peter in Gallicantu. Gallicantu means, in Latin, “cock’s crow.”
Jesus had told Peter that he would deny Him three times before the cock crowed.
The church commemorates Peter’s restart.
I love stories of restarts. They give me hope. Success does not always come to
us in a straight line. But success will come to us as long as we are willing to get
up one more time than we fall down. The Fillmores had a great vision of a village
and a farm for their work. They moved from downtown Kansas City to Lee’s
Summit and things got off to a great start. Then the Great Depression came and
they moved back to Kansas City and did not move to Unity Village until after the
end of the Depression. They were visionaries and they were practical.
Let me tell you the story of a restart person, Charles Colson. He was the former
White House Counsel during the Nixon Administration. He was known as
Nixon’s “hatchet man” and one of the most despised men in America. He served
seven months in federal penitentiary. And he found God. He founded “Prison
Fellowship”. He authored more than 30 books and received 15 honorary
doctorates. He was a recipient of the prestigious Templeton Prize in Religion. The
Templeton Prize in Religion gives a larger cash prize than the Nobel Prizes.
Colson donated all the money to the Prison Fellowship. He did wrong. And then,
guided by God, he restarted. He did more good than he ever would have, had he
not been convicted.
I love the story of Jonas Salk as a toddler. He was attempting to get himself a
glass of milk, but the bottle slipped, broke on the floor and spilled milk
everywhere. His mother came running and got down on her knees and held him.
First she said, “Let me pick up the pieces of glass so you won’t hurt yourself.”
And then she said, “As long as the milk is spilled, would you like to play in it for a
while? Then we will clean up the mess. How do you think we should do that?
Should we use rags, or a sponge or a mop? Now that you are getting to be a big
boy and you will want to get milk from the fridge by yourself, you will need to
practice. Let’s take an empty bottle out into the yard and fill it with water so you
can learn how to hold it and pour it into a cup.” Do you see what this kind of
parenting and teaching did? It was this approach that may very well have led to his
scientific research that discovered the Polio vaccine. He was not punished or
made to feel guilty about his failure. He was praised, encouraged and educated.
We need to provide this kind of nurturing for others and ourselves.
If we have set goals or made resolutions and broken them, we need to love
ourselves and others to wholeness. Let’s metaphysically go out into the backyard
and learn how to pour milk from a jar. Let’s help others who have made mistakes,
tried and failed, go out into the yard and learn to pour milk from a jar. The world
needs more people like Jesus, Jonas Salk, his mother and Chuck Colson to help us
all love one another and restart.