Bible Text:

“So those who welcomed his (Pentecost) message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”                                                                                (Acts 2:41-42)                                         

A colleague of mine shares his struggle to make connection with a credit card company using a voice mail phone system. The call went something like this. “Hello, this is your automated customer service center. To continue this message please press your account number on your touch-tone phone.” He punched. “Thank you. For account balance verification, please punch 1. To make a withdrawal, please punch 2. To question a charge, please punch 3. To determine credit limit, please punch 4. To speak with a customer service, please punch 5. To hear these instructions repeated, please punch 6.” He punched 5. “Thank you. To speak with a representative, please punch in your mailing zip code.” He punched. “Thank you. To speak to a representative about additional features of your card, please punch 1. To report a lost or stolen car, please punch 2. To ask a service representative about Christmas cash, please punch 3. To hear these instructions repeated, please punch 4. To speak to a representative about any other problem, please punch 5.” He punched 5. “Thank you. You have missed our regular service hours. If you would like to have your call returned, please punch 1. If you would like…” You know the drill.[i]

 At least four pieces of mail each week invite me to enroll with some new credit card company. There is an amazing array of lures. Some of them advertise “no fee.” Some say no interest or low interest for at least 6 months. Some offer a variety of special point accumulations toward free gifts.  

I am also intrigued by the description of the cards. You may get a bronze card, a silver card, a gold, or now a platinum card. I even had an offer recently for a premium platinum card. 

One credit card company has the same slogan with every offer. You may recognize it. It says, “Membership has its privileges.” That is to say, you will be in an elite group if you carry this card. You will be a highly privileged consumer.

 I thought about that phrase for a while in relation to the church. Does membership here have its privileges? Do you have special privileges because you belong to Christ Church? I know the Discipline says that members can vote on mortgage and financial issues. Is that a privilege? Does that count?

 Do our 37 new confirmands from 2 weeks ago have new privileges now that they officially belong? Can those persons who will join this church three weeks from today anticipate new privileges?

 Think with me for a while about that question. This is Pentecost Sunday, the birthday of the church. Pentecost was celebrated in the Jewish culture 50 days after Passover. It was comprised of 7 weeks, or a week of weeks. Easter became the equivalent of Passover for the Christian community. Therefore Pentecost came 50 days after Easter. (Today is 50 days after Easter.) 

On this day 2000 years ago, the church was born. We are heirs of that event. We are rememberers and members of that day.

 So what about it? Does membership have privileges? In a way, the answer is “yes.”

THE PRIVILEGE OF COMMUNITY

 For one thing, there is the privilege of community. Community is a deeply nourishing word today. When we established the vision statement of this church a few years ago we discussed specific words long and hard. Should we say we are an open and hospitable church? Should we say we are an open and hospitable congregation? We finally decided we would say we were a community.

 Most of us long for and need true community. A survey was taken by the University of Maryland a few years ago. They listed 200 normal human activities and asked people to rate them as to their importance and enjoyment. Church got an 8.5 on a scale of 10. It wasn’t as high as sex; it was higher than television. We know we need community.

 It is very hard to keep the fragile flame of faith alive in isolation. Many people have tried. Few succeed. 

Barbara Brown Taylor tells the story of a 97-year-old friend who had a very weak short-term memory but a very excellent long-term memory. She told Barbara of a time when she was a child, when she and her girlfriends decided to climb up Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. However, as the day went on they stayed too long. Darkness and fog came on quickly. There were no flashlights (perhaps flashlights had not even been invented then), so they ended up holding each other’s wrists and moving down the mountain in a human chain. They sometimes debated the path they should follow, but the one thing they did not do was let go of each other. The woman concluded her story with something like this, “Sometimes all I could see was the hand behind me and the hand in front of me. We made it by holding onto one another.”

 Privilege—often unrecognized—is given in community.

THE PRIVILEGE OF DURABILITY

 There is also the privilege of durability. The liturgy says the church is of God and shall be preserved until the end of time. That’s a long time. Jesus said, “On this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (See Matt. 16:18.) That’s a pretty secure promise. In spite of unfaithfulness, in spite of lack of vision, in spite of lethargy at times, the church survives.

 The father of a little girl was prone to do a great deal of traveling in his business. Each time he returned from a trip he brought his daughter something special from the airport or from the city where he had been visiting. Typically, however, what he brought was not very durable. It often lasted only a few days to a few weeks. One day as he was about to leave for another trip, his daughter said to him, “Daddy, this time when you come home, bring me something that lasts forever.”

The church has the privilege of durability.

 John Ed Mathison, who was here for our Large Membership Initiative and who is pastor of a large church in Montgomery, Alabama, walked into a Sunday School class one day holding a scale model of the church. It was a small and he was able to hold it in his hands. As he talked with the children for a while, one child said, “Be careful there, Mr. Preacher. That’s our church you’re holding in your hands.” The implication was that the church was fragile. 

