A Sermon for Jan. 13, 2013: With the Holy Spirit and Fire

A Sermon for January 13, 2013 (Epiphany 1, RCL C)

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for The Church of Saint Mary

Texts:             Isaiah 43:1-7; Psalm 29; Luke 3:15-17,21-22

Primary Message:  Christ drives out our fear and fills us with courage
Call to Action:          trust in Christ and live boldly
Title:               With the Holy Spirit and Fire

My dear sisters and brothers: when we are overwhelmed by the grace of God, our fear is driven away; then courage and boldness carry us forward in hope.

Let me ask you a question. And yes, this is a true question to which I want you to answer – vocally, out loud, for all to hear.

What single message, what single idea, do you think is the most commonly repeated, the most often delivered one throughout all of the Bible? What is the single most common communication from God to human beings in the Scriptures?

(Answers from the congregation…)  

All good thoughts, worthy attempts. But the answer is found in these four words:

DO NOT BE AFRAID.

 

That’s it! And that message is found in today’s passage from Isaiah as well – twice in fact! “Do not fear, for I am with you” (Isaiah 43:5).  

And although the exact words are not spoken, this theme punctuates every single sentence of this passage:

“When you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”

The idea of walking through fire is an ancient way of testing one’s faith.

Have you ever heard of or seen Indian gurus walking over burning hot coals?

Well, let me tell you a very old story about walking through fire and the courage of faith.  

In the year 1219, St. Francis of Assisi traveled to the city of Damietta in the north of Egypt. He went there with one simple and primary purpose: to do what Jesus and the apostles did - to preach the good news to those who have not heard it.

In this situation, however, there was one major difference in circumstance. Damietta was a city under siege. It was the height of the Fifth Crusade. The combined European forces had just suffered a painful defeat in their attempt to capture the city, and now they regrouped while maintaining a siege out in the desert surrounding Damietta.

Within the city, leading the Islamic defenses was the famous Sultan of Egypt, Malek Al-Kamil. With stunning bravery, St. Francis and one of his little brothers, a Friar Minor, approached the enemy lines with a request to speak with the Sultan.

Now, picture this in your mind! Can you imagine what those heavily-armed, battle-scarred Muslim soldiers thought when they considered this short, poor little man with the funny haircut who carried nothing with him, but who asked with such boldness and audacity for a direct audience with the Sultan?!  

We have no idea as to why exactly, but his request was granted. You must understand that Francis was perfectly ready and spiritually prepared for martyrdom. He knew perfectly well that he was risking his life by such a venture, and he was ready to lose his life in this way for the sake of the Gospel.

This meeting between Francis and the Sultan in the year 1219 is an historical fact. But the reports of what actually occurred in this meeting are a bit less certain.

It is said that a very civil and respectful dialogue ensued between Francis and his brother Friar, and the Sultan, along with the imams in his court. Both sides tried in vain to convert the other. Finally, it is reported that Francis offered to undergo a trial by fire to prove the validity of the Gospel.

Francis offered to walk through fire in order to prove that God was with him, as long as the Sultan’s imams were willing to do the same.

Now, that sounds crazy, right? But there was a method to his madness.  

Back in the days of Muhammad, when he was beginning to gather a group of followers around him in the first decades of the 7^th century, it is said that he challenged a group of Christians to a similar trial. Leaders of both groups would walk through fire; the ones who came out unscathed were the ones who had God on their side, the ones who spoke the truth about God.

If you know anything about Muhammad, then you will know that this is clearly a challenge that he would relish. But those Arabian Christians declined, saying that they did not wish to put Christ to the test in this way. And so Muhammad left feeling justified, that his message was inspired and the faith of the Christians was not REAL faith, since they were too afraid to face the test of fire.    

600 years later in Egypt, I think that St. Francis was intending to make up for the supposed failure of those timid Christians in their meeting with Muhammad.

With courage and boldness, he offered to walk through fire with his counterparts, but this time the imams refused. They did not wish to put allah to the test in this way.

With his courage, Francis won the respect of the Sultan. He and his friars were treated as honored guests, and they were given free passage to travel throughout the Sultan’s lands - including the Holy Land! – in peace.

