“Fire!” - Pastor Jacqueline Hines June 5, 2022

 

“Fire!” - Pastor Jacqueline Hines

June 5, 2022

Welcome to Pentecost! Pentecost means it has been about fifty days after Resurrection Sunday, fifty days after Easter. “Pente” is Latin for fifty.  Welcome to Pentecost! The first celebration of Pentecost was thousands of years ago. Then it was called the Feast of Weeks. Farmers waited seven weeks for the seeds they planted to come up for harvest. When the plants were ready to be picked, it was time to celebrate. Pentecost is a celebration of the early harvest. There would soon be another harvest, but the early harvest was to be celebrated. It was a reminder that we plant the seeds, we water the seeds, but it is God that miraculously makes the seeds grow!

Just like us this morning, worshippers were gathered together on the day of Pentecost to celebrate with a feast and fellowship and with the word of God. They would warmly welcome each other and kiss each other on each cheek for they were God’s children. They were brothers and sisters. Who were they back then? Verse 5 tells us they were devout Jews, religious people, praying people.  Verse 5 also says they were from every people under Heaven. Pentecost was one of three feasts that required Jews by law to meet together in Jerusalem. That’s about every quarter. Even if they were far away, they were supposed to try to get to Jerusalem. They were to come together during the first feast, the Feast of Passover to celebrate the death angel passing over them as they were delivered from slavery. The second was the Feast of Tabernacles to celebrate the God who was with them in the wilderness, and who was worthy of their worship.  Even today, tabernacles or small booths are built by our Jewish brothers and sisters in various places. They are symbols of God dwelling with them. They met for the third feast, during Pentecost to celebrate the wheat harvest.

Pilgrims came to these feasts from near and far to worship, to give thanks, to love on God and to love on one other.  They had all kinds of backgrounds, all kinds of jobs, all kinds of hobbies and interests. Still, they managed to be TOGETHER and join in with the local devout Galilean worshippers. What a wonderful thing to be together in the light of the many ways humans have of being dismissive and divided. How God must have been pleased to see the children looking and acting like a loving family!  There is a reason God calls us to be together. Without that calling, each of us would be more inclined to wander in our own way.

As they sat there together, suddenly something happened. It reminds me of a time when I gathered with about five clergy women in the 90’s when there weren’t as many of us in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference. We were talking about what it was like to be in ministry. There were ups and downs, there were hopes and dreams, there were joys and there were sorrows. SUDDENLY, the Holy Spirit touched each of us. Every one of us went from smiling and laughing to gently weeping as the Holy Spirit enabled us to face the depths of the pain of our isolation and to feel God’s healing presence. My head hung in my lap, and for the life of me, I could not lift it. The love of God constrained me. It happened suddenly to all of us. Like a refreshing spring shower, it was over before we knew it. We resumed our sunny smiles and laughter as if too shocked and shaken to acknowledge that we had been touched because we were shackled by a heavy burden, ‘neath a load of guilt and shame, some ours, some others. God knew.

On the day of Pentecost devout pilgrims from many different regions that spoke many different languages were taken off guard, suddenly. They heard a sound like a mighty wind. It was loud but not necessarily pushing like strong winds do. The wind was rushing. God was in a hurry. The sense of urgency got everyone’s attention. There were questions about what exactly was going on.

The crowd of pilgrims was surprised, not that the local Galileans were praising God, but that they were praising God, not only in their own Galilean language but in all the languages of the pilgrims that had come from a distance. The Parthians, Medes and Elamites were Iranians; the residents of Mesopotamia were from what we call Iraq today. Judea was deep in the south of Israel. Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia were in Turkey. All these pilgrims had to have traveled between 75-400 miles away to Jerusalem depending on how far they were from the border. It was a shock to hear the local Galileans speaking in all those languages.

Have you ever talked to someone on the phone and been surprised when they did not look like what you imagined when you listened to their voice?  I was working in the Baltimore City Community College’s math and English tutoring lab. It was crowded and a Chinese student volunteered to tutor a math student while she was waiting for me to help her with her English assignment. In the conversation I was saddened that this student had come from China where she had a degree as a dental technician, but had to start at the bottom in order to practice in the United States. I was shocked when she said she spoke Spanish. It was a surprise!

The crowd of Pilgrim spectators was very surprised by what they heard. The crowd was rubber necking trying to figure out what was happening. They could have seen the tongues of fire described in verse 3, “Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.” There was no doubt that they all heard their language spoken by those they did not expect would speak their language.

