Sunday 07/08/12 RWJ/Pottersville UMC
Sermon: “The Democracy of the Dead:
Listening to the Saints who went before us”
Scripture Lesson: 2 Corinithians 12:2-10
Gospel Lesson: Mark 6:1-13
Good morning brothers and sisters! I greet you in the name our risen Lord and savior Jesus Christ! Once again, my name is Pastor Paul Winkelman, and if I didn’t meet you last Sunday it’s a pleasure to be here with you in worship this morning.
With that said, this morning I am continuing my five week series on how I think our local United Methodist Churches and our larger denominational United Methodist Church can get back to its historical Wesleyan roots. This does not mean that this specific church is doing anything wrong; rather this sermon is just a reminder of our historic Christian faith.
I can imagine when some of you looked at this sermon title that you might have thought “this new minister is going to be talking to us about dead people.” Well I don’t know about this! And since it says the democracy of the dead in the sermon title, you might have thought that I was going to preach this morning on George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or John Adams. While the founding fathers of our nation are not the main focus of this message, the focus is on all those followers of Christ who came before us. After all, it is estimated that Christ was crucified on or around 33A.D. So for almost 2,000 years we have had people who have followed Christ. The earliest Christians often referred to themselves just as “The Way,” meaning that they were following the “Way of the Lord.” According to the book of Acts in the New Testament, the church in Antioch was the first church to adopt the name “Christians,” which was likely 10-20 years after Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. Even the Apostle Paul was sometimes in scripture given the title of Christian. In fact, in Acts 26:28 King Herod Agrippa II (who was the seventh and last king) of the family of “Herod the Great.” replied to the Apostle Paul, "Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?" So since our faith is centuries old, we can then think of the multiple generations of Christians who have come before us. In our churches today, we could have as many as four generations of Christians present at one time. You could have great grandparents, grand parents, children, and grandchildren all in one church together. I have yet to see five generations, so let me know if you see that! I would really be interested in that!
My own personal faith in Jesus Christ has been nurtured by people from my generation, my parent’s generation, and my grandparent’s generation. Many of these people of course are my friends and family members. As some of you are sitting here today, you can probably think of people from your grandparent’s generation and your great grandparent’s generations. In doing this, you can think about their Christian faith, what they believed in, and there contribution to this and or other churches. We realize that this church and all churches exist because the saints of this and other churches, who went before us, said “Yes Lord, I will serve you!” In fact, if we look around this church, we can realize that every pew, every hymnal, every wooden board, and everything in the construction of this church was made possible because the saints before and saints present here today said “Yes Lord, I will serve you!”
An example of an older living saint is my grandfather Harold Winkelman, who was born in 1922, and is 90-years old. Or he says, “I’m no spring chicken.” When my grandfather was young he used to plow farm fields with horses and metal plows. His family finally did get a tractor in his later teens, but I can imagine how hard it was plowing those fields with those horses. He told me once that his father bought their first car when he was teenager, which was an old Model T-Ford. You know the ones you had to hand crank to start!
My grandfather has taught me a lot about faith, and about being a faithful church going Christian. My grandfather also, like any good German has been a lifelong Lutheran, unlike his wayward Methodist Pastor grandson Paul Winkelman. My grandfather Harold’s father was also a Lutheran, as was his grandfather. In fact, my family as far as I have been able to research, have been Christian all the way back and far beyond when my family came over from Germany, and the other half of my family came over from Poland. So just in my own family then, we have a generational tradition going back centuries long, of various strong Christian faith traditions. We might have been or continue to be different Christian denominations, but for hundreds of years my family has believed in and followed Jesus Christ, for we are all Children of the living God. Continue thinking about your own families for a minute, with the framework I described for my family, if you are able to so. Think of your family heritage and history. How long has your family been Christian? Has it been 100 years? Has it been a 1,000 years? Has it been 1,500 years? Has it been longer? We all also realize that much like the Apostle Paul in this morning’s scripture reading, that we all have our thorns in our sides, and that we all struggle through this journey of faith and life together as a faith family. We realize that faith isn’t always easy and that sometimes we struggle with our faith. We realize like our gospel reading this morning, that Jesus healed in his time, and continues to heal now. We know that the path of faith and life was not easy for those who went before us either, and if anything it was probably harder.
So this then brothers and sisters, this is the Christian democracy of the dead. If the original parishioners of this church as well as the first few founding ministers of this church were here this morning, what would they to say to us today? Would they say “well done good and faithful servants?” Or would they say “Dear Lord this is not what our founder John Wesley had in mind.” Would they say, “Keep it up brothers and sisters?” Or would they say “what have you done to God’s church?” While we obviously could not actually bring back all of these folks, imagine if could bring a cross section of them back throughout our Christian history. What if we had a large building to bring them all into, perhaps in Glens Falls, and what if we were all present to? What if we were gathering to talk about our faith, our church, and how we reach people for Jesus Christ? Imagine if we had John Wesley our founder, Christians who have attended this church, and have now passed on to glory? What would happen in that meeting?
