Fire Kindles Fire A sermon preached by James F. McIntire Copyright 2011 James F. McIntire All rights reserved. Text: Acts 2: 1-21 June 12, 2011 Pentecost Sunday Hope United Methodist Church Eagle & Steel Roads, Havertown, PA Phone: 610-446-3351 Web: www.havhopeumc.org Office: HopeUMCHavertown@verizon.net Pastor: HopeUMCPastor@verizon.net 2
Acts 2: 1-21 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. 5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs in our own languages we hear them speaking about God s deeds of power. 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, What does this mean? 13 But others sneered and said, They are filled with new wine. 14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15 Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o clock in the morning. 16 No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 17 In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 18 Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. 19 And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. 20 The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the 3 coming of the Lord s great and glorious day. 21 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Phillips Brooks was an Episcopal priest and later Bishop who, while serving at Church of the Holy Trinity on Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia during the 1860s, wrote O Little Town of Bethlehem. He was an influential preacher and an arduous opponent of slavery. In an 1877 lecture about the power of preaching he said, Nothing but fire kindles fire. It summarizes the meaning of Pentecost for the church in just one short sentence. Nothing but fire kindles fire. Fifty days after Jesus resurrection his closest followers were gathered together in one room in Jerusalem. They were there to celebrate the Jewish Feast of Weeks Shavout the celebration of God s giving of the Torah to Moses. It s a festival day each year held exactly 50 days after Passover hence it s Greek name pente, meaning 50. So these faithful Jews, these confused followers of Jesus who had died and who had reappeared in their lives again, gathered for this sacred celebration remembering the word that God has given to us. People were gathered together in a larger upper room. These first Christians were waiting, waiting, waiting for something very special to happen to them, and they weren t quite sure what they were waiting for. They were waiting for what Jesus had promised them that the Holy Spirit would come to them and would open to them what God had in mind for them. They didn t know what that would mean. And then it was like a rush of wind into the room, Luke writes, the Holy Spirit suddenly coming alive within this small group of frightened Jesus followers. Like tongues of fire above them, says Luke, like tongues of fire inside of them. And they felt the power of God, and they rushed out of that building into the streets. They went from street to street and home to home and neighbor to neighbor and family to family they went to 4
people they had never met and to people they thought wouldn t understand them. The latest I ve read about the wildfire burning in Arizona is that it has become the worst ever in the state's history burning more than 600 square miles, 408,887 acres, and is now only six per cent contained. At least 10,000 people have been displaced and more than 30 homes have been destroyed. Authorities said full containment is nowhere in sight, and power lines that supply much of West Texas and Southern New Mexico with electricity are also in jeopardy. Winds died down giving the 4,400 firefighters a brief respite but now they say the winds are expected to pick up and pose more challenges. Yesterday this massive fire, which knows no boundaries, crossed into western New Mexico and they say more than 5,000 residences are threatened. As dangerous and devastating as a wildfire like this is, it also shows clearly the power of a fire once it gets started and it shows its unpredictability and how quickly it can spread. That s how the earliest Christians chose to describe what they were experiencing. From that moment forward from that typical Pentecost in Jerusalem, the fire that came upon the followers of Jesus spread like a wildfire. For 2,000 years that fire has spread. Nothing can quench it, nothing can control it, nothing can stop it from its burn. Why did that happen? Nothing but fire kindles fire. What happened is that the fire of that First Century Pentecost kindled the fire which still burns throughout the church today. What happened is that those followers first went to a village or town and they gathered people to learn the Jesus message, and then they went to another village or town, and did the same, and they went to a third village or town and spread the message to more people. In each place they left behind people committed to Jesus the Greek word 5 used in Acts for these new followers is laos, which means, the laity, the people, the people of God. The Apostles left common and ordinary people who were on fire, whose tongues were on fire. These weren t trained religious scholars or synagogue leaders, they had never seen Jesus face to face, they hadn t talked to Jesus in the flesh. These were not the original 12 disciples. These were simply the people of God in each village who then spread the Gospel from house to house, and neighbor to neighbor and friend to friend and family to family. And that s the way it always is that s the way fire spreads. That is the fundamental principle of the church and is has always been true; the people of God, who become inspired by the Holy Spirit are the ones who go about the hard work of spreading the Word, the Gospel, the Jesus message. How do we do it? How does it happen? Nothing but fire kindles fire. I learned something fascinating this weekend or maybe I should say that I added to my fascination with this phenomenon that is the church. Yesterday, I hosted the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference Historical Society here at Hope. This group keeps track of the history of all of our churches across the Conference now about 500 churches between here and the coal counties of Pennsylvania. Many of the churches in the Philadelphia area go back to the beginning of Methodism in America which was formed in 1784. The Society asked that I give them a brief history of Hope church. What I have known has been mostly about Ebenezer Church one of the two congregations along with Trinity that merged in 2006 to become Hope. So I shared some of that history with the group. Ebenezer Church was formed as a mission in Southwark (South Philadelphia) out of St. George s, the very first Methodist church in Philadelphia arguably the oldest in the US. In 1790 1790 just 6 years after the denomination started Ebenezer became a separate church independent of St. George s and it built the very first building the Methodists ever built in Philadelphia on 2 nd Street near Christian Street. Around 1824 the Ebenezer congregation left 6
