So…
Sometimes God can use what looks to us to be a disaster, as a new beginning. Amazingly, God uses willing disciples to make that beginning.
Are you willing?
Sometimes, as followers of Jesus, we are invited to step out of our comfort zones.
Of course, we like our cocoons. They are warm and safe. Well, at least they are safe from the possible threats we can’t see. But they also blind us to the possibilities of meeting new friends, doing things that are way beyond our comfort zones but might turn out to be really amazing, and …
They make it impossible to unfold our wings and become the amazing butterflies, the amazing spirit filled people God intends us to be.
I want you to think for a moment, what is one thing you would do if you weren’t hiding in that cocoon you have built for yourself? What is it we as a church could do, if we weren’t hiding in the cocoon we all gather in?
Now turn to your neighbor in the pew and tell them something you would love to do, or that you think the church could do, if we were not hiding from God’s spirit.
Some of you are a bit quiet! Perhaps the spirit hasn’t spoken to you yet? Or more likely, you are still doing your best to hide!
This week Sue took our neighbor and her three girls down to High Point State park to try both kayaking and paddle boarding.
One of the great gifts of being a kid is sometimes you have no idea what you should be afraid of, so you will try anything. And sometimes succeed, and sometimes fall off the board, but as many of us have discovered, falling off a paddle board at 6 or 9 or 12, is a lot easier than at 62.
So, one of the secrets of life, God’s life in you, the presence of God’s Holy Spirit, is to say yes to all of those “out of Cocoon” experiences early and often!
Because sometimes in life we get so cocooned up that we wouldn’t, couldn’t ever do what some others of our friends are doing with regularity for God’s kingdom.
Going to North Carolina to rehab houses of complete strangers. Going and finding Jen D’Esposito and saying yes to helping with the EMPOWERkids program or the new Youth program Jen and some others are dreaming up that will start January 1.
We have a friend at Loon Lake we just love. Odette is in her 80’s and she and her husband Gene live fulltime on the Lake. Gene was an architect and Odette was a supervising nurse of a Long Island operating room.
They are both smart, gracious and wonderfully funny. But Odette in particular is just a cocoon waiting to unravel!
Because she has decided she never wants to get Alzheimer’s disease, and so, she has decided to take all kinds of “out of the cocoon” classes and remain a butterfly.
First, she decided to learn Spanish – in her 80’s. Okay. Then, she decided that because she is a lefty and learned to knit as a lefty, that she should now learn to knit as a righty!
Who does that! I mean really! You know who does that – butterflies.
They come out of the cocoon and discover a whole new life that has amazing possibilities, including being able to fly.
BTW, I have this crazy idea for our children’s and youth programs. You’d never know it, but I have ideas! I know I come across as a mild-mannered preacher, but underneath, wild and crazy lives. And you should see my wings!
I have this idea, stolen fair and square from my crazy friend Rich Hong, of building the morning worship spot for EMPOWERkids program into a set that has, among other things, two towers made of furnace filters and carefully taped together for structural integrity, with multi LED par cans at the bottom’s shining up, ready to dance with multi colored light as the worship music blares during the EMPOWERkids opening.
Take that, you coffee swilling Café lovers!
And when on those Sunday’s at 9:30am, when the EMPOWERkids worship is upstairs, I would like the towers up here! Just saying. I actually like to dance. I dance badly, but the spirit don’t care!!!
Now, to be clear, I may be a butterfly, but anyone who knows me knows that a builder I am not, so which one of you is God calling out of your cocoon?
Peter was in a cocoon of a sort, although Jesus had made it clear that cocoons were, wel,l passé. They were nothing more than a temporary place of transformation. And the Holy Spirit had really made a mess of the cocoon, because joy, and power, and love and transformation were regularly blowing holes in them left and right.
But like some of us, even though we are really butterflies at heart, we do like to crawl back into the assumed safety of the chrysalis.
“Why”, Peter asks, “did you send for me”?
Peter, one of the great heroes of the New Testament, one of the great disciples and apostles, was still struggling, it seems to me, with what the Holy Spirit was doing, to all kinds of people, heretics like Samaritans, and proselytes like the Ethiopian, and even official persecutors like Saul.
But this, this was a step into territory even Peter was at a loss to understand, a Gentile and a Roman army centurion, a leader of the official occupation army in Israel.
Peter was being asked to do what no good Kosher man would do, go into a Gentiles house and sit and listen to his story. It was scary. It was dangerous. But it was also a moment where a butterfly filled with God’s spirit was needed.
Peter went in. Peter listened. Then Peter told the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection. And then…
Well, listen to what it says in Acts 10:44-48.
“While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit took control of everyone who was listening. Some Jewish followers of the Lord had come with Peter, and they were surprised that the Holy Spirit had been given to Gentiles. Now they were hearing Gentiles speaking unknown languages and praising God.
“Peter said, “These Gentiles have been given the Holy Spirit, just as we have! I am certain that no one would dare stop us from baptizing them.”
Peter ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and they asked him to stay on for a few days.”
So…
Sometimes God asks us to step up and out of our cocoons, so God can use us as the Spirit filled disciples he has made us, butterflies if you will, ready to make new friends and new disciples in all kinds of crazy places.
But only if you are willing!
Are you willing?
Amen!
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