Consecration/Acolyte Recognition Sunday November 8, 2009 "Hope Does Not Disappoint" Reverend Michael D. Powell Romans 5:1-5, John 16:12-15

Last week was a wonderful worship experience for me. For one thing, it’s always great being with Kate and she’s a great preacher. For another, I love communion. For me it’s the heart of worship. It was also All Saint’s Sunday and we have lost so many of our beloved saints this past year. It was very moving. And, finally, and perhaps most obviously, it was a thrill for me to welcome Shawn and Chalice as new members of Morningside.

But I also have to admit that it was a wonderful worship experience for me because I didn’t have to listen to another one of my stewardship sermons! This morning is Consecration Sunday and I’m so thankful we’re also honoring our acolytes. Thank God for the kid energy that blesses us. These kids bring the Light of Christ into our lives! We’ve been talking about our stewardship campaign so much that I wouldn’t be surprised if some of you were beginning to wonder if raising money was the only thing we’re thinking about these days. I’m a big fan of NPR. It’s about the only radio station I listen to and I found it kind of interesting that a couple of weeks ago they were in the middle of their fundraising campaign at the same time we were. Every day, for days on end, all they did was talk about money and you could hear the phones ringing in the background as people called in their pledges. Maybe that’s how we ought to do it.

But I also suspect that when it comes to our church stewardship campaign there are some mixed feelings. Maybe you’re one who feels the church shouldn’t talk about money so much. But there’s also probably a bit of both doubt and disappointment among us. Doubt with regard to our ability to meet the challenge of raising money for the 2010 budget at the same time we’re digging deep to pay our apportionments for 2009. And perhaps there’s some personal disappointment that you just can’t afford to give any more than you’re already giving. It’s important that we never lose track of what it is that makes us a church, and that’s the love of God, the message of Jesus Christ, and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit that lives within each of our hearts. That’s the message of our gospel lesson this morning, which promises that when the Holy Spirit of Truth comes, we will be guided into all truth and Christ will be glorified. That’s what we’re all hoping and praying for. And, in Romans 5:5 we read: “Hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.” If we never forget those things, we’ll do just fine. So, you’ve all heard the stewardship pitch and I suspect anything more I say about money may very well be counterproductive, so I’m going to focus on Hope, the Holy Spirit and an attitude of prayerful expectation this morning. With God all things are possible, and one of the most profound miracles is a positive attitude of expectation.

Here’s an example: One Sunday many years ago, a man came up to me after church and told me how much he’d gotten out of my sermon. But, he didn’t mean my 20-minute homily; he meant the children’s sermon. And, the thing that amazed me was that, as he described what he’d heard, I realized that he’d gotten more out of it than I’d put into it. He told me about symbolism that I’d never thought of. It was humbling, and informative, that someone would hear more than I’d said. What it illustrated for me was the power of the Holy Spirit to work in ways I neither intended nor could have anticipated. He got what he needed that day because he was hoping and praying for it, looking and listening for it.

Two of my favorite programs on NPR are Car Talk and Garrison Keillor. I like Car Talk because of their raucous laughter and twisted sense of humor. I like Keillor because of his dry wit and homespun folksiness in telling those Lake Wobegone stories. Like the time the Lutheran church there wanted to whip up a little enthusiasm by bringing in Erma and Ernie Lundeen and their Performing Gospel Birds for a special Sunday evening prayer service. They advertised it quite a bit and, sure enough, when Sunday night came around they had a good crowd, including quite a few who were there simply out of curiosity. At precisely 7:30 the Lundeens appeared, dressed in white robes and covered with about 40 parakeets, parrots and doves, even a couple of crows, all chirping, cheeping and singing at the top of their voices. Garrison Keillor, in his inimitable way, said, “Ohh, it was stunning.”

At one point in the service, Ernie Lundeen bowed his head and all the birds stopped singing. Ernie prayed that everyone in that church would receive a blessing that night, especially those who had come to scoff and mock, which made quite a few of the folks squirm in their seats.

Then the Gospel Birds began their performance. It was really something, a regular air show of acrobatics, soaring and diving, flying in v-formation. Four canaries played hymns on xylophones. Then Erma had the birds in costume, enacting Bible stories. They told the story of Noah’s ark with the birds dressed up like pigs and elephants and camels. They walked the plank two by two in perfect formation into the ark. The roof was closed. Then, from the back of the church flew a dove, circling above the ark three times and landing on the roof. Then the roof opened and the birds came up from the ark, flew up in a cloud, straight up. It was stunning.

Then Erma gave her testimony, told how she’d been inspired to begin working with the birds to proclaim the Gospel. She had been very lonely and insecure as a little girl and one day, when a bird had lit on her shoulder, she’d taken it as a special sign of God’s blessing. Then Erma asked everyone to close their eyes, to bow their heads in prayer and contemplate the blessings of God that they’d experienced in their lives. They were told that the birds were all going to be turned loose and, if a bird landed on anyone’s shoulder, they should consider it a special sign of the Holy Spirit’s blessing.

People bowed their heads and prayed to God and, of course, everyone hoped that one of the birds would land on their shoulder. People focused their thoughts on how God had blessed them, brought to mind the many ways in which they’d felt touched by the Holy Spirit during the course of their lives. And as they sat with their eyes closed and meditated, people did feel the light touch on their shoulder, and they did feel blessed. Everyone agreed that it was one of the most magnificent experiences they’d ever had in church. Everyone talked about how they’d felt the touch of the Holy Spirit. An attitude of hopeful expectation can be a powerful, even a miraculous thing to experience.

All of this can be pretty humbling stuff for us preachers because a lot of times we tend to think we’ve got more to do with what happens in church than perhaps we really do. Mark Trotter, one of the truly great preachers of our time, puts it this way: “Preaching is not something that happens when a minister speaks eloquently. Preaching is something that happens when a congregation listens expectantly.” (1)

Another example: Before Borg and Spong ever became famous, Harvey Cox was already a well know progressive theologian. When he published his autobiography, he entitled it, Just As I Am from the hymn that was sung so often during the altar calls in the little Baptist church he had grown up in, and had left so long ago. In the book he tells about his father. His dad had never gone to church when Harvey was growing up. He’d spent his time and money building a business and hadn’t taken religion very seriously. But then his business failed and his father began going through changes. He started going to church, to that same little Baptist church that Harvey Cox, with all his theological sophistication, had begun to look down upon. Cox hated that his dad was going there. He said that he used to fantasize about becoming the pastor of that church himself so that his father could hear some real preaching, something with a little more theological muscle in it than the garbled fare his dad was being exposed to. But, then Cox writes this:

“I was wrong, of course. Despite my anger about what he was hearing in church, my father was getting something. This change of mind reflects my more recently acquired belief that no minister, no matter how ill prepared or pedantic or boring or rambling, can completely obscure the Gospel. When the Biblical message is read and interpreted, miraculously, something gets through.” (2) What gets through is the beauty and the power of the Holy Spirit. What gets through is the Good News of God’s love as revealed in the passion and the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And it gets through most especially when people are waiting expectantly for it, hoping, praying, hungering and thirsting for it.

And so I’ll close with those words from Romans, chapter 5, verse 5. Hear them again like you’ve never heard them before. “Hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.” It is Consecration Sunday. We have blessed the children who share the Light of Christ with us. And they have blessed us! May the God of Hope bless us all, both now and always, and may our church step out in faith to proclaim and to celebrate the ministries we have been inspired and empowered to share through Christ. Amen.

(1) Mark Trotter, 1st UMC, San Diego, Ca.

(2) Harvey Cox, Just As I Am