UCC Church of Charlotte

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Sermon, May 17, 2009
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Sunday, May 17, 2009 9:02:54 AM
From:
Phil Hobson   
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To:
Phil Hobson 


Where it Wills
Acts 10:44-48
John 15:9-17

Grace and Peace to you this morning.  Grace and Peace.
    
What inspires you?
    
Last week I spoke about what it means to do visits on behalf of the
church, how the job is mostly about sitting and listening.  This week,
I want to invite those of you who have signed up to preach in my
absence, and maybe some of you who haven’t yet, to consider this
question: What inspires you?
    
John gives us the heart of the Gospel message: to love one another as
Christ loves us; that God loved us long before we ever thought about
God; to live that love out in real ways; and to count ourselves not
merely the servants of Christ, but also friends of Christ.
    
There’s the message.
    
But preaching is not simply reciting the Bible story.  It has to do
with this crazy notion of inspiration.
    
Maybe we want to get off the hook by saying that God has only inspired
some.  Surely not me, right Lord?  As our Bible studies have been
looking at the creation stories, however, we find a different
possibility.
    
God took dust from the ground (adamah), and formed a human being
(adam) from it.  And God breathed into the human’s nostrils the breath
of life.  To breathe out is called exhalation, but also expiration.
To breathe in is inspiration.  So when God breathes into us the
breathe of life, when we breathe it in, we are inspired.  So the only
way to be completely uninspired is to stop breathing.  (Those with a
fear of public speaking may worry that that is what will happen.
Remember, signing up to preach is voluntary.)
    
If we worry that inspiration is solely our job, please remember that
preaching is a team activity.  Those who are listening are not
audience, or jury panel, or judges.  The congregation is actively
involved in the process of preaching.  You have your nodders; both
those who do this to mark agreement, and those who are getting their
rest before the game this afternoon.  You have your laughers, who you
know where they are sitting each week.  You have your people who are
seriously concerned that their watchband might be faulty, and their
watch may have fallen off, so they check several times to make sure
the watch is still there.  Maybe they want a new watch, because each
time they check it, they look a little less happy.
    
One of the things to remember is that there is no more patient, no
more caring, no more supportive group of listeners that your own
church family.  Some want you to inspire them, some are just wanting
you to do well, and many are just thankful it is not them up in the
pulpit.
    
Even the inspiration is a team activity.  There are the words the
preacher is inspired to preach, but the Holy Spirit isn’t done there.
There is inspiration in how we hear those words, that may happen in
spite of the preacher.  You may hear something and be moved far beyond
where the preacher was going.  You may find some nugget of gold, some
kernel of truth, far beyond what was being said.  Like when I merely
mentioned to Dawn that I was trying to be supportive of hospice,
mentioning them at Rotary as a place where chaplaincy was possible.  I
was trying to win points.  She heard a calling.  Inspiration happens
within the hearer, sometimes in spite of the speaker.
    
Take today’s reading from Acts, for example.  Our passage starts,
“While Peter was saying this, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard
the word.”  This is glory enough.  But if we back up to the beginning
of the chapter, we find out that Peter is not safe and comfortable
among his own kind, the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem.  He is in
Caesarea, in the house of a Centurion, Cornelius, who fears God and
has been inspired to seek out Peter.  And those Jewish Christians who
were with Peter, the circumcised, are wondering about these Gentiles
who hear the word and are converted.
    
Here is our support.  The Holy Spirit inspires Cornelius to send men
to go and get Peter.  It inspires Peter to go with these men to
Caesarea.  It inspires him to tell them the story of Jesus, to say
what he has seen and heard.  It moved the listeners to hear and see
and be in a new way.  And even the skeptical witnesses get moved by
the experience.
    
The Holy Spirit blows where it wills, as Jesus told Nicodemus.  It
inspires all over the place.
    
Part of our fear of preaching and public speaking is that we are all
alone up here in front of God and everybody.  But that isn’t the case.
We are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, in a group of
people who are praying for you to succeed, and the Holy Spirit is a
part of the whole process.
    
So if you are worried about preaching, I simply ask again, what inspires you?
    
Maybe there is a word on your lips that if you do not speak it, it
will burn you.  Or maybe it isn’t a sermon.  Maybe you have a story
that has been put away in your desk drawer or in some folder on your
computer.
    
Maybe you have a painting that you have just somehow never gotten
around to.  Or a drawing.  Or some calligraphy.  Or some undeveloped
film.
    
Maybe you are a teacher, and a classroom is where the Holy Spirit
moves you the most.
    
Maybe working with your hands inspires you.  Building or repairing or
crafting or making or sculpting or digging in the soil of your garden.
    
Maybe you are visual.  And that sunrise that happened on that one day
when you were in that one spot needing some reminder of the glory and
grace of God made it okay to face the day.
    
What inspires you?
    
What about music?  I am not asking if you sing or play well or if you
have the discipline to practice.  That is a different question.  I am
asking about what stirs your soul and makes your spirit sing.
    
Inspiration towards the heart of the Gospel comes in hundreds of
little ways every day, and the Holy Spirit is a part of all of it.  We
have the message.  All you have to do is say what you are inspired to
say, to tell how you have been inspired, to bear witness to the love
that loves us first.
    
So what inspires you?
    
To be the people open to inspiration, to listen again for how God is
still speaking to us, is to invite people to be inspired speakers in
our midst.  It is to be open and inspired listeners.
    
And to know that this team activity has the support of the Holy Spirit.
    
Thanks be to God.
Amen.