The Most Beautiful Shining Fire

Acts 8:14-17

February 18, 2007

Transfiguration of the Lord Sunday

A Sermon by The Reverend Dr. Tom Evans

Executive Presbyter

Presbytery of Sheppards & Lapsley

 

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America seems to have a proliferation of miracle products.  Those devices and gadgets we spend billions of dollars a year on trying to find that magic short cut to a better, richer, more prosperous life. Apparently any problem can be fixed for a mere $19.95 plus shipping and handling.  However one glance at the landfills filling at an ever rapid pace is proof that in life there are no short cuts.  It seems that no area of society is immune from this noisy, money driven, in your face marketing.  Listen to this one…

 

• STOP!  Here is important information you simply MUST know in order to DOUBLE . . . even TRIPLE your [returns] . . . !  If you check out this material on Amazon.com…you will see that this material lists there for a full $147 …But now here’s the good news… you WON’T have to pay $147, or even $97!  Follow this special link, and order your own personal copy of Double Your Church Attendance Deluxe Edition… all for a mere $37!” “Here’s the good news … $ 37 to double your church attendance”…$37 for good news.

 

I seem to remember the good news being free.  But churches, in their desperation to fill their pews, will resort to any measures whether it is reducing the gospel down to a slick slogan, watering down worship, or becoming a consumer-oriented institution which exists to meet the consumer demands of its members.  In the process, the church growth industry thrives by tempting churches into believing it is as easy to obtain rock hard abs without any sit-ups.  However, instead of filling up landfills they are emptying out denominational churches.  Peter’s response to Simon who wanted to buy the Holy Spirit suggests that the gospel is not something that can be sold at any price and that attempting to do so perverts and destroys it. 

 

Church growth comes by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, “pre-packaged programs” for church growth cannot produce true fruit because the Spirit cannot be controlled.  That was Simon’s error.  As one who practiced magic he believed he could, with words and gestures, summon and control the spirits but the Spirit cannot be summoned by magicians nor packaged by marketing gurus.  Churches are trying to “bottle” the Spirit like people try to bottle fame and fortune.  No, the Holy Spirit - that vital force of God which breathes vigor and life into creation and people and churches - only comes as divine gift.

           

I do believe churches truly want to be faithful to God in their quest for service and that our scripture points to a dual focus to this end: 1. Preach the gospel 2.With the fire of the Holy Spirit.

             

Whenever, I read this passage I am taken aback by the phrase, “they prayed that they might receive the Holy Spirit (for as yet the spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.)”  Other passages and orthodox Christianity do not provide for the separating out of God in such a fashion.  However, in many churches it seems indeed that the Spirit is not present—the spirit of joy, the spirit of hope, the spirit of love, the spirit of forgiveness.

           

The apostle Paul used the Greek word pneumatikon to describe the non-material body of the resurrected.  This word refers to a physical body totally energized and empowered by the Holy Spirit. (Witherton and Wright). 12^th century Benedictine Hildegard referred to the third member of the Trinity as the “most beautiful shining fire.”  Imagine a church which could be described a being totally energized and empowered by the most beautiful shining fire of the Spirit.  For the frozen chosen churches this analogy has definitive implications. 

 

Such an empowerment would drive disciples into the world.  The Alban Institute for church consultation had this to say, “When we really live in community—as if our very lives depended on practicing our faith—I guarantee that our congregations will be more vital.”  … Notice this guarantee does not point to a numerical return on investment, but vitality. 

 

To be vital is first of all to be alive and where does life come from but the Holy Spirit.  When churches are practicing their faith as if it were crucial for the world’s well-being the Spirit grows.  The eminently quotable 18^th century author, Doctor Samuel Johnson, declared, “Nothing focuses the mind like being sentenced to a hanging.”  Practicing our faith as if our lives depended on it means that Vital Churches believe that matters of faith are vitally important.  We may not believe as some churches do that we can save people, only God can do that, but that does not mean the message God has given us is not absolutely essential for the world to hear.  Churches are not to be institutions, but vital bodies, sharing the good news of the Gospel. And it is good news!  Which leads us to the other piece of the equation--the Good News of the Gospel .

 

That iconoclastic Methodist Bishop William Willimon had this to say:

 

…  In a time when the community was fighting for its very life, it fought not by reducing its witness to the lowest common denominator, a catchy slogan fit for a bumper sticker or a billboard…but by carefully defining itself…rather than baptizing the status quo or resorting to mushy affirmations of popular practices (even though I disagree with some of Simon’s techniques, he does draw a lot of people)…the church demanded repentance.

 

Essentially, Willimon is telling us that the early church did not focus on institutional growth but on spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I imagine that some of you subconsciously hope that your new pastor will become that miracle product which can magically make the pews burst at the seams.  But the future of this church, indeed, our future as a denomination will not be realized by dynamic ministers nor will it be decided in the halls of General Assembly or the Book of Order, but in the hearts of believers just like you, burning with the fiery passion of the Spirit.  In Jesus’ transfiguration Peter gained a secret glimpse of the beauty of the divine. In your ministries of First Light and others you too have glimpsed God’s beauty in the faces of those your offer food and shelter.  Will you allow that light which causes you to shine, as Moses face did with God’s glory, to reflect into the hearts and minds of the people of the city by spreading the gospel in these ways:

• To the husband who cares for his Alzheimer afflicted wife, who receives a few hours respite from people in the name of Christ, the Good News is Peace.
• To the people of the city who see churches remain downtown the gospel affirms their value as human beings despite the fall of property values
• To the business man who has raced to the top and found he was at the bottom, the Good News is purpose in serving the church.
• To parents who lose their children to war, disease, and poverty, the Good News is the Hope of reunion.
• To the family whose house was destroyed in a hurricane, with your willing hands the Good News is a home.
• To those homeless, with the devotion of people like you, the good news is a “home in the heart of the city,” which is First Birmingham and First Light

When each of us, as Christ’s disciples, allows the shining fire of the Spirit to convict us of the magnitude of the gospel we will have the courage to remain true to Christ as Richard Wurmbrand discovered in Rumania:

I was a prisoner in Rumania.  One day the door was opened and new prisoner was pushed in.  It took us a little time to recognize him in the semidarkness of the cell.  We finally recognized him as a well known Captain of the Secret Police at whose hands we had been arrested and tortured.  We asked him how he had come to be a fellow prisoner.  He told us that one day a soldier on duty had reported that a twelve-year-old boy, carrying a pot of flowers, was asking to see him.  The Captain was curious and allowed the boy to enter.  The boy was very shy.  "Comrade Captain, he said, "you are the one who arrested my father and mother, and today is my mother's birthday.  It has always been my habit to buy her a pot of flowers on her birthday -- but now, because of you, I have no mother to make happy.  "My mother was a Christian and she taught me that we must love our enemies and reward evil with good.  As I no longer have a mother, I thought these flowers might make the mother of your children happy.  Could you please give them to your wife?"[Windows to the World].

The Captain took the boy's flowers and embraced him with tears.  He could no longer bear to arrest innocent men and women.  He could no longer inflict torture and became a defender of the gospel.  As this boy transformed the life of that captain, so too can we be filled with the Beautiful Shining Fire of the Spirit to spread the gospel of hope, love, peace, and freedom, as if the lives of others depended on it. Amen.