Revive Us Again! In the most unlikely places… 7/27/2014 Almost everywhere I go, at least in United Methodist circles… I hear folks talking about revival. This past week in my class I taught at Hendrix College on missions, the laywoman from the state’s largest congregation, Pulaski Heights UMC in Little Rock spoke of the interest her church had in revival. Even though our resident bishop is away on vacation, statewide, people are still reading his heartfelt notes on the need for revival and how that is the key to unity in the church. It almost makes me reminisce for the good old days in the 1970’s when I was in college and heard about giant Billy Graham Crusades (as they were called back then) coming to Little Rock. If only… oh if only it were that simple. Bishop Mueller has already said as much. Revival that is a true renewing spirit that is fresh and lasting is not a flash in the pan or quick-fix program. It is not walking down some “tent-revival sawdust trail” with crocodile tears streaming down your face. If that were the case, we United Methodists would have witnessed dozens of “revivals” since we merged with other denominations to become the United Methodist church in 1968. Instead, revival comes in more hidden ways, surprising and even unexpected. Jesus speaks of it as the kingdom of heaven. And, rather than receiving reams of paper on which tons of ink are spilt,

1 we receive just tiny peeks of what that kingdom looks like. You know what I mean by peeking, don’t you? I can illustrate. I would pick up the package placed under the Christmas tree and shake it, trying to guess what it might be, when I was a little boy. Then, when I thought no one was looking, I would carefully tear away some of the brightly colored wrapping paper and take a peek. Playing hide & seek required the person who was “it” to go to some tree or corner of the barn and quote “hide” unquote your eyes and count to 50 at the top of your voice. This was always a very good game for kids growing up in the 1950’s… it helped you work on your math skills (you had to count all the way to 50) …it helped you work on developing your public speaking voice…just how far could you throw your voice in order for about 4 or half a dozen others to easily hear you counting? It certainly helped you… playing outside and not getting too entranced by the television set. It also helped you with your physical ability…for as soon as you had stopped counting, you were expected to run as fast as your little legs would carry you to try to tap those you had seen before they ran to “base” and called SAFE! But it wasn’t necessarily a game that taught you ethics… yes, even though you were, indeed, expected to hide your eyes and start counting, I don’t know anyone who played tag who actually DID so without taking a little peek here and there. I know I did.

2 Let’s take a few peeks into the Kingdom of God. These aren’t full- blown looks, mind you—they’re just little peeks that allow you to see this or that nuance of this fascinating relationship with God that Jesus called “the Kingdom.” The Kingdom of Heaven/The Kingdom of God, for Matthew it’s one and the same, but instead of publishing the actual dimensions of the relationship or codifying in absolute legality the “ins & outs” of such kingdom, Jesus takes a kind of “sneaking up on you” approach when talking about the kingdom, using parables to describe it. Parables, classically, are “earthly stories with heavenly meanings.” (p. 1458, Harper Study Bible, Harold Lindsell, Editor—Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI). So, I invite you to lower the blindfold, so to speak, or just barely open your eyes if you’re playing spiritual “hide & seek” and take some peeks into the kingdom of God and see what you see.

The Kingdom is like a grain of mustard seed… sure, it’s the smallest of all seeds, but a sower sowed it in his field and when it grew it became a great shrub in which all sorts of birds flocked to and made their nests in its branches…. That’s just what the peek reveals. And isn’t that odd about the kingdom? Tiny seeds are so small—who would have ever imagined that such great welcome and hospitality could come from such tiny seeds planted here and

3 there? Sometimes such tiny things seem so very… well, tiny—a kind word here, a smile there, you almost don’t even think about it. But could it be like tiny seeds of hope and hospitality that you plant here and there and God takes it and uses it to bring about a hospitable place for all?

Just two years ago, Bridget & Dale Kincheloe began cleaning up what looked like an old abandoned basement right below this very pulpit. Sunday School books nobody used anymore, folding chairs that were rusty and useless, old hymnals and church music that hadn’t been used since the ‘70’s were taking up space in a room that gave very easy access to Central Avenue where dozens, maybe hundreds of homeless and poor people traveled each and every day. But they didn’t know about this room, because we were all locked up tight. Zach and his muscular frame got involved, sanding down broken and beaten down old church desks and furniture, Candy and her enthusiastic Outreach Committee got involved and now, two years later, you boldly and proudly put legs, feet, hands, and open arms on your words about what you used to just call your “big holy audacious God goals” of moving into your community. And, instead, your community has moved into YOUR neighborhood and this place becomes a sacred space called Open Arms where tears are shed, confessions made, Holy

4 Communion served, and grocery bags are filled to the brim. All from those tiny mustard seeds planted, hidden, where all kinds of “birds” find shelter! Revival can come, that’s for sure!

