That All the Lord's People were Prophets, a sermon for Pentecost Sunday, based on Numbers 11: 24-30 and Acts 2, May 28, 2023

I’ve mentioned before that I played baseball in high school. More precisely, I made the team. I wore a uniform. Did I play? Not all that often, but I loved baseball. Sometimes I feel like I could still take the field. I can hear the ball hitting my mitt. Still in my hands is the feeling of hitting a perfect line-drive over the shortstop’s head. While I didn’t play a whole lot for the Marietta Blue Devils, for several years, being a baseball player was part of my identity. I practiced year-round from age 8 to 18. When I wasn’t sitting the bench for the Marietta Blue Devils, I played for rec league teams around town. Buck Buchanan and my dad were our coaches. At Perry Park by the Civic Center or Oregon Park out Dallas Highway, starting in 3rd grade until I graduated high school, playing baseball was such a big part of my life that when it ended and I went to college, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Without daily practice, I had all this time on my hands. I also wrestled with my identity a little bit. If I didn’t play baseball, I wasn’t a baseball player, so what would I talk to my grandparents about? What would I do for exercise? For years after I stopped playing, I kept a bat and a glove in the trunk of my car. Why? I’d go to Braves games, and I wanted to take the field. In fact, one game at Turner Field, the Braves were down by double digits, and so the whole stadium had emptied out. With the guys I had played baseball with and now just watched baseball with, I moved down to nearly field level right behind first base. Watching the game, my friend and former 3rd baseman, Mike Waters, said, “Imagine how full this place would be right now if the Braves started the tradition of the announcer pulled a ticket stub out of a hat at the beginning of the 7th inning, and if he called your ticket number, you got to play right field for the rest of the game.” I still think that policy change would revolutionize major league baseball. On the other hand, baseball may not be your thing, so maybe you wouldn’t want to take the field for two innings. Maybe you’d be less likely to attend a game if the Braves had such a policy, but is there something that you used to do, that you used to love doing, and now you just watch other people do it? Take singing, for example. At some point, many of us hit this point where we get scared of someone else hearing our voice. Little kids don’t yet know what that’s like. Little kids just sing for the joy of it. When I was a young, child my grandmother baked me yeast rolls all the time because I’d sing to myself while I ate them. I loved them so much I just got lost in the joy of eating, and I would sing. That’s why I love our preschool so much. All those kids are like that. Go into a preschool classroom and ask them, “Can anyone in here sing?” It’s not like the back rows of this Sanctuary. Everyone in preschool can sing. Ask them, “Does anyone in here know how to play an instrument?” “Well, I play the triangle,” one will say. “What about an artist? Is anyone in here an artist?” “I’m an artist,” one will say, “I made a necklace out of macaroni noodles for my mom.” That’s how we are in preschool, but then something happens to us. A friend of mine in Tennessee bought himself a guitar. Everyone in and around Nashville dreams of being a country music star, and so Tennessee pawn shops are full of guitars. My friend James bought a guitar at a yard sale. He was looking through a pile of stuff, and lo and behold, there it was. He felt drawn to the six strings, tuned it up, taught himself a few cords, and took it to rehearsal with the praise band at his church. He was up there playing his heart out on his new guitar, feeling so good about how he was sounding with the drums and the bass, when the preacher told everyone to take a break. “James, who told you to come out here and play that guitar?” the preacher asked. James said, “Well, Pastor, I believe the Lord did.” “No, He didn’t,” the preacher said. Sooner or later, that happens to us all. We don’t make the cut for the college baseball team, and we finally give up our dreams of playing in the major leagues. Our big sister can’t tell whether we’ve painted a moose or a school bus, and we realize that the only gallery where our art will be displayed is our mother’s refrigerator. We realize we’re getting sideways glances as we sing our hearts out in church, and it seems as though while the Lord loves a joyful noise, not everybody else does. That’s life, so if you go into a middle school classroom and ask, “Can anyone in here sing?” “Does anyone in here play an instrument?” “Is anyone in here an artist?” Not as many people raise their hands. Likewise, on that Pentecost so long ago, we find our disciples just sitting around, not doing much of anything. Our second Scripture lesson began, “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.” What were they doing there? Why weren’t they out in the world preaching the gospel? Why aren’t they living their faith? I imagine those disciples, whom Jesus just left, as confused, self-conscious, and insecure. They don’t know if they can do it without Him. Had cellphones been invented, in that room, they would have all