Calvary United Methodist Church April 26, 2015 FUELED AND AFLAME Rev. Dr. S. Ronald Parks Children s Sermon: Ephesians 4:1-7 It s our joy to be together. Wherever we have been in the past week, God is here with us now. We welcome the children to the front of this worship space to celebrate all the gifts that God has provided for us. Good to see everybody this morning! Were you here last week? Because I shared with you the legend of the sand dollar last week, but something happened after the second service that I also wanted to talk to you about. I came back up after the last service to kind of collect my stuff up here and in addition to the basket that I had all of the shells that I handed to all of you, I had four shells, I had a starfish, I had a whelk shell, I had a clam shell and I had a big sand dollar that had been loaned to me. But somebody had come and taken the big sand dollar. So all that stuff that I had was not going to help me explain to Mrs. Porsch why the sand dollar that I borrowed from her is suddenly now missing. And then she goes on to tell me that this was a very special sand dollar because it came from the Caribbean and it had all this sentimental value attached to it, and I thought Oh my gosh! I have to replace that sand dollar. So, where do you go when you need to shop for a sea shell? You go
to not Costco you go to the Sea Shell Shop, which is exactly where I went. In fact I went there Sunday afternoon. And at the Sea Shell Shop, fortunately they have a wide variety of sand dollars, including really really big ones. So I picked out the biggest sand dollar I could find for Mrs. Porsch and, right, whoa! It s like a garbage can lid, isn t it? It s huge! It s great! But also I noticed while I was there picking out a sand dollar that there was something else that they were selling a lot of things all about: flip flops. Do you know what flip flops are? There were signs about flip flops: flip flops and friends; you can never have too many; life is better in flip flops; friends welcome, relatives by appointments with flip flops on the top. There were flip flop puzzles. There were flip flop cups. There were flip flop cheese knives. Isn t that what those things are for? I don t even know. There were flip flop night lights, flip flops door mats, flip flop key chains, flip flops earrings.
And something I had never heard of before: this is called a toilet tattoo and apparently you put it on the toilet seat when you put it down because it is supposed to decorate your bathroom. But the coolest thing I saw there was flip flop garland for your Christmas tree. And it was half price, so I bought enough flip flop garland for our Christmas tree here at Calvary for next fall when we go to put it up, right? Won t that be great?!? Yeah! Flip flop garland! Now, I was kind of wondering as I was standing there looking at all these flip flop products, what s so great about flip flops? Because in all honesty, there are no good for anything, right? They are not like boots. Boots keep your feet warm in the winter. They are not like sneakers. Sneakers support your feet when you exercise. Work shoes have a special function: they protect your feet when you are on the job.
Fancy shoes make you taller than your prom date. That never happened to me, of course, but Casual shoes keep you comfortable and dress shoes are for formal settings like church. Most people think of church as a formal setting. You need different shoes and unfortunately my wife is sitting right over there this morning because she and Barbara Harper are in a race to the end to see who has the most shoes in their closet. You need different shoes for different weather conditions. You need different shoes for different social situations. You need different shoes for different activities. Flip flops, however, are not good for any of them! They are good for nothing, except having fun and because of that I got a dozen pairs of flip flops. Different colors, different shapes, no high heeled flip flops, but I ve seen those before. And having fun is important too, as well as things like protection and dressing appropriately. Many shoes in my closet, many pairs of flip flops, one pair of feet.
Just like in our lives, there are many gifts that God gives to us, even though we each have our own special life of faith. And that s shared with us when Paul wrote to his friends in Ephesians. This is what he had to say: On your feet! Right, get the right shoes on and let s go! Walk? No. Let s run on the road God calls you to travel. Every other path other than the road God calls you to travel leads nowhere, so do everything possible to care for each other. You have all you need to love like Christ loves. Therefore, stay together on the journey. Even though we are all different, we have one Master and He s with you and He s with me every step of the way, so follow him. He s right beside you; now and all the way to the end. Many shoes, one pair of feet. Many gifts, one life of faith. And there are some important lessons to be learned in that, like the gifts that you have, they are made just for you. They fit you perfectly. Not only are the gifts fitting you perfectly, but you need to remember that you don t have every gift. Neither Mrs. Harper nor my wife have every pair of shoes on the planet yet but they have the ones that they need, until they see another pair that they need.
