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Sunday, July 25, 2010
May Our Light So Shine
By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz
Scripture: Acts 1:6-8
6 So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" 7 He replied, "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
We are finishing today a five sermon series on the promises and vows that we take when we promise to be followers of Christ as United Methodist Christians.
I want to open with a story about how my wife Judy got involved in a church at all because when she was a child, her family did not attend church, did not go to church at all—at least for the first seven years of her life.
When Judy was seven, the lady who lived next door to her family invited Judy to go to the week- long vacation Bible School at the Methodist Church up the street. Judy had a great experience and then Judy and her mother began to attend that church pretty regularly. Her father would come once in a while but he said if they joined a church as a family, he wanted it to be a larger congregation, so they joined another Methodist Church about five minutes further away. That was the large congregation that my family attended also so Judy and I knew each other in youth group from the time we were both in middle school.
We would not have met or known each other, and perhaps she would not have grown up in a faith community had it not been for the invitation from that neighbor lady to “come and give us a try”.
The word INVITATION is really important in our dialogue this morning as is the concept of sharing the story of our spiritual path and journey.
Let’s remember those—INVITATION and TELLING OUR STORY—as we look at the last of the promises we make as people active in a United Methodist Church.
WE PROMISE TO BE FOLLOWERS OF JESUS CHRIST AND TO SUPPORT CHRIST’S WORK THROUGH THIS COMMUNITY WITH OUR PRAYERS, PRESENCE, GIFTS, SERVICE, AND WITNESS.
This last word in the series is a troubling word because many of us have had bad experiences with people who thought they were “witnessing” to us. I am sad that it has taken on those negative meanings.
In the passage we heard from the book of Acts, here is what is happening: the Risen Christ is appearing many times to his friends in the fifty days after Easter. In these verses, some of his followers still do not understand him: “Are you going to be the king now and restore Israel to the power we had under King David 1000 years ago???”
Jesus evades that question—perhaps because of his disappointment that some of his followers still had not understood what he is about—and he predicted that his friends would be empowered to tell his story/their story in Jerusalem, Judea, and even beyond in Samaria and then all across the earth. And his words came true as his followers felt empowered by God’s spirit (Paul says it is also the spirit of Christ) and told the good news that Christ is alive and told the difference that walking with Christ makes for all of us. They were so passionate, so joyful, so enthusiastic and convincing that thousands of others became part of this community.
In other words, this Jesus movement embodied and, at our best, we have embodied over the centuries what you and I say when we end our worship time each week:
MAY OUR LIGHT SO SHINE AND OUR JOY BE SO OBVIOUS
THAT ALL WHO SEE US MY COME TO PRAISE GOD.
Those first Jesus followers did that! They were witnesses and they offered their witness of what God is doing in their lives—and others got involved as well. That has been true for 2000 years. It was true when Martin Luther began a new movement called “Protestantism” in protesting the abuses he saw in his church and thousands, then millions signed on. It was true in England and in America in the past 250 years as John Wesley and the “Methodists” spread the good news through their passion for Bible study and prayer and social justice.
We talked three weeks ago about some of our beginnings in America on Independence Day. We did not tell about what happened in church life during those first sixty years after 1776. There was a spectacular movement of spiritual renewal in our country between 1776 and 1844, and that fastest growing spiritual renewal movement was called “Methodism”! It happened because circuit riding preachers (Methodists) were so passionate about telling the story of Christ and telling about lives being changed that we grew from a community of 4000 Methodist Christians in 1784 to over one million in 1844. My mother’s people in Missouri became Methodist church members because of the passion of those leaders and members to share their faith; to share their story-to be-here is that scary word—WITNESSES to what their spiritual journey has been like.
Is that word a scary word, a negative word for you? Have you been turned off or felt judged or felt inferior because someone has made their religious “witness” to you? Many of us have had bad experiences with folks who were well meaning and whose attitude was arrogant or exclusive or who communicated that we had to be just like them to be authentically spiritual, authentic followers of Christ—is that true for you? This is one of the reasons I am so pleased that our adult education program this summer is giving people a chance to do something much more positive—to share the story of their own faith journey for a few minutes in our 10:40 Sunday School hour, and that is happening again this morning with three more of our church members.
Some of the reasons people have such negative images of “church” come from encountering church folks who seemed narrow, legalistic, condescending and self righteous, and who communicated that if our faith journey was not like theirs, we were obviously going to hell!
Yet this practice of followers of Christ telling their stories and INVITING OTHERS—there are those two key concepts again—have been the essence of vitality and the spread of our faith.
I told the story of how important an INVITATION was for Judy Martz’s family to get involved with a church when she was just seven years old. They did because someone invited them.
Most of us are here because someone invited us to faith, invited us, just like the disciple Andrew did—to come and take a look for ourselves, to come and consider Christ!
Maybe each of us is here because someone in our life, a family member, a friend, a neighbor, a parent, invited us, offered their witness to us, told us their story, invited us to take a look for ourselves at the life of meaning and joy and service to others that is possible when we respond to the original invitation from Christ to come along with him and learn how to have the best life possible. My mother was one of the key inviters in my life.
