Dr. William A. Ritter
First United Methodist Church
Birmingham, Michigan
Scripture: Acts 2 (selected verses) and John 20:19-22
June 1, 2003
As will soon become apparent upon reading the sermon, these words were written in observance of First Church’s annual observance of Pentecost. For those reading them from afar, let me acknowledge my awareness that Pentecost Sunday officially falls on June 8 of this year. As you probably know, Pentecost moves across the calendar in direct relation to the date of Easter. Some years ago, I decided to institutionalize our Pentecost observance on the first Sunday of June. This means that it never has to share the spotlight with Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, Confirmation Day, Graduation Day, or Choir Sunday. Having made the switch nearly twenty years ago, I have been surprised at the number of churches that have followed suit. Pentecost Sunday at First Church features lively music, colorful apparel (including much wearing of red), and a “closing” on the church lawn, including a balloon launch and birthday cake.
Just when I thought we had spent our last nights, ever, on inflatable air mattresses, Kris and I signed on for a few days in Costa Rica with our mission work team. Addicted to comfort as we are, it won’t be the easiest adjustment to make. But we’ll do it. Maybe I’ll just unfold both our air mattresses and preach to them, letting the hot air do the rest.
Still, the value of inflatables is not debatable, given that not every act of “blowing something up” is a bad act. If you don’t believe me, consider the inventive genius of England’s Michael Gill who, within the last two months, has given us the world’s first inflatable church. Which, judging from news reports across the pond, is no joke. You can put 60 people in it. Which means that it could effectively service at least 20 percent of the churches in our denomination. The New York Times press release says that not only is it 47 feet high, but that it includes a blow-up organ, altar, pulpit, pews, candles and stained glass windows.
No explanation was offered as to how air gets to it and through it. One suspects it requires something more than pastoral huffing and puffing. Neither are we told how mobile it may be. But in a denomination where, from the days of John Wesley, Methodist preachers have been called “traveling elders,” I suppose we could be issued one of Michael Gill’s inflatables at ordination and, with the aid of a sturdy trailer hitch, lug our place of employment with us wherever we go.
After all, Jesus instructed his disciples to travel light. Paul modeled a ministry that viewed the entire Mediterranean as his parish. The Book of Hebrews highlighted the early tent wanderings of our Abrahamic ancestors in the faith. And John Wesley’s instructions to preachers….which are still read to ordinands today….included the admonition “to never spend any more time in any one place than is absolutely necessary.” Which means that we preachers could be the new Paladins of the ecclesiastical landscape, freely distributing business cards that read: “HAVE CHURCH, WILL TRAVEL.”
Which might not be a bad thing. For, in some ways, buildings can tie you down. Consider the early days of Methodism in America. Which were not all that early when measured against the history of this country. Frankly, we came late. Worse yet, we came straggling. Other religious groups were here long before we were. In fact, other religious groups were instrumental in the shaping of colonial America. Not only were Pilgrims and Puritans early on the scene, but they soon became institutionalized as the Congregationalists of Massachusetts Bay. The Dutch Reformed fashioned New Amsterdam (or, as we know it today, New York). Add to that, the early-arriving Quakers in Philadelphia, Baptists (with Roger Williams) in Rhode Island, and Catholics (with Lord Baltimore) in Maryland.
All those groups arrived in the 1600s. They came. They cleared land. They built houses. Then they built churches. Even seminaries. Both Yale and Harvard trained preachers almost before they did anything else. Clearly, the first religious groupings in America were anything but slow in the development of real estate. They built buildings of all kinds in places of all kinds.
By contrast, John and Charles Wesley came but once to America….in the 1730s….to Georgia…. with General Oglethorpe. And between them, the Wesleys didn’t stay two years before sailing back to England. Even when they were here, they were priests representing the Church of England. If you want to pack an overnight bag, I can take you to south Georgia and show you a couple of places where they preached. But only a couple. And if you read the signs over the doors carefully, both of those buildings have the word “Episcopal” in their title.