“When you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God…Do not be afraid, for I am with you.”

My friends: something happens deep within the heart of a person who is overwhelmed by the grace of God. When all of your defenses are broken down, all of your pride washed away, when all of your strength is gone and you realize that there is nothing solid or dependable or trustworthy in this life except for the grace and love of God, then you can live without fear.

“Perfect love drives out fear.” So we are told in the first letter of John, and this is what I think it means when John the Baptizer preaches to the people about the coming Messiah:  “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

The Messiah immerses us in a life of trust and confidence, courage and boldness, because it is a life of intimacy with God who is pure goodness and mercy.

Now, let’s be clear: I am not suggesting in any sense at all that we actually attempt walking through fire. There are still lots of people who do this!

There was an event in San Jose, California this past July hosted by the famous motivational speaker Tony Robbins. It was a four day conference called “Unleash The Power Within”, and as part of this conference the attendees were invited to – yes, you probably guessed it by now - walk through fire! Actually, it was a 10 foot swath of burning coals around 1500 degrees Fahrenheit.

Supposedly, he has offered this type of activity for many years, but THIS time at least 21 people were taken to the hospital with severe burns! Bystanders spoke of hearing people screaming as if they were being tortured! (http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_21125630/san-jose-21-people-treated-burns-after-firewalk)

OK, this is NOT what I would suggest! It is NOT courageous to put yourself in dangerous situations. That’s just plain stupid.

The boldness and courage which the Holy Spirit and the fire of Jesus bring into our lives is much more basic, and simple, than this.  

It is the courage to speak the truth, even when it might hurt your own position or threaten your own position.

It is the courage, sometimes, just to get out of bed in the morning, to not give up, to keep on going. The will and courage to persevere.

It is the courage to turn the other cheek, to choose to love your enemies and never to seek revenge.

It is the courage to not care about your prestige, to not be attached to your possessions, to not be anxious about your income or your assets.

Above all, it is the courage to love, the courage to care, to pour yourself out for those who need you.

Will you allow yourself to be touched, and overwhelmed, by the Holy Spirit and the fire of Christ, so that your fear is driven away, so that you can walk forward into the unknown with courage and boldness? Let it be so. Amen.

 

 

 

Fire and Water

A Sermon for Pentecost (RCL A) 6-12-2011

Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry (annual outdoor liturgy)

Texts:              Acts 2:1-21; Psalm 104:24-35, 37; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13; John 7:37-39

Title:               Fire and Water

Fire! And water! Today, of course, we remember and celebrate the greatest gift that God have ever given to humanity: that is, the gift of the Holy Spirit which descended upon the disciples as tongues of flame.

Fire and water. These are the elements that the Church has always used to speak of the Holy Spirit.

I want us to think about this together a bit this morning. Here we are, gathered by a major body of water, and there is fire burning right back there in those grills!

These two elements – fire and water – are crucial and necessary for human life.

We cannot live without water. As you know, up to 60% of our bodies are water.

We also cannot live without fire. Fire is the source of our heat and our light; it is also how we cook our food, like we hope those guys are doing over there!  

There are other things that we need to survive: food and shelter, of course. But the Bible and the Church have been clear in pointing to fire and water as symbols of the Holy Spirit.

Why do you think that is?

First, I think it is because they are elements essential for life. We call the Holy Spirit “the Spirit of life”.

This is what the Psalm said today: “You send forth your Spirit and they are created, and so you renew the face of the earth.”

But I also think we speak about the Holy Spirit as fire and water because these things are so notoriously difficult to control! We human beings have never been very good at controlling water and fire!

Just look at the news right now: a massive wildfire is raging out of control in Arizona. Devastating floods continue to affect large areas along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, as well as up in Vermont.  

Fire and water are crucial and vital for us only when we have them in small quantities that we can control. But when the quantity becomes too much, we lose all control and those forces act as if they have a mind of their own.

This is how it works with the Holy Spirit as well. We really like it when there’s a bit of the Spirit moving in our midst. That means that things are growing perhaps. There is some energy in our community, some new people are joining us. There’s a feeling of joy and excitement among us.

This is all wonderful, but only so long as there’s not too much of the Holy Spirit. We don’t want things to become out of control, do we?

