#4
Visit date: June 9, 2019
Visit date: June 9, 2019
New Holland Mennonite Church
18 Western Ave
New Holland, PA 17557
Pastor: Dawn Ranck-Hower, dawn.ranck@verizon.net
“Here at New Holland Mennonite we recognize that we are an imperfect people working together to love and support one another in understanding God's will for our lives.”
The timeline found on their website describes a journey of “a people on the way”. Beginning by meeting in a shared space with an Episcopal Church in 1910, these mennonites were unique in choosing to reside within the borough limits. Their history describes a congregation aware of and able to identify the needs of the surrounding community.
Looking forward to learning more!
By the way, I'll be stepping in for Dawn as preacher. I wish for her a renewed spirit on her sabbatical. Acts 2:1-21 is the scripture for Pentecost Sunday. I'll be wearing vibrant colors in celebration of the birth of our church and the commemoration of the "fiery tongues" of the Holy Spirit descending on the disciples! More on my experience to come.
Here are my reflections:
The Community Garden - God at work, taken seriously!
Here are my reflections:
2019 Visit #4
June 9
New Holland Mennonite Church
18 Western Ave
New Holland, PA 17557
Pastor: Dawn Ranck-Hower, dawn.ranck@verizon.net
“Here at New Holland Mennonite we recognize that we are an imperfect people working together to love and support one another in understanding God's will for our lives.”
The timeline found on their website describes a journey of “a people on the way”. Beginning by meeting in a shared space with an Episcopal Church in 1910, these mennonites were unique in choosing to reside within the borough limits. Their history describes a congregation aware of and able to identify the needs of the surrounding community.
Looking forward to learning more!
By the way, I'll be stepping in for Dawn as preacher. I wish for her a renewed spirit on her sabbatical. Acts 2:1-21 is the scripture for Pentecost Sunday. I'll be wearing vibrant colors in celebration of the birth of our church and the commemoration of the "fiery tongues" of the Holy Spirit descending on the disciples! More on my experience to come.
Reflections
To describe my experience with one word: Genuine
My prayer for this congregation:
That God’s spirit will continue to empower this congregation in their active work to impact their community.
Welcome
There has been an extended welcome to New Holland Mennonite Church as I have been in communication with Pastor Dawn for almost a year before attending. She was diligently planning her sabbatical, and I was to guest preach on Pentecost Sunday. Once she was on her way to rest and rejuvenation, Jenn Esbenshade took the lead.
I parked my car on a beautiful sunny morning and approached the church building. A gentleman greeter held the door. After a friendly exchange of kind words and welcome followed by firm handshake, he purposefully led me to the guest book. I signed in and was whisked away to Sunday School class as they were just beginning. I took a seat at one of the five round tables in their assembly room which was full of congregants of all ages.
Sunday School Classes
An Adult Bible Study was focused on a book called: Creating a Scene in Corinth: a Simulation. Each group at the tables identified as a demographic group from the first century. Individuals practiced acting out the personality of the character roles they would play when the final script would be performed at the end of the summer. Fascinating to watch and hear individuals like Dorcas, and Matthias from the book of Acts come to life. What a “God wink” that this scripture passage involved Biblical figures I would be preaching about in the next hour!
Book summary: [Creating a Scene in Corinth imaginatively draws readers into Chloe's house church, which has just received a letter from their church planter, the apostle Paul. Using group simulation, the book brings to life scholarly research on how the gospel penetrated the Roman Empire. As participants role-play early believers and debate with each other, they gain new insights and will never read 1 Corinthians the same way again.]
MYF Sunday School class
The youth are encouraged to remain in the sanctuary to color, draw, write and read at a table near the pulpit during the sermon. A way to allow children’s ears to be open to hearing the message as they gently move and create.
Worship
Read from the NRSV version at my request - but this was not a change for them. Songs were chosen from Sing the Journey: If you believe and I believe, O breathe on me, O breath of God, Hymnal Worship Book: Guide my feet. The Pentecost Sunday theme paired well with the brightly colored stained glass windows and a photo of a flame from my sermon. Two seniors were recognized for their High School graduation by the presentation of hand-knotted quilts and a prayer of blessing on them.
Sermon
For the sermon on Pentecost Sunday, I reflected on Genesis 11:1-9 and Acts 2:2-21. My sermon title was: “That Sounds Like God”. I focused on the sound God makes that each of us hears in our own ways. The message from God is made uniquely for you, in only the way you understand it. A strong wind within a walled courtyard was a strange sound to some, but the disciples accurately translated that into the movement of the spirit.
