The Church Finally Got It
Stories
Object:
Contents
"The Church Finally Got It" by Keith Wagner
"Children of God" by Keith Wagner
"Where’s God?" by C. David McKirachan
The Church Finally Got It
by Keith Wagner
Acts 2:1-21
On the day of Pentecost people were gathered from a variety of communities. About 120 people, including the eleven disciples, were all gathered in a single location. Their lives had been changed by Jesus, who had recently ascended into heaven. Now they were on their own. Their lives had been greatly influenced by his ministry and his love for them. Now they had reached a point where his mission would continue, but without him as their leader.
However, an amazing thing happened. “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them authority.” They were able to understand each other. Through the power of the Holy Spirit they were able to communicate and bond together.
There was a power present unlike anything they had ever experienced before. It was such a moving experience that it energized the believers to build Christ’s Church. On that day there was a great explosion of God’s love. The Church had a core of faithful who truly loved one another as they were “Together in one place.”
One time I observed a couple who had come to the YMCA to walk on the track. I watched as they hung up their coats and made a few stretches. Then to my surprise the man started walking. I thought his wife would join him on his first round, but she started walking by herself. The two walked around the track but not together. At one point during their walk the man passed his wife but kept walking his own pace. She was walking at a slower pace. It surprised me that the two of them never walked together.
In order for the people of the faith community to be together we have to walk side by side. To be together some folks may have to be patient, slow down, and let others catch up. At the same time, those who are moving slower need to push themselves to keep up. The Spirit of God is held at bay when everyone is going at a different pace. Walking together means we all share the same pace.
I am a runner and I run about three miles three times a week. A few months ago I began experiencing leg cramps in the middle of the night. I began eating bananas since other runners had said I needed more potassium in my body chemistry. But, still the leg cramps persisted. I finally talked to my doctor about my leg cramps and she suggested that I run less and walk more. She told me that at my age walking was just as good for me as running.
My doctor is from Vietnam and she speaks English with an accent. Since I am hearing impaired I had difficulty hearing her. After my exam I talked with the nurse who was in the room when the doctor prescribed running less and walking more. I asked her to repeat what the doctor said since I didn’t fully understand. She repeated the conversation and then I got it.
It took a while for me to run less and walk more, but now I have a new routine which includes walking and running. Thankfully, my leg cramps are beginning to subside. Looking back, I believe my inability to comprehend what she told me may have been due to my discounting her authority. Like the people on the day of Pentecost it finally occurred to me that the Holy Spirit can communicate to us through people who speak a different language.
Have you ever had an experience when you didn’t understand something and then later it was explained to you in words you understood? In my first parish I had a bible study that was made up of mostly senior citizens. One dear lady, who was 85 years old, was very faithful and attended church all her life. I was interpreting the good shepherd story in the bible from the gospel of John. She sat quietly and never spoke. Then suddenly she broke her silence and said, "I can’t believe it. After all these years I thought the bible was just prose. For the first time in my life I realize it is a series of stories that actually mean something." It was a huge revelation for her because it totally changed her paradigm about the bible.
When something finally makes sense you generally respond by saying, "Now I get it." Well, at Pentecost the Church finally got it.
* * *
Children of God
by Keith Wagner
Romans 8:14-17
One time my brother, Gary, asked me and my older brother to help him build his garage. He lived in Florida and it was in the summer. It was hot and exhausting work. At one point we were putting a support gable in place and we were having difficulty holding it steady. Gary yelled out, “Hey guys, you have to keep this stable while I secure it.” My older brother and I looked at each other and replied, “Tell you what we are going to take a break.” Gary had forgotten we had volunteered to help and that we weren’t professional contractors.
The two of us climbed down from the roof and got a cold drink. Meanwhile, my mother was listening to our exchange of words and she said, “Now boys, you just all need to get along.” The three of us needed a little supervision. No doubt my mother was thinking of Paul’s words, “Because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”
In the early church life had become complex and people’s identity had become skewed. The faith community had forgotten who they were and what they were about. Here in Romans they needed to be reminded that they were “God’s children.”
