Acts 13:1-12
June 6, 2010
Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen a member of the court of Herod the ruler, and Saul. While they were worshipping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’ Then after fasting and praying they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia; and from there they sailed to Cyprus. When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. And they had John also to assist them. When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they met a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet, named Bar-Jesus. He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, an intelligent man, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and wanted to hear the word of God. But the magician Elymas (for that is the translation of his name) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul away from the faith. But Saul, also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, ‘You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? And now listen—the hand of the Lord is against you, and you will be blind for a while, unable to see the sun.’ Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he went about groping for someone to lead him by the hand. When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was astonished at the teaching about the Lord.
I had a really interesting and wonderful conversation this past Friday afternoon. I was on the phone with a classmate from high school, Kelly, who I probably hadn’t seen in over twenty years. We were talking because of an experience my cousin told me that Kelly had had four years ago. It was a story that I found inspiring, and I wanted to find out a little bit more, so I had contacted Kelly to see if she would be willing to talk with me about it. Kelly agreed, and we have a very long conversation on Friday afternoon. She gave me permission to share it with all of you, which I feel very privileged to do.
Kelly had an experience of the Spirit during one of the most tragic experiences imaginable. You see, four years ago Kelly’s son, Michael, died after a car accident, and as you can imagine it turned both her and her husband Jeff’s life around in an instant. Yet even in the midst of this tragedy, Kelly discovered one of the ways God’s Spirit can act in our lives.
When Kelly and Jeff got to the hospital in Savannah, Georgia, the doctor told them that Mike’s injuries were severe, and that there really wasn’t anything they could do for him. He asked them if it was okay to let him go. After Kelly and Jeff said that it was okay, the doctor said, “Please give us a few minutes and then we’ll come back and get you.”
You can imagine the kind of pain Kelly and Jeff were in, and Kelly found that in that moment all the words of the Bible and of traditional faith just weren’t enough. She needed something more concrete. She was thinking to herself that she wasn’t going to make it if she didn’t get some tangible sign that it would be okay, that Mike would be okay. Even though Mike had died, she was still his mother and she still needed to know that Mike was safe and that they’d be together again. As she walked into the room where Mike was laying, she experienced the Spirit.
Walking into the room behind Jeff, she was looking down, wanting so much to get a sense that everything would be okay. Suddenly, she felt as though someone had pushed her head back with the palm of a hand, even though there was no one there. Her head snapped back, and as it did she reflexively closed her eyes. The darkness of shut eyelids quickly yielded to the most brilliant turquoise she had ever seen. The color may have been turquoise, but it wasn’t a turquoise found on earth. It was the color of joy or grace or the Spirit—something beyond this world. Then she heard the sound of rushing wind in her ears, like the rushing wind when you put your head out a car window. In the wind she heard a voice, several times, saying, “Class ring!”
This all lasted about five seconds. She wondered what it meant, and then she knew. One of Mike’s proudest possessions was his class ring. He had been a really good student, and he was especially proud of graduating from high school. Kelly responded to the voice, thinking to herself, “I got it Mike.”
Kelly said to the nurse, “Can I have his graduation ring?” The nurse said that there was no jewelry on Mike when he came in. Laying on the bed, Mike had nothing on, no personal effects, yet for some reason both his hands were wrapped in plastic wrap. Kelly pointed to his hands and said to the nurse, “Get the ring!” The nurse unwrapped the hands, and was shocked to find that the graduation ring was on his finger. Taking the ring, Kelly said to Mike in her mind, “That’s it, Mike? No ‘I love you?’” But she knew that Mike was there with her. It took her a day to understand all of this, and she realized later that if she hadn’t asked for the ring, it would have disappeared when his body was cremated. Kelly experienced not only as her son’s presence in that place, but also as the Spirit’s presence.
Since that time Kelly has had over a dozen experiences that have comforted her and revealed to her that Mike is still alive with God, and that everything really is okay for him. There are still times when she is overcome with missing him, and almost always she sees a hawk—either a live one, or a picture of one—which tells her that Mike is okay. Why a hawk? It was the mascot for his school, and since Mike so identified with his school, it makes sense that it would comfort Kelly to see one.
It hasn’t just been Kelly who’s had these experiences. Her husband Jeff also has had one really significant experience. Some time after Mike had died, Jeff took his truck to a dealership for an oil change. Normally he would have stayed and waited for the thirty minutes it took, but this time he decided to leave it and come back later. When he returned, and as he went to get his car, a tractor-trailer with new cars backed right in front of him blocking his way. His eyes immediately went to one of the cars on the back, a black Z06 corvette with specialized trim and decals. He was stunned. This was the exact car that his son, Mike, had a poster of in his room. Mike had always said that one of his dreams was to get a black Z06 corvette with specialized trim. There it was in front of Jeff.
