Empowered for Mission – Acts 2:1-13

Welcome to Holy Hilarity Sunday! Let’s bring a little holy madness into our Presbyterian order. It’s OK if we never want to do this again. But let’s try it. And let’s give God credit for a sense of humor. Let’s celebrate God’s love for the unexpected. Let’s not be like Pharisees who couldn’t get it when God’s Messiah turned out to be someone like Jesus of Nazareth! When better than Pentecost to celebrate? After all, people were so joyful in the Spirit that others thought they were drunk! If we’ve been empowered for mission, at least part of our equipping is a sense of humor. And what better way than humor to increase our joy—in worship & as we go about our mission to witness? Happy Holy Hilarity Sunday to you! For the pastor stories, I’m indebted to Rev. Troy R. Brady, 1906-1999. He says they’re true—many from his family history. And they’re all set in the context of mission & witness.

Sometimes, the hardest part of witness can be bringing up a subject. Humor can help us do that. For example, if we need to gently encourage someone to witness, try this story. Presbyterians sent many missionaries to the backwoods & isolated cabins in `cricks & hollers’ of the Appalachians. One rode up to a trapper’s shack. From the safety of his horse, he called out, “Hello, the house.” A dirty woman came to the door & answered, “Git down, stranger. Come on in.” Once inside, he introduced himself. “I’m a Presbyterian missionary.”

“Never heard of 'em.”             So he asked, “Do you have a Bible?”

“What’s that?”            “It’s a book. I have some in my saddlebags. I’ll give you one.”

‘Ain’t no use. I can’t read.”                “Are there any Presbyterians around here?”

“Not as I know of. But my man’s a trapper. If there’s any hereabouts, he’s probably caught one. You kin look out on the back of the cabin. He’s got all kinds of hides out thar.” No one we witness to could be any more difficult than this! So how hard could it be?

Maybe we need to break the ice. Try a story like this. Pastor Harry Miller was once a circuit riding preacher. He drove a 2-horse rig so he could give rides to people walking to his churches. As he drove to one home, a small boy said, “Preacher is both of them horses yours?” “Yes, son, they are.” he replied. Said the boy, “That’s funny. Pop said you was just a one-horse preacher.” With a story like this, they’ll know we aren’t taking ourselves too seriously!

Another story about Pastor Miller could help us encourage someone to do the right thing. One of his members started opening his store on Sundays. Pastor visited. Said the store owner, “Pastor, you know what the Bible says about the ox falling in the ditch.” Pastor Miller retorted, “Yes, but if my ox fell in the ditch every Sunday, I’d either shoot the ox or fill up the ditch!”

Do we need a way out of an embarrassing situation? A story like this could help. Rev. Dr. J. M. Knight was another saintly man of God. As a pastoral intern, he preached in a tiny church in the eastern TN mountains. He had to go by train. On his 1^st trip, several college students rode with him. One girl especially interested Dr. Knight. He chatted with her until they reached his station. When he got off the steps, a barefoot, overgrown, teen-age boy in a straw hat, too-short overalls & a blue denim shirt was there to meet him. The boy asked, “Be you the preacher?”

Dr. Knight hustled him around the corner before the students on the coach got sight of him. The boy led him to a little burro with a saddle. The boy said, “You ride. I’ll lead.”

He knew how his new friends on the train would yell if they saw him riding the burro. So, he delayed. He kept hoping the train would pull out. Finally, the boy said, “We better go, Preacher. We’ll be late for church.”

Reluctantly Dr. Knight climbed up on the burro. He asked the boy to hand up his suitcase & hung it on the horn of his saddle. He then opened his umbrella & pulled it down over his ears, trying to hide from the group on the train. The boy led his tiny procession out onto the street. The engine was taking on water, so the train remained stationary. When the college crowd saw this odd parade, a loud cheer went up from the coach!

The boy led him down the long street toward the river. It was Sunday afternoon. Families sat on their front porches. Some laughed openly at such a sight. But when they finally reached the river, the boy said, “I be lost! I didn’t come in this way.” Back they went up that long street, to more laughs from the folks on their porch swings & rockers.

