First United Methodist Church, Birmingham, Michigan
Pentecost Observance
Scripture: Matthew 10: 5 – 8
June 3, 2001
“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. Suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested upon each one of them. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them ability.” Which suggests that one should never be surprised by anything when friends of Jesus come together in any place, at any time, for any reason.
With that in mind, I segue to Fred Timpner….fellow member….trusted friend….who once came to me, fifteen minutes before the service, with what he thought was a great idea. “Let me make a suggestion,” said Fred. “I’ll go out and sit among the congregation. Midway through the service, I’ll pretend to fall asleep. You stop preaching and come out and rouse me. I’ll leap up….shout a couple of Hallelujahs….and cry that I’ve been raised from the dead. Then you go back and finish your sermon.”
Now Fred is a pretty innovative guy. But he didn’t come up with that idea by himself. Fred had been reading his newspaper, don’t you see. And a few days previous, Fred’s newspaper had quoted Oral Roberts making the grandiose claim that he had enjoyed no small amount of success in raising people from the dead. In fact, Oral was quoted, saying: “I won’t tell you how many of the dead have been raised under my ministry. But there was one time I had to stop my sermon, go into the crowd and raise a dead person, so that I could go back to the pulpit and finish preaching.” Oral then added that people paid a whole lot more attention to his sermon after he resurrected the parishioner, than before.
Everybody had a field day at Brother Robert’s expense, including the sometimes off-the-wall cartoonist Richard Guindon, who depicted people in cemeteries talking to tombstones, suggesting that the occupants just sit tight until Oral gets around to them.
Suffice it to say that, on the particular Sunday morning in question, Fred didn’t do his thing. And I didn’t do mine. The service went on predictably (as printed). Which is the way most of us expect it, and (if the truth be told) the way most of us like it.
Why bring it up today? Two reasons. First, because of this from John Wimber, founder of one of those new mega-churches (the one called Vineyard Fellowship). Said Wimber:
When I became a Christian, I visited various churches in search of what I called “the stuff.” “Where’s the stuff?” I’d ask, over and over again. But nobody ever seemed to know what I was talking about, nor did anybody ever produce what I was looking for. By “the stuff,” I meant those miracles of healing and tongue-speaking that were part of the Apostolic Church. I just assumed that if such extraordinary gifts of the Spirit had manifested themselves in one era of the church’s life, they would manifest themselves in another.
“Where’s the stuff?” That’s what he wanted to know. Which question wouldn’t have created even a ripple in my stream of consciousness, had not my new Bishop, Linda Lee, asked the same question just two weeks ago. Speaking before the opening session of our Detroit Annual Conference, Linda asked: “Where’s the stuff?” More to the point: “Where’s the stuff in your churches?” That’s what she wanted to know.
Citing texts like the one I just read to you….where Jesus sent his disciples out to preach the Kingdom, cure the sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons and raise the dead….she coupled that command of Jesus with his reassuring promise that those who followed in his name (and took up the burden of his work) would not only do all “the stuff” they had seen Jesus do, but greater stuff that they had seen him do.
Then she began to chide us….not only for not doing it, but for no longer believing we could do it. Along about this point in her sermon, Linda was really “getting it on” (as they say in some corners of Christendom). So she kept going until she came to this:
I ask you, when was the last time (in any of your churches) that even a single blind person regained their sight? When was the last time (in any of your churches) you blessed and broke two of anything and fed 5,000 hungry people? Or when was the last time (in any of your churches) that anybody was raised from the dead as a result of your preaching?
Now I’ve got to tell you, that last set of sentences….delivered with fiery passion and rising inflection….brought the house down. Or, to be more accurate, brought about ten percent of the house down. The rest of us applauded politely, even though we were shocked into mind-numbing disbelief. Had the Bishop actually said that? Did the Bishop really mean that? Was she talking figuratively? Or literally? To which she quickly said: “I am talking literally.”
Well, my first reaction was both defensive and angry. I wanted to ask….not out loud of course…. “When was the last time any of that stuff happened in a church you served, Bishop?” But I kept that to myself, pondering the matter a little longer. Which was when I made a rather interesting discovery.
