SCRIPTURE: Acts 16:9-15
TEXT: 9During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” THEME: God has greater visions for us to participate in. INTRODUCTION God has big ideas, creating out of chaos, planets and stars, land pulling away from the seas, plants and animals and human beings. God has big ideas, a nation of descendants from a childless traveling couple who receive a miracle that become a nation. God has big ideas, in freeing an enslaved people, with an escape, from the grip of the world’s superpower master. A mass exodus is made to freedom and relationship with God. God has big ideas of becoming flesh and blood, born into the world, dependent upon a mother’s arms, in a family, in a village, in the Holy land, to show us love, kindness, ministry to others and peace with God. God has big ideas calling us to be ministers to others. Not only those who are like us but to include Macedonians, to accept and to embrace whoever they may be. SCRIPTURE Paul is having a midlife crisis. Everything he has known about career, faith and God has changed with his experience of the resurrected Jesus. Instead of arresting Jesus’ followers Paul is now making more of them. But God has an even bigger idea as Paul is given a vision of expanding the call to followers to Macedonia. This next part of the text is usually found in adventure movies with a map and a sailboat sailing from one port to another with a red line drawn from Troas, to Samothrace, to Neapolis, and then to Philippi. Gung Ho, led by the Spirit, having a vision and colleagues joining in, they reach their destination and stop. Calming their spirits, keeping their ears to the ground, centering themselves with God, a bit of the wilderness before first contact. In doing so they can see how the Holy Spirit has already been at work, as they discern the best place to be on the Sabbath, is by the river, outside of the city where there is supposed to be a group of women gathered to pray. Wisdom, patience, Spirit lead, self-controlled, this group does not scare off the praying women but are able to have these women listen to them and one of them, Lydia eagerly listens to what Paul has to say. God’s vision for the church is greater than what we imagine. Expands the vision of who we would like to include, and extends the boundaries further than the limited of our theology. This passage is more about proclamation than about regulating the good news. APPLICATION There are a few of us minister types who are pondering the vision of the church. In many cases, the church is not sustainable in its current form; with lower buildings, membership decline, offerings alone cannot meet our projected expenses. Our attraction to the past is not a sustainable model and will prevent us from having a different future. One of these colleges sent me a pod cast to listen to from Homebrewed Christianity, it featured conversation between two progressive Baptist pastors Tripp Fuller, Baptist minister who served the largest UCC church in L.A. and Ryan Burge who just wrote a book on the myths of religion and politics. Their frank conversation casts a new vision of the church. Here are a few take aways: 1. How do we use the resources we have in life giving ways? The Episcopal church has billions of dollars in endowments, that far exceeds its membership. These pastors suggested using some of this money to pay for new church startups, by paying the education cost for promising seminarians, then by giving them 4 years’ worth of salary, and half a million dollars for programs. Then check back in 5 years to see if they need more money. 2. They theorized a start of a new church start, would take 10 families. That would be about 40 people in church, and they wouldn’t even have to tithe for the first few years. 40 people is more than the number of people many of our churches had before the pandemic, and certainly don’t have currently. 3. Tripp and Burge observe that People are not regularly engaged in a faith community. They would rather take the music from one church, listen to the message from another and follow the spiritual practice of a third. It is a TikTok approach to church. A differentiated faith. 4. People don’t want to go to a church to hear a good new where they are ‘the problem’ that has to be fixed. So, as we take our focus off of the cross and place our focus on the resurrection, then we can see a God who says that everything that God has created is good. The earth is good, human beings are good and we are love, accepted, forgiven, worthy and valued. The churches that preach this kind of message are old mainline denominational churches. Finding a decent Mainline denominational church is hard and if you do find one, who wants to be a part of a church where there are 30, 80-year old’s waiting for the end? That is why, since Easter I have been preaching sermons about the difference we make, when we focus on the resurrection instead of the cross. The resurrection calls us into loving communities and relationships that have an eternal quality to them. Our faith is for living with people and with God. I am not sure how long our church can continue in its current form. The Wailuku Mission Housing will greatly improve our witness of God’s love, finances and ministry possibilities. But along with our location comes two other UCC churches. Can our community support all three churches? In the future, I imagine churches cropping up in coffee shops, laundromats, upper rooms of restaurants and food pantries. Meeting at different times of the week. They have a leader who is not ordained but they can’t afford to pay a salary. So, there is a good chance that they would be looking for a subsidy. The Wailuku Mission Housing project may give us a little extra money to sponsor such a church with strings attached. Requiring them to come to some of our events so we can get to know them. They should be as guests to our Aha O Mokupuni O Maui, Molokai a me Lanai functions so they can know the wider church. And their Pastoral Leader would be required to attend PSR CTEL program to give them a few more theological tools for their ministry. Wailuku Union Church will be different in the future than what we were. After the Pandemic, we already are. CONCLUSION God’s plans for our church are bigger than what we think is possible. We are already seeing this with the Wailuku Mission Housing. With it there may be other visions that God will make possible for us. God’s outreach goes beyond what we think is possible or who we want to include. I found a tie with blue and yellow stripes that I could use to keep Ukraine in the forefront of people’s minds and prayers. I wore it at a wedding that I officiated at last Friday. One of the gusts came up to me after the ceremony and asked if I wore that tie in support of Ukraine. I said I did. He said that he was half Ukraine, doesn’t go to church but was so touched that we would be in support of Ukraine. Our prayers for Ukraine, give us a vision beyond our paradise and a ministry to a people torn by war.
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