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Who Gave Birth to the Church?
A sermon by Dr. James G.
Somerville
Pastor, First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
May 11, 2008
The Day of Pentecost & Mother’s Day
Acts 2:1-21
Tomorrow morning, if all goes according to plan, I will walk from my new
house to my new job. Isn’t that something? It hasn’t always been so easy. At
my last church I used to get to work by taking the Metro from the Tenleytown
station in Northwest DC down to Dupont Circle, where I would get off the train
and hike up the long escalator to street level. I would hold my breath when I
walked past the Krispy Kreme doughnut shop just to cut down on the temptation,
and then I would cross Connecticut Avenue and turn right onto Massachusetts.
That’s when I would take out my cell phone and press “7,” the speed dial number
for my parents’ home in South Carolina. My mother usually answered the phone,
and then we would talk as I walked the two blocks to church. It was only a ten
minute conversation, but always a good way to start the day.
I called her on March 14th
of this year, a Friday, and as we were talking she said in a teasing
voice, “Hey, isn’t this a special day?” “Well, yes,” I said. “It’s my
birthday.” “I remember your birthday,” she said, and then she told me the story
again: how she had walked the halls of that old Civil War hospital in Selma,
Alabama, waiting for me to make up my mind about being born. She said she would
stand at the window, looking out at the flowers already in bloom, and repeat the
words of the 23rd Psalm. “The
Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He
maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters,
he restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his
name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I
will fear no evil...”
I don’t know that my
mother was afraid, but the doctors had already told her that because of the way
the baby was positioned this would be a difficult birth. It was, as she
reminded me on the phone that day. She labored to bring me into the
world; I could hear it in her voice. But even on that day she said it was worth
it. It made me realize that every time someone celebrates a birthday there is
almost always someone else thinking about the day of that birth, some mother
somewhere with a half smile on her face as her child blows out the candles on a
birthday cake and she remembers what it took to bring him into the world.
My dad was born in Cross
Hill, South Carolina, back in June, 1931. Even after he was grown and gone his
dad used to write to him every year on his birthday and every year he would
remind him: “Your birth brought on one of the hottest spells they’d ever had in
that county.” Why did my father’s father remember that? Because he remembered
my father’s mother, little Hattie Nottingham Somerville—not even five feet
tall—who, on that hot June day, labored on sweat-soaked sheets in an upstairs
room while her husband opened every window in the house and prayed for a breeze.
Few birthdays are
celebrated without some memory of what it took to bring that life into the
world. Today we celebrate Pentecost, which is often referred to as the birthday
of the church. You know the story: the believers were all gathered in one
place—120 of them—where they had been waiting and praying for the promised power
from on high. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a
mighty wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And
something like flames appeared over their heads, and they began to speak in
other languages as the Spirit gave them the ability, so that—when they poured
out of the house like college students leaving a party at two o’clock in the
morning, making far too much noise—those foreigners who were in
Jerusalem—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia—heard them,
each in his own language, proclaiming the mighty acts of God.
We tell this story every
year on the church’s birthday, but I wonder: is there someone, somewhere, with a
half smile on his lips, remembering what it took to give birth to the church?
And who would that be exactly? I don’t know that Pentecost and Mother’s Day
have ever been on the same day since I began my ministry, but this year they are
and it’s had me asking everyone, “Who gave birth to the church?” I asked a
couple of other ministers while we were having lunch a few weeks ago and they
said, right away, “The Holy Spirit,” but I said, “Was it? I know the Holy
Spirit was present on the church’s birthday but did the Spirit give birth to the
church?” And that made them think twice. It made me think twice, even
three times.
1.
I thought
about God the Father, the maker of heaven and earth, the one who scooped up clay
from the riverbank to make the first man. Was it the Father who brought the
church into being? It would be odd to think of God carrying the church around
in his “womb,” but it isn’t hard to imagine God carrying the idea of the church
around in his heart, and not only for nine months, but for years and years and
years before the church came into being. Maybe from the very beginning he had
this dream that one day whosoever believed in him could be part of his family.
2.
I thought
about God the Son, sent by a Father who loved the world and wanted to save it.
Jesus called those first disciples and trained them for the work of the
Kingdom. He preached good news to the poor, opened the eyes of the blind, and
set at liberty those who were oppressed. In the end, for all his efforts, he
was nailed to a cross where he suffered and moaned, struggled and groaned. He
labored to bring the church into being. In a very literal sense it was
the death of him. While many mothers have done as much for their children no
one has ever done more.
3.