been playing Candy Crush. Killing time instead of living their faith. But oh, that all the Lord’s people were prophets! Imagine the world if more people were out there living their faith. Tim Hammond was my Sunday school teachers years ago. He taught a Sunday School class for college kids with Jimmy Scarr. Tim and Jimmy didn’t plan too much of a lesson for this class; they never knew if anyone was going to be home from school to show up to their class. One Sunday, I was home from college. Whoever else was there with me, we were talking about what movies we’d seen lately. Then we asked Jimmy and Tim if they’d seen any good movies. Mr. Scarr said something like, “I haven’t seen a movie worth watching since Jimmy Stewart quit acting.” Then Tim said, “I don’t watch movies either. Never have. Why would I watch someone else live his life when I could be out living my own?” Can you believe that? I’ve carried that little piece of advice with me everywhere I’ve gone. This church sent me to Argentina as a missionary intern right before my senior year at Presbyterian College. People would ask me, “Why are you doing that?” I’d say, “Why would I watch someone else live his life when I could be out living my own?” I don’t know if Tim Hammond knew how much that saying meant to me. I don’t remember if I ever told him. If I did, I don’t think I told him in such a way that he truly understood just how much of a difference he made, and that’s how most of us are most of the time. We just have no idea how much of a difference we make or might make if we weren’t too self-conscious to speak up. Back to Jimmy Scar’s favorite actor: I hope you’ve seen Jimmy Stewart in the greatest Christmas movie ever made, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” If you haven’t, put living your own life on hold just this one time to watch it. It’s the most beautiful reminder that we are all the time underestimating our ability to make an impact. Sometimes we get beat down by the world, and we forget it’s even possible to make an impact. Sometimes we are like disciples who have lost their leader. Ashamed for having betrayed Him. Ashamed for having doubted Him. Worried that they’ll never be able to live up to the example that He set. That’s just where the Evil One wants us, on the sidelines, watching the world fall apart. He wants us quiet, afraid, and ashamed, behind closed doors, for once we get pushed out into the world and are freed to do something, the Holy Spirit uses us to set the world on fire. Do you know how powerful you are if you’re willing to be used by the Holy Spirit? Do you know what kind of a difference you can make if you’re willing to get up off the coach, turn off the TV, and get out into the world? I had the most amazing experience last week. Roy Vanderslice has been made the executor of his next-door neighbor’s estate. His neighbor was a private man. No one was invited in his house. His only interaction with the people in his neighborhood was to complain about their dogs relieving themselves in his grass. He was a curmudgeon and a bit of a hermit. Out of a determination to kill this man with kindness, Roy and Joan befriended him. They found out that he liked to make a little extra money, so they paid him to cut their grass for $20 a week. Later, they learned that he was living on a monthly check from the government and his veteran’s benefits, but to make ends meet he cut grass, and he had to sell aluminum cans to the recycling center. Had Roy and Joan been too self-conscious to walk into that man’s life, or had they taken the neighborhood’s word for it that the man was a lost cause, this neighbor would have died alone without anyone to help put his affairs in order. On this Memorial Day, remember him and consider with me the difference these two disciples made by simply being good neighbors. Consider the difference we can make when we dare to pick up the phone to have a meaningful conversation with an old friend or write a note and remember what a gift it is to open the mailbox and see that there’s something in there other than a stack of bills. Flora Speed’s funeral was last Thursday, and I asked the congregation there assembled, “If you ever received a card from Flora Speed, would you raise your hand?” There was a congregation of more than 500 people, and everyone that I could see held her hand up. My friends, we sometimes have no idea how hard life is for the people around us. Sometimes, we just have no earthly idea. We also have no earthly idea of how much of a difference we can make just by getting out of our houses and being willing to be used by the Holy Spirit. That’s the Pentecost message. my friends. We have been inside our houses for too long. We have watched too many movies and far too much of the evening news. Furthermore, we have downplayed the power of God to use us, and while we’ve been sitting on the sidelines, the world has been in need, so pick up the phone or get out of your house and walk down your sidewalk to see how God might use you. Life is this grand adventure if we’re willing to be filled with the Holy Spirit, if we’re willing to respond to the nudge that pushes us out of our comfort zone. Let the grace of God release you from the chains of shame and self-doubt, and may the world be set aflame once more by the fire of Pentecost. Amen.