My mother had a habit of preaching to my brothers and I about the importance of getting along. She told us it was her wish that we remained close after she was gone. My mother also explained that it troubled her that her one brother and her only sister did not speak for years. She finally intervened and discovered that her sister had the wrong phone number for her brother. A lame excuse perhaps, but it worked and the two of them finally reconciled.
When my brothers and I were young we fought like normal children, however, now we remain fairly close. And the incident at my brother’s garage was just one of many. Unfortunately we have not always been the best communicators. After our mother died we all exchanged cell phone numbers and emails. We had recalled our mother’s sermons about keeping in touch.
To be children of God also means to be responsible for our mistakes. In verse 8:13 we are told to “give death to our misdeeds.”
In Chicken Soup for the Teacher’s Soul, Rich Kornoelje, tells the story about one of his students. Rich was the assistant principal at a very large public high school. One of his duties was to supervise the lunch room making sure students were diligent in picking up their lunch trays and not leaving any messes.
One day, prior to vacation, the students were fairly wound up. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that a student had spilled his milk. It was all down the front of him, on the table and on the floor. He watched to see what the student would do. He was sure he would escape the cafeteria without cleaning up the mess. He vowed to punish him by making him clean up everyone else’s mess for the day.
To his surprise the student returned to the snack bar and gathered up several napkins. He then returned to his table and cleaned up the mess. He even got on his hands and knees and cleaned the milk from the floor. After regaining his composure, Rich followed the young man out of the cafeteria. He caught up with him and thanked him for his cooperation. “No problem,” the young man said.
Later Rich discovered who the student was and decided to contact the young man’s parents. Normally his calls to parents were about their misdeeds. The boy’s mother answered and he said, “Your son showed me something today that really demonstrated some good upbringing.” He then went on to relay the rest of the story. At the other end of the phone line Rich heard sobbing and sniffling. Finally the mother replied, “You will never in your entire lifetime realize what your phone call has meant to me. My husband left me several years ago and I have tried to raise my son alone. He behaves at home but I never know how he does in public. Your phone call has meant everything to me.”
Rich’s phone call became a life-changing experience. From then on he tried to make more positive calls to parents. Ironically Rich had learned what it means to be a child of God by observing one of his student’s good behavior.
Rev. Dr. Keith Wagner is the pastor of St. John's UCC in Troy, Ohio. He has served churches in Southwest Ohio for over three decades. He is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ and has an M.Div. from Methodist Theological School, Delaware, Ohio, and a D.Min. from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. He has also been an adjunct professor at Edison Community College, Piqua, Ohio. He and his wife, Lin, live in Springfield, Ohio.
* * *
Where’s God?
by C. David McKirachan
John 14:8-17 (25-27)
Incarnational Theology is weird. It takes a great amount of acceptance of things that seem to make no sense. And we highly evolved and rational theologians would never allow such speed bumps to develop on the interstate of our smooth normality. We like categories. We like reasonable answers. We don’t like paradox. We would never dare to use words like mystery. We’re religious, not stupid. Besides, we’re supposed to keep our theological musings down to 20 minutes.
In the old days candidates came before presbytery for licensure. I presented a statement of faith that was Trinitarian, including my preference for the Son. I liked the Son because it grounded my faith in things I could touch and know, even if I couldn’t understand this cosmic intersection. Back in these middle ages of the church, people were allergic to words like ‘cosmic,’ let alone ‘intersection.’ I alluded to the frustration that Jesus voiced at the disciples and others. I liked it because it made him more accessible to me. And it showed me how to keep loving people even when they didn’t ‘get’ me or my ideas.
