Touched

Sermon Starter

by Leonard Sweet

John 20:19-31

We now live in a “virtual” world. A TGiF world where T=Twitter, G=Google, 
i=iPads/iPhones (and all the other i-devices), and F=Facebook. In the next couple of months, 
Facebook will be going public. The only questions are a) whether Facebook's IPO be the biggest IPO 
in American history; b) how soon this summer will Facebook reach 1 billion users 
(that’s 1/7 of the planet’s population); and c) whether or not Facebook is really worth 100 billion dollars?

Regardless of how you answer those questions, all of life now happens “online” in some way or fashion, 
according to some view or on some venue. 

There is good and bad about this TGIF world. 

A bad? We leave our kids to fend and to fashion an identity for themselves out of mass-mediated images. 
At least three things are wrong with this: 
1) mass (not personalized and customized); 
2) mediated (not parented or purposed); 
3) images (not real life). 

A good? Distance is dead. Social media can bring us into relationships with people we have physically never met, 
and can build bonds between cultures and causes that are separated by half the world’s geography. 
Every revolution, every conflict, now happens in our own “virtual” backyard or village commons. 
We are touched by people and events we will never ever physically encounter. Yet they are up-close 
and personal to us because of online connections. 

It is a connected world. Every one now can be an island, since even islands are no longer isolated. 
No one with a computer or cell lives alone. 

It was so not so in the first century. As Jesus was being tortured and crucified, taken off the cross and buried, 
almost all his followers fled. The few remaining witnesses were (luckily for them) considered inconsequential -- 
women, hangers-on, etc.. But Jesus’ followers fled for a reason. They knew it was likely 
they would be considered traitors, conspiratorial enemies of Rome. They knew it was likely 
they were already on Rome’s “Most Wanted” list. Can you really blame Jesus’ disciples for fleeing from Golgotha 
and locking down in anonymous hired rooms in Jerusalem? Out of sight, out of mind, 
was not a bad game plan as far as Jesus’ followers were concerned.

(from http://www.sermons.com)