Dr. Knight said that it was then he knew what humiliation really meant.

We may be embarrassed, but maybe our cause wasn’t quite as great as his! But maybe it isn’t embarrassment but anxiety where our witness is needed. Maybe those who serve in worship are anxious about all the things that could go wrong. Surely stories like this pair could make the current situation seem not so bad!

In those early days, churches held revivals in the summer. The roads were too muddy in winter. This same Dr. Knight started a series of meetings at his tiny country church. His church was too small to have side aisles. Homemade benches lined the side walls, leaving a small center aisle. They received the offering in a velvet bag, sewn onto a small hoop on the end of a long pole.

Just in time for the service one evening, a tall, skinny, barefoot mountaineer came in. He was almost 7-feet tall! The church was almost full, so he had to sit on the front pew. Dr. Knight noticed he was chewing a large wad of tobacco. When offering time came, the usher started in back. The young preacher waited in dread anticipation. What would he do when the little velvet bag was thrust under the man’s nose? As the ushers worked their way to the front, his dread deepened. Finally, the moment came. The bag was thrust under the man’s nose. Very loudly, he said, “N-no, thanks, b’lieve I kin holder till I git outside.”

At the altar call, the tall man came forward. He knelt at the altar, bare feet sticking up behind him. Now there was a blind man in the congregation who had great power in prayer. Others led him up to kneel beside the barefoot mountaineer to pray for him. He placed his hand on the tall seeker’s head & prayed. His hand tired, & he lowered it, encountering the mountaineer’s two bare heels. Then, he prayed “Lord, bless the two ‘little fellers’ who came along to the altar with this man.” Suddenly, technical problems in worship don’t seem so bad!

But maybe we need a gentle reminder that we’ll all answer for our actions. Try this story about another elderly pastor, who was a noted glutton. He’d eat 3 times as much as anyone else. At an “all-day meetin’ & dinner-on-the-ground,” he ate too much & got deathly ill. He went inside the church building & laid down on one of the pews. As folks gathered around him, he said, “Friends, I think I’m going to die.”

“Brother, you wouldn’t be afraid to die, would you?”

“He replied, ‘No, but I’d be awfully ashamed to!”

In our witness, do we need a gentle way to introduce the topic of money? Many years ago, 2 men were shipwrecked, & then stranded on a desert island. One loudly voiced his displeasure. Kicking the sand, he yelled, “How could this happen?!” The 2^nd man curled up under the palm tree & fell asleep. This angered the 1^st castaway even more. He woke the sleeper & asked, “How can you sleep???” The sleeper replied, “It’s okay. I make $10,000 a week.” The 1^st man interrupted, “What good will that do you out here?” If possible, he was even angrier. The relaxed man continued, “You didn’t let me finish. I make $10,000 per week. I’m a regular churchgoer. And I tithe faithfully. When Sunday rolls around, one way or another, my pastor WILL find me!” (See me after service if you’d like to arrange this rescue plan.)

If in our witness we need to introduce a conversation about eternal life, maybe a story like this next one can help.

Pastor H. L Koontz was pastor in Elkins, W. Va. A farmer in his area was convinced the Lord was returning, soon. When the day came, Farmer wrapped himself in a white sheet for a robe, climbed the highest hill on his farm, & waited for the Lord’s coming.

At midnight, to be even closer to heaven, Farmer climbed onto a haystack on the hill. After an all night vigil, he was very sleepy. Some mischievous boys had followed him to the hilltop. When the sun rose, it shone so warmly that Farmer fell fast asleep. That’s when those boys set fire to the haystack.

Startled awake, the farmer cried, “Judgment Day! And me in Hell, just as I feared!”

But what if we need to witness about Christian married life? Maybe another story about Pastor Koontz could help. His manse in Elkins was near the court house. So he was often called on for weddings. One older man had had lived with a woman for years & years. They had several grown children. Finally, they asked for Social Security benefits & found out they had to be married. So he stopped to ask if Pastor Koontz would marry them. Pastor did, a few days later.

