Pentecost
2016 (Year C)
Father Adam Trambley
May 15, 2016, St.John’s Sharon
150th
Anniversary Homecoming
The early Christian monks of the desert tell the following
story:
Father Lot went to see
the elderly Father Joseph and said, “Abba, as much as I am able, I practice a
small rule, all the little fasts, some prayer and meditation, and remain quiet;
as much as possible I keep my thoughts clean.
What else should I do?”
The old man stood up
and stretched out his hands toward heaven, and his fingers became like torches
of flame. And he said, “Why not be
turned into fire?”
Why not be turned into fire, indeed? As we stand at the midpoint of the first 300
years of ministry of St. John’s Episcopal Church in downtown Sharon on this
feast of Pentecost, why not be turned into fire?
We have the amazing example of the early disciples in our
reading from Acts sitting in the upper room, praying and waiting for
something. Jesus had tried to tell them
what, but they didn’t understand. Then
all of the sudden, there was a noise like a tornado blowing through the house
and tongues of fire dancing on the heads of each of them. The Holy Spirit fell upon them, filling their
hearts, setting them on fire like the burning bush that Moses saw –
illuminating the world around them with a profound experience of God in ways
that did not consume them, but unleashed their gifts and burned away their
impurities. They spoke in tongues. They
proclaimed the good news of Jesus. They
healed the sick. They raised the dead. Their youth saw visions, their elders dreamed
dreams, and even their slaves prophesied.
They went out onto the porch and, after convincing the crowds that they
weren’t drunk, ignited the hearts of people from throughout the known
world. The fire of the gospel, lit by
the Holy Spirit, was about to be carried like the Olympic torch to every part
of the Roman empire.
This fire was passed from person to person for two thousand
years. Sometimes the heat of God’s love
seemed like it almost died out until someone stoked smoldering embers back to
life. Sometimes the fire of God’s good
news blazed like an uncontrollable inferno, transforming lives all around
it. Sometimes the light was kept alive
as a grandparent passed on a valued candle to a beloved grandchild. Eventually, in 1865, that fire came to rest in
a particular way in Sharon, Pennsylvania when Rebecca and Rueben Williamson
gathered together a small group Episcopalians in their home to see whether they
could start a church here.
We don’t really know a whole lot from those early
years. We have some letters and some
documents. But the important things -- like
who was home praying daily that a new Episcopal Church could be successful
here, or who was standing up in faith and saying it could happen in the midst
of the inevitable struggles, or who was going around encouraging everyone else
with a positive word or a thank you note -- these flickers of spiritual gifts
used to build up the Body of Christ of all remain unrecorded. But recorded or unrecorded, a fuse was lit
that would ignite the blaze about to become St. John’s
We do have records, and even experiences, of a church and
its members that have been turned into fire to Worship God, Care for People and
Grow as Christians over the past 150 years.
I won’t go into detail here of parish history – you can read about it in
our 150th Anniversary Directory and if you don’t have one, call the
parish office and we’ll get you one. But
at least hundreds of people, probably thousands, have offered themselves to the
service of God through this parish in profound ways that illuminated this
community with the love and salvation of Jesus Christ. Their hearts and lives have been set aflame
as they have lifted their voices in song, read the scriptures aloud, attended
to the gifts on the altar, preached the gospel, led prayer services, and
ensured that God could be worshiped in ways that elevated our spirits as we offered
our sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving.
Many have sent sparks into the lives of others as they have fed the
hungry, cared for the sick, offered housing to single women working in the
city, met the needs of the lonely, mediated labor disputes, visited shut-ins,
raised money for those in need, found people jobs, and spread the warmth of
God’s grace throughout the community.
Still others have stoked the fires of their own and others’ hearts by
teaching Sunday School, working with our young people, leading Bible studies,
facilitating book studies, and helping us understand and activate the gifts
that the Holy Spirit has given to each of us and wants us to use more
effectively.
All of us here today are called to continue in this long
line of parishioners at St. John’s who have answered God’s call to be turned
into fire. All of here today are called
to continue to use the gifts God has given us to Worship God, Care for People
and Grow as Christians. All of us here today are called to pass on the
incredible fire of God that has been passed on to us so that St. John’s
continues to blaze brightly as a beacon of hope, love, joy and salvation to the
Shenango Valley for at least the next 150 years.
To light a fire that not only burns in us, but will catch in
other hearts and lives, we should heed Jesus instructions in today’s
gospel. Jesus is getting ready to leave,
and he is looking forward with his disciples at what will happen next. He says to them:
Very truly, I tell
you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact,
will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so
that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.
Jesus promises us that we will do greater works than he did,
and whatever we ask in his name, he will do it, so that the Father is glorified
in the Son by answering our prayers.
This promise is incredible, but can be misinterpreted as a way to turn
God into a vending machine. Jesus is not telling us to say the right words and
get what we want. He is telling us that
if we believe and ask, we will do greater works to glorify our heavenly Father
than he did. He is telling us that if we
have dedicated ourselves to loving God with all our heart and mind and soul and
strength, then God is going to use us to love our neighbors in incredible ways. He is telling us that when we have allowed ourselves
to be turned into fire, we are going to shoot up like a solar flare to the
glory of God.
Or, to put it another way, Jesus is saying that if we are
willing to develop and use the spiritual gifts we are given in service of God,
that our prayers are going to be pouring gasoline into the situations we are
praying for. With just the smallest
spark from us or from someone else, God is going to come in with an explosion
of energy, tossing mountains into the sea, bringing unimagined blessings to
those we are praying for, presenting himself into lost people’s lives in
palpable ways, or burning away the brushwood of sin, addiction, ignorance, and
oppression that prevent people from leading lives of freedom and peace. Our prayers are the catalysts that set off
chain reactions of God’s movement through the world, bringing the light and
heat of the fire of the Holy Spirit into so many places that desperately need
it. Such prayer fuels everything else we
do and is indispensable to our work, and even to our very being.
So we pray. We pray
on the days our kindling is wet and we seem to be striking again and again for
nothing, but God is still at work. We
pray on days like today, with music and energy and celebration when flames seem
to dance around us. We pray with warm
hearts for those we love and with cascades of tears for situations that seem
broken beyond repair. We pray for those
in this congregation so that we may continue to worship God, care for people
and to grow as Christians for the next 150 years, and we pray for our
communities so that our ministry will bear fruit thirty, sixty and a
hundred-fold. And we pray for ourselves,
that we may burn more and more brightly in this life before entering the light
of Christ’s presence for all eternity.
Always, we pray in Jesus’ name, as he taught us.
So on this day, our 150th Anniversary Parish
Homecoming, we have gathered to pray and to recommit ourselves to being part of
the Body of Christ in this place. We
look back in gratitude and celebration for the work God has done here over the
past 150 years, and look ahead with anticipation and awe at the work God is
preparing for us over the next 150. I
believe that work is going to blaze brightly from this parish, throughout the
Shenango Valley, and to people and places we can’t even imagine yet. Be part of the next movement of God’s Spirit burning
forth from here. Pray powerfully. Be turned into fire.
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