that building and built a new one on 3rd Street between Christian and Queen. In 1903 it moved from there and built a large building in West Philadelphia at 52nd & Parrish. In 1941, the congregation diminished and closed and part of the assets were sent out here to a little church in Manoa called Bethesda. In 1942, this congregation built the building which is now our Chapel. I discovered that Bethesda church had its roots in what had been the 13the Street Methodist Church in Philadelphia. I found this newspaper photo and caption from The Philadelphia Record of August 15, 1942: [Caption] The problem being pondered by Rev. E.W.J. Schmitt, of Ebenezer Methodist Church, of Manoa, as he watches his $52,000 church being built at Eagle and Steel rds., is how to raise before September 15 the last $3,800 of unpledged indebtedness. His loyal congregation has twice answered the call for subscriptions; Old Ebenezer and Old 13th St. Churches, of which Manoa is spiritual heir, gave $20,000; $10,000 was granted by the Conference Church Extension Society; $10,000 was borrowed, but $3,800 was still lacking. Towards it, 27-year-old Pastor Schmitt and Mrs. Schmitt pledged such a thumping part of their salary that it s lucky they have a vegetable garden or they wouldn t eat. St. George s, Ebenezer in 1790, Manoa in 1835, 13th Street Church and my guess is there are similar stories about Trinity and Covenant which also become a part of the Hope family as streams merge in the 20th Century. And all of that history just the tiny bit that I ve learned is the result of that fire kindled in Jerusalem in the easiest days of this new Jesus movement. Nothing but fire kindles fire. Pentecost often ends too soon, said Rev Dr. Barbara Lundblad who teaches at Union Seminary in NYC. The first part of the story is thrilling. The sound of a mighty wind. The tongues of fire. People from all over the Roman Empire hearing their own languages spoken by ordinary Galileans. The promise of the Spirit poured out on young and old, including slaves, both women and men. Pentecost means all of that. As the story goes on, Peter stands up to preach, and he preaches such a powerful sermon that over 3,000 people are baptized. Pentecost means all of that too. But Pentecost ends too soon if it has nothing to do with possessions, with wealth and poverty, with what we call economics. How do we live together as a church? How do we live into that fire kindled 2,000 years ago which burns today in our lives here at Hope? 7 8
Dr. Lundblad tells this story: A few years ago I talked with a friend of mine who's a pastor in New England. "How's your building program going?" I asked. "Oh, we ran out of money before we got to the worship space," she said. I thought to myself, "What could be more important than the worship space?" But I kept my thoughts to myself. "We renovated the basement," she said. "You know, we have a shelter there for homeless men. We put in new showers and renovated the old kitchen. The basement was so drab, and the showers-well, there was only one shower and it was lousy. On the Sunday before the shelter opened, the worship service began as usual in the sanctuary. When it came time for communion, the people carried the bread and the cup downstairs to the basement. The whole congregation gathered around the empty beds. They passed the bread and the cup around the circle. The body of Christ given for you. That night the shelter beds were full, and the worship space still needed a lot of work." The church calendar still said it was the first Sunday of Advent. But people in that congregation knew that Pentecost wasn't over. Pentecost shaped their life together, and it had everything to do with economics. found as I prepared for yesterday s meeting. And it made me realize again why it is that we do what we do year after year on this corner in Havertown. It s about that common life flamed by the fire first kindled some 2,000 years ago, rekindled 200+ years ago in Methodism s jump from England to America, and again rekindled 60 years ago here in this community. In the same album where I discovered that photo and caption about the building of this building in 1942, I also found information about a wonderful piece of Hope s Pentecost story. As I turned the page I discovered several photos 2 portrait photos of young adults and one camera snapshot of the young woman with her mother. As I l;ooed closer I discovered that the snapshot was of Margie Shigetomi and her mother standing in front of barracks in the Mt. Heart (Wyoming) Japanese Relocation Camp. The two portraits were of Margie and her husband, Hiro Shigetomi in his military uniform. Handwritten on Hiro s photo is his note sending it to the pastor Dr. & Mrs. Schmitt and signed Hiro. The next page is an 8 x10 of their wedding photo and next a portrait of their baby, April. A note with the photos says: As a result of Annie Clo Watson s address at 2 nd This is America, the church agreed to sponsor Hiro & Margie Shigetomi. They came to live in the parsonage. The fire kindled in First Century Jerusalem was re-kindled in that church in New England as it figured out what the rest if the Pentecost moment meant for it. What surprised me even more than the history of how many different churches are part of what has kindled this congregation today was an album of photos and other newspaper articles that I 9 10
What an amazing story. I will dig deeper and find out what s behind it. But in 1943, in the parsonage that sat on this ground where we now worship, lived a young Japanese couple brought from within the confines of an internment camp. This congregation in this small way brought some Light into one of the darkest stories in our nation s history. Fire kindles fire. Who would have imagined that the year after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the US entry into WWII, and the forced incarceration of thousands of US citizens of Japanese ancestry this congregation would reach out and bring to live in the parsonage a family from those tragic circumstances? Who would have imagined? The Spirit of God imagined it. That very same Spirit which swept into that room in Jerusalem and ignited a flame within those earliest followers of Jesus led this congregation to rekindle once again and reach way beyond its doors in suburban Havertown so that another family might have some semblance of a life in the midst of chaos. What fire is there today? What fire does the Spirit kindle in us this morning? What fire can we use to kindle the next fire that runs through our common life? Pentecost, as Barbara Lundblad said, usually ends too early. There is more to the story than fire and strange languages there is that common life which the Spirit kindles among us. Nothing but fire kindles fire. Let us go from here kindling fires wherever Hope is alive Amen. 11 12