Eternal God, pour out your spirit upon us, that we might be sensitive
to your presence, attentive to your Word, and faithful always in your way.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord we pray. Amen.
Some Sundays there are so many special celebrations and observances on the
church calendar they just pile up on top of each other. The great Methodist
preacher of another age, Halford Luccock, told his preaching class about a
little Methodist congregation somewhere in the Dakotas. One week they had a
snowstorm that piled snow so deep that even the U.S. Mail couldn’t get through.
That meant that the pastor didn’t have the materials for the special
celebration, so he just got up and told his congregation, “Today we are just
going to worship God.” Today is one of those multiple-festival days, but we will
make sure we also worship God.
Today is Pentecost, the celebration of the event recorded in Acts 2 when the
Holy Spirit came upon the disciples and they spoke the good news of the gospel
in all the languages of the diverse peoples gathered in Jerusalem. This event is
considered the birth of the Christian church, so today is the church’s birthday.
Also, it was 139 years ago tomorrow, May 12, that this congregation began here
in San Diego. So happy birthday to the church universal and to First Church.
Today is also Mother’s Day. Mothers usually have speaking in different languages
down to a fine art. Whether it is a word of sympathy, healing, encouragement,
correction, laughter, instruction, or hope, Mom’s almost always find the
appropriate word and speak it.
Today is also Confirmation Sunday, when we celebrate our own children coming
of age, claiming their faith for themselves, professing their faith in Christ,
and officially joining this congregation as professing members.
Let us look at each of these observances today.
The account in Acts 2 of the Day of Pentecost is mind-boggling. This little band
of Galilean fishermen had been told by Jesus to wait in Jerusalem. On the Jewish
festival day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came to them with the sound like the
rush of a violent wind. Luke states, “Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared
among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.” We could say they were all
fired up and over came all language barriers so that all the different peoples
there heard the good news each in his or her own language. Though the people
were very diverse they had a uniting experience in hearing the good news of
Jesus Christ. To communicate with people today we need to speak their language,
sing their music, and use their culture.
Moving to Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, we see quite a different picture.
The Corinthian congregation had been blessed with a variety of spiritual gifts
including speaking in tongues. The problem was these people were acting
egotistically, boasting that each was better than the next, and disrupting the
community of the church. They were all fired up but in destructive ways.
Paul writes a strong word to them “There are varieties of gifts but the same
Spirit, varieties of services but the same Lord, varieties of activities but the
same God. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
For Paul, diversity is not the problem, but schisms and divisive subgroups are
the problem. Different people have different life circumstances, different
callings, and thus different gifts of the Spirit. All the different gifts are
appropriate, no one is better than the other, and God uses them all for the
common good. Paul’s point is no one can boast when it is a gift from the Spirit
and the gift is allocated by the Spirit. Gift and status do not go together,
gift and service to the community do.
The primary question for Paul about any use of any gift is, is it helpful to
others? Do these gifts serve to build up the congregation? Each person is an
indispensable part of the body and though each is different, no one is greater
than any other
There is direct application of this passage to Moms. Not all Moms are alike.
Thank God! Diversity in Moms is a good thing. All Moms are also gifted and none
of them is one-dimensional. What makes the good Moms good is when they do as St.
Paul describes and they use their gifts for the common good. They are all fired
up for helping everyone.
In a church I served years ago we had a secretary whom some on the staff
named, “Margaret the Terrible.” Her office was right inside the door of the
church building. It’s floor was four steps higher than the floor of the hallway,
so as one entered you looked through a window, to a huge raised desk sitting
high behind a large glass sliding window. I worked there two years and never
once saw Margaret open that window. She would just look down on all intruders
and yell through the glass, “What do you want?” She was a caricature of
everything bad in public relations. She reigned by fear and terror. She was all
fired up, but in a negative sense. Then one day her adult son came by the
church. He was visiting from the East Coast. We saw a whole different, kinder,
gentler side of her. She had the gifts, but until that point we had never seen
them. Evidently they were reserved in her mind only for her son and no one else.
She certainly didn’t use them for the common good. Today we celebrate Moms who
use their gifts for the whole family of God. May their numbers increase.
On this Confirmation Sunday we give thanks to God for all our Confirmands as
well. Randy Newton and Beckie Henselmeier, our two confirmation teachers, have
both told me how hard this class has worked to learn, study, and grow in the
Christian faith. Thursday night I heard each student give their own statement of
faith. I was deeply moved as each spoke of his or her gift from God. The Spirit
has blessed each one with multiple gifts, gifts for serving Christ. To the
Confirmation Class: I pray each one of you is fired up to be a strong witness
about the love of Jesus. I pray each of you will earnestly pray about God’s
calling on your life. There are many different ways to serve God. I pray
especially for each of you to seek if God is calling you to be a pastor.
I pray for every person present here today that this is a Confirmation Sunday
for you. I pray that your faith is firmed up today, and that you are fired up
with God’s Holy Spirit. We are a very diverse congregation with many very
different gifts, but God is the giver of all good gifts. We honor God as we
gratefully use the gifts that have been given us, as we work for the good of
all.
I will close with two illustrations of using our gifts. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
is the first woman head of state in Africa. She was elected President of Liberia
in 2006. She is a very active United Methodist lay woman. When she was first
elected she said children ran away from presidential motorcades. They were
afraid from past experiences that something would be taken from them or they
would be taken from their families. Now, she says children run to her motorcades
laughing, waving, shouting with joy. They have come to know her spirit and that
she is all fired up for them.
Will Willimon tells the story of a mother with real moxie who is all fired up
in a very different way. She told him, “Our son’s been putting us through hell.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Willimon. “How old is your son?”
“He’s eighteen, and we have not known where he was for the last six months.
We basically changed the locks on the door. I prayed for him every night, but we
didn’t know where he was, and last week, during dinner, suddenly somebody was
pounding on the door. We opened the door and there he is! And he starts this
string of profanity. I said, we’re eating, come on in, sit down and eat with us,
and he refuses to sit down at the table and he storms back into his room, he
slams the door shut, and I can hear the door lock.
“My husband sat there and he got up, poured himself a drink, went out, and
turned on the TV. That’s kind of how he handles it. I put my napkin down and got
up. I went out to the garage, looked at my husband’s tools, and I got this big
hammer. I walked back from the garage and stood in front of my son’s door. I
asked him, “Open the door.” This string of profanity poured out.
“So I took that hammer and I leaned back and with all my might hit with one
good hit. I knocked the whole doorknob, the lock, everything right off the door.
Just split the door in two. And I barged through the door. And my son looked
terrified. I caught him right up under his chin and I pushed him up against the
headboard of the bed and I said, I went into labor because of you. And by God I
am not giving you up.”
I think God is like that with us. God is all fired up to save us. May we,
Moms, Confirmands, all of us, be all fired up with sharing God’s love in Jesus
Christ.*
- - - - -
[*]
Notes: The story about Halford Luccock is from Will Willimon, “Preaching
in United Methodism,” Good News, January/February, 2008, p. 21.
Willimon’s story of the woman and her son is from his first lecture, “Jesus
Saves” delivered at the Midwinter Lectures, Austin Theological Seminary,
February 4, 2008.
