Luke, the author of the gospel that bears his name, and the book of Acts, continues the story of Jesus and the disciples. Think of the gospel of Luke as the memoir of an early Christian. If Luke tells the story of Jesus, Acts reflects on the early days of the church. He writes to Theophilus which means "friend of God". Theophilus may be a person, or a church community, or even an attitude. Are you a friend of God? Surely, the answer is yes. Surely what has gathered us here in this room, on this warm Sunday on a holiday weekend is that we are friends of God. We are Theophilus.

As friends of God, we understand that we are a peculiar, set aside people, and we live with several identities. We are who we are by birth, family, and education, and by interest and by what excites us. We are who we are by age, race and gender, marital status, and orientation. And we are people with two other identities. We are Easter and Holy Spirit people.

We have declared and we declare still, that we are resurrection people living on this side of the empty tomb. Jesus Christ lives, and because he does, he is food and water for our hungry and thirsty souls. He is risen, and because he is, we can rise above the conflicts and confusion that besets us and move with confidence into a time of healing and hope. We are a resurrection people.

But that is not all that we are. We are people moved by the Holy Spirit, that sacred fiery, hot breath of God. We are Pentecost people and next Sunday we will celebrate the moment when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples in a way unlike anything they had seen or felt or heard before.

Jesus gives the gathered disciples a hint of what is to come when we gives them his final instructions before being taken up to heaven, and the disciples are listening to every word, they are hanging on to each syllable, and they are waiting with eager anticipation for something to happen. They are so excited they can hardly sit still. "Now he is going to let us loose on the world, now he is going to send us out to do great things in his name, now is the moment. Now, now, now". And then, Jesus tells them to wait. "Wait! No, now waiting, let’s go. Wait for what?"

We are with the disciples, "between Easter and Pentecost, in a time of expectant waiting for the Spirit. But our waiting is not empty-handed. We wait in hope…the followers of Christ know that the one who served, taught, and loved them now rules for us…there is work to be done, let the church be about that work in the meantime, secure in the promise that Jesus who was so dramatically taken from his disciples shall return to them in the same way" (Interpretation series. Acts. William Willimon. Atlanta. John Knox Press, 1988, p. 20).

Wait till the Holy Spirit comes. We know about waiting. We wait in lines, wait for the mail to come, wait for good things to happen, wait in fear as we anticipate bad news. While we wait, we are like that outfielder gazing into the sun and waiting for that high fly

ball to land safely in his glove, or the master chef as she waits for the last item on the menu to be done so that the banquet meal can be served. When our favorite team’s best running back or receiver has the ball, we scream in anticipation as he makes his way toward the goal line.

Parents know the eager anticipation of birth and adoption. Christians know the eager anticipation for Christ’s presence and blessing. The disciples know, like we know, great expectation. And we know, like they know, what it means to wait eagerly, expectedly for God to act. We have been waiting here for what seems like a long time. We can hardly wait any longer for something to happen to let us know that God loves and cares for us. When we say God wants this church to grow and thrive, and to be renewed and transformed, we want to know that we are not just whistling past the graveyard, but that God really does hear us, and really does believe in us here.

We have waited sometimes with great patience and sometimes with great anxiety. We have waited long enough to join those first disciples in asking some questions.

The disciples asked: "Lord, is this the time you will restore the kingdom of Israel (v.6)?" They were anticipating a warrior Messiah, one who would put the Roman occupiers to flight and who would strike a blow against a mighty empire. They wanted the glory days of Israel back – the reign of David, the courage of Deborah, the voice of the prophets, the glory of Solomon, they wanted their nation back from the forces that disrespected their heritage and dishonored their God. Is this the time?

We want to know, Lord, is this the time when our pews will be filled and our treasury more stable? Is this the time when hope is restored, when fear is banished, when we will feel your spirit and know that your renewing power really is in this place? Will it be like the best of what it was ever again? Is this the time?

None of us knows for sure, but I believe it can be, because I do not believe our ministry here, not yours and not mine is finished in this congregation. I do not believe that we are the leftovers of what once was, instead we are the faithful remnant, maybe even the beginning of the new thing God is doing. I know we are tired, I know some of us are feeling the heat of being burned out, I know this discernment time is difficult and that it seems unending. I know all that, because I feel it too, and I know this: The conversations we are having are good for us; the opportunity to say what we have felt for a while is good for us. Making room for God to move among us is good for us.

