“What is Your Macedonia?”                                       May 9, 2010
Acts 16:  9–15                                                         The Rev. Dr. Beth Braxton

It was 1983; I was an Associate Pastor in New Jersey. It was a restless time for me and I had a strange dream. I felt it meant something for my life. The dream went like this:  There were three of us on horseback. The senior pastor I worked with was out front – in fact so far out front that I could barely keep up and I did not like the direction he was going. I was on the middle horse. The woman on the horse behind me was wandering; she was not worried. I was frustrated as I looked back and encouraged her. I stopped at the town center and got off my horse, letting the first horse go on without us and I waited for the woman behind to catch up.

I believe in this dream that God was telling me it was time to leave my present position as Associate Pastor and seek a new church in which to serve. I was not on the same spiritual wave length as the clergyman I was working with and I was not comfortable. I decided I needed to listen for a new call.

Around the same time I received a letter from a member of Burke Presbyterian Church telling me about what a great church this was and that they were open to female leadership (which was rare at the time). Well the rest is history – here I have been for the last 25 years! A dream and a letter were the initial instruments of God’s call to me at that time.

God called Paul in a vision says our scripture for today. It is a vision of a man who needed help. Now Paul had planned to go to Asia; the man was calling Paul to head for Europe. “A man from Macedonia was pleading with him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’” Paul was convinced that God was calling him and his companions through this vision to go preach the good news in Macedonia.

I often get asked–How does God call a person and how do you know it is God? Good questions. My reading, biblical study and own experience tell me that God calls primarily in the ordinary activities of life. During sleep – in a dream, as I have just mentioned.

OR in a conversation on the soccer field with another mom who says, “I see you have your church name and logo on your t-shirt; we are looking for a church; tell us about yours.” A family ends up joining our church!

OR In a book on poetry, an old college professor gives you to read, and you are called immediately to a passion for poetry writing yourself.

OR In suffering – a child gets diabetes and you begin scrap booking to be able to make donations to the foundation for research.

The article read, “Divorce left her a 42-year-old single mom with two young boys and a resumé that was nearly blank. It was a year she was asked to create a special class for exceptional students in the fourth grade. (in Americus, GA) It was the last year of her life.” This mother–teacher died the next year of cancer, but a lawyer, graphic designer, high school teacher, a software engineer today say that fourth grade year “changed my life.” (The story about this mother is in today’s POST magazine section)

OR Sometimes call comes in a question – Can you help? Sometimes it comes in the urging of a spouse or a colleague to Please….come…do….try. Sometimes it comes in the affirmations others see in us that we cannot see in ourselves.

We believe in an incarnate God – a God who has become flesh and dwelt among us in Jesus and who seeks us to bring us into a whole relationship with God, a God who did not leave us alone but gave us an Advocate, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth. So we pay attention to the everyday knowing that God is present and at work in our everyday lives.

But most important today is what I see here in the life of Paul that challenges each of us. It is what I am calling his Spirit-filled, prayer-saturated life! Paul was someone who was in the flow of the Spirit. We not only know that from all his letters and writings, but in his behavior. Here Paul’s idea was to go to the Roman Province of Asia. He and his companions felt that this was the next step in reaching the Gentile world with the good news. But in the verse 7, it says that the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them. We don’t read that Paul was wringing his hands about what to do. Paul is so in the flow of the Spirit that he understands that his thoughts, feelings, dreams are marshaled in the service of the Lord. All of his life is a communication with the Spirit. So for Paul a “no” from the Spirit is part of a greater “yes.”

It reminds me of that scene in “The Sound of Music” where Mother Superior says to Maria, “Where God closes a door; somewhere he will open a window.”

Yes, Paul is a Spirit-filled, prayer-saturated man; all of his life is a communication with the Spirit. He is an example for us in our anxiety-ridden, hurried-up culture. We so often get discouraged, fearful, frustrated, blocked – when we lose a job, a child gets sick, a friend moves away, a new project is assigned on top of the old ones, a colleague challenges our work, a parent gets cancer, a sibling gets hooked on pain-killers, and so forth. How do we cope with the road blocks of our lives? How do we know what God is calling us to do next?

