Pentecost
June 7, 1992
Among the many birthday cards I recently received, one has stuck in my mind. On it was printed the following message: Attention, this life is only a test. Repeat, this is only a test period if this had been an actual life, you would have been told where to go and what to do.
Many of us seem to go through life as if it were only a test period, we look around to see if anyone out there is going to tell us where to go and what to do. Scrutinize ourselves and wonder if the years have been a test, or have we lived into real life? It’s around birthday time that we begin to wonder if we are living life to its fullest. Are we doing, being, what we were made for? Or are we simply following a script laid out by our parents and other authority figures?
A few days ago I peered into a mirror and thought, my God, who is the face of that person staring back at me? What happened to that 14-year-old boy, the visionary man of 27, the 45-year-old who was going to change the world? Where did those people go? What have I become? What am I becoming?
Birthdays are times when we raise those serious questions about life. In amongst all the celebrations and festivities, those difficult, penetrating, unsettling questions seem to slip up on us. What have we become? Is this what we were made for? Today, as we mark the birthday of the church, it seems right to pause in our celebrations to raise some of those questions, period, what have we become? Is this what we were made for?
The community that started about 2000 years ago with high expectations, a magnificent mission to convert the world, to reach out with love to the outermost part of the globe, to heal the bleakness of civilization, to rescue the fallen. What has become of this church? On birthdays, we tend to ask these long hard questions.
Many years ago I made the acquaintance of a man by the name of Ted. Ted became in charge of the College of Preachers and influenced a whole generation of clergy. One of Ted’s outstanding sermon was given on Pentecost in the 1950s. In it, he tried to have the church examine what it was made for and what it had become. He called it the parable of the Coast Guard station. Picture, he said, a Coast Guard station on a lonely dangerous coast. It had stood for many years and tales of its rescue operations are preserved by the successors of the original member. Stained glassed windows around the station honored its heroes through the years, those who man, the rescue services have turned to expand and beautify the station itself.
Do not lifesavers deserve comfort and rest, a place fit for their difficult job? Nor was the rescue station designed merely for those whose duty was to launch the lifeboats. The rescued, in their turn, deserved clean beds and education in ways to become rescuers themselves. The original founders felt that the follow-up job was just as important as hauling them out of the water.
The station building, however, became in time such an absorbing activity that the rescue service itself was increasingly pushed aside. Although traditional drills and rituals were carefully preserved, more effort was spent in arguing methods and who was to be rescued than actually going into the deep. The actual bringing in of people became a hireling location or one left to a few volunteers. The successors of the founders often said, we don’t want to get too crowded and thereby lose our intimate fellowship. The original founders looked down from heaven and shook their heads.
I often think of Ted’s parable. It stands as a solemn warning to the church. It asks us on our birthday to consider what we were made for, and what we have become. Good people, today is your birthday. It is not buildings, not doctrine, not scriptures. The church is you and me, human beings flesh and blood the family of God. And so it behooves us to consider what we have become. Do you remember WH Auden’s wonderful description of the human enterprise?
A very grand opera played by a tenth-rate touring company.
That’s Saint Phillips for you. A grand opera was played by 10th rate touring company. And as I look closely at her obvious fragilities, our fears, our laziness, which makes us hesitant to take risks and seek adventure. As we freely confess to this, we also have to explore what we were made for, our vision, our dream. We may be a weak portrayal of what God meant us to be, a tenth-rate touring company, and yet God’s spirit is within this community. As we attempt to make a family of strangers.
As we attempt to make a family of our strangers the best image of this church that I can think of on this birthday is that we are a bunch of Rd. company rescuers gathered around the family table and a life saving station. We are gathered here to make a family out of strangers and we do this by telling stories and breaking bread. We are companions. Companions whose task it is to launch out into the deep and bring those people out there in here to make them part of the family of God. We are companions, those who follow in the footsteps of the early church apostles.
Today we are celebrating our birthday, not because we have reached a date on the calendar, not because we become long in the tooth or Gray in the hair. The celebration marks a time when the followers of Jesus proclaimed the gospel challenge and began to incorporate new members into the community. Listen to the ending of the reading that was just done. So those who received the word were added that day, about 3000 souls, and they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and the prayers. Many of you here have brought friends and newcomers to the birthday celebration. Last word with those who are strangers to this community. Like the early church, we invite you to join us. The challenge is to become a rescuer, to break bread and share stories, to become a part of the family. And finally, to launch out into the deep. God is calling us to make his family out of strangers. This is not a test. This is the challenge of the early church. I would invite you to ask yourselves three small questions during this celebration,
If not me, who?
If not now, when?
If not here, where?
Amen