I finished and was immediately confronted by a rather pushy Reverend who wanted to know, “According to your theology, is Jesus God?” I should have said, “Yes.” It would have been the politically expedient thing to do. I always told my kids, “Don’t goose a tiger. He can tear your face off.” Against my own advice, with the arrogance of a recent recipient of two masters’ degrees, I said, “Well, just as the people in the Bible, we’ve got a problem here. The Hebrew word for God is a verb, actually a form of the verb ‘to be.’ Jesus was a noun. So Jesus is as much of a verb as you can fit into a noun.” The tiger was not pleased. I was approved for ordination, but it was a near thing.
A rabbi friend of mine went on an interfaith trip to Israel and was told by a couple of protestant pastors that the places where the man Jesus walked were not that important to them. Their Jesus was a spiritual reality. He wondered how that went over with the folks in the pew.
A conceptual Christ is safe. He’s not a he, or a she for that matter. The specificity of the incarnation gets in the way of avoiding the paradox of the cross. And that just doesn’t make any sense. Such avoidance keeps us out of the mire of dealing with miracles on the hoof. It makes the faith sanitized and reasonable.
But who is this Christ? Do we know him? How can we experience the seismic reality of the resurrection without coming into contact with a tortured and crucified Jesus? Without sharing his isolation, his pain, his heart wrenching choices? How can any of this mean anything to us unless we are willing to know him as a real person? And how can we let his presence in the world help us to know God without realizing that this guy was demonstrating just that? And how does his command to ‘Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid,’ have any power when we are caught in the cracks of life.
I may be wrong. I came to that conclusion a long time ago. But I have every confidence that my Lord forgives me. We’ll laugh about it. Or do non-specific beings do that?
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. Two of his books, I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder, have been published by Westminster John Knox Press. McKirachan was raised in a pastor's home and he is the brother of a pastor, and he has discovered his name indicates that he has druid roots. Storytelling seems to be a congenital disorder. He lives with his 21-year-old son Ben and his dog Sam.
*****************************************
StoryShare, May 15, 2016, issue.
Copyright 2016 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"The Church Finally Got It" by Keith Wagner
"Children of God" by Keith Wagner
"Where’s God?" by C. David McKirachan
The Church Finally Got It
by Keith Wagner
Acts 2:1-21
On the day of Pentecost people were gathered from a variety of communities. About 120 people, including the eleven disciples, were all gathered in a single location. Their lives had been changed by Jesus, who had recently ascended into heaven. Now they were on their own. Their lives had been greatly influenced by his ministry and his love for them. Now they had reached a point where his mission would continue, but without him as their leader.
However, an amazing thing happened. “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them authority.” They were able to understand each other. Through the power of the Holy Spirit they were able to communicate and bond together.
There was a power present unlike anything they had ever experienced before. It was such a moving experience that it energized the believers to build Christ’s Church. On that day there was a great explosion of God’s love. The Church had a core of faithful who truly loved one another as they were “Together in one place.”
One time I observed a couple who had come to the YMCA to walk on the track. I watched as they hung up their coats and made a few stretches. Then to my surprise the man started walking. I thought his wife would join him on his first round, but she started walking by herself. The two walked around the track but not together. At one point during their walk the man passed his wife but kept walking his own pace. She was walking at a slower pace. It surprised me that the two of them never walked together.
In order for the people of the faith community to be together we have to walk side by side. To be together some folks may have to be patient, slow down, and let others catch up. At the same time, those who are moving slower need to push themselves to keep up. The Spirit of God is held at bay when everyone is going at a different pace. Walking together means we all share the same pace.
I am a runner and I run about three miles three times a week. A few months ago I began experiencing leg cramps in the middle of the night. I began eating bananas since other runners had said I needed more potassium in my body chemistry. But, still the leg cramps persisted. I finally talked to my doctor about my leg cramps and she suggested that I run less and walk more. She told me that at my age walking was just as good for me as running.
