The Spark

In the fall of 2002, after a Friday night football game, a few of my friends and I decided that we would hang out in a field behind St. Paul’s Reformed Episcopal Church. We were back there, having a few illegal beers, when the pastor showed up with the local police. We were busted, and part of our restorative penance was to attend group educational classes down the road at a social services and counseling center called “Aldersgate.”

The point of the experience was to hopefully illuminate us to the dangers of our behavior and help us to make different decisions in the future. I was just a senior in high school at the time, and so I had no idea that one day I’d look back and laugh at what God had been up to in my life. It wasn’t until much later in my life that I learned the story of what that place named Aldersgate was named after.

On September 22, 1728 a brilliant and determined young man named John Wesley was ordained as a Priest in the Church of England, which is the mother church of both our modern Episcopal and Methodist churches. For years he faithfully preached from the pulpit in his local congregation, and when he felt there was opportunity elsewhere for the advancement of the Gospel he made trips across the Atlantic Ocean to the English colonies here in the new world.

In the midst of all of this meaningful work for God, John became more and more aware of the fact that something might be missing from his personal spiritual life. After a particularly painful experience of a love affair ending sourly in the Colony of Georgia, this emptiness inside of him grew.

In an act of grace, upon returning to England, John met with a Moravian man named Peter Bohler who was preparing to set sail to Georgia. In their conversation about ministry, it became clear that John wasn’t just struggling with heart break. John was actually missing something much more important in his life. He lacked the assurance of his own salvation.

Until now, John’s entire personal faith had been based around the pursuit of personal piety. It was all about personal pursuit of knowledge in his time at school in Oxford and strict adherence to personal righteousness. What he learned when he spoke to Peter Bohler was that his spiritual state had degraded to the point that he believed himself to be a child of wrath, entirely unable to be saved by God’s grace. But Peter opened his mind to the idea that perhaps this was off base. Perhaps what was missing from his life and his spirit was the power of community.

And so John took Peter’s advice and began to form small groups of people who would meet to repent and encourage one another in Christ. But something was still missing for John. He was moving closer, he had the working knowledge that he needed, he just didn’t quite have the one thing required to pull out of this spiritual pit he found himself in. He was like a nicely built fire — the logs properly split, the kindling sitting in just the right space with the crumpled up newspaper stuffed underneath. But there was no spark to set this thing ablaze. He was just a neatly crafted but useless relic.

After a 3 day despondent episode, on Wednesday May 24th 1738 John reluctantly wandered into a Moravian meeting place called the Fetter Lane Society on Aldersgate Street in London. They were reading from Martin Luther’s preface to The Epistle to the Romans and what happened was something miraculous. John wrote this is his journal:

About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken way my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

This moment has been celebrated as Wesley’s “Aldersgate Experience” which lit the fire that fueled Wesley’s development of the Methodist movement that has now swept the world. I can’t say that the same thing happened for me at my literal Aldersgate experience, however it was still a drop in the bucket of grace that God used to eventually change my own heart and life.

But think about that time gap. 10 years John waited for the spark of the Holy Spirit to come and light his heart and his ministry on fire. 10 long years of searching for some kind of direction, some kind of assurance that his personal faith and his ministry weren’t all for naught. And in the most unexpected way at the most unexpected time the fire was lit and the world began to change.

Spark it up

We are traveling through the Book of Acts together in this sermon series called “How to Start a Fire” which is looking at all of the elements required for the early church to spread across the world like a wild fire. So we’ve learned that before you even start a fire you’ve got to a) know that its possible and b) create space for the fire to be to breathe.

But even with all of that, we realize that we’ve only created the environment for a fire to start. There is one pivotal and deeply important thing that we need if our fire, like John Wesley’s heart, is every going to go from a nicely erected teepee of wood and materials to a useful and purpose fulfilling fire — we need a spark. We need a catalyst. Something that will change our pile of wood into a full fledged fire.