Learning how to use your gifts takes a life time and sharing your gifts in the love of Christ is the most fun you can have. There are many gifts; there is one life of faith. Now, I had the privilege of giving Mrs. Porsch her sand dollar on this past Wednesday and she loved it. She did, honest! And, I told her that I bought one for myself so I could always remember how important it is to take care of somebody else s stuff. We have many gifts, but we have one life of faith and I thought it might be a neat thing for you to remember that. Here is a flip flop notepad that you can use to write messages but not in school or in class. You can write messages and every time you write something on there, remember, every step you take, Jesus is right there with you.
Thanks for sharing in our time this morning. Many shoes, one pair of feet. Many gifts, one life of faith. Message: Luke 24:13-35 (selected) (Video) Fueled and aflame. Are you hot today? Are you burning bright? It s been a little difficult in my head over the last month or so to burn bright, to burn hot. And everybody goes through those periods of time when the flame seems to almost go out; it seems to turn so cold that it s hard to even imagine that there will be a time when you would sense God s presence in a way which is igniting. Wesley felt exactly the same way. He said at one point in his life Catch on fire with a passion for Christ and people will come from miles away to watch you burn. Now there is some dispute as to whether or not Wesley ever said that, but I believe that that would be totally in line with his character and his conviction to burning himself out and burning himself up in the service of Christ. Wesley struggled to light the fire of passion in his life from time to time. There were times for him when, in fact, he did feel that it went out. When he was completely fueled to do ministry, but had no flame, there was not spark, no passion, no conviction, no sense of dedication within him.
Last week we talked about some of the doubts that Wesley had to overcome in his early ministry and I shared with you a brief exchange between himself and a Moravian friend names Peter Bohler, in which Wesley asked How can you preach to others if you have no faith yourself? Wesley was at a very low point in his life where he didn t believe that he had any faith, any legitimate faith anyway, and Bohler s response was to preach faith until have and then because you have it, you will preach faith. Those exchanges were found in Wesley s journal from March 5 of 1738, and you d think perhaps that after having that exchange with a good friend, a mentor, a counselor, that Wesley would have gotten past the sort of dark and cold part in his life, but just six weeks later he records this exchange: I asked Peter Bohler again whether I ought to refrain from teaching others, in other words, whether I ought to stop pretending to be in ministry; whether I ought to just go quietly into some other profession and find a way to serve God that doesn t put so much pressure or responsibility on him. This was Bohler s response: No, do not hide in the earth the talent that God has given you. April 23, 1738. Wesley was fueled and Bohler knew it, but he had no flame, he had no spark. And then for Methodists there s a day that is second only to Christmas and Easter. It s called Aldersgate Day. Now, the cards are not out yet at the Hallmark stores for Aldersgate Day, so don t go try to buy one to send to your pastors. We appreciate it, but they are not out yet. Wednesday, May 24, just four weeks after he had contemplated giving it all up yet again, he records this in his journal for that day. And there are two entries in that journal:
The first is the morning. Wesley got up every morning and opened the Bible and like so many preachers do, put their finger down and decided to preach on that. Have you heard that? You ain t doing a Power- Point if you are doing that on a Sunday morning. He opened up the Bible to the Good News according to Mark, he put his finger down and the line that was underneath his finger was: You are not far from the Kingdom of God. Hmmm. Wesley went through the remainder of the day not feeling a whole lot better about himself, not feeling all that affirmed in his ministry, even though by his own admission, by his own action, he had received a message from God: You are not far from the Kingdom of God. But then something happens later in the evening, something that changed Wesley s life and this is what he had to say about his experience: In the evening I went very unwillingly to church. Radical thought! I went very unwillingly to a society meeting, a Society of Believers, in Aldersgate Street. A man there was reading Luther s Commentary on Romans. (Yawn) About a quarter till nine, which he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith through Christ I want you direct your attention to, hold on a second ok. See that circle right there? Right here. If this is so important that in our window up front we actually have a piece of stained glass commemorating what happened to Wesley in that moment. I felt and the important word in this sentence is my I felt my heart strangely warmed. See the two things on the 9 o clock portion of that circular blue disc? A quarter of nine. See now you don t have to go through confirmation because I ve already told you all you need to know. I felt my heart strangely warmed. My heart was now on fire for Christ.
