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Sunday, May 17, 2009
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
By Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz
Scripture: Acts 2:1-6, 22-24, 36-47 Good News Bible
1 When the day of Pentecost came, all the believers were gathered together in one place. 2 Suddenly there was a noise from the sky which sounded like a strong wind blowing, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 Then they saw what looked like tongues of fire which spread out and touched each person there. 4 They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to talk in other languages, as the Spirit enabled them to speak. 5 There were Jews living in Jerusalem, religious people who had come from every country in the world. 6 When they heard this noise, a large crowd gathered. They were all excited, because all of them heard the believers talking in their own languages. 22 "Listen to these words, fellow Israelites! Jesus of Nazareth was a man whose divine authority was clearly proven to you by all the miracles and wonders which God performed through him. You yourselves know this, for it happened here among you. 23 In accordance with his own plan God had already decided that Jesus would be handed over to you; and you killed him by letting sinful men crucify him. 24 But God raised him from death, setting him free from its power, because it was impossible that death should hold him prisoner. 36 "All the people of Israel, then, are to know for sure that this Jesus, whom you crucified, is the one that God has made Lord and Messiah!" 37 When the people heard this, they were deeply troubled and said to Peter and the other apostles, "What shall we do, brothers?" 38 Peter said to them, "Each one of you must turn away from your sins and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, so that your sins will be forgiven; and you will receive God's gift, the Holy Spirit. 39 For God's promise was made to you and your children, and to all who are far away—all whom the Lord our God calls to himself." 40 Peter made his appeal to them and with many other words he urged them, saying, "Save yourselves from the punishment coming on this wicked people!" 41 Many of them believed his message and were baptized, and about three thousand people were added to the group that day.
42 They spent their time in learning from the apostles, taking part in the fellowship, and sharing in the fellowship meals and the prayers. 43 Many miracles and wonders were being done through the apostles, and everyone was filled with awe. 44 All the believers continued together in close fellowship and shared their belongings with one another. 45 They would sell their property and possessions, and distribute the money among all, according to what each one needed. 46 Day after day they met as a group in the Temple, and they had their meals together in their homes, eating with glad and humble hearts, 47 praising God, and enjoying the good will of all the people. And every day the Lord added to their group those who were being saved.
Last week we heard the words of I Corinthians 13, Paul’s famous chapter on what love is, at its best, and we said that it is one of the most important chapters in the Bible. The reading we just heard from the book of Acts is less familiar to some of us, but it, also, is one of the most important chapters in the Bible. Let me tell you why.
This story occurs fifty days after Easter on the Jewish holiday called Pentecost. The followers of Jesus are gathered in Jerusalem. They have experienced other occasions in the fifty days when they have seen and felt the presence of Christ, the risen Christ, with them. They have been waiting, just as he has told them to wait, for God’s spirit to empower them and fire them up so they can tell the good news, tell the story of Jesus to all people everywhere. As they are gathered in the upper room, where fifty days earlier they were celebrating what we know as the Last Supper, they got fired up. They experienced wind and fire, and they all began to speak in other languages about what God had done in Christ.
Here is why that matters: Pentecost was another feast day when Jews from across the lands came back to Jerusalem. There were thousands of Jewish pilgrims in the city, not quite as many as at Passover, but still a large audience.
It was Peter who became the true leader and who offered the first sermon and the first altar call. Think about this, Peter had disgraced himself fifty days earlier by boasting that even if Jesus’ other eleven friends abandoned him in a time of testing, that he, Peter, would never run away, and yet he did just that! Not only did he run away to save himself, he even said three times that he did not know Jesus. This was while Jesus had been arrested and was awaiting a trumped up trial by the council of religious leaders.
Peter was rightly ashamed and his spirit was crushed, but now it is the transformed and forgiven Peter who becomes the leader of the Jesus movement. He tells the crowd that the disciples are not drunk as they imagine. He tells the story of Jesus: “a man whose divine authority was proven by God through the deeds and miracles he did.” You misunderstood him and had him killed, he tells the crowd, but God has raised him up and, therefore, proved that he is Lord and Messiah.
