Henrietta United Church of Christ

Acts 2:1-4 Rally Sunday

The late Jesuit author Anthony deMello told a tale about a man who discovered how to make fire. He traveled to a nearby village and taught the people how to use the fire-starting tools, how to cook food, how to warm their huts, and so on. The people were very interested. Too interested, as far as the priests of the village were concerned. The man was drawing the crowds and detracting from their own influence. So they caught him and did away with him. But they were clever. They took the tools of making fire and mounted them in the temple, and made a portrait of the fire maker, and taught the people to venerate him. And the people faithfully worshiped the fire maker and venerated his tools for centuries. But there was no fire.

Tragically, that is a fable that applies to many churches I know. The man whose whole being was ablaze with the love of God is remembered and worshiped. But where’s the fire? Where’s the love? Where’s the joy? Where’s the life?

But I’ve known since before I even came here in 1991 that HUCC was not a loveless, joyless, lifeless church. One of the first things I heard before I even came here for an interview was that a bunch of HUCC folks were standing in a long line that was moving nowhere at an Annual Meeting of the NY Conference, waiting for a delayed chicken barbecue dinner. Everyone was grumbling and irritated except the HUCC gang. They were throwing Frisbees and singing together. After I came here, I learned that what they were singing was "100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall." See, even then this church was experimenting with using nontraditional music– you just needed a little direction.

But it was coming back from my sabbatical that made me appreciate how much the fire is alive here at HUCC. So many good things happened while I was away, from the group effort of installation of the new carpet to a great Vacation Bible School to children here every Sunday to Sunday School volunteers to teach them to the ways you welcomed visitors to all the people who looked after the lawn and grounds and shrubs to the highest summer worship attendance in many years to the wonderful experience of Christian community you showed to Dean and Judy Potts, which touched them both deeply.

The fire is burning brightly here at HUCC. And I think it took me being away for three months for me to realize something and for you to realize something very important about that fire. That fire is not dependent on me giving it to you. That’s what the Pentecost story is all about. The flames of the Holy Spirit weren’t just given to Peter as the head of the church. They were given to all the believers who were gathered there. Peter did get up and give a little sermon to help them understand what was happening. But they all had the same fire that he did. That Pentecost experience is called the birth of the Church–not because it created an order of worship, a Sunday School, a structure of boards and committees, and Roast Beef Dinners. It was the birth of the church because God’s Spirit empowered those ordinary people, not only to venerate Jesus but also to follow Jesus, not only to have faith in Jesus but also to have the faith of Jesus, not only to remember Jesus but also to embody the Spirit of Jesus. Where was the fire? It was burning in all of them.

I have a dream for HUCC. My dream is that we will become more and more a church that is ablaze with the renewing, healing, transforming Spirit of Christ, a church where everyone who comes here feels the embers of their spirit kindled and stoked until their spirit is aglow, a place where that flame of God’s creating, redeeming, reconciling love is freely shared and spread beyond these doors and into the world.

Now this dream is already coming true. But there are ways we can help it happen even more fully.

The first step in stoking that fire within us is to acknowledge something they don’t teach you in school or show you on TV, and something the advertisers would rather we not know. There is more to us than our basic needs for food, shelter, sex, DVD’s, cell phones, and faster computers. As Teilhard de Chardin said, "We are not human beings who have a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience." We each have a spark of the divine fire in us, we each have a God-size hole in us, that can only be filled by God, and we can’t know what it really means to be alive without consciously being in relationship with the source of life, the giver of life anew, and the author of eternal life. As spiritual beings, our purpose in life is not just about living as long and comfortably as we can on a biological level. My purpose and your purpose has something to do with helping that spiritual fire of love, peace, hope, and joy burn more brightly as we make our way through the challenges, choices and changes of this finite world. In order for God to kindle spark in us, we have to acknowledge that we have it, and that it is most deeply who we are.

The second thing we can do is to remind each other that we are carriers of the divine flame. To help us do that you will be seeing more faces and hearing more voices up here in the pulpit this year. You know, I’ve preached over 500 sermons from this pulpit in the past 13 years. No wonder attendance was so good while I was away. There were some new faces up here who had some new things to say! Now I know that rainy weekends and our growing membership had something to do with it too. But it’s also true that I don’t have the only word or the last word or necessarily the best word about God’s Word. "God is still speaking," not just to trained clergy like me, but to every one of us here. So I want to extend an invitation to each of you to look for ways to share with us all how God is still speaking to you, or acting in your life, or challenging you to grow, or visible to you in the world around you. Some of you might give a sermon. You might share a brief story that helps us all be warmed by the fire that is glowing in you, or give a children’s time for the kids and the child in us all. You might share a song that God uses to kindle your fire. You might write a piece for the Newsletter. This church is ready to take an important step, from being a Pastor-centered church to being a Christ-centered church. I’d like to have "God is still speaking" moments like we sometimes have mission moments. When you hear someone share a sermon or a story, don’t compare it to how I preach. Remember the story of Pentecost, where God gave the divine flame to all the believers. Give thanks for the way God is moving in that person’s life, and let it stir your own fire as you think of how God is moving in yours.

