May 19, 2024 Pentecost Sunday "Pressing On!"

 PENTECOST SUNDAY

Readings: Psalm 104:24-34, Ezekial 37:1-14, Acts 2:1-21, John 15:26-27, Romans 8:22-27
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, May 19, 2024

A group of bewildered disciples are meeting in an upper room in Jerusalem. Jesus had told them after His resurrection that they needed to wait on God and be ready for what was coming next. As they wait on God in prayer, the promise of Jesus, given us in John 15:26 is fulfilled. “When the Advocate (or in some translations 'The Helper') comes, whom I will send to You from the Father, the Spirit of Truth... He will testify on my behalf.”

The room is suddenly flooded with the sounds of wind and images of fire and the disciples become inflamed with a spiritual passion that they had never before experienced. They move out into the streets and begin declaring the wonders of the gospel message in ways that all can understand.

The day of Pentecost marks the birthday of the church. From that day on, that Pentecost day when the Spirit came upon them in a new and powerful way, faithful disciples have sought to press on with the task of declaring God's love to a fragmented and needy world.

It has never been easy. There has always been misunderstanding. There has always been opposition. There has always been conflict. There has always been division. The Spirit comes as a mighty wind and as tongues of fire. You cannot contain the wind. You cannot predict the path of a wind driven fire.

Paul was not with the disciples when the church was born. He had his own personal Pentecost on the road to Damascus. It was just as dramatic and powerful for his life as the Jerusalem Pentecost was for those in the upper room. He too became inflamed with a passion to declare God's love. The task fell to him, through his letters, to attempt explain for the growing church, how the Holy Spirit was at work in the world and in their lives.

In his great theological work, the Book of Romans, Paul includes a passage that speaks of how all creation is infused with a longing for redemption. Such redemption was not just going to happen overnight. The Kingdom of God would come, but their baptism by the Holy Spirit was not the culmination of the process, it was only the beginning. 2000 years later the church still lives within the tension of the kingdom she believes will come and the world as it is.  Every generation has its struggles, dreams, and challenges.  

As individuals we sense that tension within ourselves. We understand that God loves us. We celebrate resurrection. Yet often the same old problems haunt us and stifle our ability to be faithful servants of Christ. Discipleship requires more than just going with the flow and enjoying the good times. There has to be a desire to follow wherever the road might lead and to press on with endurance with the hope that, by God's grace, the Holy Spirit will enable us to complete those tasks God is calling us to. Paul mentions two things related to pressing on; Patience and Prayer.

Patience

 Eugene Petersen in the Message Bible transliterates the first part of our reading from Romans 8 like this: “All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. “

We read 8:25 “If we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”  It is a lot easier to endure if we have a vision of what can be birthed through the process we are traveling through. That is obvious in the case of a pregnancy. But every great endeavor began as a vision of something previously thought impossible. As an example; the history of flight.

The first commercial flight in history occurred on January 1, 1914, between St. Petersburg and Tampa, flying a total of 23 minutes between the two cities separated by 21 miles of bay waters. The plane, a Benoist 14, maintained a grand altitude of 15 feet across open waters.  It was piloted by Tony Jannus, and had one paying passenger, Mr. Abram Pheil, who paid $400, around $5000 in today's currency.

100 years later we think nothing of catching a flight across the country. If you go first class, the price is not much different! We take it for granted that travel by air is not only possible, but normal. In fact, if ever you are around an airport when flights start being delayed, you observe that patience is a virtue that some sadly lack.

For most of human history flight was inconceivable. A few crazy dreamers persevered. The first transcontinental flight took place on September 17, 1911. Cal Rodgers lifted off from a small airfield in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. In front of him lay a 4000 mile flight, no airports, and no navigation equipment.

Upon takeoff Rodger's plane immediately snagged a tree and crashed to the ground. After making repairs, Rodger's was determined to try it again. Before his journey ended, he would crash land over 15 times and make several visits to various hospitals. By the time he arrived at his destination on the West Coast, Rodger's plane had to be repaired and rebuilt so many times that little of the original craft remained. After 70 stops, numerous injuries, and 86 hours in the air, Rodger's finally reached his destination in Pasadena, California. Next time you are stuck at the airport with a delayed flight, remember Cal Rodgers. He could teach us a thing or two about patience and pressing on!

