|
LINKS TO THE SERMONS |
|
| “The Great Cloud”
This is heritage Sunday and I found myself hard pressed to decide which part of our heritage to talk about; we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. I could confine my comments to our particular 120 year history in this place but that seems far too limiting for a tradition as grand as ours. I could go back to the grand birth right of Methodism and talk about John and Charles Wesley. That’s really what I had intended since this year marks the 300th anniversary of Charles Wesley’s birth. That’s why we sang all those Wesley hymns today. Of course when ever I talk about the Wesleys, someone will point out that we also have the Evangelical United Brethren heritage feeding into our life line. I know about Jacob Albright and Phillip William Otterbein. I’ve been to Isaac Long’s barn in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania where the United Brethren in Christ Church was born in the eighteenth century in much the same way as Methodism came to be, in the fervor of the Great Awakening. They might have been Methodists from the beginning except for the fact that they were Germans and the Methodist congregations, at the beginning, were all English. I have the distinction of being the sole surviving active pastor in this conference from that side of the union in 1968. That’s a part of our heritage I remember well. I was at the General Conference in 1967 where the merger was voted on. The churches held separate conferences in the same hotel in Chicago to vote on the merger proposal. The vote passed in the Methodist conference without much fanfare or emotion. So I rushed over to see how it was going with the EUBs. It was a different story. It was different for us; the Methodists had about 10 million members and we had about 750 thousand. So what we called a merger was more of an absorption; to vote in favor was a vote to die. So the conference agreed that there would be no limit to debate anyone could talk as long or as often as they wanted; a dangerous thing to do in a room full of preachers. The rhetoric was passionate and tearful; there were poetry readings and long prayers. When everyone was talked out and emotionally drained they called for the vote. When the result was announced the silence that hung in the air was palpable; a heavy silence like death itself. It seemed as if the people who fought the hardest for it were the ones with the most profound misgivings. I think if there had been a parliamentary procedure to take the vote again, it would have been the staunchest supporters who called for it. The following year I attended the uniting General Conference in Dallas and the year after that I was ordained an elder in the new United Methodist denomination. It’s a matter of some concern to me that the Methodist Church that had enjoyed consistent growth for its 200 year history began its decline the year I was ordained. I know that correlation does not necessarily mean causation but the coincidence worries me none the less. But the union stuck – because we were all part of a heritage larger than either Methodist or EUB traditions – we were part of the Christian heritage, disciples of Christ the Lord. And as such we also could claim the glorious heritage of Peter, James and John, of the Apostle Paul and the first century church and of the children of Abraham. So, where to zero in? I decided to focus on the heritage that all of these bits of history and tradition hold in common. Theologians and religious historians will tell you that the uniqueness, indeed the genius of the religion of Abraham was that it conceived of the idea of one God, not the plethora of gods for all occasions that was so common in the ancient world. “Hear O Israel; the Lord your God is one.” But it was more than that; not just that they envisioned a single and all powerful God but that they conceived of a God who cared, who could be related to and who wanted to interact with the people he created, that was why he created them. For the Hebrews, God wasn’t distant, capricious our unapproachable but just the opposite. God was involved in every facet of life. He saw and knew everything; he blessed and cursed accordingly. God is personal, even intimate: that’s the heritage in which we stand. Then with the coming of Christ the Hebrew heritage was enriched even more; The God who cared became the God who loved (and hear this) – loved so much that he suffered. The God who suffers with us and for us; it was an idea so outrageous as to confound the great thinkers of the time but one that would transform the lives of those who would come with simple faith and indeed transform the world. And that’s what was going on with Albright and Otterbein and the Wesley brothers. That’s why they were driven to evangelize and to found religious orders. They had been confronted by the God who is personal, who cares and loves and suffers, the God who gets inside your skin and inside your life and will not let you fall. He lifts you up on eagle’s wings and invites you to commune with angels and when you have had an experience like that, you just need to tell somebody. That’s what all of these traditions have in common, they are all about experiencial Christianity. The first century Christians weren’t so convinced of the reality of the resurrection because the tomb was empty but because their hearts were full. It wasn’t the witness of others who had experienced the resurrected Christ but their own heart experience that filled them with the holy boldness that turned the world upside down. We hear a lot abut John Wesleys “heart warming” experience, but Charles had a similar experience just the day before. When John rushed to find his big brother to tell him about the amazing personal experience he had had, Charles just nodded and said, “I know exactly what you mean.” That’s what I’m doing standing up here today. Christianity was not a rational, philosophical choice. The Methodist ministry was certainly not a career choice; I was going to be a rock and roll star. I was confronted by an infinitely persistent God; I didn’t seek him, he sought me and as Wesley said in his covenant prayer, “I am his and he is mine – for better or for worse, so be it!” I know what it means to be engaged by the One who will not let you go. And so did the saints who established this great church in 1887 and those who nurtured and sustained it through these 120 years and all the hundreds of saints who have served their Lord as faithful disciples in this place, upon whose shoulders we now stand. This is the heritage we share and celebrate, that the one God of all time and people loves us and desires to share our journey with us in a special kind of transforming intimacy. That’s our heritage and our future and our reason to continue existing. It was never said better than by Howard Thurman, the great preacher/ theologian of the last century. I saw an interview with him on TV many years back which I have never forgotten. The interview was in his office in San Francisco. He was seated at his desk and the camera panned the wall behind him covered with plaques, citation and diplomas from ceiling to floor. Right in the middle, seemingly out of context was a weathered photo of an old black woman. The interviewer asked about the photo and he said it was his grandmother. Then he told the story. His grandmother had been born a slave on a southern plantation and sometimes when he was a little boy, she would tell him stories about her life as a young girl. She said sometimes the plantation owner would let a black preacher come and hold services in the evening. She said that every sermon ended the same way and she would wait through the whole thing just to hear that last line. He would say, “You’re not slaves. You’re God’s children.” And Thurman said he loved to hear that story no matter how many times his grandmother told it because every time she quoted that last line something lit up inside her – a holy glow. “You’re not slaves. You’re God’s children.” And he said it was the glow in his grandmother’s eyes when she told that story that made him certain that there must be something to that religion of hers. And he decided he wanted some of that. Then he added, “Christian faith isn’t a dogma you know, it’s a contagion. You catch it from someone who has a really bad case of it.” And that’s how we got to where we stand. That’s our heritage. The question is, do we have a bad enough case of it to infect the future? The two men on the road to Emmaus
weren’t transformed by the experience of others or the powerful
rhetoric of a great preacher but by intimate contact with the risen
Lord. “Did not our hearts burn within us?” was the defining
question. If this great church has a future as part of what God
is doing to bring about his kingdom on earth, it won’t be
just because of our strategy, our careful planning and execution,
high powered programs or clever advertising campaigns. It will be
because of the same thing that has driven the church since its beginning
– an encounter with the divine that sets the heart on fire
and you just have to tell somebody. We are experiential Christians.
That is our heritage and it shall be our banner and mantra for the
future up ahead. As always if you would like a DVD of a service please contact the church office. |
|
.................................................................................... Friends | |