Acts 2:1-21
Waiting and Praying
James Sledge May
15, 2016 – Pentecost
Imagine
for a moment that some significant challenge faces your department at work, a
group you’re a part of, maybe even your church congregation. Maybe your
company’s sales have been hurt by online shopping. Maybe an organization you
belong to wants to find a new way of fundraising, but doesn’t know where to
start. Maybe your congregation is worried about Millennials not going to church
and wonders how to respond.
Regardless
of what sort of challenge it is you imagine or actually face, what are some of
ways you might go about meeting the challenge? Perhaps form a task force or ad hoc
committee? Maybe hire a consultant? Perhaps give the congregation an online
survey to provide data for strategic planning.
In
the weeks following the very first Easter, the little congregation of Jesus
followers faced huge challenges. Many of the 120 or so of them still weren’t
entirely sure what the resurrection meant. They had asked Jesus if he was going
to restore Israel to power, but he said such things were not for them to know.
They were, however, responsible for being his witnesses throughout all the
world. Quite the challenge for a little congregation of 120.
Almost
none of them had any leadership experience. Many of them had lived in the same
place their entire lives. What did they know about going into all the world? Time
to form a task force or hire a church growth expert. But they don’t do any of
those things. In fact, by my typical way of thinking, they don’t do much of anything.
They wait, and they pray.
Over
the years, first as an elder on a church session and later as a pastor, I’ve
had numerous opportunities to be a part of church or presbytery committees and
councils dealing with problems large and small. And though it pains me to say
it, I’ve often found myself frustrated by others in these groups who wanted to
stop, to wait, to pray.
By
nature I tend to be impatient. On top of that, I’m the product of a culture
that values production, efficiency, and accomplishment. And it is hard to be
productive or efficient or accomplish anything when you are waiting, when you
are praying. Yet the explosion of the Christian faith all over the
Mediterranean world, surely one of the great accomplishments of history, happened
only after waiting and praying. The work was not something that little
congregation could do by itself. It could only happen with the power of God,
the Holy Spirit working through them, a story that begins at Pentecost.
It’s
traditional to see Pentecost as an undoing of the divisions from the Tower of
Babel story where God scatters humanity by confusing their languages making it
hard for them to cooperate with one another. In fact, the Babel story is one of
the lectionary readings for today. But Pentecost doesn’t undo Babel. The whole
world doesn’t suddenly start speaking Aramaic like the little congregation in Jerusalem.
Instead that congregation is empowered and equipped to connect with those who
are different from them, who speak other languages and have other customs. And
the explosive growth of the Church chronicled in the book of Acts is about the
message and way of Jesus getting translated into the culture and language of
people very different from those in Jerusalem.
Unfortunately,
the Church has regularly forgotten this. When it has, it has too often
understood sharing the message of Jesus to be about making people more like us. When the missionary movement of
the 1800s sought to evangelize Africa And Asia, it often confused sharing Jesus
with sharing Western culture. Converts were required to worship singing Western
hymns with Western musical instruments. Pastors were required to wear Western
style robes. The missionary movement, in a way Pentecost did not, tried to
reverse the Tower of Babel story, tried to make everyone alike. In the process,
it often became as much an instrument of Western imperialism as of Christ.
But
I shouldn’t be too hard on those early missionaries. They just repeated the
same mistake those Christians in Jerusalem would, thinking that becoming
Christian meant becoming like them. Initially
that little Jerusalem congregation thought becoming Christian required becoming
Jewish first. But through prayer, and the Spirit, they relearned the lesson of
Pentecost, learned to translate the message into the language and ways of
others.
In our own day, people still get
confused and connect Christian faith to how we do things, to being like us. We can think the faith is in
jeopardy if we don’t maintain certain worship styles or programs or ways of
doing things. We can forget that from the very beginning, the faith has been
about translating the way and message of Jesus so that those who are different
from us can understand and embrace it.
______________________________________________________________________________
In
just a few moments, we will ordain and install those the congregation has
elected to serve as deacons and ruling elders. Deacons are called to lead us in
ministries of caring and compassion. Ruling elders are called to measure the
spiritual health of our congregation and to discern where and how Christ is
calling us to live as faithful disciples. And as they are ordained and
installed, both deacons and elders promise to “fulfill (their) ministry in
obedience to Jesus Christ.” But in my own experience, the desire to get
something done, , to be efficient and productive, to accomplish something, can make
it difficult to stop, to wait for the Spirit, to pray and listen for what Jesus
wants us to do.
Both
the Deacons and the elders on the Session will face significant challenges.
From a culture that no longer supports church involvement to growing
disinterest in church by younger generations to busy, overscheduled members who
have less time to volunteer, there are many challenges in trying to lead the
ministry and mission of any congregation. But I hope those challenges never
cause us to get so committed to doing something that we forget to take time to
pray, to wait on the Spirit, to listen where Christ is leading us.
I
hope that those being ordained and installed today will remember that, and I
hope that the rest of you will keep them and the congregation in your prayers.
I hope you will encourage them to be leaders of deep, prayerful listening,
waiting for and fully expecting the Spirit to guide us in the ways of Christ
and equip us for the journey. After all, the most incredible events in all of
church history began when the Spirit came over a little congregation of 120 who
had prayed together as they waited for the power of God to empower and lead
them.
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