The dramatic message that day was that God has something to say that is urgent and worthy of our praise. It will set the world on fire with a love that heals and transforms until we can see each other and love each other.

When Peter realized there was so much interest in God being praised in their own language, he talked to them and 3,000 people committed to Jesus and a movement was born. We call it the Church. It is powerful, it is dynamic. In fact the word for the power of the Holy Spirit is dunamis which is the root of the word “dynamite” that causes an explosion and forces new pathways into existence.

Just like a car that we fire up to start it, we don’t need to be fired up as dramatically as they were on that day of Pentecost. We just need to keep adding fuel.  

God is in a hurry to bless us, to fill us with the power of love until suddenly and urgently, we weep healing tears, or until we give God the praise that is due a great God, until we shock the world and speak a language that those looking at us from a distance can understand and appreciate, until God is glorified.

We can keep our tanks full. Together, let’s keep praying about everything, practicing the good we preach, and praising God from whom all blessings flow, for where there is praise for God, there is power.

God has something urgent to say that sets the world on fire with love for God and love for people. Welcome to Pentecost! Amen. 

 

“The Young Fortune-Teller” Pastor Jacqueline Hines May 29, 2022

 

“The Young Fortune-Teller”

Pastor Jacqueline Hines

May 29, 2022

What happened in the book of Acts chapter 16 does not happen every day. Paul and some of Jesus’ disciples were on their way to pray –  that is a good thing. It is quite American for Christians to go to prayer. On their way, they saw a slave girl. That is not unusual either. On our way to anywhere these days, we may see persons who are in trouble, persons both young and old who have been made captive, enslaved by poverty, addictions, or one evil spirit or another, such as a murderous spirit, a lying spirit or a spirit of robbery. The other day I heard of a teenager who was surprised he was arrested because he only stole a little of someone else’s property. 

The slave girl was being used and abused. She was able to predict the future. She was a fortune teller, trained to be perceptive as well as deceptive. Fortune telling is big business as you can imagine. You may remember that psychic phone service that suddenly went out of business and somebody was surprised that being psychics, they did not predict or prevent their own future.

We can only imagine where this young fortune teller’s family was. We can only imagine where she slept at night or if she had enough to eat. We can only imagine. Of course, her slaveholder’s motive was a common one. Her slaveholder’s motive was money.  When we are anxious about life, we long to see into our future so we can prepare for good news or bad news. Sometimes we make heavy investments in knowing or guaranteeing our future by being greedy.

Recently, I heard a talk on Centralia that has an abandoned coal mine. A dumpster fire set the whole mine ablaze. It has been burning underground for over fifty years. What caught my attention was not the burning, but hearing that there were pillars in the mind made of coal. They kept the mine from collapsing. Incredibly, there were those who, tempted by greed, would dare to mine the pillars risking collapse leading to injury and death. Greed can be deadly.

As Christians, we understand the future of our

life is in God’s hands. God tells us what we need to know. God has many ways to tell us the direction our life is going. God may use prophets, dreams, or just plain common sense. God may give us information that is clear and definite. At other times, we may get hints and clues. We may also get options. I recall letting an inmate know that he would definitely get a job in a kitchen washing dishes, but he did not want to wash dishes. Another person wanted a better job and was given an opportunity to do a few weeks of training, but she refused. At times we can reasonably predict our own path through the options we have or don’t have or the choices we make or don’t make.

You don’t have to be holy to be used to predict or guide someone into their future. The gifts of God are without repentance. I knew a man who wore rings in several parts of his body, seen and unseen. He was a gifted hair dresser and a sweet soul. He had little to do with the church. He experimented with drugs and a list of other dangers, BUT, what he predicted about my life was accurate and clear. God uses whom God chooses. God has a purpose and a plan that is bigger than our biases.

Fortune tellers are big business preying on the fears of the forlorn as well as the faithful. There is profit in all kinds of evil and oppression. Greed kills, the greedy or the needy.

It is said the love of money is the root of ALL evil. Money is wonderful. However, the love of money is hazardous to one’s spiritual, emotional, and physical health. Still, we all know what a challenge it is to be good stewards of the resources God gives us. The spiritual complexity of money is endless. However, the bottom line is that all that we have and ever hope to be, we owe it all to God. The Holy Spirit can help us have a right relationship with our valuables, especially our money.

A woman said to me that a coworker asked to borrow her car. She was grateful God gave her the car, so she loaned it freely and did not want to pry into WHY he wanted to borrow the car. In prayer, she believed God revealed to her that he was using the car so as not to be detected by his wife while he was out with his girlfriend. We can only imagine how awkward it was to say “no” the next time he asked. We belong to God. We are bought with a price. That price is submission to God’s will and not our own. The price is to put no other God’s before the one God.