I felt I did trust in Christ and Christ alone for salvation and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. I then testified openly to all there. Wesley was so touched, so moved, so ignited in that moment, he virtually stopped the meeting and began to tell everybody what I now first felt in my heart, he says. And what is the difference between me now and my former self? When I was fighting to be faithful under the law, I was often conquered. Does that sound like you? It is a perfect description of me. When it was all about me and my ability to conform to what God was asking, I often found myself failing, sinning, back sliding, being completely passionless in the conduct of my life, but now, however, by the fire of God s grace, I am always the conqueror. Wesley is fueled and aflame. He is ready to rock. He is ready to go. Was this a conversion experience, the scholars argue back and forth through the centuries? Well, it depends on how you describe conversion. If conversion is simply the intellectual adoption of a set of ideas or beliefs that usually gets assigned or identified with a particular religious denomination and you sort of give an intellectual assent to these teachings, to the exclusion of others? No, it was not a conversion experience.
Wesley was never anything but a confessing Christian. From the moment he was born into this world with his 18 brothers and sisters what?!?...18 brothers and sisters, from the moment at the age of 7 years old, two people, one standing on the other s shoulders, reaching into the burning house in which they lived plucked him out through a window. From that moment forward, Wesley was always a confessing Christian, never doubted his faith, his religion, but it never meant much to him either. If, however, conversion is more truthful and true to its roots, it literally means to turn around and figuratively it means a change of heart and a change of character. Conversion is therefore more than a change in one s personal adoption of a bunch of ideas. It is a rebirth. It is a change in nature and it has evidence. You live differently. It is a new life and you live differently than those around you who have not been changed, whose heart is not strangely warmed, whose joy in living is taken from their ability to conform life to what they want not as opposed to what God asked. Wesley was now on fire with a passion for Christ. Every disciple goes through a series of conversions and ignitions. I bet if I asked you, you could name five times in your life when somehow the hand, the voice, the touch of God took you from where you were to a new place in your discipleship. I know I can and several of them happened right here in this place, times when God set a match to the fuel that he had already placed within me. And this idea of conversions going on through the journey of life is significant to us because it means that we are never done, we are never done burning for the love of God, we are never done burning ourselves up in service of Christ. There is a story about two men walking along the road. It is a conversion narrative because it has to do with somebody who touched them and set them on fire. Two disciples walked on the road toward Emmaus on Easter day and they talked about the events of the day. A stranger joined them as asked, What are you discussing? And they stopped and they looked down in sadness. And Cleopas answered, We had hoped Jesus was the one to redeem God s people. We had
hoped. We were converted, you know we put all our eggs in that basket, we heard what he said, we decided that we were going to somehow connect to this person, and we had, not anymore, but we had hoped that he was the one to redeem God s people. So they began to share the stories that lead them to think that. They shared the stories of Jesus power and message. They shared the story of his betrayal and his trial that they were involved in. They shared the stories of his death and his burial. And they even shared the strange accounts of the women who went to his tomb and the stranger was surprised. You were his disciples, and yet you understood nothing that he told you. And then he explained it all! Yes, this is a conversion narrative and the conversion narrative of two men on the way to Emmaus is exactly like the conversion narratives that you and I tell. It has steps. It s a process. You have to be made ready and it is the power of the Spirit that makes us ready for these five steps that lead us from where we are now, whether our flame is tiny, whether our flame is growing, or whether our flame is out, there is this process that leads us from who we are in our service, in our witnessing, in our discipleship, to who God needs us to be. The first step is awareness. Are we aware of who Jesus is and what Jesus is all about? The disciples certainly were. They spent three years with him, wandering around the countryside, listening to everything he had to say, asking dumb questions, just like we ask: why is it that you talk in parables? Who is it that will be the first to join you in the Kingdom of Heaven? Who s most important among us? Certainly they were aware of him, but they really didn t understand him. They knew of him, and they knew about him, but they didn t really know him. And they had some appreciation for who he is. You know people who are not Christians. They may not have any religious affiliation. They appreciate Jesus as a wise philosopher, and ethicist, a moralist, someone who has a lot of interesting ideas to teach. Most people who don t
