Sermon from Acts 4:32-37 for June 24

Soon and very soon, Sue and I are to have a grandchild.

Rumor is the child will have a name. We have no idea what the name will be, although lots of folks who came to the baby shower last weekend had some great suggestions: Charlie Farley, Harley Farley, Knarly Farley. Or my favorite Duke Diesel Farley. 

Brian and Rachel have said they want to wait and see the baby before they name him. This will be a shock! Babies right out of the womb are u-g-l-y! So his name will be “Crying, pooping, urping, little Farley person”.

At some point Brian and Rachel will bring the child for baptism and when we baptize a child one of the things we ask parents in addition to “Who is your Lord and Savior?” and “Do you intend to raise this child in the faith”, and “Do you want this child to be baptized?” is, “What is the Christian name of this child”?

In some traditions a child is given an additional name at this point. In others, their name is finally revealed. Some are even given a name by the community of faith.

So, what is your “Christian” name? Not the one on the birth certificate!  

No, the name that reflects who you are in Christ, not who your parents called you but by what name God knows you.

And what is the name that people who know you well, know your faith, know what you value as a child of God would call you, if they could give you a name you could “grow” into?

Perhaps “Faith”, because you are a person who in all situation of life see God’s handiwork in all your adventures and in the adventures of others.

Or “Rock” because in situations where other get frightened, you hold fast to the faith and to all the things that really matter.

Or “Patience” because you are the one who sees the big picture and are willing to hang on to see what God is going to do.

Or “Reggie”…

Because “Joy” is a another female name. So guys can be “Reggie-ous”!

Some of you have met our sister “Jubilant” who delights in praise, Sheila Moore! Or our brother “steadfast”, Mike Coklinb who is a bit old fashioned, and a bit odd, but steady in his faith.

A couple of years ago I took one of those personality tests that are sometimes used in corporate and leadership settings to help individuals understand themselves and can help others in the group understand who in the room with them that has unique gifts.

Knowing those gifts, talents, abilities can really make a difference when a group is trying to get a project done. Who in the room is a “closer”, the one who make sure the final details are attended too.

Who is a “thinker” that will put together the reasons for change and deal with the arguments against change.

Who is the “apostle” that will take the group well out of their comfort zone to do something brand new?

Who is the “comforter” who will help the group get glued together and deal with the inevitable fractures in relationship.

The five themes of leadership the test identified in me, didn't really result in a name for me, but maybe you can figure one out from this and share it with me!

·      Adaptability – I see something new and then I make changes necessary to get it to work. Direct mail doesn’t work, move to Facebook, then to Instagram, then to mailchimp, then to a church app

·      Maximizer – I love to take limited resources and use the heck out of them. I am not interested in slowing down or saying we can’t do that. Why are we a church if we are not going to be the church? Open the doors, tear down the walls, let the world see that Jesus is alive and well in the hearts and lives of his people right here in downtown Otisville! Let do and be the kingdom!

·      Intellection – I think it through and help folks open their brains as well as their hearts to do God’s work here and now in our community. And not just here but around the world. Send a kid to camp in Mt. Hope! Cool! Let’s send a kid to camp in Namibia too. (And somebody please get that box of school supplies to Rachel!) Make the kingdom bigger, because God has chosen us to be his hands, feet and heart in this world. Us! Us! Us!

·      Arranger – “Get ‘er done!” Make plans, do them, evaluate them, and then make changes so we can do things better! And always be ready to hand out more brushes (A la Tom Sawyer) so the fence gets painted, and the neighbor’s fence too. Who here would be willing to go and paint the fence of a neighbor in need. So, why aren’t we? If Dominoes or whoever, can fill Pot holes in streets and then put their logo on them, why can’t we. Paint a fence, give the neighbors a tie dyed church t-shirt and tell them, “God loves you and so do we. Have an amazing day!”

·      And Positivity – yeah we live in a world that sometimes sucks! We as individuals, as communities, as a country, and as a world do things that harm others, make their lives harder, accuse each other of base motives and generally drag the whole conversation down. But as followers of Jesus, we don’t have to be those people, we don’t have to follow that lead, we can be the people of love, grace, mercy, and joy, and faced with hurts and misery and fear, be jubilant; knowing that the King of Kings and Lord of Lords has sent us to bring a very different narrative, one not of shortage and loss, but of abundance and amazing life.

Filled with the Spirit, and willing and able to sell off some land in order to help take of the saints in Jerusalem in need, Joseph, a Levite, a member of the priestly family of Israel from the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean, was given the new name of Bar-nabus, meaning the son of encouragement, because in Christ he was and was to be, a man after God’s own heart inviting others to step up and follow God’s call on their lives to be all that God desired.