The slave girls was under the influence of her captors. Strange things happen when we are captured. One thing that may happen is that instead of taking an opportunity to become free, an enslaved person may develop Stockholm syndrome wherein they begin to identify with and empathize with their captor or abuser and their goals.

Police officers have said that their most dangerous assignments is in a domestic violence call. When the officer arrives on sight to confront or arrest the perpetrator, the victim often assaults the officer who has come to help.

Whatever was happening with this slave girl was no simple matter. As Paul and the others were sharing the gospel, she was following them and shouting. Can you imagine someone following you yelling these words, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” We can only speculate as to why she was following them and why she was saying what she was saying. One wonders if her captors made her do it because they were trying to irritate Paul and the others in order to get them off their corner, to rid themselves of the competition for the territory.

In any case don’t you think it is very annoying to have someone follow you against your will? Isn’t it a violation of one’s space, an intrusion, and harassment?

After a few days of her following them around and yelling, Paul was annoyed to the point that he did something that does not happen every day in the Christian circles that many of us find ourselves in. Many Christians may have lost their temper and harassed the girl or called the police or yelled at her to get lost, perhaps making her hardship even worse.

Paul turned around and spoke to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her. She was no longer able to predict the future for her slaveholders. That may not be a model for any of us to follow. We may not do what Paul did. If we could, then every slave in the world would be free by next week. If we could free every used and abused person on the planet we would.

I asked myself why Paul did not deliver her of that fortune-telling spirit as soon as he found out about it, but I realize no one of us is called to serve everyone all the time. God’s timing is always best. God’s direction is right. Whether we believe it or not, God is doing something about evil all the time.

A few years ago, it was good news that the world’s poverty level had gone down significantly. However, the last two years of the pandemic has been extremely profitable for some. For the last year or so, there has been a new billionaire on the books every 30 days. Some project that at the same time there are 100 million people  plummeting into poverty. Those statistics keep us on our knees, and they should.  

Even in times of trouble, we do well to please and praise God every day and repent every hour. As Michael Smith’s song goes, “The word says, for the spirit of heaviness, wear the garment of praise. That’s how we fight our battles… That’s how we fight our battles.”

As Christians, we come into the fold like meek and mild sheep. We may not be aware that there are wolves waiting in the wings. We have no thoughts about those who are in trouble and the fierce battles that are ahead of us, making us soldiers of the cross, enlisting us in the army of the Lord. Now we know!

Paul saw a young person in trouble and the Holy Spirit used him to bless her, just as God uses us to bless young people all the time. When the evil spirit left this slave girl, the slaveholders lost their profits. Instead of being grateful, they treated him, of course, like a criminal. They dragged him to jail, stripped him, tortured him, beat him, and put him in chains.  Paul was in and out of jail all the time. Hopefully, every church would still welcome him.  Paul still had the love for God and a heart to worship, singing hymns in jail. The Holy Spirit even did a miraculous work through Paul and Silas. There was an earthquake. The chains were broken and one of the guards was about to kill himself knowing he would be killed by the Romans for allowing prisoners to escape. Paul stopped him when he shouted according to verse 28.  ‘Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.” That jailer and his family became Christians. He fed them and washed their wounds. God is good all the time.

God may not use us to bless young people in trouble in the same way that God used Paul, but God will use us to engage in spiritual battle so that one less youth will become a captive.

Can’t we look at Buffalo, Texas, Sandy Hook, Twitter and Tik Tok and see the need? There are more guns than people, more cars than children and more children killed by guns than cars. Is it time to control the guns? The horrors are here every month, every week, every day. Can’t we look at the wondrous ways God works in our lives and see that God is able to use us and guide us to pray and act in ways that heal and deliver?

Like Paul, we see God using us as we pray about everything, practice what we preach, and praise God from whom all blessings come, and keep coming. One of my favorite songs is Praise the Lord by Russ Taff. It seems to have had our morning’s text in mind with the words:

When you're up against a struggle that shatters all your dreams

And your hopes have been cruelly crushed by Satan's manifested schemes

And you feel the urge within you to submit to earthly fear

Don't let the faith you're standing in seem to disappear

Praise the Lord, He will work through those who praise Him

Praise the Lord, for our God inhabits praise.

Praise the Lord, for the chains that seem to bind you

Serve only to remind you, that they drop powerless behind you when you praise Him.

Pray about everything, practice what you preach, praise God anyhow. Do it today and watch God work. Amen.