Then the truck driver released a lever and the car rolled down off the racks and rested literally right in front of Jeff’s feet. One of the managers of the dealership was standing there, and so Jeff asked him who the car was for. The manager told him that it was a very specific, special order that had taken some time to put together, but that the man ordering it had called the dealership two days ago to cancel it. Then the manager said to Jeff, “I don’t know what we are going to do with it. It’s such a specialized car that we’ll have a lot of trouble selling it.” Jeff said, “No you won’t. it’s mine. I’ll buy it.” It has become Jeff’s special connection with his son, Mike. Whenever he is really feeling the loss of his son, he gets in the car and drives. He says that he can feel Mike’s presence next to him as he drives.
As I mentioned before, Kelly says that since her initial experience with Mike’s ring she has had literally dozens of experiences of Mike and God’s Spirit. One significant experience she had was a dream in which she was with God and was able to ask questions not only about Mike, but about life, our purpose, and why things are the way they are. In this dream God revealed everything to her. She had been given all the answers to every question. When she awoke she could remember only a few answers. She knew that even though God had revealed everything, it was not God’s will that she remember everything. There are things that meant to remain mysteries to us while we are alive. What’s interesting about Kelly’s dream is that after I gave this sermon in the first service, I had several people in the congregation who had lost spouses or children (including Connie Frierson, our program director), tell me that they had had that same dream. Apparently Kelly is not alone.
Kelly’s experience is a testimony not only to the fact that there is life beyond this life, but also that God’s Spirit can act in our lives in incredibly amazing and loving ways. The fact is that the Holy Spirit wants to be in our lives and act in our lives. Our passage is testimony to that. It’s a passage about the Spirit acting in the lives and ministry of the early Christians.
Kelly’s experience of hearing wind acts as a great reminder of just how the Spirit act sin our lives. I believe that one of the best metaphors for how the Spirit acts is like the wind moving sailing ships across the ocean. The wind is always there. It is always blowing across the surface. We are like sailing ships moving across the ocean, and the question is whether or not we are willing to put our sails up to catch the wind and let it move us, or if we are like rowers, determined to move by our own powers. The wind can move us, but are we willing to let it? Are we putting up our sails, and if we are, are we putting it up in the right direction to be moved by the wind? Just because a ship puts up a sail doesn’t mean that it will catch the wind. If we open our sails with an edge to the wind, the wind just blows around the sail, doing nothing. But if a sail is put up flat to the wind, it can be blown to new and wonderful shores.
Just as a wind moves a ship, the Spirit can move us, but only if we are receptive in the right way. If we are willing to work with the Spirit, it can move us. But if we are closed to the Spirit, or are only receptive in cautious and tentative ways, the Spirit can’t do anything with us.
It’s not only important to put up our sails, but also to avoid the Doldrums. Do you know what the Doldrums are? It’s where we get the term, “feeling like we are in the doldrums” from. The Doldrums are a region of the ocean both immediately above and below the equator. It’s a humid, hot area that often gets little or no wind for days, weeks, and even months. Sailor traveling between the northern and southern hemispheres can get caught in the Doldrums, sweltering while they agonizingly wait for any wind to pick them up and move them north or south. We can get caught in spiritual doldrums, places where the Spirit cannot blow, when we live in ways that the Spirit just won’t follow. When we live cynical, skeptical, or critical lives, the Spirit won’t blow in our lives. When we engage in activities or lifestyles bereft of God’s purpose, the Spirit will not follow.
Still, if we are willing to put our sails up in the right direction, and avoid living in the doldrums, the Spirit does act in our lives. The question is, though, just how does the Spirit act in our lives? I want to share with you three basic ways. The Spirit acts in our lives through guidance, providence, and presence.
Let’s look first at Guidance. Whether we truly believe it or not, God can guide us if we choose to listen. The basic problem is that not everyone is willing to listen. In fact, I believe that few, even among Christians, are truly committed to listening for God’s voice. Why? For a simple reason: we don’t think to listen because we don’t live in a culture that encourages us to listen. We are so used to not listening that listening seems odd and even impossible. Yet just because we don’t hear doesn’t mean that God isn’t speaking. In my experience, our failure to hear God says more about how we listen than about how God’s speaks.
