One novelist put it like this... “They paint the Holy Spirit descending upon the Apostles' heads in the form of a dove. For shame!…Where did they find that innocent, edible bird? How can they present that to us as spirit? No, the Spirit is not a dove, it is fire…(that) clamps its talons into the very crown of saints, martyrs, and great strugglers, reducing them to ashes. Abject souls are the ones who take the Holy Spirit for a dove, which they imagine they can kill and eat… Wake the fire! That is (our) duty…(This) is how (we) collaborate with God…Ignite the world, transform it into fire, and render it unto (God, who) will turn it into light.”
This is the image that we see in todays text. The Holy Spirit comes down upon those gathered as tongues of fire. Fire.
Think about fire. In your minds eye, think of a raging, spreading prairie fire. That is what the Holy Spirit is like. {help to visualize it}.
Think about some of the characteristics of fire. First off, there is nothing that it touches that it doesn't change. That it doesn't transform into something other than what it was. For this reason, fire is dangerous. We want our house to remain a collection of wood and nails ordered just so, not a pile of ash. We want our communion sets to be functional, not a mass of metal and glass which is what this became after the 1960 fire here at the church. We want our lives to stay just as they are. To stay right here in our oblivious comfort thank you very much, rather than becoming martyrs, or worse yet, saints.
But there comes a time when a strange stirring comes creeping up in your heart. A desire, a longing for life, and for life abundantly. These first stirrings come straight from God's spirit. Wesley called it 'prevenient grace'. This is the grace that we celebrate in baptism. In The Articles of Religion, John Wesley asserted that, “Baptism is not only a sign of profession and mark of difference whereby Christians are distinguished from others that are not baptized; but it is also a sign of regeneration or the new birth. The baptism of young children is to be retained in the church.” Baptism of an infant powerfully portrays the utter dependence which all of us have on God. It is not about anything that we do. The sacrament is the sign of God’s promise of ongoing grace, offering continual forgiveness and transformation throughout our lives. But we do not receive all of the benefits of baptism at once; this is particularly obvious when infants are baptized. At whatever age it is received, baptism demonstrates our inclusion in the covenant with God and our access to the divine grace that claims, sustains, and saves us.
And then there is a moment when we respond to this Grace. A moment when we stand up and say, “I am so tired of compromising. I am so tired of lukewarm living.” There comes this moment when we let the floodgates wide open and say Lord, set me on fire. Here I am with my heart wide open. Take it, Lord. Take all of it. I have no use for any of it if it is not in your service. It is this ongoing moment of awakening, when we give ourselves wholly and completely to God, that Wesley called Justifying Grace. At this point, when we allow the Holy Spirit to have its way, that we get burned. That we get transformed. Its a pure fire that wipes away our sins clean. We are burned beyond recognition, back to the state of grace in the garden before the fall. We may still be guilty of our sins, but God declares us not guilty. We celebrate God's justifying grace in the service of confirmation.
Unfortunately, what happens if you burn a field of weeds and then abandon it again. The weeds come back. So it is with sin. This is why we are in need of perpetual grace. We need to keep going back to the fire for further refinement. This is called Sanctifying Grace, and we practice it through communion. This is why we practice communion with increasing frequency, because we want to get back, to that state of divinity with Jesus Christ.
It has been 50 days since Easter, both for us and the disciples. The setting we read in Acts is very public. Luke gives a list of 15 distinct language groups. We are told that there are many faithful and we hear from skeptics. This is not an encounter with the divine that happens behind a locked door in a monastery. This is God making Godself present in the midst of community. “Christianity is lived out not in isolation, but in community with other Christians.” The church does not allow private baptisms except in the most extreme situation of imminent death. The congregation needs to be present to “reaffirm its own faith and commitment, to promise to nurture, teach, and support those whose commitments are being affirmed. We need mutual nurturing, by both proclamation and example. We grow in faith, service, and discipleship within a community of love and forgiveness.”
“And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost”
Sisters and Brothers, we are the community that was created in this holy fire. We are the ones who have felt God's call and are responding to it.
{“Nothing but fire kindles fire.” “If you want to set someone on fire, you have to buuurn a little bit yourself.” “A burning heart will soon find for itself a flaming tongue.”}
In a little bit, you will be invited to take on an awesome responsibility and you will need to keep these three principles in mind. We will be accepting one person into Christianity, one person into the United Methodist Church, and one into our local community at FGUMC. You will be asked if you will proclaim the good news and live according to the example of Christ. You will be asked if your will surround the Rueffs with a community of love and forgiveness. You will be asked if you will pray for them. If you do not intend to live up to these commitments, do not say them. Can we effectively do these three things on our own? No. And so we will need help from the fire of the Holy Spirit.
So how is it that we will proclaim the good news. How is it that the word of God spread from these initial 120 people that we read about in Acts to the entire world. How is it that we are expected to spread the word of God in a culture that already gets too much information. That has playstations and ipods and 300 channels on the TV. How can we possibly spread the word in such conditions. I'll tell you how. “Nothing but fire ... kindles fire.” People were on fire...
How can we express our love for this family, to surround them with a community of love and forgiveness. Simple, we need to make ourselves vulnerable. We need to put our pride on the shelf, or better yet send it back to Satan and tell him to keep it. If you are struggling in the faith, share it with someone. If you are sinning in any way, burn it out- don't let it fester. If we are going to be of any use to anyone, we cannot pretend like we are perfect. We need to burn a little ourselves. If you want to set someone on fire, you have to ... burn a little bit yourself.
Finally, how will we pray. We will pray passionately for them to have life and have it abundantly. A burning heart will soon find ... a flaming tongue. If we truly cultivate a love for this family and all of the families in our congregation, we will passionately desire that they have abundant life in Jesus.
We are going to take the offering now. Val and Deb are going to sing, and the rest of us are going to consider the responsibility that we are going to take on. We are going to ask God to reclaim our own lives so that we might be an effective Christian witness. We are going to ask that our hearts be filled with fire. Amen?
May the ushers please come forward.
1 comment:
that was awesome! GOD bless!
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