Pray and Persevere 12- Pray and Act Romans 12:1-8 Acts 27:1-4, 9-12 - 37 August 21, 2016 Rally Day - 14th Sunday after Pentecost Dr. Edwin Gray Hurley This is a great and momentous day for William Jacob Hightower. Today he has been claimed by God’s grace through baptism. Today he has been washed, and he has been welcomed, by God and by us, as Jill and Daniel have renewed their promises of personal faith in the Triune God and Jesus Christ our Lord, and as we have made our promise to support Jacob through the ministries of the church as he grows in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Today Jacob has been launched on a life-long journey. Today his journey of faith has begun: the pilgrimage that will take him through this passing earthly life and on to his eternal destination that is ours in Christ. All this began today in Jacob’s baptism. A few years ago another family stood at this font. Jeramy and Jerri Stephens were presenting their children for baptism. Their oldest son, Riley, was about three years old. As soon as the water splashed over his head, he declared loudly, “I’m wet!” Then as I took him in my arms and we were about to march out through the congregation, I know, I know, your favorite part of the sacrament, little Riley Stephens looked out at you, raised his arm, pointed his forefinger and commanded, “Let’s go!” “I’m wet! Let’s Go.” It is a good summary of what we are about today as a congregation. For today is a great and momentous day for us all, as we renew our life of faith this Rally Day, following the slower wandering pace of summer. Our text today from Acts emphasizes what we have been noticing throughout this book of the Church’s beginnings and spreading, and what we are undertaking with renewed intensity and confidence at SHPC, and that is prayer. This summer we have been seeing how central prayer plays in enabling the spreading of the Good News about Jesus, and how God through prayer uses diverse people and situations to work his will. Today’s story is no exception. It is an action-packed, danger- filled adventure story of deliverance from the sea. In 2009 Capt. Chesley Sullenberger heroically landed the U.S. Air jet flight 1549 near LaGuardia into the Hudson River in the middle of New York City, safely guiding it down 2000 feet from the skies after the jet engines failed when a flock of geese got sucked into them, saving all 155 souls. In mid first century A.D. a Jew from Tarsus named Paul, himself a prisoner bound for trial before Caesar, guided his ship through prayer and encouragement amid a devastating storm, calling upon and receiving Divine assistance, and saving all 276 persons. 2 The Bible is filled with stories of disaster and deliverance at sea. Throughout history the sea has been a symbol both of danger and deliverance. Just ask the people of Baton Rouge about the destructive power of water when it gets beyond its bounds. The church itself has been likened, through these 2000 years to a boat of safety, like Noah’s ark, that secures and protects and guides, carrying us through the dangerous waters of this life. Look at the ceiling of this sanctuary. Can you see that it forms the hull of a boat? We in this church are a boat, an ark of God’s making and God’s keeping, sailing through the dark and dangerous waters that surround us. The sea symbolizes chaos, evil, destruction, devastation. “All is lost.” At the end of the Revelation with the coming of the new heaven and new earth, this verse – “And the sea was no more.” No more chaos, danger, evil. “All is found.” Paul is the dominant figure in this story. Paul is no pilot, not particularly known as a sailor but rather as a tent maker. Paul is a prisoner in chains. Yet, Paul points those on board to the key, the lynch-pin of deliverance, prayer. Paul receives God’s message through an angel in the context of prayer, Prayer: “Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before the emperor; and indeed, God has granted safety to all those who are sailing with you.” Prayer: as they are fearful in the storm of running up on rocks; “they let down four anchors from the stern and prayed for day to come.” Prayer, after 14 days suspended in the dark stormy sea with no food; “‘Take some food’ … After he had said this, he took bread; and giving thanks to God (prayer in the presence of all, he broke it and began to eat. Then all of them were encouraged and took food for themselves.”i What is going to guide you and sustain you, renew you in your life, at school, at work, in your neighborhood, and keep you strong and vital in your faith? Prayer. Through prayer Paul is guided, protected, and led to the vital life-changing, world-transforming task God entrusts to his cure. Through prayer God will use Paul to take this message about a Jew who is unjustly brutally put to death, for challenging the status quo of the religious and political and military power brokers, and through that death brings life to the world. Through prayer God will use Paul to spread this Good News of being “fully alive with the passion of Christ,” not only to Jews but worldwide, to Gentiles, the whole vast Greek and Roman and African cultures, and all these little islands throughout the Aegean. God is at work building a new transnational Empire which transcends particular nations and races and rulers - the Kingdom of God. Jesus is on the move and Paul is His chief agent. I Paul is a man with a mission. He is on the GO. He is motivated; he is impelled to take this message that hit him like a ton of bricks along the road to Damascus, blinded him and gave him back his sight. God reached him with the good news and totally turned him around, from being the chief attack dog to the chief advocate for “Jesus Christ our Lord.” Now he is on the 3 go, taking this message everywhere because this message and this Messiah burns within the heart of Paul. His core identity is not found in being a Roman or a Jew or a tent maker, or bow- legged, or a single unmarried man but “a man in Christ,” in Christ he is a new creation. He braves untold dangers and assaults and attacks and abuse, and continues his journey to Rome, the heart of world power. Rome is Washington and London and Paris. To Rome he must go, all for the sake of this Jesus. With Rally Day, we too are called to get going, to engage with Jesus Christ and one another. To gather here week by week and at other times in this boat of God’s grace, to pray, to be taught and encouraged and lifted so we can live as God’s new people, to sing anthems and hymns, and study scriptures and build a house for the homeless, feed the hungry, teach children and grow continually in the Spirit. As Frederick Buechner puts it, “To live with charity, honor, grace, the power to keep going even when we are tempted to go no place that matters, to go no farther.” Paul is on the go. He has passion for Christ. II But then, as they GO it seems they are GONE. The winds are against them, they lose a lot of time, so that the Jewish Day of Atonement – the only Fast called for in the Old Testament - that comes in September or October - has already passed. It looks like they will have to spend the winter at some port along the way. So they seek a place of safety along and then past Crete. Suddenly a moderate wind turns to hurricane force; a violent wind called the northeaster catches the boat, and they lose control. For 14 days they are tossed and turned, hanging precariously between life and death. Darkness and heavy clouds eliminate their only means of navigation by the stars. “When neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest raged, all hope of our being saved was at last abandoned.”ii Amid the storms they feel they are goners, all hope is lost, they see nothing ahead but a watery grave. “Abandon hope all ye who enter in.” Passengers and crew are terrified. If it were not for Paul’s intervention, the sailors would have jumped into the lifeboat and abandoned passengers to their fate. Paul though takes command. “Men you should have listened to me instead.” That would be about like me telling you, “People, you should have listened to me not Jerry Tracy about the heat wave and heavy rains we are about to experience.” I mean, who would you listen to? Gayle and I recently returned from a wonderful few weeks along the coast of Maine and Nova Scotia all the way up to Cape Briton. There we saw hundreds of light houses that dot that rocky shore, shining out their lights and ringing out their bells of warnings to ships that ply the North Atlantic coming over from Europe; Beware the rocky shoals. Did you know that before 9- 11 the chief responsibility of the U.S.