You see, when we are looking at revitalizing our United Methodist Church in the present day, and are looking at our historical Methodist roots and heritage, should we not ask these questions? Should we not consider the voices of the Christian democracy of the dead? Shouldn’t we consider those before us, who paved the road for faith with their blood, there sweat, and there tears?
Don’t get me wrong our Christian brothers and sisters who have gone before us are alive in heaven, but not here on earth. We can’t actually have this conversation. Unfortunately brothers and sisters there are not post cards from Glory! There are no e-mails glory, no twitter accounts from glory, no cell phones text glory. I have never heard some who passed on to Glory texting someone still alive on earth and saying “Hey it’s a great day in heaven, how’s earth today?” We then have to study the saints who went before us to see their faith. To see that it has been passed down intact for generations. To see that they probably believed in the power of the bible, the saving grace found in Jesus Christ, and that he is coming back again one day!
The Christian democracy of the dead, those past saints who paved the way for us. Those Christians who built this church, funded this church, and for those Christians who paid the ultimate price for Jesus Christ. And don’t think brothers and sister that only the early Christians were martyred left and right, as I have learned in my seminary studies that this past century of the 1900’s, we have had more Christian martyrs than all the previous centuries combined. But this I know this, if Saint Francis Asissi, the Apostle Peter, Saint Thomas Aquinas, John Wesley, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Billy Graham, Mother Theresa, you, your parents, me, and billions of other Christians then and now believe in our faith, then guess what it probably true isn’t it?
I would like to close today with a story. I am sure at this point; you all realize that I like to tell stories. This is a story about a pastor who took his son and his son’s best friend fishing off the coast of Maine. It might not have been Maine as I cannot remember, but when I heard this story the first time, I was told that it was a true story. As the story goes, one Saturday early in the morning a pastor took his son and his son’s best friend out fishing off the coast of Maine, about 1-2 miles out. The pastor had a fairly large fishing boat, and they had a wonderful time. They laughed, they caught a lot of fish, and the pastor and his son talked about God. This made the pastor’s son’s best friend uncomfortable, as he did not know the Lord. As the day continued, all of the sudden in the early afternoon, black clouds rolled in. Suddenly it seemed that the heavens opened with rain, and while the Pastor had started to head back to shore, he didn’t get far. The rain pounded the fishing boat, the winds came, and the storm grew terrible quickly. Suddenly, despite the pastor’s best efforts, a wave and blast of wind toppled his boat. The pastor having had tons of experience with boats, quickly swam to the capsized boat, and wiggled his way to the floating portion of the overturned boat.
Once he did this, he began shouting for his son and his son’s best friend. Remember it is a terrible and awful storm at this point. Then the man saw faintly, one set of arms near one side of the capsized boat, and another set on the other. The man yelled for both boys to swim to the capsized boat. It seemed though in the violence of the storm, neither of them could quite get to the boat. As the pastor panicked for a minute, he realized that the two boys would not make it much longer in the water. Realizing that his son knew Jesus, he leaped off the overturned boat, and grabbed his son’s best friend. He grabbed the best friend, and then got back to the capsized boat. He put the best friend on the floating surface of this overturned boat. He then immediately set his sights on his son, while at this point exhausted and almost out completely of energy. The pastor noticed that his son was some 10-20 feet away from the boat now. He shouted to his son to swim. The pastor though, realizing that he would never be able to swim to his son and bring him back alive, without drowning himself realized what was likely about to happen. Realizing this, with tears in his already soaked face, he said goodbye son, I love you, and I’ll see one day soon. As the pastor was grieving his son was drowning, and he and his son’s best friend clung to the capsized boat, for some 2-hours. Finally the storm ended, and the pastor and his son’s best friend were rescued by a Coast Guard boat that had gotten a report of a capsized fishing boat caught in the storm. As was expected the pastor’s son did not make it. It was a tough funeral, and the pastor’s son’s best friend stayed great friends with the pastor and grew up and moved away. One day many years later this story was being told to a church congregation like this one, and after the service a few of the parishioners said to the pastor. “You know pastor, this is a good story and all, but do you think that you should be making up stories like this for a sermon?” The pastor said, “I did no such thing.” The parishioners said, “then whom were you speaking of in the story pastor.” The pastor said, “I was speaking of me, because the father’s son was and is my best friend.”
And on this day if you don’t know the Lord, or if you feel that your faith has grown cold, I invite you to ask the Lord of life to fill your heart on this day. Ask Jesus Christ for forgiveness, call upon on the Holy Spirit, and be changed by the grace and mercy of almighty God! For when you put your faith and trust in him, he will raise you up on wings like eagles!
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