In fact, it’s this belief that God speaks that underlies our whole approach to ministry at Calvin Church. We’ve been very intentional about saying that we want to listen for God’s voice. For example, we do something here in the leadership of Calvin Church that is very rare in the Presbyterian Church (USA). We make decisions based on prayerful listening. And you can see it in how we vote on issues. Think about how most churches make decisions. When dealing with an issue, most church boards discuss the issue, then prepare the vote. The moderator of the board or session says, “All in favor say aye; all opposed say no.” When churches vote like that, who’s voice are they listening for? Their own. They are voting about what to do in a church and basing the decision on what they want, not what God wants. This is what I mean when I say we don’t even put up our sails, or we put them up parallel to how the wind is blowing. Here at Calvin Church, we use a different process. When making a decision we pray, and then vote using the question—whether in session, a committee, or the congregation—“All who sense this may be God’s will say aye; All who don’t say no.” This is a radical difference because we are being intentional about putting up our sails so that the Spirit can move us.
This ability to listen for God’s voice isn’t just apparent in church decisions. It can be apparent in your own life, if you are willing to listen. You won’t get a loud, booming voice from God in response. The way God often speaks is through a slight nudge or feeling of rightness or wrongness. The Spirit often speaks through subtle promptings. This is why it’s so hard to listen. The world shouts at us. God softly nudges us. But God does give us guidance, if we are open to it.
The Spirit also acts in our lives through Providence. Providence is a fancy word for grace and God’s blessings. Providence is God acting tangibly, and often amazingly, in life. Providence is simply God’s blessings that can lead to coincidences, healings, gifts of grace, and so much more. One reason we have such a strong emphasis on healing prayer at Calvin Church is that we believe in God’s providence. We believe that God can act in these miraculous ways.
You heard providence in Kelly’s story, but I found it even more in the fact that I heard the story first from my cousin Althea, who had visited Kelly two months ago. A little over a month ago I was gone for a weekend celebrating a family reunion around my father’s 80th birthday. It was at the party on Saturday night that Althea told me about Kelly’s story. And here’s even more providence: it took Kelly and me till this past Friday to connect, and that was the perfect timing for me to share it with you this morning. If she had shared it with me one or two weeks before, I would probably have forced it into my previous sermons, where it wouldn’t have quite fit. If we had waited till next week, I don’t know when I would have shared it with you. There was both providence and God’s coincidence in the timing of Kelly’s and my speaking.
Finally, God’s Spirit works in our lives through being a Presence. Sometimes God doesn’t speak to us, nor act tangibly. Sometimes God just lets us know that the Spirit is with us. That’s what you really saw in Kelly’s and Jeff’s experiences. They were blessed with a gift of the Spirit’s presence that helped them sense Mike’s presence. And they aren’t alone. I know of so many people who have ways that they can tell when God is with them.
For example, often God speaks to us through personal symbols to say, “I’m here, and I love you.” I’ve experienced this over and over with the numbers 3 and 7. It all started for me many years ago before I came to Calvin Church. I had been exercising on a machine, and struggling with questions about my future. I was praying to God and asking how long it would be before God acted. I stopped as I prayed and looked down at the odometer. It said 3.33. Since then I’ve seen that number, and other similar numbers, a lot: 733, 337, and 777. I’ll wake up in the middle of the night stressing about something, and I’ll roll over and see that it is 3:33 a.m. I’ll be driving along and praying, and see that the number on the license plate in front of me is 337. Or I’ll be watching television and look at the clock and it will be 7:33. This doesn’t happen merely every once in a while. It happens many times every week. Each time it amazes me.
I’m not alone. David Sloat, one of our members, has a similar experience with the number 444. He said that this past week his son’s bus broke down and the replacement bus was #444. He also said that for his past three jobs he’s noticed that the exchange number on the telephone number has always been 444. The area code is always different, but the exchange has always been the same.
Kelly told me that when she struggles she sees the number 11:11, or 1111. Her whole family sees it. Kelly’s older sister, Kim, attends Calvin Church and has told me that she sees it, and her daughter, Katie, now is seeing it quite often. And since I’ve preached this sermon I’ve received several e-mails from members telling me about their numbers, including one member who told me that he was having a medical procedure this week, and he looked down at the heart monitoring device and the serial number was 07003703. He said he could sense God saying, “I’m with you and it will be okay.”
The Spirit really can act in your life, but there are major questions we have to ask ourselves: Am I in a place where the Spirit can act? Am I in a state of mind and heart where the Spirit can act? Are my sails up and set for the Spirit to act?
Amen.
P.S. (I’ve looked down at the word count on my computer and the total number of words is 3333).