We will reach some conclusions, the congregation will be consulted about what we are doing, your input will be asked for, and as we work through the summer, you will know what we are doing, and by the beginning of October, there will be a plan for ministry in your hands.

Is this the time? We want it to be but Jesus says wait. Wait with eagerness for the Spirit to come. Remember John’s baptism with water, it cleansed you from your sins, it put together your broken pieces, it was soothing salve for your tender spirit’s bruises. Wait. I know you are eager, the risen Christ says to them and to us. Wait. You have a baptism coming that will change your life like nothing you have ever seen. The Holy Spirit will bathe you in wind and fire and peace and joy and courage and perseverance. It can help us let go of long clung to hurts so that we can grasp long anticipated blessings. The Holy Spirit is coming, we have felt it here already. Wait for it to come even more strongly than it already has. Wait, then go to work wherever you go, whether near or far. He talked to the disciples about Jerusalem, Samaria, and then the farthest parts of the world.

The Holy Spirit is worth waiting for Jesus says. And when it comes, we will be his people, we will tell his story, everywhere we go. How to we start? We start where we are, in our own Jerusalem. Start here in this congregation, in the neighborhood where you live, in your workplace, in your school. Then move out a little farther, into your Samaria. Volunteer at a shelter, join a group that travels, become part of a group that will take you beyond where you are comfortable, do your friends and co-workers know that you go to church, or where you go to church? Start in Jerusalem, move into Samaria, then share the good news of Jesus Christ all over the world.

That is what we do when we support the Disciples Mission Fund with our prayers and with our dollars. We support the world wide ministry of the church, we help start new churches, support colleges and universities like Hiram, and Bethany, and Chapman. We help send people to the University of Chicago and Claremont. We help to support the ministry of the Christian Church in Ohio. When natural disasters strike we are there through our Week of Compassion offering. Our Reconciliation offering helps us to declare that we are going to be an anti-racist/pro-reconciling church. Wait for the Holy Spirit, then take that Spirit with you into the world.

But we have another question: Lord, will you send us out with power and wisdom? Because we cannot do this by ourselves, Jesus says to us what he said to the disciples then. "I already have and I will always give you what you need. Remember, when you were tired, you made it though another day. When you were broken, I helped you get it together enough that you were able to get up and stay up and do what you have to do. When you were heartsick, you were not hopeless, you want God’s holy spirit, you have it now, and you will have it in abundance. "

So we wait. But, lest we get bored and dispirited while we wait, we do not wait passively, we do not wait apathetically, we do not wait as if waiting wastes our time. We wait actively. What is active waiting? Active waiting is about preparation. It is about getting ourselves ready to be led by the Spirit.

While we wait, we do. We gather for worship, we share our gifts, and energy, and time. We proclaim with all that is in us that in this place we will do all that we can to know God as fully and deeply as we can. We will build relationships as fully and deeply as we can. And we will do justice as fully and as deeply as we can. While we wait, we will do what Jesus did. When we see people in need of knowledge of God, knowledge of themselves, knowledge of what it means to be in the world, we will teach them. When we see people pushed aside because they are different, we will welcome them. When we see a stranger, we will befriend them. We will gather for worship and bask in God’s love for us and in our love for each other.

While we wait for the promised Spirit of God to come, we will be the church. In his book Credo, William Sloan Coffin tells us how to wait even when it's hard, in this world in all of its joys and disappointment, for the Spirit to come:

"What’s the point of being Christian if you don’t also know that what God withholds in the way of protection, God more than supplies in the form of support. For the world breaks God’s heart, too. No pain our spirits endure, no weakness that impairs our bodies, no grief that bows us low fails to find its counterpart in God who, as we see, in Christ suffers with and for us…Sometimes I think it’s God’s pain, not God’s peace, that passes all understandings. So come home to church, not for protection against all the travails of this earth, but rather for all the support that heaven alone can provide. Finally, come to leave. For we come to God’s house, to this open house, to find love and to defeat hate, in order that the world itself can become an open house" (William Sloan Coffin. Credo. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004. p. 137). The Spirit that keeps us will go with us into the world.

The Spirit of God that we wait for has come and will come even more powerfully. In the meantime, we wait, eagerly and actively. In the meantime we are the church of Jesus Christ called and loved and protected by God. In the meantime, we open our hearts and our arms, and our doors and see what it is God is going to do here.

"Wait God says, and you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you" (v. 8). Something wonderful is coming, wait for it, it is almost here. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Dr. LaTaunya M. Bynum
Senior Pastor