Well, that was before the Great Awakening came to John and Charles Wesley in 1738. Which happened in London. And, truth be told, they never returned to our shores again. But their followers did. Converts of John Wesley began arriving in the 1740s, with greater waves of migration in the 1750s, ’60s and ’70s. But since those venturing Wesleyans were largely converted, not in British church sanctuaries but in open-air camp meetings….by a preacher who boasted that, in addition to preaching 44,000 sermons in his lifetime, he rode 250,000 miles on horseback during his ministry….our Methodist ancestors were not “big” on buildings in America, because they were not “big” on buildings in England. To be sure, one can trace a few Methodist meeting houses around the Chesapeake. But precious few. For, truth be told, we didn’t become a recognizable denomination until 1784. Meaning that, in terms of American church history, we were a day late and dollar short. We didn’t have Yale. We didn’t have Harvard. We didn’t even have sanctuaries or Sunday school rooms (unless you count people’s houses which doubled as such on Sundays).
So what happened? I’ll tell you what happened. Westward migration happened. People hungry for land began riding across the Alleghenies and into the Ohio Valley. But most church groups stayed put in the East. And it was real estate, in large part, that kept them “put” in the East. After all, why leave churches you had worked to build, schools you had sacrificed to establish, not to mention cemeteries your loved ones had died to fill? The logic was simple. Stay home, where the steeples are. Stay home, where the classrooms are. Stay home, where the tombstones are.
But, religiously speaking, when you are a day late and a dollar short….when you are the new kid on the block and you have yet to build a building at the end of the block….and when the man who led you to Christ rode 250,000 miles on a horse (and, like him, you are neither uncomfortable nor unfamiliar with the idea of a horse)…..why not go West? What do you have to lose? Which explains why our early Methodist ancestors rode west along with some breakaway Baptists (the words “breakaway” and “Baptist” being as inseparable then as they are now). And which also explains why the two largest Protestant denominations in America subsequently became the Methodist Church and the Southern Baptist Convention.
We were the light-traveling, circuit-riding people. Our preachers carried a clean, white shirt in one saddlebag and a well-worn Bible in the other. My favorite Methodist circuit rider story concerns Rev. Peter Cartwright who was known for riding into a settlement at full gallop while screaming at the top of his lungs: “I smell hell here.” Would that I would have had the guts to do it my first Sunday in Birmingham.
Well….times have changed and so have we. And while it might be quaint to do the traveling thing….the tent thing….or the inflatable thing….new occasions really do teach new duties. And one of the “newer duties” involves construction. Even the children of Abraham (our Judaic ancestors) progressed from a time of tenting to a time of tabernacling, culminating in a time of templing, driven by a belief that God not only told them what to build, when to build and where to build, but how to build. I mean, there are whole, big sections of scripture that read like a construction manual.
So I am not going to apologize for having cluttered up the landscape by building four buildings during my ministry. Today’s preachers don’t ride horses and go to the people, so much as they build buildings and let the people come to them. Although buildings can be mixed blessings. Some buildings are museums, standing as monuments to past ministry. Others are albatrosses, the costly maintenance of which inhibits present ministry. But some are wonderful tools which gather, nurture and equip people for future ministry. So what is my job? My job is to make sure this place is now….and continues to be….a tool shop.
One of the reasons….indeed, the primary reason….we had such an initial struggle getting site plan approval for our new addition was the contention of some of our neighbors that, as buildings go, we are too many in it and do too much with it. In other words, if we did less with fewer, we might have received a permit to build bigger, sooner. There are many in the city who love us because we are pretty. And we should be pretty. And will be pretty. At least on my watch. But there is also a sizable segment in this city who appreciate that “pretty is as pretty does”….and who resonate to the openness of our doors, the warmth of our welcome, the intensity of our energy, and the diversity of our ministry.