believe in Christ as their Savior think of him as a utopian dreamer. Here s a guy who has this idea of everybody getting along, of everybody helping out, kind of like Karl Marx. And there are a lot of people who have looked at Jesus and looked at communism and said Well, these two things are really close. They met together, they share all things in common, they help one another, everybody gives according to their ability to give. There s an appreciation for how special Jesus is and you can even learn stuff through what Jesus said. But it doesn t make you a disciple. You are aware of him and you appreciate him, and you may even have some affiliation with him. You may come to church. You may drive past the church and say Oh, I ve been there. That s not a bad place to be on a Sunday morning. The people are relatively nice. Relatively. They follow Jesus as a Rabbi because they appreciated things that he said. It touched them in some way. They came to value him. They came to see him as a mentor, as a teacher, as a leader and they affiliated with him. They actually left their lives and their jobs to go with him. That s pretty powerful affiliation. Nobody s asked you to do that and nobody s asked me to do it. I chose to be here. And there s this affirmation piece and this is where things get kind of murky and close. To affirm Jesus is to believe that, ah, maybe he is the Son of God. You know the Roman centurion next to the cross? Truly, he was the Son of God. That s an affirmation, and it gets real close to discipleship, but that s not it. That s not as far as it goes. The disciples were confessing, but they were not converted at that moment as they re walking down that road to Emmaus. They are fueled, but they ve got no flame. They had not been set on fire. They had not been ignited. Ah, but the story continues. There s more.
The three men arrived at Emmaus as night was falling. The stranger started to walk on, but the disciples said Wait! It s late. Allow us to share our meal and our lodging with you. Wow! That s pretty generous stuff. In our day, it s unheard of. In that day, it was called hospitality. He agreed and he sat down at the table with them, and then, taking the bread, he blessed it and he broke it and it handed it to them and at that moment, their eyes were opened. They saw him for who he really was. They knew he was the Risen Christ. And then he was gone. And just like Wesley which I find as a fascinating parallel. Just like Wesley, the disciples turned to each other and said Our hearts were on fire in his presence. To put that in Wesley language, We felt our hearts strangely warmed. The disciples were converted when Jesus became Lord for them, not for others, not for people who have worshipped him throughout the centuries, not for people who are members of a congregation. The disciples go from confessing to converted when Jesus becomes their Lord and that is the last step. It is acclamation. It is my claim of him as my Lord. They claimed him and they proclaimed him the Risen Christ and they ran all the way back to Jerusalem and they found the disciples and you know what they said? We have seen the Lord.
They are fueled and they are set on fire. Now, here s the question for us? How do you and I stay fueled and aflame with passion for Christ, especially if we have sensed that passion kind of sapping away from us over time? Church has become a little pedantic, very predictable. I can worship on the golf course as well as I can worship in the sanctuary. Yeah, maybe, but we have to be consciously fueled and aflame in our passion for Christ, so start foraging for fuel. Go fund the stuff that lights you up. For some it is music. For some it is the scripture. For some it is fellowship. For some it is debate and discussion. For some it is reading and studying and expanding your mind. For some it may be liturgical practices like prayer and fasting. There are all sorts of ways to get fueled. You know what you need. You know where to go find it. Go get it! Go get what you need to be set on fire once again. Look for it! And once you find it, throw it onto the fire that s left in you. Allow it to catch fire once again. Allow it like gas on an open flame, to explode into your life. Allow the heart that is in you to burn, not to be strangely warmed, to be familiarly warmed, the touch of Christ to set us on fire again. And fan those flames. Do what you ve got to do in order to allow that Spirit to grow in you, to push you forward. Try something new, for God s sake! Do something different! How about go visit somebody. How about forgive somebody. How about encourage somebody. How about pray for somebody. You may be doing all these things and you are doing them at a point where it is comfortable for you. I m suggesting you to allow your heart to be strangely warmed yet again and take that fire and put it into your hearts. It only takes a spark.
And brothers and sisters, I believe the Spirit is ready to ignite you and me once again. During the remainder of this worship service, these altar rails are here for you. If you feel so moved to come forward, if your heart is strangely warmed, you are welcome here, to kneel in a time of prayer and meditation. This is the day that the Lord has made. Let s burn it up! And let us give thanks to God. We present our tithes and offerings. The altar is open.