“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.

 

 

 

A Miracle for Mother's - May 8th 2022

 

Sometime, we need to resist change. Sometime, we need to speak life in the midst of death. Sometime, we need to say “no” to trouble.

That’s what the ladies did the day that Dorcas died. Something within them refused to let go. Instead of just accepting a loss, somehow the Holy Spirit pressed them to say “no” to death. That is what the Holy Spirit does sometime.

Dorcas, which means “deer” in Greek, was called Tabitha which in the Hebrew means grace and beauty akin to a gazelle, a deer, bouncy and lively

. When we live in two worlds, we may have two names. Tabitha shares this exceptional place in the bible because she was always, not sometime, not once a year, not occasionally, but verse 36 says she was ALWAYS, doing good AND helping the poor.

She participated with a group of women said in verse 39 to be widows; most likely they were mothers too. Tabitha made robes and clothes.

She made under garments worn next to the skin and outer clothes like our coats and sweaters as well. In any case, making anything to wear is both an art and a labor of love. These ladies were faithfully using their talents and spiritual gifts from God while learning and developing interesting skills. There was likely some unique skill and some special touches that each person brought to the table. It is the same as Bethel women and certainly some Bethel men have talent to create and make beautiful things with their hands. 

It is no wonder that since the beginning of time we have been inspired to honor women, especially mothers who nurture and co-create with God.

In the American South, Anna Jarvis fulfilled her late mother Ann’s

wishes to honor mothers. She campaigned long and hard, meeting with ministers and businessmen to create a way to honor the work of mothers. Their work was not just about a special day. Mother’s day clubs developed before the Civil War under Anna’s leadership to help mothers learn about good nutrition and hydration for their infants. After the War, in 1868 Jarvis organized “Mothers’ Friendship Day,” at which mothers gathered with former Union and Confederate soldiers to promote reconciliation.

Mother’s Day did not became official until 1914 when President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation, however in 1908, six years earlier, the first official Mother’s Day recognition was in church like ours is today. A worship service celebrating Mother’s Day was held in at Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia, her home town. That same day a thousand people gathered at a Wanamaker’s Department Store to celebrate this new day called Mother’s Day in Philadelphia where she lived and held membership with her mother at Old St. George’s Methodist Church.

Campaigns to make a day an official holiday in one way or another are not new to us. President Reagan signed for the Martin Luther King Federal Holiday in 1983. Last June, President Biden signed a declaration for Juneteenth national Independence Day as a Federal Holiday. It is now the 12^th legal public holiday.

I recently learned that President Jimmy Carter signed for an Asian American week in 1979, and in 2009 and on May 1, 2009, President Barack Obama signed a proclamation for an Asian American Heritage Month. May was chosen because on May 7, 1843, the first Japanese immigrant arrived in the United States. More than two decades later, on May 10, 1869, the golden spike was driven into the First Transcontinental Railroad, which was completed using Chinese labor.  Anna Jarvis campaigned for years before Mother’s Day became an official U.S. holiday in 1914. When the day became too commercialized for her liking, she spent much of her inheritance on legal fees to get Mother’s Day off the calendar. Go figure.

No doubt, the same political and spiritual conversations were happening   among the ladies who were always doing good and helping the poor that we read about in Acts today. When Tabitha died, they called Peter. Peter had witnessed the miracles of Jesus. He was put in chains and sent to jail because of his preaching, but an angel of God led him to freedom. He was with Jesus after the Resurrection. He saw the nail prints in his hand. Peter knew firsthand the power of the resurrection. A few verses earlier in Acts, he prayed for a man bedridden for 8 years and the man was healed and two whole towns became Christians.

In our day, if that many people began to believe in Jesus, you would soon become a Bishop.

These ladies, in their sorrow and distress, called for Peter to come because they realized that the same resurrection power that is in Jesus, is also in their lives. We are a resurrection people and God intends for us to have life and to have it abundantly, no matter what evil we may encounter.

The ladies expected God to do something great.

We too have the same spirit of Jesus’ resurrection in our minds, in our bodies, in our hearts. We too can expect god to do something great. That resurrection power shows itself in many ways. We just need to be still and know that God is God and we are not. When mother’s hold their children, those children are raised from death to life. You remember the stories of orphaned babies who died in nurseries simply because they were not touched, so volunteers were brought in to hold and touch the babies every day.

When we speak to one another in love, when we speak the truth, we speak life.

We are set free to live and not die because the power of the resurrection of Jesus is in us and in our words.

We have seen the miracles for mothers and for others when the stronghold of addiction to chemicals and addiction to shopping and addiction to enabling dysfunctional behavior are broken. Even in the midst of Naomi Judd’s diagnosis of severe, treatment resistant depression, her daughter could say they were blessed even when they were broken. The Ukraine, which has such rich soil and perfect ports became the “bread basket of the world.” That same Ukraine now finds itself in bread lines. The same Spirit of resurrection in Jesus is in us with death defying power for the most powerless circumstances, and in the midst of death and suffering. It is good to pray for deliverance from wars and rumors of wars.

God hears our every prayer. God is not asleep. God is not dead. As the song says “God is doing something, right now. God is healing someone. God is saving someone. God is moving mountains. All of our hope is in the name of Jesus as we pray God turn this thing around.”

One of the most awesome powers of the resurrection happen for mothers when children leave the nest with confidence, feeling loved, able to use their talents and spiritual gifts, able to do good and help others to forgive and reconcile, able to come back home with respect and honor for their parents.

The miracle for mothers and others happens as we turn toward the resurrection power of Jesus. That same power is in us and around us. That same power can work in us to bring the miracle of life in the places of our lives that are lifeless. God cares for you and wants to bless you with life. Whatever is worrying you, holding you back, making you anxious and afraid, give it to God today and watch God work. Amen.