SERMON: Tending the Fire (Earth Days 6/6) - Jeff G. White

10:30 am, Pentecost Sunday, May 28, 2023 (Acts 2:1-21; 1 Cor 12:3b-13) FBCA, J G White

To tend a campfire you have to know how fire works: how it burns, and what puts it out. Most of us learned about this as children. Sharon White is preaching today at Parrsboro Baptist, but if she were here I’d ask her to explain the fire triangle. What are the three things needed for fire to burn? Fuel. Oxygen. Heat. Take away one and the fire goes out.

‘Fire’ can be for us a symbol of all the energy we use in our lives. Even our metabolism, our bodies, use fuel with oxygen to give us energy and heat. All our electronics, at home and in cars and all, use electricity, not to mention the combustion of fuels, or direct solar energy to get things done. In our personal lives, we talk of the emotional energy it takes to live life, the creative energy we have to make beautiful stuff, the physical energy to move and be active, or the spiritual energy to be who we are meant to be.

So fire, in ancient days, was a power and a symbol of so much energy. In scripture it burns away what is bad. It lights the way in the darkness. It prepares food. It energizes humans from within. Today we glimpse those little flames of the Holy Spirit of God, seen above each disciple of Jesus on that festive day in Jerusalem, long ago. The wind of the Spirit, and the fire, came upon the people; Christianity was born, communication was opened up wide, and the Jesus people were energized as never before.

As a lovely campfire so often is, our glowing inner light and life is a community thing, shared by a group. We all help. We did not invent fire, and similarly, God the Spirit is so creative in our midst. But how do we do our part to tend the fire kindled in our souls? What helpful activities do we say we offer the world around us?

We would do well to mention just four things, among many. I pick three things from Richard Foster’s classic book, Celebration of Discipline (1988). And the three ‘spiritual disciplines’ or practices I choose he said were ‘corporate,’ for the fellowship, for people to do together: Confession, Worship, and Celebration.

Here we are doing one now: worshipping God, together. We know the deep human need to get together, to be together, to share our spirituality. At its best that’s what ‘religion’ is, a way to share our spiritual lives, the inner life. We help one another keep the inner flame kindled. We each are lights in the darkness: together we shine.

The ways we happen to gather is based on patterns and traditions that are quite old. It happens to be on a Sunday morning. It happens to be in a special building we have built for this purpose. The things we do, and who among us does them, is based on ways of the past. In every age, in every year, it is worth reviewing - with the Spirit - how this is working for us, and what else we might do. Perhaps, when our Music Committee meets tomorrow, we will wonder about how our music is working for us here.

Worshipping together is one action that makes Christians Christians, and puts us in one place where the Spirit can bless us. Another spiritual practice of the fellowship is actually Celebration! This also kindles the fire of the Spirit within people.

Maybe you don’t think of celebration as a ‘spiritual discipline,’ but the great teachers on Christian spirituality declare that it is. As Baptist preacher and teacher, Tony Campolo, said, “The Kingdom of God Is a Party.” Just think of how many times we read in scripture of Jesus at feasts and festivities. From the wedding in a village called Cana, to the Revelation vision of the marriage feast of the Lamb (Jesus) and his bride (the Church), God parties with God’s people.

I know that you, dear Church, know how to party. You know how to eat, and eat well. You can decorate. You can put together speeches and skits and songs. Perhaps we can bank on this strength - is it a spiritual gift? - and grow our celebrating skills, share them, include more people in the parties. Parties for God. Parties of welcome. Parties of purpose.

A third Christian spiritual practice we have that is a real blessing to offer the world is Confession. Confession and forgiveness. I think this happens in subtle ways among us, is more hidden, and that we have more to learn here than in other arenas. We do well to start this as Richard Foster started his chapter on the subject, with a warning, a reminder.

The usual notion of what Jesus did on the cross runs something like this: people were so bad and mean and God was so angry with them that he could not forgive them unless somebody big enough took the rap for the whole lot of them.

Nothing could be farther from the truth, wrote Foster. Love, not anger, brought Jesus to the cross. Golgotha came as a result of God’s great desire to forgive, not his reluctance. Jesus knew that by his vicarious suffering he could actually absorb all the evil of humanity and so heal it, forgive it, redeem it. (p. 143)

Confessing and seeking forgiveness is so often a personal, private thing. But these inspiring experts put it with the spiritual practices we do together, not alone. Why? Because so much can happen when what’s wrong and what hurts is heard by others, and we receive their blessing in Jesus’ name, when we give forgiveness from Christ to others. We tend the fire of our faith when we share ourselves, warts and all, and find welcoming love from the people around us.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer so beautifully taught about confession in the fellowship in his little book, ‘Life Together.’ One who confesses his sins in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person. Bonhoeffer had earlier written of the ‘pious fellowship’ not daring to allow a ‘sinner’ in! But there is no true, deep fellowship when everyone pretends to be only a saint, and the deepest needs for God are never shared.

Early in his pastoral ministry, Richard Foster went to a trusted friend in his congregation for confession and forgiveness. Richard had taken three moments on three days to write down on paper things from his life that might need forgiveness or healing. When he finally met with his confessor, he slowly, sometimes painfully, read his lists to him. As he started to put the papers back in his briefcase, the friend took them. Without a word, he tore each paper into tiny, tiny bits, and dropped them into a wastepaper basket. With the laying on of hands, the man prayed a prayer of healing for all the sorrows and hurts of Richard’s past. The power of that prayer lives on with him to today.

We, dear congregation, are a healing place, when we develop and practice the habits of confessing and forgiving. There may be more skills and training we could undergo, and learn from the Master to do this all the better. We can be apprentices in forgiveness. What a ministry to our community, to be a people of real forgiveness! How powerful. How healing. How purifying, with that fire of the Holy Spirit to consume the evil and hurt in each of us.

Can we believe what is written in 2 Corinthians 5? 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

Pentecost Sunday is the birthday of the Christian Church. Born to do such good in the world. Needed more than ever today. Together, whether worshipping, celebrating, confessing and forgiving, or doing other miracles, we are tending the fire of the human spirit.

Thursday, December 29

Psalm 148:13-14 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
    for his name alone is exalted;
    his glory is above earth and heaven.
14 He has raised up a horn for his people,
    praise for all his faithful,
    for the people of Israel who are close to him.
Praise the Lord!

Friday, December 30

Hebrews 2:11-12 For the one who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. For this reason Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters, 12 saying, “I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.”

Saturday, December 31

Matthew 2:13-15 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”