My doctor is from Vietnam and she speaks English with an accent. Since I am hearing impaired I had difficulty hearing her. After my exam I talked with the nurse who was in the room when the doctor prescribed running less and walking more. I asked her to repeat what the doctor said since I didn’t fully understand. She repeated the conversation and then I got it.
It took a while for me to run less and walk more, but now I have a new routine which includes walking and running. Thankfully, my leg cramps are beginning to subside. Looking back, I believe my inability to comprehend what she told me may have been due to my discounting her authority. Like the people on the day of Pentecost it finally occurred to me that the Holy Spirit can communicate to us through people who speak a different language.
Have you ever had an experience when you didn’t understand something and then later it was explained to you in words you understood? In my first parish I had a bible study that was made up of mostly senior citizens. One dear lady, who was 85 years old, was very faithful and attended church all her life. I was interpreting the good shepherd story in the bible from the gospel of John. She sat quietly and never spoke. Then suddenly she broke her silence and said, "I can’t believe it. After all these years I thought the bible was just prose. For the first time in my life I realize it is a series of stories that actually mean something." It was a huge revelation for her because it totally changed her paradigm about the bible.
When something finally makes sense you generally respond by saying, "Now I get it." Well, at Pentecost the Church finally got it.
* * *
Children of God
by Keith Wagner
Romans 8:14-17
One time my brother, Gary, asked me and my older brother to help him build his garage. He lived in Florida and it was in the summer. It was hot and exhausting work. At one point we were putting a support gable in place and we were having difficulty holding it steady. Gary yelled out, “Hey guys, you have to keep this stable while I secure it.” My older brother and I looked at each other and replied, “Tell you what we are going to take a break.” Gary had forgotten we had volunteered to help and that we weren’t professional contractors.
The two of us climbed down from the roof and got a cold drink. Meanwhile, my mother was listening to our exchange of words and she said, “Now boys, you just all need to get along.” The three of us needed a little supervision. No doubt my mother was thinking of Paul’s words, “Because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”
In the early church life had become complex and people’s identity had become skewed. The faith community had forgotten who they were and what they were about. Here in Romans they needed to be reminded that they were “God’s children.”
My mother had a habit of preaching to my brothers and I about the importance of getting along. She told us it was her wish that we remained close after she was gone. My mother also explained that it troubled her that her one brother and her only sister did not speak for years. She finally intervened and discovered that her sister had the wrong phone number for her brother. A lame excuse perhaps, but it worked and the two of them finally reconciled.
When my brothers and I were young we fought like normal children, however, now we remain fairly close. And the incident at my brother’s garage was just one of many. Unfortunately we have not always been the best communicators. After our mother died we all exchanged cell phone numbers and emails. We had recalled our mother’s sermons about keeping in touch.
To be children of God also means to be responsible for our mistakes. In verse 8:13 we are told to “give death to our misdeeds.”
In Chicken Soup for the Teacher’s Soul, Rich Kornoelje, tells the story about one of his students. Rich was the assistant principal at a very large public high school. One of his duties was to supervise the lunch room making sure students were diligent in picking up their lunch trays and not leaving any messes.
One day, prior to vacation, the students were fairly wound up. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that a student had spilled his milk. It was all down the front of him, on the table and on the floor. He watched to see what the student would do. He was sure he would escape the cafeteria without cleaning up the mess. He vowed to punish him by making him clean up everyone else’s mess for the day.
To his surprise the student returned to the snack bar and gathered up several napkins. He then returned to his table and cleaned up the mess. He even got on his hands and knees and cleaned the milk from the floor. After regaining his composure, Rich followed the young man out of the cafeteria. He caught up with him and thanked him for his cooperation. “No problem,” the young man said.