About a year later, Koontz saw the man on the street & asked about the marriage. The man said, “I divorced her.” Pastor Koontz was surprised. The old man shook his head sadly. “She was a good woman till I married her.”

Do we need to witness about anger? Open with these stories. Pastor James Reed tells of a man who was noted for his stubbornness & bad temper. He wouldn’t go to church. But he took his wife in the buggy, each Sunday. One morning he had trouble hitching the horse. So he grabbed an axe & cut the spokes out of the buggy wheels. When he was through, his wife took the axe & did the same thing to his farm wagon. He asked, “Why’d you do that?”

She answered, “Same reason you cut the buggy wheels.” It almost cured him. He kept his temper for almost 6 months. During that time, he planted a patch of oats. But after he cut them, it rained every time he tried to take them in. By the time they were dry enough, they were black from mildew. He & the boys got them on the wagon. Finally, they were ready to start to the shed. The old man heard thunder & said, “Huh! Brewin’ for another oats patch, are ye? I’ll just fix you.” He struck a match & set fire to the oats, burning up wagon & all.

The boys unhitched the mules from the wagon in time to prevent total disaster. He looked for his hatchet. Unfortunately, the boys had loaned it to a neighbor. The more he looked, the madder he got. He was boiling mad by the time a neighbor boy brought back his hatchet. He threw the hatchet down a 35-foot deep well. “Next time I want ya I’ll know where to find ya.”

One winter morning this stubborn, angry old man got out of bed barefoot. He began to stir the ashes out of an old wood stove. A red-hot coal rolled out & lodged between his big toe & the 2^nd one. He just set his foot up on the hearth rim of the stove & said, “Fry, dadburn ye, fry!”

Need to talk about community (or its lack)? Try this story. Pastor Carder’s congregation had a farewell party when he was leaving. As they were passing in line to shake his hand & tell him goodbye, one dear sister very tearfully said “Brother Carder, we hate to see you go. You can’t preach a lick, but we love you just the same!” (Wonder why he was leaving?!)

Maybe you need to witness about integrity—walking the talk. Try a story like this. While in seminary, Pastor Carder’s landlord’s wife was a member of a sect that believed you can’t sin after being saved & sanctified. Once, she got angry at a neighbor. So she told her neighbor, “I can lay my religion down, give you a good going over, & then pick my religion up & put it back on again! Now Pastor Carder also worked as a night watchman at an iron foundry. An old black gentleman was its janitor. When Pastor Carder told him what the woman said, the old black gentleman replied, “I call that “spigot” religion. You can turn it on & off whenever you want to.”

Or maybe we need to witness about providence. Lead in with a story like this. An elderly lady was well-known for her faith & for her boldness in talking about it. She’d stand on her front porch & shout “PRAISE THE LORD!” Next door to her lived an atheist. He got so angry at her proclamations he’d shout, “There ain’t no Lord!!”

Hard times set in on the elderly lady. She stood on her porch & shouted “PRAISE THE LORD. GOD, I NEED FOOD!! PLEASE LORD, SEND ME SOME GROCERIES!!” The next morning, she found a large bag of groceries on her porch. She shouted, “PRAISE THE LORD.”

Her neighbor jumped from behind a bush & said, “Aha! I told you there was no Lord. I bought those groceries. God didn’t.”

The lady started jumping up & down & clapping her hands & said, “PRAISE THE LORD! God not only sent me groceries, God made the devil pay for them. Praise the Lord!”

God has a sense of humor. We know because we, too, enjoy humor. If we have God’s Spirit, we won’t be moping around. We’ll be about His mission. And we’ll be joyful. Others may even think we’ve been drinking. That’s what others thought that 1^st Pentecost.

Why joy? Why holy hilarity? We’ve been empowered for mission. And our ability to bring joy & humor is part of that empowerment. Today, we’ve modeled a way any of us could witness—and share Christ’s joy. Can we tell a story? Then we’ve been empowered for mission.