The third thing we can do to keep our spiritual fires burning brightly this year is for each of us to take responsibility for fueling that fire within us. Regular disciplines of prayer & meditation, reading the Bible & inspirational books, and acts of service and generosity are all fuel for our spiritual fire. But we also need something more. If you remove a piece of burning wood from a fire it goes out quickly. But if you put it back in the fire, it quickly ignites again. Isn’t it curious, how the pieces need each other to keep the fire going in each of them? It’s that way with our spiritual fires too. That’s why we have small groups, that can add support, guidance and inspiration on a personal level–the level where we live our daily lives. Our Tuesday morning Bible study group is having a wonderful series on the kingdom of God–not just learning about it but learning to experience it. The Sunday evening group is starting a discussion on the book Joshua on Sept. 26, challenging us to imagine what Jesus would be like if he showed up today, and what it means to be like him. Kevin and Mary Anne Bleiler are going to resume the group for Parents of Young Children in October. Bonnie Bates is going to lead a spiritual growth retreat October 16, followed by a group that practices different forms of prayer and meditation. Our guilds and all of our gatherings can be times of sharing our fire with each other, if we trust each other with our real questions, struggles, fears, and also with the hope and faith we have found.

If you have a hunger for a group we don’t already have, please let me know, and I’ll see if we can get it started. That hunger is a sign that God is stirring you to more growth, and chances are good there are others who have a similar need.

And the fourth way I want to help keep our spiritual fires growing is by being more available to you personally as you go through times of challenge or change, or find the need for direction or healing in yourself or your family. That’s when the potential for growth is highest. Many of you have often felt reluctant to approach me about personal needs, because you sensed I was too busy. I feel really sad about this. This has to change. And the way for it to change is for me not to be so busy managing the business of the church.

One of the churches Carolyn and I visited on my sabbatical is a church about the same size as ours that had struggled with two difficult pastorates. The last one left over two years ago. They had trouble finding an interim pastor they liked, so several people take turns leading worship and finding preachers from among the church members or people outside the church. The Sunday we were there, a white-haired church member had us all laughing and crying with a beautiful message. Another member of the church sang so prayerfully it brought tears to my eyes. Towards the end of the service, everyone who needed prayer was invited to gather with the Deacons in the center of the room, where they prayed with each other as we all sang softly or prayed silently. Then the children came in from their Sunday School class, we all made a big circle together, and the kids shared a little about what they had learned that day. They told us they’ve decided not to keep looking for a pastor, because they’re doing so much better as a church without a pastor than with one. And I agree. You could feel God’s Spirit in that place, and almost see tongues of fire dancing above the heads of the people of that church.

Now I’m not trying to preach my way out of a job. . . exactly. But I am trying to preach and teach and lead my way out of some of the jobs that some of you can do, so that I can focus on the jobs that are most important for me to do as your pastor, spiritual leader, coach, and always-available friend. I never get tired of doing that work. I am privileged and blessed to do it. But I got awful tired trying to do that and everything else. So I think we all learned something during my sabbatical. You learned that you can run the church without me. And even more importantly, I learned that you can run the church without me! What a relief! I don’t have to pick up all the pieces I put down. I see now that I can’t do it and still tend my own divine flame. If I try, my flame will burn out. But I don’t have to pick them all up. Each of you has a gift that God has given you to share, and so many of you have already stepped forward to offer your gift. It is those gifts that are part of the fuel for each other’s fire.

The truth of it is that I had become a workaholic. I was driven more by my need to do well than to serve God. But you wonderful people gave me three marvelous months of detoxification. I feel clean and new. And I’ve returned to my work with joy and enthusiasm. Because now I can see that I’m not the only fire keeper around here. I’m one of 202 and growing. God has entrusted the divine flame of God’s Spirit to each of us to tend through all the trials and temptations and turns of life. And God has given us each other to help us do that.

Where’s the fire? Oh, my friends, it is right here! It is dancing in each of us, and it is blazing among us. Together, this year, let us be faithful keepers of this fire.