What I was really processing was my own sense of ministerial impotence….especially when she touched on the issue of “raising the dead.” That’s because I deal in death every four or five days and have discovered that there is little I can do about it, either before or after the fact. I see people in the process of dying. Then I bury them, once they have accomplished it.
I see people die slowly.
I see people die suddenly.
I see people die too early.
And I see some who die too late.
I see people die tragically.
I see people die foolishly.
I see people die of their own hand.
And I see some who die at their neighbor’s hand.
I see people die by degrees, day after dragging day. I also see death claim some by drama and others by drift. And in the midst of all that dying, what do I do? Not much that changes the outcome. I make visits. I read Psalms. I hold hands. I say prayers. But, as concerns “all that dying,” I am pretty much powerless to stop it. And I am absolutely no good after the fact.
Sometimes, after death comes, I say to those who remain: “Of course it hurts. But given what she experienced over the last few days (few weeks, few months, few years), I don’t think any of us would willingly call her back if it meant calling her back for more of the same.” To which everybody nods. But there have been other times when death has come and snatched someone that, had there been a way for me to snatch them back, I would have done so. But it never seemed like there was. So I never did.
And I don’t know if I could today….even if I tried. But what I think my Bishop was trying to do, was remind people like me that there is (by God) more power in us than we either know or claim. And if it be so for us, surely it is so for the churches we serve.
I don’t know what miracles are. By definition, if I could explain one, it wouldn’t be one. Truth be told, I resonate to John Claypool’s observation, several Saturday mornings back, when he said: “A miracle may best be described as what happens when, for God’s own purposes, God chooses to do suddenly what God normally does slowly.” Meaning that I don’t know how water becomes wine in the twinkling of an eye. But I know how water becomes wine (by God’s good design) over several months of vineyard-planting, rain-falling, vines-sprouting, grapes fattening, and juice fermenting. Most times, God works at one pace. But every one-in-a-blessed while, it seems that God speeds things up.
But that’s a subject for another day. What I need to remember this morning….and what I need to get you to remember this morning….is that God is a tireless worker. And for those who faithfully labor in God’s fields, there are often tremendous (albeit unpredictable) results. The smarter I get, the less I understand. But the longer I minister, the more I marvel.
*****
Let me lighten things up a bit as I close. Golly sakes, it’s nearly summer, isn’t it? Did you hear the one about the three guys and the locked car? The first guy says: “Give me a coat hanger and I’ll get us in.” The second guy says: “Not a coat hanger, stupid. Someone will think you’re stealing the car.” Leading the third guy to say: “Well, the two of you better do something pretty quick, because it’s starting to rain and the top’s down.”
Well, a half-decent preacher could do a ton of stuff with that. All I want to use it for today is to say that, in the midst of the debate that swirls around the spectacular, don’t overlook the obvious. For it is in the midst of that which is obvious that one often finds the best miracles the church has to offer.
I don’t know how many blind people have regained their sight here. But, Sunday after Sunday, I preach to a trio of ophthalmological surgeons who do things with eyes that I can’t begin to calculate or comprehend.
I don’t know how many times I’ve broken two of anything and fed five thousand people. But I’ve got fifty thousand of your dollars that says we keep a lot of soup kitchens afloat locally, and seventeen hundred of your signatures on Bread for the World petitions (thank you, Norris Lee) that will lead to the feeding of millions, globally.
I don’t know how many people I’ve raised from the dead, but tomorrow afternoon, I’ll lay down with more than a hundred of you and give somebody a new lease on life with a pint of my old, tired blood.
Not to mention Scott Wilkinson who leaves for Belize next Saturday as part of a medical mission team, or the Birmingham Eleven who will leave tomorrow afternoon for “Prague Nine” where they’ll get tired, dirty, sweaty and smelly, as a result of going a few miles, to pound a few nails, make a few friends, and build a few bridges.
And time will surely fail me, should I try to envision all that you will change tomorrow as a result of all the dollars you have pledged today. Talk about Good Stuff….
This sermon was preached as part of a great Sunday morning celebration of Pentecost and Ingathering of Pledges for our “Now’s Our Chance” campaign. Let the record show that nearly five million dollars have been pledged towardthe construction of a new Christian Life Center (a fact which is no less miraculous because it is within the economic capability of the members of this congregation.
