Sermon: Waiting and Praying

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. 

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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.