Besides, in keeping with our Methodist tradition of “traveling light,” we continue to use this place more as a base camp than a bastion, more as a field station than a fortress. As you have already noted, we will send four mission teams to various places over the course of the next thirty days….Prague, with Jim Miller….Costa Rica, with Ann Gessert….Appalachia, with Jon Skinner….and Memphis, with Jeff Nelson. And nary a week goes by when somebody doesn’t go down to Cass or up to Baldwin. It could be more. Probably should be more. Maybe will be more. But the phrase “have church, will travel” is not totally inappropriate to our present mode of ministry.
But before I close these Pentecost reflections, I want to move from a discussion of the church’s mobility to a discussion of the church’s energy. For the inflatable church can’t rise from the ground….let alone travel hither and yon….until it is first filled with something. But what?
If I were Michael Gill, I wouldn’t fill it with helium. I mean, there’s inflation….and then there’s inflation. Too much helium and the church will go floating off through the heavens….serene but separate….looking over it all, but too much above it all. What earthly good is a heavenly church like that?
Nor, if I were Michael Gill, would I count on the hot air of the preacher to push out the walls and puff up the pews. Not because preachers aren’t capable of thunderous gusts of proclamation. And not because truth cannot ride the wind of their rhetoric. But because preachers, like all things mortal, are fallible. Worse yet, not all of them come with expansive diaphragms.
Nor, were I Michael Gill, would I count on fortuitous winds to inflate the church. Because the church that depends on a favorable environment to rise and expand will suffer when there is no wind….and will suffer, even more, when there is cruel wind.
Which means only one thing. The Spirit is going to have to infuse Michael’s church….inflate Michael’s church….inspire Michael’s church. But we preachers would rather talk about what we need to do….what we need to change….which currently “hot” church we need to visit (the better to copy everything they do….as a part of our effort to resurrect this or that church, in this or that place, from this or that sleep). Much of which is needful. And some of which is helpful. But, biblically speaking, I’ve got a handful of dust in Genesis 2….a valley of bleached bones in Ezekiel 37….and a room full of frightened disciples in John 20….to suggest that the Spirit of God can start with virtually nothing and work miracles.
So let me ask you: “How much of what we see and hear in this place is our doing and how much is the work of the Spirit?” Darned if I know. “And how much of what newcomers claim they can feel in the first ten minutes after they enter this building is our doing and how much is the work of the Spirit?” Darned if I know. But it ain’t all us. That much I do know.
Does the Spirit still come to the church? I am absolutely certain of it. Does it come like Pentecost in the book of Acts, with all of its visual, auditory and linguistic pyrotechnics? Possibly….but not necessarily. In fact, if Acts 2 were to suddenly become replicated in this sanctuary, it would scare me half to death. For me, the coming of the Spirit is more like John describes midway through his 20th chapter. For that’s when Jesus came to his friends….stood among his friends….and (get this) breathed upon his friends. Whereupon he said: “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
Do I understand that? No….not really. Although yes….maybe a little. I know that the only way you will ever get breathed on by Jesus is if you are standing close to Jesus. And the only church that will ever get itself breathed on by Jesus is the church that is standing close to Jesus.
So let’s assume that once or twice….maybe more….you’ve gotten a little cozy with Jesus in this place. And let’s assume that when he exhaled, you inhaled. Meaning that you have him. Or you have the Spirit. Or you have his Spirit. Lines get a little blurry here, meaning I’m not entirely certain what you have. But the real question is: “Once you’ve got it, what do you do with it?” The Spirit, I mean.
One thing you do not do. You do not hold your breath. If you hold your breath too long, you will die. That’s exactly what will happen to you. You will die. So what’s the alternative? Well, I suppose you could breathe on each other.
Which is pretty much how we inflate the church. Jesus breathes on us. And we breathe on each other. Either that, or we die of emphysema.