Most of us are here because someone through their words and through their life example—-both of those are important, both of us are necessary—most of us came to faith through that invitation, through that witness.
And most of us here have done that with others also. Most of us have invited others to come and take a look for themselves, have we not? Most of us have invited others! Raise your hand if you have ever invited anyone else to church with you to worship, to a music program, to an evening seminar.
You have done that, and that is the reason that St Andrew Church has expanded from 600 people in worship to 1100 or 1200 recently. It is the reason we are making space for others in our building expansion. It is the reason that our small groups and Disciple Bible study classes have increased from the half dozen or so when I first came here to the huge numbers of small groups and Just Faith groups and Disciple Bible classes that we have now. You have let your light so shine and your joy be so obvious that others have come to know God and to follow Christ! You have done what Jesus predicted. You have been story sharers, witnesses, inviters of others to come and take a look for themselves.
There is the word INVITE again. Incredible things happen when we just offer an invitation to someone and let God take it from there. Things happen in another person’s spiritual growth but also in their growth in service (those are closely connected!)
Let me tell you another story about that. Our family was in Orlando over the weekend for the annual international gathering of families who have a family member with Down Syndrome. We were with 3000 other people including folks from Saudi Arabia, Kenya, Canada, and Mexico.
At that event, one of our former St. Andrew Church members received a very prestigious award for his outstanding service as a volunteer for the past 8 years. He is Dave Donahue whom some of you remember. Dave lives in Chicago now and is a regional trainer for Crate and Barrel, but for the past 8 years he has become an outstanding volunteer for this annual gathering even though he does not have a family member with a disability. Ever since 2002, Dave has paid for his own travel and hotel room to Boston or Sacramento or Anaheim to spend four days coordinating 150 other volunteers who make this event successful!
Dave got involved in 2002 when this conference was in Denver and I made a last minute invitation in worship one week before it happened here saying that we were looking for some additional help from folks. Dave responded to that invitation and he has responded every year since then and has also offered his own invitation to others to be involved in service so that this year he brought with him his three college age nieces who also paid their own way and paid their own hotel so they could serve.
When Dave Donahue received his award last Saturday he told this story; that he responded to an invitation to take a new step of service to others. He told the large audience that evening that it all happened one Sunday in church, and then he offered his own witness if you will of what is most important in life.
He said he does what he does because he believes that every one of us is put on earth for a larger purpose than just ourselves!
We have been saying that together these last few weeks and you believe that or you would not be part of this community of faith.
And Dave’s life is a witness to that. His words are part of his witness and his life example is a witness. We look to each other for both words and actions. You and I may be the only Bible that someone else will ever read! That might be a sobering thought. Our life example tells a story of one kind or another!
What Mahatma Ghandi said about himself on the front of your bulletin is true for each of us. As his train was leaving a station at the height of his influence as a reformer in India, a man walked along side asking for a written message from Ghandi to guide the man’s life, and Ghandi said simply, “My life is my message.”
It is true for each of us. How we live, what we do, what we value, how we behave is a message or a witness.
One last example of that: Judy and I have been reading the new book—two weeks old now—by Sean and Leigh Ann Tuohy, the parents of Michael Oher. Perhaps you have seen the movie “Blindside” which came from another book by a different author—that book was the basis for the film.
This new book, “In a Heartbeat” was written by the couple themselves with inserts from their daughter Collins and a couple of pages from Sandra Bullock who played Leigh Ann Tuohy in the film. It is a wonderful read, and it retells the inspirational story of how this couple came to adopt into their family a talented but very needy young man who began to blossom in that family’s love and became a successful student and a very successful athlete in college and now in professional football.
But what the new book does is tell us that this attitude of generosity and compassion and kindness toward others did not just start with their relationship with Michael Oher, it has been part of their identity since this husband and wife first got married—they have always had a spirit of generosity and servant leadership and caring for others!!! They have always welcomed other persons into their home!!
And guess what, that spirit of generosity and kindness has come from their faith and from being influenced by the teachings of Christ! They are in worship every Sunday in their congregation in Memphis and they have expected that same faithfulness in worship from their children! They have expected their children to be just as committed to attending church each week as they were to sports practices and games.
The words and the actions of Sean and Leigh Ann Tuohy are part of their witness!! Their lives are a message and an invitation to others to look at this opportunity of abundant life through service and generosity.
Each of us is a witness of one kind or another. We are promising to offer our verbal and our active witness for a God centered life when we unite with our faith community.
What message can others get, will others get, from seeing us and hearing our invitation? What if you and I are the only Bible that some people will ever read?
One sentence to conclude—it appeared at the end of two different e mail messages I got this week:
LIVE HONESTLY, LOVE GENEROUSLY, CARE DEEPLY, SPEAK KINDLY, AND LEAVE THE REST TO GOD.
Amen.