We don’t want the fire to burn out of control! We don’t want the water to flood our community!

We want the Spirit to stay controlled, where we can manage it.

But the Spirit always has a mind of its own, and whenever possible, the Spirit is always pushing the edges of our control.

What did St. Paul say of the Holy Spirit in our reading from his first letter to the Church in Corinth?

All kinds of different gifts handed out by God to those in the community “just as the Spirit chooses.”

And what happened after all on that day of Pentecost among the disciples there in Jerusalem? Tongues of fire came upon them and took control of them in a very real way.

Why did the bystanders think that they were drunk? Because it appeared that they were acting out of control? And why is that? Because the fire of the Holy Spirit had come among them!

Blaise Pascal was a French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher, as well as a disciple of the Lord, who died in 1662. A few years before his death he had a profound experience of God coming into his life, like an uncontrollable power bursting upon his consciousness.

The experience was so profound that he wrote it down immediately in these words raw with passion, almost chaotic in ecstasy:

“The year of the Lord 1654. Monday, 23 Novemeber, from about half past ten in the evening until about half past twelve at night: Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not the God of philosophers and scholars. Certainty, joy, peace. God of Jesus Christ. He is only found along the ways that are taught in the Gospel. Tears of joy. I had parted from him. I fled from him, denied him, crucified him. Let me never be separated from him. Surrender to Jesus Christ.”

Fire. For two hours, the Holy Spirit touched Blaise Paschal in a direct and powerful way.

And what was the first word that he could use to describe that experience? Fire.

There’s one more thing that is special about fire and water and that points to the purposes of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Both fire and water are used to clean. We wash with water; we sterilize with fire.

Even in nature, the waters from floods are used to cleanse the land and to bring new and fresh soil into the river bottoms.

And after forest fires, new seedlings are enabled to sprout as the old dead wood is cleansed away.

In the Bible, think of the flood in the days of Noah sent to cleanse the earth of evil, and the promise of fire in the last days for the same purpose.   

The Lord Jesus spoke of rivers of living water that would flow out of our hearts when we drank in all of the truth and goodness that we experience in him. That river cannot flow if it is blocked by the cares of the world, by the desires for things of this world. The Spirit wants to cleanse us so that this living water might flow unhindered for the blessing of all those around us: our families, our neighbors, our friends, our co-workers.

 Are you ready to lose some control? Are you ready for the power of the Holy Spirit?

So welcome the Holy Spirit into your lives, my friends. Let the Spirit cleanse you. Do not be afraid to let the Spirit be in control. And do not be afraid when the Spirit brings new life and new possibilities into your life. Amen.  

A Consuming Fire

Sermon for Proper 16 C RCL 8/22/2010, Offered by Nathan Ferrell for Trinity Episcopal Shared Ministry

Texts: Jeremiah 1:4-10; Psalm 71:1-6; Hebrews 12:18-29; Luke 13:10-17

Help us, O Lord, to become masters of ourselves, so that we might become the servants of others. Take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire. Amen.

There’s a story of an old guy in the backwoods of Kentucky who used to show up for every tent revival meeting that they had in that area. Tent revivals originated in Kentucky and they remained common in this area whenever a traveling evangelist came into town.

At the end of each night’s service, an invitation was given for folks to give their lives over to Jesus, and at every invitation, this old backwoods guy would come on down the aisle. He would fall on his knees, raise his arms to the heavens and cry out, “Fill me, Jesus! Fill me! Fill me, Jesus!” Then, within a week or two, people around would notice that he was back to his old dissolute ways of living. But when the next series of revival meetings began, the old guy would be right there, kneeling and raising his arms in the air and praying to be filled.

One time, he was at one of these revival meetings, doing his thing, yelling out to the ceiling, “Fill me, Jesus! Fill me, Jesus!” But it seemed that some woman in the back of the congregation had had enough of these shenanigans from the old guy. So, in response to his pleadings to be filled up again, she suddenly yelled out, “Don’t do it, Lord! He leaks!” (Tony Campolo, Let Me Tell You a Story, 2000, p.96).