Nothing great is ever achieved without patience. That algebra task we thought we would never master. That health challenge we thought we could never face. That relationship we thought would never work out. That trip that was on our bucket list. Such things never come to fruition unless we have the patience to press on. It is not about how many times we mess up, but how many times we pick up the pieces and move forward.

Returning to the Message Bible “That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.”

But what do we do when our patience is at an end? When we feel we are never going to get there?
Paul says pray.

Prayer

I have it on the highest authority that science has proved that prayer is beneficial to our wellbeing. I saw that on the 'Today' show, so it has to be true. The presenter said so. Never mind that Scripture has been suggesting as much ever since time began, now it's been on TV we can actually believe it!

For Paul, prayer is co-operating with the Holy Spirit. It is not about getting God to do things that God is reluctant to do.  It is not about seeking the impossible. It is finding strength by positioning ourselves in a place where we allow God to help us.

Message Bible. 8:26-27 “The moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God.”

It is as though, when our hope is all used up, the Spirit hopes on our behalf. Our groans are caught up with the sighing of all creation. We are sustained by the grace that God offers to us through Jesus Christ, our Savior and our Lord.

A popular saying in Christian circles is 'Let go and Let God'. Such a phrase never appears in scripture and is open to misinterpretation, but it can apply to our prayer life. We can reach a point when we really do not know what to pray or how to pray. At such times it is OK to say, 'I can't do this'.

There's a song I know that contains the lines “Quiet resignation, Hold me or I fall, I don't need any explanation, I just need You, that's all.” Trusting God is easy when we do not have much to trust God for. The rubber meets the road when our only hope is in God's intervention and we are willing to accept whatever God's will may bring our way. It is the kind of prayer that Jesus made in Gethsemane. “Lord, not my will, but thine be done.”

I am not sure we can fully understand the state of mind of those disciples on that first Pentecost. What a seemingly impossible situation to be in. To have witnessed the unbelievable, the death, resurrection, and ascension of their leader, to have come to a position of total belief in all Jesus was and came to do, but not have a clue of how to do it, other than that He had told them to go to Jerusalem and wait for the Spirit to come.

What did that mean? How would that work?

 The answer came as they patiently waited on God in prayer. The boldness came, the words came, the ability to declare God's love and build a community of hope beginning right where they were, suddenly were not a dream but a happening. They had to let go of everything they had previously understood and allow themselves to be embraced by new visions and new possibilities.

How would the gentiles fit into the picture? How should they regard rituals and customs they had observed for centuries? How could they live as citizens of God's Kingdom in the kingdoms of this world? Such insights would only come as they pressed on with the business of being disciples!

Flying didn't happen overnight... and the Kingdom of God will never be seen upon earth as it is in heaven without people prepared to press on with doing those things, they believe God is calling them to do. It requires prayer. It requires patience. It requires the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. God can provide safety, strength, security, serenity, and service. But we must, patiently and prayerfully, let go and let God have God's way.

To borrow from a preacher, I heard on the radio; “Only God can turn our 'tests' into His testimony, only God can turn our 'mess' into His message to encourage others.  Keep your head up to the sky. Press on, press on, press on. Be strong in all you do, be the you God created you to be and, by the great and glorious grace of God, Get ready to fly!”

So... 'Happy Birthday Church'. With all the blessings of Pentecost may we each press on in the power of the Holy Spirit towards achieving those things we believe God is calling us to. Amen!

The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.

May 5, 2024 The Early Church 5. “God's Big Umbrella”

Readings: Psalm 98,  1 John 5:1-6, John 15:9-17,  Acts 10:30-48
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, May 5, 2024

I want to talk to you today about ‘God’s Big Umbrella’. When the rain comes down or the sun shines so bright that it may burn us, we are glad to have a big umbrella to shelter beneath. If we are the sorts of people who ‘share’ in the way God wants us to, we may also shelter others beneath our umbrellas, so they don’t become soaked or burnt.

Our story from Acts reveals that God has a big umbrella. Big enough to provide shelter for all who come to Him. In our short reading we heard Luke’s account of Peter sharing the gospel message with Cornelius, a Roman Soldier and a Gentile. Just as on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit filled the lives of Jewish believers gathered in Jerusalem, so that day the Holy Spirit fell upon Gentile believers gathered at Cornelius house.

