Sermon for Sunday,  November 20, 2005  

JOIN THE MIRACLE

by

Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz

Miracle Sunday ~ 45^th Anniversary Celebration

Scripture: Acts 2: 43-47

⁴³ Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. ⁴⁴ All who believed were together and had all things in common; ⁴⁵ they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. ⁴⁶ Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, ⁴⁷ praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

I remember a few years back knowing of a businessman in Colorado Springs who did not celebrate Thanksgiving Day. He said, he did not need to give thanks to anybody because everything he had was due to his hard work. He thought he was a self made man. He said he earned and deserved everything himself. He had no obligation to thank anybody – God, family, friends, and people in his past who had helped him be where he is.

According to him, he was the only reason for his success. 

That is the opposite attitude of where we are this morning! We believe that every one of us here has stood on the shoulders of others to get where we are, that we are the recipients of support and help from others and from God, and we want to recognize that and acknowledge that with some humility and some gratitude/thanksgiving.

That is why some Christian folk in the year 1621 set aside a special time for feasting with their friends in the beginning of our country in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The friends they were feasting with were native Americans and those natives had saved their lives over that past year by showing them some crops that were hardy and teaching them where to fish and where to hunt. And even though only half the Americans had lived through that first horrible winter of 1620 – (Think about this! Half their number had died: wives, husbands, and children!)  Still, after a good harvest in the fall of 1621, they proclaimed a time to thank God and to honor their new friends just because they were alive!

The best reason of all to give thanks: I am alive and I have hope. Thank you God.

David Rothenberg is a child who was the victim of an enraged father who poured kerosene all over the boy’s bedroom and set everything afire including his son. David was burned over 95% of his body but survived. He will experience several thousand operations over his life. But he is aware of what those pilgrims were in 1621 – that the first thing to be thankful for is life itself. Here is what seven-year-old David said:

I am alive!

I am alive!

I am alive!

I didn’t miss out on living and that is wonderful enough for me!

Thank you God for life. And thank you to those who have helped us to get to this place because none of us makes it through life all by ourselves!!!!

Mr. Rogers was speaking at an event at the White House a few years ago and he sounded the theme of this day: take time to remember some people in your past who have helped you get where you are and in a time of silence be thankful for them. He gave the audience a minute or two of silence. He finished his speech and was leaving the room and walked by one of the marine honor guard and as he passed this young marine the soldier still had a tear on his face and he whispered as Fred Rogers passed him: “Thank you Mr. Rogers. Thank you for helping us remember and thank some people who helped us get where we are.”

We are thanking and honoring people today in this place on our 45^th anniversary as a church. They are the pioneers from the 1960’s who joined this congregation even before we had a building! They met in a school gymnasium. It takes some pretty mature people to join a church when there is not even a building! It takes a sophisticated outlook to know that the church is the people – it is not the building and the building, nice as it might be, is just a tool to nurture and form people into Christians!

Some of the people here knew that. Somebody in that first couple of years offered their basement every week so there could be a place for the choir to practice! They only used the school on Sunday mornings. Others joined in the first few years in a small building and gave their energy and resources and time and sweat so that more people could be invited and nurtured and discipled.

That is the kind of commitment we celebrate today. This is a high commitment church. We said that to the 30 new members who will join this morning who will make a total of over 200 people joining us in the past ten months. This is a high commitment church. We take those promises of PRAYERS, PRESENCE, GIFTS AND SERVICE very seriously!

That is the reputation we have had and we do have. I met a businessman in our community last week. I told him what I do and where I work. I am always a little reluctant because people can have some stereotypes about ministers. They might think all Christians are like Pat Robertson if they have had no experience with healthy faith and no knowledge of who Jesus really is and what it means to live by his teaching of justice and compassion.

This fellow was familiar with mainstream Christians. He said he had grown up Methodist and he had heard about this church and he said he had heard good things about this church!

The reasons we might have that reputation is because of the people who helped us get started who were willing to pound the pavement and invite people to come and take a look, people who volunteered their basement for choir practice, people who gave time and money generously and sacrificially so you and I can enjoy the benefits of their faith. And God has taken that faith and miraculously multiplied it so we are here. And God invites us to not just enjoy what we are about but to join it and help it multiply and pass it on to others.

We heard one of the most important passages from the Bible. The second chapter of Acts is about the birthday of the whole Christian movement. It was fifty days after Easter. The name of the Jewish holiday was Pentecost. Thousands of pilgrims had come back to Jerusalem just after they had been there fifty days earlier for Passover.

The disciples were now gathered in the same upper room where they had been fifty days earlier with Jesus at the Last Supper. He was killed the next day, a Friday. They were shattered and totally demoralized. But on Sunday, something else was going on: something miraculous had happened. He was alive again and with them! One saw him at the tomb. Others were in a room with a locked door and he showed up. Two of them were walking fifteen miles to a town called Emmaus and they were joined by a stranger whom they later realized was the risen Christ. Others were fishing and saw a man preparing fish on a charcoal fire on the shore who invited them to come and eat with him. It was the Lord, they learned, alive and sending them out to feed his lambs, feed his people.

That was a miracle. It was another miracle that at Pentecost 3000 more people joined the movement and helped spread the good news in an environment that was hostile to this new faith, so hostile that these people – followers of the way they were called – could be imprisoned or killed for bowing to Christ and not to the emperor. The emperors tried for a while to wipe these folks out. Think about this! Think about the mighty power of Rome. Think about the movie Gladiator in the opening scenes with all that military might lined up against the enemy. In this case the enemy became this little movement of Christian pilgrims who later on in the book of Acts, when some of them are arrested, they say, we just can’t help sharing the news about what God has done in Christ; we just can’t help it, even if you put us in jail or threaten our lives.

Their faith and courage prevailed and because of them we are able to be here. It sounds miraculous does it not?

We reminded our new members of others like them: the Wesley brothers, Charles and John. Some of us saw the play about them a week ago. They had some difficult odds. They were trying to reform a dead religion, trying to renew people and reach people who were hurting. They were attacked by their congregations; bottles thrown at them, mud thrown on them. They made sacrifices, risked their safety and health. They persevered and God worked miraculously through them and so we Methodists are here with a religion of heart and head, spirituality depth and social justice, prayer and action, faith and reason.

And these pioneers we honor today from our 45 years have experienced the miracle of God taking their seemingly small beginnings of 40 plus years ago and miraculously multiplying that so that 3000 people now in this congregation are finding new life and encouragement and a vital, lively faith.

You are invited to be part of that journey today. You are being invited to join that miracle. We have called today Miracle Sunday as we receive a special offering to help us end our most exciting year ever with a balanced bank account. We hope to receive almost $300,000 today so we can continue God’s work to INVITE, RECEIVE, NURTURE, CHALLENGE, AND SEND FORTH COMMITTED CHRISTIAN DISCIPLES.

This will be the biggest offering we have ever received, but it is very realistic if we take God up on the invitation to join the miracle that is this church.

Today we remember that none of us is successful or effective by ourselves and that God asks us not only to say we are thankful in this national week of thanksgiving but also to show we are thankful – not only to God but to those who have helped us get where we are!

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