Peter’s speech has mesmerized the crowd and when he invites them to become followers of the way, most of them do and 3000 people are baptized. After that what do they do? They meet together with Jesus’ closest friends for study and learning. They worship and pray together and they eat together. They share what they have so that no one goes hungry or has a need. And the last line is very, very important: every day God added to their number, those who were being saved, not those who had been saved, but those who were in process, under construction, those who were being saved, like all the rest of us here who are BEING saved and made well and whole.
This story is about the birthday of the Christian movement, the beginning of the way of Christ that has of course spread across the planet and has involved more people than any other way of life today. We will actually celebrate the day of Pentecost in two weeks and we will have a guest speaker that day, Dr Albert Hernandez. This will also be the graduation day for our Disciple Bible students, so this is my chance to talk about this very important story which is really the story of the birthday of the church. On previous occasions, we even have had birthday cake on Pentecost Sundays to get this important story embedded in our minds. Cake will do that. The story of this beginning is important for lots of reasons. It tells us that God is interested in church folks continuing to reach out beyond themselves to tell the story of Jesus and to make that story their own story. In fact in almost every chapter of the Book of Acts, for the next ten chapters, the author tells us about more people being reached, more people being invited and included and helped and healed. It is a good thing to invite others, as the disciple Andrew kept inviting others, to come and take a look and see if there is not something in this story for them, in this community.
We used this story in Acts a lot of times 14 years ago, shortly after I came here, when we were reexamining our purpose as a church and talking about where we would go next. We had reached a plateau in our budget and in our worship attendance. We were land locked. We had some folks who were saying we should relocate and go to a larger site where we could reach the most people. We had others who said we were just fine the way we were and if the Methodist conference wants to reach more people, let the conference do that, just leave us alone because we were comfortable the way we were.
We went through a self study, we reaffirmed our purpose and mission to invite and involve people who were not yet here. That is what Christ calls us to do in the great commission, go into the world and invite people to be Christ’s followers because that is how we find life at is best.
These verses in the book of Acts were very important to me and others of us over the past fifteen years as we made some bold and courageous decisions to sell a beloved building and move from a beautiful and familiar setting next to a park to come here so we could fulfill our self understanding. These verses were important as was another story, the story or parable of the life saving station. This story was about a small group of people, 100 years ago, who set up a small, crude life saving station on a rocky coast where shipwrecks would occur. They saw their purpose and mission to rescue people and help them out of the storms. They were very successful and more people wanted to join them. But, then they turned inward and forgot that their purpose was to reach out beyond themselves. They just focused on caring for each other and enjoying each other instead of helping people outside their group. So as they turned inward, a small group broke off and went down the coast to establish another setting to go beyond just the people who were already being helped. It was those stories that reminded us and motivated us to make some courageous decisions when we had some information and also had to just act on faith as well as fact. We spent a lot of money for almost 17 acres of ground so we could really invite a lot of people in a part of Denver that is severely under populated with United Methodist Christians. By the way, I just heard that in the past 10 years, the price of land for churches in Highlands Ranch has doubled. We paid $4.50 a foot and now it is selling for $8-10 a square foot!
I mentioned that this faith community has been through some difficult choices and some challenging decisions. We have asked in those times that each of us think about, not what is most comfortable and easiest for ourselves, but that we listen to scripture and to how God is calling us to invite and involve and receive and to live the great commission.
We are looking at another challenging decision in a few weeks on July 12. One year ago we had a very successful capital campaign that raised almost 8 million in pledges to expand our ministry and our space. We have had a very diverse building committee that has been meeting weekly for a couple of hours each week with architects, the contractor and project manager to get us more space to accommodate our expanding ministries and expanding congregation. We will be able to show the revised plans and a model in a few weeks and we will have committee representatives available then to answer questions. Right now, the cost for that new space is projected to be around $225 per square foot, an exceptionally low cost when at least one church building in our neighborhood was built for about $500 a foot several years ago!