As a result, not only do the Gentile believers have their experience and vision of God magnified, but also the Jewish believers are challenged to magnify their vision of whom the umbrella of the gospel covered, and whom they should invite to be under its protection.

Let’s back up a little! Our little reading didn’t give us the full story. Peter has been having a time of things. Preaching in the synagogues, healing, teaching, telling the Jewish folk that their Messiah had come, in the person of Jesus, and that though they had rejected Him, God had raised Him from death and now their lives could be renewed through the Holy Spirit.

Peter knew in theory that the gospel wasn’t just for the Jews. He had after all heard Jesus commanding him to ‘Go into all the world’ and make other people Christ’s disciples. However, knowing it and doing are not the same thing. After all, he had his hands full just going to the Jewish folk. It was a good plan. Go to the synagogue, preach, talk about scriptures the folk could relate to, these were his sort of people. But Gentiles? How did they fit into the picture?

Pop Quiz. What was Peter’s name before Jesus called him “Peter, the Rock”? Answer: Simon. Or actually… ‘Simon Bar Jonah’. Jonah was of course Peter’s dad, but there is another Jonah in Scripture, the prophet who went to Nineveh City . To summarize Jonah’s story…

“Nineveh City was a city of sin, The jazzin’ and a jiving made a terrible din,
Jonah got there after a whale of a time, he preached the Word,
They repented, everything was fine!
Except for Jonah
Who sulked and sulked under an umbrella like tree
And told everybody ‘God’s got it in for me”.
God rebuked him and said “My love is not for you alone,
Jonah, get with my program, and catch the next boat home”

Absolute bonus point, if you can tell me; on the basis of Jonah 1:3; ‘Where was it that Jonah set sail from when he tried to flee to Tarshish so that he didn’t have to go and preach to the nasty Ninevites?’ Answer: Joppa. Now, just one more. Find Acts 9:43. ‘Where is Peter just before he has his encounter with the Gentile Cornelius?’ Answer: Joppa!

It was in Joppa that Jonah justified his escape from cajoling naughty Ninevites, and also in Joppa that Peter pondered profusely in prayer precisely where the Spirit may be leading him. The answer came in the form of a dream. He dreams that a sheet, almost like a huge, upturned umbrella, containing all kinds of animals that the Jewish faith designated as unclean, descended from the heavens. And he heard the voice of God saying, “Up, Pete, Eat”.

But Pete wouldn’t eat. “I can’t do that Lord; these are unclean animals!” And the voice said, “What God has made clean, no longer call unclean.” Just like Jonah is in the belly of the whale for three days, three times Peter has the same vision. As Pete ponders what the eat meat dream might mean, there comes a knock on the door, and three men telling him he needs to go with them to the house of Cornelius. Providentially, having also just had a premonition that three men would come looking for him and that he was to follow them, they set off.

Who was Cornelius? The visitors tell us that he was a centurion, a God fearing and righteous man, well spoken of by Jewish folk, and that he had just had a vision to send for a person called Peter staying at the house of Simon the Tanner in Joppa. Everything’s working together. Just like last week, with the account of Philip and the Ethiopian Official, the Holy Spirit is setting everything up!

Just as an aside point I want to say that, once we reach a point where we truly ask Jesus Christ to be Lord and Savior of our lives, God has a habit of working in our lives in unexpected ways. As I look back over my own experience, it astounds me how often God has just ordered seemingly irrelevant and unrelated circumstances to guide me and direct my life. It makes no earthly sense. It goes far beyond co-incidence.

And what constantly floors me, is that usually I’m unaware of what’s going on. I am the one, stumbling through like Peter and Cornelius, the one with more questions than answers, the one trying to be faithful to a pattern only discerned ‘through a glass darkly’.

The only way you can find out the truth of this is by placing your life unreservedly and unconditionally in God’s hands and seeking to do God’s will. That’s the bottom line when it comes to faith and discipleship. Giving God what you are, the mess, the confusion, time, talents and treasure, giving it up, so God can work. But that’s not where the sermon is headed this morning. Back to Cornelius and Peter. And the Old Testament prophet Jonah

Jonah had every reason not to like Ninevites. They were the enemy. He was hopeful that after he had harangued them with the word of God, that God would blast those Gentile heathens to Hades and back. That’s why the story ends with Jonah sulking under a tree. God had let him down. God had made the umbrella of acceptance so big that it welcomed repentant heathens under its shade.