Later Rich discovered who the student was and decided to contact the young man’s parents. Normally his calls to parents were about their misdeeds. The boy’s mother answered and he said, “Your son showed me something today that really demonstrated some good upbringing.” He then went on to relay the rest of the story. At the other end of the phone line Rich heard sobbing and sniffling. Finally the mother replied, “You will never in your entire lifetime realize what your phone call has meant to me. My husband left me several years ago and I have tried to raise my son alone. He behaves at home but I never know how he does in public. Your phone call has meant everything to me.”
Rich’s phone call became a life-changing experience. From then on he tried to make more positive calls to parents. Ironically Rich had learned what it means to be a child of God by observing one of his student’s good behavior.
Rev. Dr. Keith Wagner is the pastor of St. John's UCC in Troy, Ohio. He has served churches in Southwest Ohio for over three decades. He is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ and has an M.Div. from Methodist Theological School, Delaware, Ohio, and a D.Min. from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. He has also been an adjunct professor at Edison Community College, Piqua, Ohio. He and his wife, Lin, live in Springfield, Ohio.
* * *
Where’s God?
by C. David McKirachan
John 14:8-17 (25-27)
Incarnational Theology is weird. It takes a great amount of acceptance of things that seem to make no sense. And we highly evolved and rational theologians would never allow such speed bumps to develop on the interstate of our smooth normality. We like categories. We like reasonable answers. We don’t like paradox. We would never dare to use words like mystery. We’re religious, not stupid. Besides, we’re supposed to keep our theological musings down to 20 minutes.
In the old days candidates came before presbytery for licensure. I presented a statement of faith that was Trinitarian, including my preference for the Son. I liked the Son because it grounded my faith in things I could touch and know, even if I couldn’t understand this cosmic intersection. Back in these middle ages of the church, people were allergic to words like ‘cosmic,’ let alone ‘intersection.’ I alluded to the frustration that Jesus voiced at the disciples and others. I liked it because it made him more accessible to me. And it showed me how to keep loving people even when they didn’t ‘get’ me or my ideas.
I finished and was immediately confronted by a rather pushy Reverend who wanted to know, “According to your theology, is Jesus God?” I should have said, “Yes.” It would have been the politically expedient thing to do. I always told my kids, “Don’t goose a tiger. He can tear your face off.” Against my own advice, with the arrogance of a recent recipient of two masters’ degrees, I said, “Well, just as the people in the Bible, we’ve got a problem here. The Hebrew word for God is a verb, actually a form of the verb ‘to be.’ Jesus was a noun. So Jesus is as much of a verb as you can fit into a noun.” The tiger was not pleased. I was approved for ordination, but it was a near thing.
A rabbi friend of mine went on an interfaith trip to Israel and was told by a couple of protestant pastors that the places where the man Jesus walked were not that important to them. Their Jesus was a spiritual reality. He wondered how that went over with the folks in the pew.
A conceptual Christ is safe. He’s not a he, or a she for that matter. The specificity of the incarnation gets in the way of avoiding the paradox of the cross. And that just doesn’t make any sense. Such avoidance keeps us out of the mire of dealing with miracles on the hoof. It makes the faith sanitized and reasonable.
But who is this Christ? Do we know him? How can we experience the seismic reality of the resurrection without coming into contact with a tortured and crucified Jesus? Without sharing his isolation, his pain, his heart wrenching choices? How can any of this mean anything to us unless we are willing to know him as a real person? And how can we let his presence in the world help us to know God without realizing that this guy was demonstrating just that? And how does his command to ‘Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid,’ have any power when we are caught in the cracks of life.
I may be wrong. I came to that conclusion a long time ago. But I have every confidence that my Lord forgives me. We’ll laugh about it. Or do non-specific beings do that?
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. Two of his books, I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder, have been published by Westminster John Knox Press. McKirachan was raised in a pastor's home and he is the brother of a pastor, and he has discovered his name indicates that he has druid roots. Storytelling seems to be a congenital disorder. He lives with his 21-year-old son Ben and his dog Sam.
*****************************************
StoryShare, May 15, 2016, issue.
Copyright 2016 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