Well, the truth is that the old guy is certainly not unique in that department.
We all leak! And this is why we all need to have a revival! We all need to be revived and renewed.

If you are in tune to the American religious scene, you will know that the word revival is a familiar part of the code language of American evangelicalism. It is often used to suggest that we, as a nation, have fallen away from the moral purity of the past, and from the wisdom of our founding fathers. Please understand that I am not using this word “revival” in this way. Nor am I suggesting that we set up a tent out in the park and have a week of evening revival meetings (though I do think that would be an interesting experiment! An Episcopal Tent Revival!).


What I am suggesting is that, because we all leak, we all therefore need regularly to be re-filled. This, of course, is true in every aspect of our lives. How difficult is it for any of us to keep up our interest or enthusiasm for anything in life? When disasters happen around the world, we all watch on TV and read about them in the paper. But within a few weeks, our interest wanes and we move on to something else. The same is true for most people when it comes to sports. Most watch with intense interest only when the playoffs come around. Very few have the fortitude to watch every single Phillies game of their 162-game season!

This reality is true in all of our relationships as well. It’s very common for the intensity of love and devotion that many experience with our spouses and partners to fade and ebb over time. When I counsel couples before marriage, I encourage them not to think of their relationship like a contract in which they come to an agreement to provide certain services for each other over a period of time, but rather more like an infant. A lasting relationship of intimacy is like a baby who needs to be fed and cared for continually if it is to survive and to grow and thrive.

The same is true then of our faith, our relationship with the living God. It is not enough that once we were baptized, or once we were born again, or once we were confirmed, or whatever the crucial turning point might be. That one moment was simply the opening of the door for this new relationship with God.

Instead, we must continue to nurture this relationship if it is to survive, grow and thrive. And when our love becomes cold, then what we need is a revival!

I am speaking today of our need for revival, because this is the primary compelling concern and spiritual admonition of this Letter to the Hebrews, which we have reading through recently. You can see this thrust clearly in this last sentence of our reading today: “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29). Earlier, this letter encourages us to “not give up meeting together” (Hebrews 10:25, NIV), to “hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering” (Hebrews 10:23), to “not abandon that confidence of yours” (Hebrews 10:35). And in the famous “Faith” chapter, the 11th chapter, we are presented with an amazing line-up of spiritual stars who have conquered and overcome by the power of faith in the living God.

Why all of this effort, you may ask, to encourage faithfulness among these Jewish Christian believers? The unnamed author of this letter is concerned. He writes because of “pastoral concern for a church plagued by neglect, apathy, absenteeism, retreat, and near the point of apostasy” (The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume XII, Abingdon Press, p.160). In a word, their love for God has grown cold. Their passion for the Gospel has faded away.

Does this sound familiar at all to you? It most definitely does to me. It sounds like a fair description of the church in our own time and place. I’m not speaking of you here today, of course, you who are the regulars, faithful in worship. But this is indeed the general state of the church in our day: plagued by neglect, apathy, absenteeism, shrinking back in retreat, struggling with apostasy, cold in love, feeble in passion.

Because of this reality in his own day, the author of this letter strove hard to convey the need for reverence and awe among the disciples there.

“Let us give thanks, by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29).

There can be no doubt at all that reverence and awe have been lost in our contemporary culture. How do we get it back, on an individual level and as a community of disciples?

We need a revival. Like that old guy in Kentucky, we need to be filled up once again by the Holy Spirit! We need our love to become warm once again. We need to have warm hearts and clear minds to see once again the magnificence and majesty of God, to see once again the amazing grace that God has given to us, to see once again the beauty of a life that is lived for the glory of God.

When the author here declares that “our God is a consuming fire”, he is making a reference to Deuteronomy 4:24 which states: “The Lord your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God.”

Like a jealous lover, God does not want ever to be in second place in the passion of your heart. The key to this revival of our reverence and awe, of our respect and love for God is in our intention. If we truly want to love the Lord our God with all our heart, our soul, our mind and our strength, and if we discipline ourselves to spend time with God on a regular basis, then it can happen. If we truly want it, we can keep our love alive and our relationship strong.

May God grant us the desire and the ability to worship with reverence and awe, to keep our hearts on fire with love and desire. Amen.