 

 

 

 

 

“A Place of Prayer Outside the Gate” Pastor Jacqueline Hines May 22, 2022

 

“A Place of Prayer Outside the Gate”

Pastor Jacqueline Hines

May 22, 2022

 

A few weeks ago during Aubrey’s Sunday school class, Mike raised the question why in Revelation there was a description of a wall. Why does Heaven need something to divide or protect? Of course, the question was discussed fervently from many angles. Answers included, Heaven has walls because walls are beautiful and have many functions. Walls in revelation are both symbolic as well as physical. People described in Revelation as outside the walls were actually in hell. At the same time another scripture from Revelation talks about a door that stays open because there are people still making it into Heaven.

This morning’s scripture tells us that Paul was going outside the gates in Macedonia that was walled off from the rest of the area. Often, government officials and offices are within gated communities. They serve to wall off and guard an area securing it in order to create a comfort zone. The walls and gates were central places where official transactions happened, legal documents confirmed, and important speeches made. Special guards could patrol walled off, gated areas in order to deter ne’er do wells.

Paul was very familiar with walls and gates, especially of Jerusalem because it was known as the city where God dwells. Jerusalem was an iconic image that remains even with us today. With 12 gates,  12 guardian angels, and the reminder of the 12 tribes of Israel, Jerusalem is mentioned over 800 times in the bible because it was fortified, sanctified, set apart for worship and sacrificial acts of holiness. Jesus was crucified outside the gates of Jerusalem, for there was nothing holy about killing Jesus.

Paul was an officer of the law. As a Pharisee, he knew the law through and through. He knew life within and without the walls and gates. He interpreted God’s law and believed God considered Jesus and his followers as lawbreakers. He believed with all of his heart that he was doing the right thing when he made plans to have Christians persecuted and put in prison. Paul was against Jesus until he met Jesus. I grew up in a Christian home, but I did not make a personal commitment to Jesus until I was a teenager. Have you made a personal commitment to Jesus?

Like Paul, many of us have had visions that help us to see God’s will and direction for our life. Some of us have dreams. Or, we may get a strong sense of God’s presence while we are reading scripture, listening to a song, meditating, praying, and talking with a loved one or even a stranger. We may also feel God’s presence during a catastrophe, tragedy or some traumatic experience. God speaks whenever and wherever it pleases God to speak.

Just because we are spiritual, does not mean we are Christian. It has probably been a long time since someone has asked you, “Are you a Christian?” It is more likely that someone may ask, “where do you go to church?’” A farmer was asked the question, “Are you a Christian?” His answer was, “I can tell you anything. If you really want to know if I am a Christian, you need to ask my neighbors.”

As Christians we are wrapped in our culture and our different backgrounds. The dress we wear and the food we eat are all different. We live in community with compassion for Christians who look and think differently than we do. That’s not easy. It is not easy to be a Christian. If it were easy, then everyone would be doing it.

Paul was a Christian. He was from Tarsus in Cilicia, known as Turkey today. They speak Turkish in Turkey. Just out of curiosity, I looked up some phrases in the Turkish language and they were totally foreign to me as I imagine they would be to most of you. Turkish is one of the top twenty languages spoken around the world.  (Does anyone here speak or know someone who speaks Turkish?) We live in a world that is much bigger than us, and surely, God has a purpose and a plan that is so much bigger than us.  

Paul had a vision of a man from Macedonia who was not exactly in the neighborhood, probably miles apart. They very well may have spoken the same language. The man from Macedonia in Paul’s dream was not inviting Paul to come and help. He was not asking Paul to come. He was begging Paul to come and help them. We know about needs that are more urgent than others.

After that dream, verse 10 says Paul believed God was calling him to go to Macedonia and preach. God’s word brings light and love in urgent situations. There are many ways to interpret what we believe God is saying to us. Our interpretation may not instantly lead us where we need to go, but if our hearts are right with God, we will eventually get there. The important thing to know is that God is speaking. We may strain to hear. We may misunderstand what we hear. We may not want to hear what God says.

I have not been listening to the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard domestic violence, defamation trial, but it is intriguing that public opinion is swinging toward the man being the victim in this case. There are at least a billion hits for #justiceforjohnny. The few times that I have seen Amber, I do get the sense that she is more of an actor than a victim.  However, I have learned that my first impressions are not a hundred percent reliable. When former US Representative Anthony Weiner declared he was innocent, I believed him. Later the facts proved him to be a deceiver. Life is a journey. It’s wonderful to journey with Jesus. Whether or not we are growing in our relationship to God and our understanding of the truth, God continues speaking in one way or another because God cares. God loves us. God wants us to succeed and be blessed.