His name was Joseph! But they called him Barnabus.

What is your name in Christ?

Amen.

Sermon from Acts 4:1-22 for June 17

What is the boldest thing you have ever done?

Boldness is a quality of the spirit, a sign that the Holy Spirit is resident in you.

When you decide to step out, to share your faith, to call for repentance, to help another in a situation that has some cost, you are following the spirit!

It may be scary. But to not follow where the spirit leads would be nothing short of stifling the spirit, and none of us want to so that.

If you are old like me you remember TV shows that came over the air (not on cables) and rabbit ear antennae on the back of the TV. Some of you may also remember black and white TV sets in big wood boxes!

I remember watching President Kennedy’s funeral procession on a big black and white TV in the living room on Sunday, September 24, 1963. It was amazing and awful. It changed the way people got their news and how many of us perceived the world.

Later we watched Disney’s Wonderful World of Color and Marlin Perkin’s Wild Kingdom, and my mom and dad sometimes watched the Honeymooners, with Ralph yelling “to the moon Alice” and then even later on as the world changed “All in the Family” with Archie Bunker and his famous line, “stifle Edith”.

He, Archie, wanted her to not get excited, not say stuff, not listen to her brain and her big heart in the same way we sometimes tell people to not listen to the spirit, even tell ourselves not to listen to the spirit.

But 1 Thessalonians 5:19 says in some translations “do not stifle the spirit”, that is don’t pour water on a roaring fire, or snuff out a smoking reed, or not speak when God has given you the words, the opportunity and the fullness of his grace and mercy to do so!

Do not hide your light under a bushel, but rather put in on a lampstand so the whole house is lit, so the whole world can see! Don’t be afraid. Be bold. Speak what your heart is feeling and the spirit is leading you to say!

And they spoke boldly, Peter and John. They could have stifled.

They could have decided that healing the lame man and then explaining it to the gathered crowd was enough, and gone home!

They could have disappeared back into the crowd with the 5000 men who were now part of the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem and had a nice little safe worship service inside the wall of an upper room.

They might still have been arrested at some point, but they could have stifled when asked for an explanation of their actions and words by the religious leaders. 

They could have wimped out, begged off, told a warm and fuzzy healing story and not confronted the authorities, but instead they went with the spirit’s invitation.

Like other believers after them, they spoke of God’s work through Jesus of Nazareth with boldness, and in doing so they confronted other people of faith who had stifled, quenched, ignored, and failed to listen to and then do the spirit’s work.

Not that listening to the spirit is for the faint hearted!

Not everyone is willing to confront those who say change is unacceptable or impossible or that we have always done it this way, even though “this way” is no longer the way the spirit is going or what the spirit is doing.

It is amazing how comfortable the people of God can be inside the church walls even when the world and it’s need for Jesus continues to move farther and father away from the church.

And still church after church senses no urgency to reach the next generation for Christ!

How is that possible? We have (unknowingly perhaps) quenched the spirit.

It has not always been that way.

In generations past, the spirit spoke, and the followers of Jesus, as well as others, confronted the slave trade, with Great Britain leading the way, and soon ships no longer sailed from African with our brothers and sisters of color on board.

In another generation and a world away, the followers of Jesus confronted widow burning, and brought it to an end. No woman dies, because the husband who owned her has died.

Children no longer work in factories, people with leprosy have medical solutions to their once dread disease, and folks with cancer, or mental illness, or who lose a child in childbirth, are no longer considered unclean.

Today, in communities not too far away, people of faith are confronting human trafficking and trying to bring it to it end.

And some have recognized the spirit’s work in the “Me too” and “Time’s up” campaigns, seeing in them the call for believers to recognize what we have always affirmed, that in Christ, there is no Greek or Jew, slave or free, male or female.

That in fact, we are all one family in Christ, and therefore need to be bold in sharing with and caring for each other, even when it appears on the surface that we are very different.

Peter and John were not shy, even though they were not considered well-spoken or well-educated men. They were just speaking what the spirit gave them to speak. 

And in doing so, they became models of what bold believers in Jesus can do: bring healing to the sick, boldness to the public area, and let the whole world know that Jesus is alive and well in the hearts and minds and lives of his people.

So, what is the boldest thing you have ever done…

…and what is the bold thing you need to do right now, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Sermon from Acts 3:1-10 for June 10

So… Today it seems appropriate to have a fire drill! You know what those are right?

When Trooper Craig Vedder was here a few weeks ago he pointed out that if there was ever a crisis in the church every kid would know what to do, but the parents would be a mess!