We need to remember Paul’s words and the model of his life. God is at work in all things; pray without ceasing; give thanks in all circumstances; … We need to catch the flow of the Spirit in our lives and be prayer–saturated, communicating all day long with the Spirit. Then we will hear and know the call of God.

Eugene Peterson, the author of The Message, a wonderful paraphrase of the scripture says (in Living With The Word),

“The last sentence in (the book of) Lamentations is blunt and direct: “…hast thou utterly rejected us?  Art thou exceedingly angry with us?” (Lam. 5:22)  Dr. Peterson notes that this anger is addressed in the most personal of relationships, prayer.  Prayer is suffering’s best result.  In prayer God’s anger is neither sentimentally glossed nor cynically debunked, but seized as a lever to pry open the door of redemption.  The sufferer, by praying, does not ask God to think well of him or her, but asks that God will enact redemption…through Jesus Christ who suffered and died for all.”

Prayer pries open the door of redemption! Wow! Isn’t that what we need in all these frustrations and hurts, and discouragements in our lives? We want restoration, wholeness, redemption! Catch the flow of the Spirit and be prayer-saturated!

At the Women’s Retreat this past weekend, our leader Marjory Bankson led us in an engagement with the Samaritan woman at the well in John’s gospel. You know the story. This woman was going about her ordinary routine of drawing water from the well for her family. But on this particular day something extraordinary happens. She encounters a Jew (the word is clear that the Jews have nothing to do with the Samaritans). Jesus, a Jew asks her for water; and she immediately points out that is not going to happen. Hello – you do not have a bucket!

Marjory pointed out how there is always an initial resistance to the call of God, to the encounters with Jesus. “Why do you a Jew ask water from me a Samaritan? Besides you don’t have a bucket.” Look at Moses at the burning bush. God is calling him to go free his people from slavery; Moses complains that he cannot talk well enough to confront Pharaoh. Esther shares her fear about the call through her uncle Mordecai to go into the king when he has not requested her presence. The disciples complain that they have fished all night and haven’t caught anything, why go out again?!

Yes, there is a risk in call; risk confronting the Pharaoh for whom Moses is a fugitive; Esther risks being killed; the disciples risk another failure. Yet…

God provides Moses with his brother Aaron to speak and his staff of power and the people are freed. Esther goes in and a meal is arranged and she does get the ear of the king and saves her people. Jesus says “put out into the deep water.” The disciples risk again and have a huge haul that almost breaks the nets.

God’s call to us today is to be open to the Spirit and prayer-saturated, so our thoughts and actions will lead us in God’s way.

Such was the situation in August 2003 when one morning I was reading the front page article of the Washington Post about an orphan child, 9 years old, living in Kenya whose mother was teaching her about gardening and feeding her baby sister and lastly her mother taught her how to bury her; shortly after that her mother died of AIDS leaving this nine year old in charge, to be an adult way before her time. My heart was moved as I thought about our recent mission trip to Kenya and the children just hanging around the church without supervision and the voice of one of the women of the church who asked me on our last day there, “What are we going to do with the children?” I felt that was an odd question at the time, and I was annoyed that she was asking me. Then I thought I had not been noticing and had not paid attention to the fact that the Director of the school had taken in an orphan child. These children “hanging out at the church” had no place to go.

That August morning it all came together–I recently just watched a DVD on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa, that was leaving millions of children orphaned and perfect recruits for terrorists groups! God called me through that daily reading of the news to call you to a new mission of orphan care. The next summer I had a sabbatical coming and took the first part of that time to go solo (with a social work friend from college) to Kenya and lay some ground work for orphan care at Kibwezi.

On this Mother’s Day you have an opportunity to provide mothering for one of the children you see pictured in the devotion booklet that was handed to you upon coming into worship. We as a congregation have responsibility and the privilege to care for 35 orphans in Kibwezi now. What a gift!

Today we baptize a baby and we remember that her first and primary call by God is given through this sacrament, that is, to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. And we remember as well that God gives her a gift for that discipleship journey –– the gift of the Holy Spirit!

When we remember, we realize that in our baptism our primary call is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ! And we too are remember that we have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit – the power of God’s love, the power of God’s peace the power of God for new life!!

When we live a Spirit-filled life and a prayer-saturated life, always communicating with the Spirit, then we can hear clearly, our “Macedonian" calls!  Amen? Amen!

Thanks be to God!