Peter has a whole lot of reasons to despise Cornelius. First, he was a Roman centurion. The Romans were the enemy. They were the occupying force in Jerusalem. It was under Roman law that Jesus had been executed.  Cornelius was also an uncircumcised heathen Gentile. He had spent all his life being ‘unclean’. He ate ‘unclean’ foods. Wore the wrong clothes. Didn’t observe the Sabbath. Didn’t involve him self in all those ceremonies and rituals that were so essential to a Jewish person’s relationship with God.

But what was it God told Peter on the rooftop? Oh yes. “What God has made clean, no longer call unclean”. So, he goes to Cornelius and preaches the gospel, just as he had to the Jews. And then and there, witnessed by others of Peter’s Jewish friends who had come along for the ride, the Holy Spirit came down upon the Gentiles, just as the Holy Spirit had come upon the disciples on the Day of Pentecost. There was speaking in tongues and the believers experience of God was magnified.

Peter is astonished. He recognized that the umbrella of God’s acceptance was a lot larger than he had ever imagined. “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?” Nobody even hints at the possibility of un-acceptance. The Gentiles are baptized into the household of God and Peter decides to stay a while and teach them some more.

Occasionally I get the chance to meet with ministers of other denominations at conferences or events of an ecumenical nature. “How many do you have in your church?” is a question that somebody usually raises. “Oh”, I say, “about 1.5 million, at least nationally, if you include other countries, you can multiply that figure maybe ten times over!” To be Presbyterian is not just to belong to a local church, but you are part of a nationwide denomination called the P.C.(USA) and a worldwide communion of Reformed churches that spans the globe.

That’s a big umbrella! And under that umbrella you will discover that are some folks whose theology you don’t agree with, or whose lifestyle seems peculiar, or don’t believe precisely the same as you, but they still insist they are also ‘Presbyterian’, and that they are standing under the same umbrella.

But that’s not the whole umbrella story. By virtue of faith in Jesus Christ we are all, regardless of denominational barriers, part of this global multi-faceted two-billion-member organization known as “The Christian Church”. As one of our hymns declares, “One Church, One Faith, One Lord”.

One thing, that doesn’t always reflect so well in community like ours, or even a Presbytery like Long Island, is that Presbyterian polity is biased towards inclusion of those whom life often excludes. We want to try and include everybody under our umbrella.

Part of our polity, reviewed by what are known as “Committees on Representation” has to do with the extent that racial minorities, those with disabilities, those from different ethnic backgrounds are included in the life of our churches. We want our umbrella to be inclusive. We don’t want to leave people out in the rain! Just like Cornelius and Peter and all the visitors at the Gentile house, we need our vision of God magnified.

It could be we need our vision magnified as to what God can do through this little corner of His church here in this community of Bridgehampton, New York. Maybe we have forgotten that we are the people of God through whom God seeks to build the Kingdom.

It could be we are facing some problem that seems too big to handle. Like young David who faced the giant Goliath and saw the big guy from God’s perspective, “Who does that Philistine think he is, doesn’t he realize God is with me?” we need to see God’s perspective regarding the things that trouble us.

It could be that there are those we seek to exclude or can’t imagine that they too may be recipients of God’s Grace. We need, in the name of Jesus Christ, to invite them to come and stand under the umbrella of God’s love alongside us. Who knows? It could be argued from this story in Acts that they are the ones already enjoying the shade and it is we who need to join them!

God’s umbrella is a big umbrella. When we gather around the communion table, we sometimes include words of invitation from Luke 13:29 “They will come from east and west, and from north and south, and take their places at the banquet table  in the kingdom of God”

All are welcome here. Jonah thought Ninevites were not welcome. Peter struggled to see that Gentiles were welcome. Scripture declares “What God has made clean, no longer call unclean.” I declare that through the grace of Jesus Christ, all barriers are broken down, all sins forgiven and here at the table, the broken are put back together, the outcast becomes part of the family, and the stranger finds a home.

Like those earliest believers who gathered at the house of Cornelius, now is a time to seek the anointing of God’s Holy Spirit to fall upon our lives, that we may be filled with the love of God who sends us out into the world to serve, in Jesus name.

Thanks be to God! Amen.

The Reverend Adrian J Pratt B.D.