So, before we do a fire drill which encompasses people getting up out of their pews, filing orderly out the back doors walking down the sidewalks to the manse, and then waiting patiently there for further instructions! (Many of you already sense what a fail all of this would be!) I have a few practical questions?

First, when the church is on fire, what do you do?

I heard a wonderful answer: “Get out of my way slow poke!”

Here is the answer: Most important of all, you get everybody out of the church building, out the doors, and down the street, out into the neighborhood! You do not, and I repeat, you do not - put out the fire!

That’s it!

If the church is on fire, you get out of the building, you get into the neighborhood, and you do not put out the fire.

Does anyone else hear a sermon in all of this?

If the Holy Spirit, which came on Pentecost to the apostles and the other disciples, decides to stop here in Otisville, at the Otisville – Mt. Hope Presbyterian Church, and you start to see signs of the glory cloud of God, the tongues of fire distributed on everyone here, and it begins to look like the whole church is on fire, you…

you get out of the building, you get into the neighborhood, you start sharing the Holy Spirit and you do not put out the fire!

Oh, for God’s sake, do not put out the fire. Stoke it! And to it. Fuel it. Oxygenate it. Heat it up! Make it burn baby, burn. Because when the church is on fire, God does amazing things!

Do you know how to put out a fire?

You take away one of the three necessary elements for a fire: heat, oxygen, or fuel. And in churches we sometimes can be really good at that.

We fail to apply heat, energy, excitement, enthusiasm to parts of church life and then we don’t notice that our spiritual temperature has gotten cold. We don’t have to be the “frozen chosen” we can be the people on fire!

You know the number one sign of a church on fire? Adult baptisms. You know why right, because for adult baptism to take place it means that one of the nones or dones, people outside the tradition community of the church have decided to enter your church doors to continue their following of Jesus.

And if they have come in your open doors it is because 1. Your doors are perceived to be open and 2. someone in the church has stepped out in faith and invited them to follow Jesus.

If you want your worship experience to be hot, soul searing, wake you up and make you shout, if you want to be a little crazy in worship and clap your hands to a praise piece, or sway to the time of the music, or shout amen when the preacher gets rocking (ahem)…

then you need to come to worship hot and ready to cook and have the worship experience set to boil! I mean nothing says “hot worship” more than a preacher in a white shirt and tie looking like a Walmart manager, just saying!

To be a church on fire, we have to decide to be a church on fire! We have to decide that the most cutting-edge things the church is doing have the very best resources: people, money, time, facilities, and mountains of prayer!

They need fuel and so we have a responsibility to find fuel and add it to the fire, even if that means some of the fuel needs to come out of our wallets!

Someone stopped by the church this week to see me because they wanted to set up a Tithe.ly account. So, I downloaded the church app for them showed them the newsfeed, the prayer wall, and then helped them get their credit card linked to the giving section, because, they wanted to make sure that they were giving regularly even when they were traveling.

Church fuel.

And churches on fire need the oxygen of prayer, lots and lots of prayer,  praying not only for folks in need and lifting up words of thanksgiving for all the blessings we have received, but praying that God would use his humble but uniquely gifted people to make a difference in the lives of the folks in our community!

Not just the food pantry and backpacks, but space for AA and Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts and Line Dancing, and maybe someday tutoring and mentoring, but even more than that a place for folks to come who want and need the healing that only God can do!

He sat by the Temple and waited…

And if Peter and John had just prayed it would have been good, but what they did instead, in addition to praying was amazing!

We need to pray! For the Deacons 5K, for the EMPOWERkids outreach, for our teens as they spend time today at Pierson’s Farm giving water to the cyclists coming through town and raise money for Camp Glow in Namibia, Rachel Pierson’s latest project.

We need to pray as a whole church that God would send us every young adult looking for meaning and purpose in life so that we could introduce them to Jesus, and his invitation for them to shake up this world with love and grace and mercy! And enjoy a beer together, or a nice smooth cider, and find a mentor for the group that is not 61, but maybe 31.

When was the last time we prayed that God would fill us with his fire, so much so that on the way to church, if saw a person in need we would stop and find a way to meet their needs and then take them to church with us to worship so that they and the whole world could see what God is doing and so that they could dance in faith with us?

When was the last time you leapt, and shouted, and danced with joy over what Go has done in your life, and if your perception is that God hasn’t done much, ask yourself if perhaps that’s because the heat of God’s Holy Spirit in turned on way too low in your life and in your church?

“Silver and gold, have I none, but such as I have I give thee, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And he went walking and leaping and praising God!”

So, if the church is on fire, what do you do? You get out of the building, you get into the neighborhood, and you do not put out the fire. Amen.

Sermon from Acts 2:41-47 for June 3