It is an interesting time to consider adding space to our church. We don’t know how long the current recession will last. There is much uncertainty and some fear. We hear each week about persons being laid off. We have just been through the bad news this week about the number of auto dealers who will be closing their doors. All we have to do to feel fearful and doubtful is to watch the TV news or read the newspapers to feel even more uncertain and anxious.
Along with that, there are some positive signs: our contractor and other experts are saying that if we do decide to break ground, at the end of the summer, we will be able to build the space more economically than at most other times because the sub contractors will be very competitive and they are looking for work. And, if we decide to build, we will be employing 100 plus people who need to be employed and in that way will be doing our part for economic recovery.
Our money for the capital pledges is coming in and several donors are just waiting for us to decide to break ground so they can pay the next installment on their pledge. Here are some other facts. We have several banks who are very interested in loaning us money for the project. They are competing with each other to do that because, as one of the bankers said, they see the health and vitality of this church and they know our track record, and they have confidence in what we are doing. I have that confidence, also, but it is good to hear that from others. By the way, we are talking with the banks about mortgage repayment terms that will only be as much as what our congregation has already raised each year in capital pledges for the past nine years in a row.
Here are other positive signs. We continue to attract new people, some eight or so new households in worship each week. In our south metro Denver catchment area, new families are moving in each month at a significant growth rate, in fact, in a four month period, from January through April, 4200 new households moved into our area.
The giving to our operating ministries has held steady now. Thanks to your response to Second Mile Sunday in March and thanks to some cost savings measures and to steady giving from this very generous congregation, our leaders are feeling a bit more confident about the second half of the program year than we did in January. That statement assumes that our current generous giving pattern will continue. We will have some additional facts for all of us to share over the next few weeks as we move toward a decision. But, finally, we will not have all the facts. We will not know exactly how many new people or how many more people we will be able to serve when we have more space. We will have some educated projections based on current demographics and based on past history. And we will make a decision based on a combination of facts and faith! That is exactly what we did in 2003 when we accepted the building plans for this current building. We had some factual data and we had some faith. We did not know for sure what a new building would cost to run and maintain. We did not know where the additional Sunday school volunteers would come from. We believed that if we built the first phase, that people would respond and come to be served and would become involved in serving others, and it happened, and it is still happening!
How many of you have become part of the St. Andrew family since we have been in this new/four year old building-raise your hands. We would not be here today unless we had done both things, acted on some facts AND taken a step of faith. It is the same in your life. I was talking with a family a few days ago about making a major decision about moving and starting a new business. It was the same need for some facts as well as some faith. If we only look to faith, we can make some foolhardy decisions. If we only rely on facts, we will leave some things undone that God can help us with. This is true in our personal lives, our business and work lives, and in our church life as well. We will know as a congregation on July 12 what the right timing is. Is it right to wait or to break ground in late August when the construction costs will be among the lowest in the past several years? Will they go lower or will they go higher if we wait? What will happen if we wait and the turnaround happens and the maximum guaranteed price goes up significantly or the banks have to increase interest rates? We will discern that together and with the help of God’s spirit.
We will have some facts to present in the next few weeks and we will have some recommendations from our building committee and from our church council, but we will also need to combine those facts with a stance of faith. And that has been our history at St. Andrew Church and that has probably been your history as individual followers of Christ. We gather all the information and facts that we can, and also to combine that with courage and faith. That was the case with that first group of Christians as they spread the good news on and after the day of Pentecost. They were not sure where God was leading them after God’s spirit fired them up to invite others to new life as followers of Christ. They knew the joy and excitement they felt in their transformed hearts. And they became fired up evangelists, hungry persons telling other hungry persons where to find bread. I think that is what we have been doing also, and I think that is what God is calling us to keep on doing. If we are faithful, it will be said of us also: “Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”