Paul looked for a place of prayer when he got to Macedonia. If you are going to serve God, it is wise to be prayed up. It is a good thing to give thanks to God for all God’s goodness and mercy to us. There is no gratitude in grumbling, no ministry in murmuring. Life goes better when we pray.

Paul found a place of prayer outside the city, outside the more safe and secure zones of comfort, outside the designated doors and official realms. That place was where women gathered by the river says verse 13. Paul broke political and cultural rules by worshiping with women. That’s a good thing because it wasn’t God’s rule to make women less equal than men anyway.

The Church is the same rule-breaking blessing as it was two thousand years ago. God speaks and we listen. When I first arrived at Bethel in 2009, I had a very uncomfortable vision of having a special place to meet God for prayer. I thought with all this property and spiritual history in every room, “Why, God, do we need another place of prayer?” There was a rule in my heart and I did not see past it.

The vision stirred in my heart and would not leave, so I brought it to Council. Surprisingly, Terrie said three words “A prayer garden.” Bethel members love flowers and they are everywhere. There were tulips a few weeks ago. The irises and rhododendrons are here along with the lilies, crocuses, daisies, evergreens and more. Fresh flowers grace our altar during worship. Bethel members invest heavily in sharing the beauty of plants and flowers. Some members even make it a point to weed on a regular basis. A few months after discussing the vision of a special place to pray, we organized and partnered with God to build a prayer garden. It was a way to do like the Apostle Paul did, pray outside the gate, uniting with the community, letting our light shine for the world to witness.

Soon after, I received the vision of an elevator. Over and over again, a still small voice whispered “elevator.” Again, I took the vision to council having no clue about what it meant, and frankly being very embarrassed at the idea that God was speaking and I had been given only a piece of the puzzle, proving once again that God is God and the pastor is not. Janet spoke up at the meeting and said, “We talked about getting an elevator years ago. We need to do it now because things are not getting any cheaper.” Many churches have rules that say, “We do not have enough money so we can’t spend any money.” Bethel got on board to defy that rule. After several months, we had an elevator. Most of us imagined that an elevator was good for the elderly. We soon realized an elevator has many, many helpful purposes. Both of those visions helped Bethel to reach those beyond the borders of the sanctuary and minister to others in the community.

Bethel Church started as a Sunday school class that caught a vision to build a sanctuary and start a church. It began in 1844 during slavery and the Underground Railroad. There was no electricity. There were a few posts for those arriving on horseback and eventually a meeting house that is now the Boy Scout hut. God has been good to Bethel all that time.

God gives a vision to every generation. The generation before us built the education wing. Our generation built an elevator and a prayer garden. I would love to know what vision God will give to the next generation.   

Whatever that next vision is, it would be no surprise if it involved praying outside the gates and jumping over the borders of doctrinal authority. I trust the intimidating security guards and heavy blankets that weigh us down in a past that does not fulfill God’s purpose will, once again, be left in the dust. God will indeed create something new and amazing in the Church and through the church.

Through the years, it is no secret that fulfilling God’s awesome vision can bring out the good, the bad and the ugly in us. It’s not easy to be a Christian. One of my mentors Bishop O.T. Jones pastor of Holy Temple Church of God in Christ was one who broke religious rules by ordaining several women as ministers, breaking church laws and bucking the status quo. He was known to say at funerals of those whose checkered past was mostly spoken of in whispers, “All is known; all is forgiven.” Church, by God’s grace “All is known; all is forgiven.”

Just as sure as God’s sun rises in the east and sets in the west, God will  send a vision that will guide each church in doing its part in making the world a better place.

Outside the gates, Paul found wonderful hospitality from a business woman named Lydia a seller of purple garments which were used for rich officials and the royal rulers.  She invited the disciples into her home. So the precious wheels of unity, community, and hospitality in the church were rolling along as God intended. They take us where we need to go, fueled by the Holy Spirit.

God’s vision always includes the spiritual building of unity, community, and hospitality even as we build buildings and all kinds of physical structures. Whatever we build, the Holy Spirit can help us build with integrity and soundness. Whatever we build can be maintained, cared for and repaired when necessary by God’s grace. We all have resources and connections like Lydia that we can bring together not only to start a mission, but to sustain a mission. May today and forever we have God’s vision for the church in our hearts and in our homes. May we truly build a house where God is at home, where Jesus walks, and where the Holy Spirit is stirring many to good works. Amen.