Scripture says the church is not fragile. It is often vulnerable, but not fragile. It is a privilege to be a part of something that lasts and lasts.

THE PRIVILEGE OF HOPE

 A third privilege is the privilege of hope. I have always believed that the local church was God’s best hope for the world. That’s why I never wanted to be a bishop or a district superintendent or the head of a general agency of the church. That’s why, when I got a call a few months ago to consider taking up a teaching position in one of our seminaries, I turned it down. I don’t think I will ever regret my decision to stay with the local church for the entirety of my lifetime. I believe that the local community of believers is the most significant and hopeful entity on earth.

 I also know that hope is a somewhat scarce commodity today. Two cowboys were out on the range, herding their group of buffalo. One of them said to the other, “These buffalo are the dirtiest, smelliest, ugliest creatures on the face of the earth.” Whereupon one buffalo turned to the other and said, “I thought out here we weren’t supposed to hear a discouraging word.” 

Discouragement abounds today in many quarters. To be a believer and a member is to celebrate hope. After 9/11, churches filled for many weeks. The crowds were not in desperation, but in hope. One of the writers in the New Testament says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope.” (I Peter 1:3)

 Paul combines the hope and Pentecost in this way, “May the God of all hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13) 

Teihard de Chardin says, “The future belongs to those who give it the greatest hope.” We are given hope in and for the church.

 So, membership has its privileges. But wait a moment. Isn’t membership more than a privilege? Does not membership ask something of you and me as well? The privilege of membership brings with it some responsibility.

SHARE YOUR FAITH

One of those responsibilities is to share your faith. Share your faith with the unchurched, or the marginally churched, or the nominally churched persons.

 There’s a wonderful story of two men in the New Testament named Philip and Nathaniel. Philip was a follower of Jesus. Nathaniel was a seeker. Philip invited Nathaniel to come and meet Jesus. He said in effect, “I have found the one whom I believe we have all been looking for. His name is Jesus, and he is from Nazareth.” Nathaniel responded, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip’s simple reply was, “Come and see.” (See John 1:41-51.)

 Note there was no heavy theology, and no religious language—just “come and see.” There was no fast talking and no buttonholing—simply “come and see.”

 If you believe that Jesus is the center of what life is about (as I do), and if you believe that God has made reality known to us in the person of Jesus (as I believe), why not say to somebody you meet this week, “Come and see.”

 There is a statistic out there that says the average United Methodist invites someone to church once every 14 years. We laugh at that a bit—but when was the last time you shared your faith with someone?

 The issue is not numbers, or how fast the church can grow. We are beyond that issue today. The issue is the need to witness. You talk with folks all around you every day who hunger to believe.

USE YOUR GIFTS
 

The second responsibility is to use your gifts—your spiritual gifts. Pentecost is the right Sunday to raise this issue again. We are to share our faith and to use our gifts. God asks, invites, urges, and prompts you to use your gifts.

 A friend of mine in Michigan tells how, in one week, one couple left his church because they said it wasn’t spirit-filled, and another couple joined his church because they said it was spirit-filled. What does that mean? One definition of a spirit-filled church is a durable community of hope where spiritual gifts abound and are used.[ii]

 Each of you has at least one gift. That gift is given by God, by the Holy Spirit. Some of you know your gifts. Some of you are just now learning them. A few of you are skeptical. Scripture is not skeptical. Since Pentecost, every believer is given an array of gifts.

 Some of those gifts include administration, leadership, helping, mercy, encouragement, creative communication, and many others. The gifts are not given to be hoarded or hidden or held on to. They are not given to be simply acknowledged and enjoyed. They are given to be used. 

And here’s possibly the best part. You will find a deep peace in using your gifts. That’s another part of the privilege. You are more fulfilled and more in touch with the presence of God when you use your gifts. I know that is true. It’s been true for me, especially for the past 15 years.

 Bill Easum wrote these words while he was still pastoring a church in Texas.

Christians are encouraged to discover their God-given spiritual gifts. They are set free to develop the creative gift God has given them. In many cases, they will stay with one or two gifts all of their lifetime. Very few people burn out. Instead they find meaning and purpose for their lives, as well as build up the body of Christ.

 That’s quite a promise. It’s a privilege that grows out of a promise.

 Does membership have its privileges? You bet it does. We have the privilege of community, of durability, and of hope. But we have a call as well. There is a call that comes beyond privilege. We are called to share our faith and to use our gifts.

 Celebrate the privileges with me today. Then exercise your membership responsibility. Make Pentecost come alive here in the year 2002.