I thought
about God the Holy Spirit, roaring into the room on the day of Pentecost like a
tornado, filling those dumbstruck believers with power from on high that
loosened their tongues and left tongues of fire dancing over their heads. It
was an unforgettable moment—one we’ve been talking about ever since—but was it
the Spirit who gave birth to the church, or was the Spirit only the first breath
of life the newborn church sucked into its lungs? It’s hard to say, but either
way the church would not have come into existence without the Spirit and even
now, without it, the church cannot exist.
And
so the answer to the question, “Who gave birth to the church?” is God—Father,
Son, and Spirit—who conceived, nurtured, labored, delivered, and gave the breath
of life to that infant body of Christian believers. But to answer that question
is to raise another one: why? Why did God give birth to the church?
Ever since my girls were
old enough to hear it Christy and I have told them the story of how they were
born. We do it on the night before their birthdays. When they were little we
would tell it as a bedtime story, piling up in their beds with them and saying
to Ellie, “The night you were born was so windy we thought it would blow our
little Volkswagen Rabbit off the road on the way to the hospital,” and then to
Catherine just three days later, “It was raining on the night you were born, I
should have gone slow, but I had to drive fast anyway because you were in such a
hurry to get here.” We try to spare some of the clinical details. We don’t
talk much about the pain of labor. But we try to tell our girls how much we
looked forward to their arrival, how exciting it was when it finally came, and
how happy we were to look on their sweet faces and hold them in our arms. We
want them to know that none of this happened by accident, that we worked hard to
get them into the world, and that even before they arrived we were busy making a
place for them in our home and in our hearts: painting the nursery, subscribing
to Parents magazine, dreaming big dreams and having high hopes. I think
that among other things we want them to understand that their lives matter, and
that they are here for a reason.
I hear that sometimes from
people who have escaped some near brush with death: “God must have spared me for
a reason.” “Yes,” I say, “and your job is to figure out what that reason is.”
But I can go one better than that: I not only think God kept you in this
world for a reason, I think God brought you into this world for a reason,
and that it’s not only those of us who have had a brush with death who need to
figure out what it is but all of us who have been given the gift of life. I
think the same is true for the church. I think God brought the church into
being for a reason, and I don’t think the reason was so that we would have a
comfortable place to gather on Sunday mornings to sing hymns and hear sermons.
I think God gave birth to the church because the world needs the church, and I
not only think the world needs the church I think the world needs this
church. If that’s true we can stop sitting around trying to figure out why
we’re here and get busy figuring out how to meet that need.
I wanted to begin my
ministry here on the Day of Pentecost for several reasons but one of them was
that this day marks the birthday of the church. It’s the day the church came to
life, but it’s also the day the church went to work. By the end of that first
Pentecost three thousand people had been added to the number of believers. I
don’t expect that many to come down the aisle today but I would like to think
that everyone within the sound of my voice could seize this day as the perfect
opportunity to begin something new.
Maybe you’ve been sitting
on the edge of your pew for a long time, thinking about coming down the aisle
and joining the church but just not sure if it’s what you want to do and a
little anxious about what people might say. Let me encourage you by saying that
I think God brought you into the world for a reason, and I don’t think the
reason was to sit on a pew. God wants you to be fully involved in a church that
is working to change the world, and if this church seems like that kind of
church to you then don’t hesitate. Let it be said that you joined First Baptist
on the Day of Pentecost, 2008.
And if you’re already
involved in the church maybe this is the day you will draw a deep breath of
fresh commitment, inhale the Holy Spirit, and promise God that he has not
labored in vain, that the church he brought into the world because the world
needs it is alive and well and ready to get to work. In the days ahead I’m
going to be more specific about what kind of work that might be, but for now
maybe you could come down the aisle to say, “I’m ready for anything,” and to say
years from now, “On the day Dr. Somerville started his ministry here I started
mine too, in a whole new way.”
Maybe you’d rather not
walk down the aisle, or maybe you can’t. Maybe you are listening to this sermon
online or watching this service on television a week after the fact. That
doesn’t mean that this day can’t be for you, too, a perfect opportunity to begin
something new. Those believers who were gathered on the day of Pentecost didn’t
have any idea of what was about to happen that day, they didn’t know what God
was going to do, but they had been waiting and praying for God to have his way
with them and on that day he did. This day could be that day for you.
I don’t usually give the
invitation in the body of the sermon; I usually wait until later. But on this
day it seems important that it not be considered an afterthought. On this
Mother’s Day, this day of new beginnings, this Pentecost Sunday, the opportunity
to respond to what God is doing in your life may be the most important thing of
all. And so, as we sing our hymn of invitation, I encourage you to let go of
your grip on the pew and let God have his way with you. Walk down the aisle on
wobbly legs. Open yourself to his Spirit. Who cares what anyone says? God
brought you into the world for a reason, and this may be the day when you find
out what it is.
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