Or, you could look at it this way, Jesus said. “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.” He didn’t have to say much else that day, certainly not to the women in the crowd, because they certainly knew about baking bread. At just the right temperature, after you’ve waited a while, with just the right ingredients, that small bundle of dough begins to rise and you put the loaf that has risen like magic when you weren’t looking—you put it in the oven and have succulent and delicious bread. That’s how it is with leaven in the loaf—that’s how the kingdom looks when you peek at it from that angle. Well… this peek’s quite a shocker though, because surely you know a typical Hebrew notion about yeast (or leaven) in general. Yeast takes time to do its work, and remembering the Exodus, time was NOT something the soon- to-be-escaping children of Israel had—they had to act fast in order to follow Moses and get away from Pharaoh. So, unleavened bread was what was used to remember the Exodus—not yeast- ladened bread that took time to rise.

5 Then the amount of flour is yet another thing… the text says “three measures.” That’s about ten gallons of flour—enough to feet 100 to 150 people! (p. 309, The New Interpreter’s Bible—New Testament Articles, Matthew, & Mark—1995, Abingdon, Nashville) Pray tell, what was this baker woman thinking? In Jesus’ imagination, telling stories about glimpses of the kingdom —little peeks into the relationship with God, what on earth does leaven (considered by most of his listeners to be a “symbol” of corruption) have to do with the kingdom and in what enormous quantities? In the telling of this story, Jesus makes it clear that Bakerwoman didn’t just knead the leaven in and mash it around— she hid it, went undercover and slipped it in while no one else was looking. The kingdom is a lot like that, he said. That which some might consider corrupt slips in here and there and after a while, given the right environment, given the right “temperature” becomes something very succulent and tasty.

Seven years ago this September, through the masterful work of Mike Lovelady, you engaged in something you’d never tried before… hosting, planning, orchestrating a contemporary worship service! Like a crafty bakerwoman, you slipped in measures of leaven in generous portions of flour, enough for a giant wedding celebration, and with the leadership of a gifted pastor who could

6 strap a guitar around his neck and sing as well as preach, you birthed a meaningful new dimension of worship and didn’t just do it once, but every Sunday, 52 Sundays a year for seven years, and it has changed your life for the better! I know that every Sunday I’m able to be in that worship service once a month, I feel like I’m getting to take a peek at what the kingdom of God looks like, kind of like the leaven in the loaf, yielding a taste of “heaven” on earth! Revival can come, that is for sure!

Well, let’s take one more peek…perhaps this angle might help you see better—A treasure is hidden in a field but it’s covered up so someone goes and buys the entire field, not knowing where the treasure really is. In order to buy the field where the treasure is, he sells everything he has and buys it and does so joyfully! The kingdom is like that? You take a peek from that vantage point and you see a longing, a yearning so great that you’d give up everything in order to find the treasure. Can it really be that important? Apparently so. Just ask Mildred Smith who first visited this church over 60 years ago when she came in from the country to attend the funeral of distant cousin. When she stepped inside this grand sanctuary, she felt a sense of awe and amazement. But that’s not where her awe and amazement stays… At my request last March, Mildred addressed the Board of Stewards in its

7 July gathering just last Sunday night. She spoke of the value of being given a second chance to acquire property right next door to the church with the opportunity to purchase the old Howard Johnson’s Hotel. Mildred made us all laugh when she admitted she was so excited she couldn’t even sleep at night—she thought of going on Face Book and asking a million people to give her a dollor! But on Mildred’s mind are the treasures in our children and future children’s children who can walk into this church and experience what she experienced more than 60 years ago when she first came here. She sees a treasure here… a pearl of great price that she believes she’d just about sell everything thing she has to enable the church to acquire it! Oh yes, Revival comes… it already has come to Mildred Smith! Could you be next?

In all these fascinating stories, it seems that “accessing” the kingdom requires some effort-it doesn’t just fall out of the sky and hit you on the head—the sower casts the tiny mustard seed, the woman slips the yeast into the bread dough, the farmer finds the treasure, maybe just by accident, but then divests himself of everything he has in order to have the wherewithal to buy the common and ordinary field where the treasure is found! Foolish things maybe, possibly insignificant things, become prisms which reflect the kingdom’s presence. I think it pays to take a

8 peek—and this summer, as we consider what it means to “revive us again,” let’s open our eyes and see the most unlikely places it is already happening! Amen. 2005 wrds

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