You may recall that Jesus had promised the disciples that something was coming. The Holy Spirit would come to them soon, and so he told them to go to Jerusalem and wait for it. And for 10 days after Jesus has ascended into heaven, the disciples did just that. They waited, they prayed, and they experienced the gift of community as they prepared for that which was to come. And then it came in the most unexpected way. This is the story, beginning in Acts 2 that tells us of the spark that lit the fire of the church.

Acts 2:1–12 NRSV

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”

So let’s take a step back here. The disciples are all together in the place where Jesus had told them to wait. And the strategic timing of this is incredible — God does impeccable work. They are here, in Jerusalem waiting as they were told because the day of Pentecost is coming.

Pentecost is a Jewish festival that takes place 50 Days after the passover feast. Passover is the same time that Jesus was crucified. Passover and Pentecost are both what are called pilgrimage festivals, which means that people from all over the world would make their way to Jerusalem to celebrate both. So very likely many of the people present at Pentecost are also people who were present at Jesus’s trial and crucifixion.

So all of these Jewish people are flooding into Jerusalem, people who live all over the world because of the fact that they’ve been displaced by generations of conquest, exile, and political turmoil within the Greek and Roman Empires. They speak a plethora of different languages, and God knows that the best way to speak to people is in the language of their own heart.

And its in this moment, when Jerusalem is a mixing bowl of people from around the known world, people who will soon return home to their own homes carrying a new gift — that the spark arrives. The Holy Spirit comes and fills the disciples, giving them power to leave that room in Jerusalem and preach the gospel of this king named Jesus to the world waiting outside.

And the people are amazed. What does this mean? These men are speaking to us in our own languages all at the same time? What could possibly be happening?

But not everyone was convinced, Luke makes sure we know that in the next couple of verses:

Acts 2:13–15 NRSV

But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.” But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning.

There’s always the naysayers right? Something amazing is going on and they are like “I don’t believe it. That’s not possible. What are you thinking?”

But Peter is like listen, this is the real deal. Then he goes on to quote the prophet Joel and proclaim the resurrection of Jesus from the grave to the masses. He says’s we saw him resurrected and we saw him ascend into heaven to be exalted at the right hand of God. Let all of Israel know that Jesus whom you crucified is both Lord and Messiah.

And the message is powerful — it strikes at the heart of the people like a steel blade hitting a piece of flint to create a spark.

Acts 2:37–42 NRSV

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” So those who welcomed his 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.

This small, still contained, group of people became the beginning of the wild fire. They believed, they repented, they were baptized, and the began to prepare for the work ahead by devoting themselves to two things:

The teaching and the fellowship.

Often we are really good at one of these two things. John Wesley and myself: We are really good at being devoted to the teachings of the apostles. Some people are much better at being devoted to the people part of our movement. But it takes both if we are going to build something sustainable — if we are going to start a fire that doesn’t burn up and fizzle out before reaching its full potential.

What’s our Spark?

This begs the question for us as individuals, what’s the spark that I need? Am I missing out on an aspect of this new life in Christ? Am I like John Wesley, knowing all of the things, but just not quite feeling it in my heart? Am I walking around like a well preserved tower of wood and kindling, not living up to my potential because I just haven’t found the spark needed to ignite my love for God and for my neighbors? Is there an area of my heart that I just haven’t surrendered? Am I only committed to the teaching or to the fellowship rather than both?

But Acts is about the community of faith. So I ask you, as a church — what’s the spark that we’re waiting for, or what’s the spark that’s happened? I’m pretty sure the spark has already occured and we are currently in a time where we’ve got to figure out where to direct our fire, but what do we need to be fueling this new burning fire with? Well I’m quite certain it’s the same thing that the first church fueled theirs with: Dedication to the teachings of the apostles and to the fellowship of the community.

If we double down on our devotion to scripture and to worship while also focusing in on building up our own community I believe that we will be able to fan the flames of this fire. I believe we have opportunities if we are willing to take small risks and to step out of our comfort zone just a bit.

The story of Acts is going to continue in unexpected ways as the apostles couldn’t have known what was going to happen next. We don’t know what’s going to happen next, but I promise you that it’s going to be good because God is up to something big here. We all feel it. There is a strange warming around this place, God is on the move. It’s time for us to embrace it and see where the Spirit leads us.