[You can read my sermon at the very end of this post.]
Responding in song with Holy Spirit, come with power ended the service with an exclamation point! Beautifully done.
What moved my spirit, was what happened AFTER the service. God was guiding this small body of believers to create a garden ministry. They worked together led by the spirit, to plow, plant and cultivate a garden for their community. This garden held a shed, with tools and equipment to maintain the land in which it grows.
Not just a couple of rows of tomatoes, an acre (or just about) of tilled land with leafy greens, corn, broccoli and many vegetables and edible goodness. This small but mighty congregation led by one pastor reflects God as an active verb. They serve their community by teaching gardening skills. Some of the food that is harvested goes to the on site learning center. Some of it goes to needy families, all the while growing relationships with their immediate neighbors cultivating food for their bodies and belonging for their souls. “One of the core tenets of the missional church is the settled conviction that God is at work to bless and redeem the world. A second is that God uses people to accomplish that purpose. Despite our privileged calling to be God’s witnesses and signs of the kingdom, we may be deemed faithful only to the extent that we align our work with God’s work.” (Green, Stanley W.., and James R. Krabill. eds. Fully Engaged: Missional Church in an Anabaptist Voice. Harrisonburg, VA: Herald Press, 2015.)
When God is the subject of an active verb we use His name first in identifying His work in our lives. For example, consider these two responses when asked where they saw God active in their lives:
- “Last week, God was with me during a very difficult transition at work.”
is significantly different from:
- “Our church started a new outreach to homeless people in the neighborhood.”
The first comment points to God as the “doer/actor/initiator” of the action. Where the second comment lends the person/church taking initiative. Investing time to listen more deeply, and speak more intentionally about how God is at work through us instead of us doing the work on our own allows us to be more attentive to how we allow God to work within us. Ervin Stutzman writes: “And I’ve been reading the Bible with new eyes for the “God sightings” throughout scripture. Now, when I read verses like Philippians 1:6 or Romans 8:28, a new sense of God’s action leaps off the page." (Green, Stanley W.., and James R. Krabill. eds. Fully Engaged: Missional Church in an Anabaptist Voice. Harrisonburg, VA: Herald Press, 2015.)
The congregation blessed their Garden with a ceremony of song and prayer. Children and adults baptized the garden by dipping large lettuce leaves in water and sprinkingling it around the growing plants along the perimeter.
Challenge
Plant gardens that grow a harvest from the action of God, not ourselves alone.
“The Garden Song” (Sang at the garden dedication by the congregation)
Inch by inch, row by row, gonna make this garden grow
All it takes is a rake and a hoe and a piece of fertile ground
Inch by inch, row by row please bless these seeds I sow
Please warm them from below
Till the rain comes tumbling down
Pullin’ weeds and pickin’ stones,
We are made of dreams and bones
I need a spot to grow my own cause the time is close at hand
Grain for grain, sun and rain, I find my way in nature’s chain
Tune my body and my brain to the music of the land.
Chorus
Plant your rows short or long,
Season them with prayer and song
Mother earth will make you strong if you give her loving care
Old crow from three above, got his hungry eyes on me
In my garden I’m as free as that feathered thief up there
Takeaway
New Holland Mennonite was founded with the intention to help the immediate community surrounding them. They have this focus still today, leaning on God to guide their way. They are certainly a pilgrim people powered by the spirit.
Final Thoughts
On Pentecost Sunday, I will not hesitate to credit the Holy Spirit for “coincidences” I experienced at NHMC. From the Sunday School lesson bringing the very people I was preaching about to life to punctuate God’s message to us that day, to the Garden cultivating community, health and wholeness, to a church fully engaged with God’s spirit moving. It is Ervin who quotes Chuck Newfeld who says it best: “It seems that the Spirit works this way in people who consciously cultivate a God consciousness, an alert awareness of what God is saying and doing in a given situation.” May it be so for all of us.
The Community Garden - God at work, taken seriously!
New Holland Mennonite Church after the blessing of the Garden
Blessing of the Community Garden
Children used large lettuce leaves dipped in water in the bucket to sprinkle a blessing on the growing harvest.
Jenn Esbenshade, worship leader, lay leader, congregant extraordinaire!
Sermon
June 9, 2019
Acts 2:1-21
“That Sounds Like God”
Connection with Dawn… It was over a year ago when I received an email from Brenda Martin-Hurst Extending an invitation to seminary students to fill in for a pastor At a local church. I answered the inquiry eager to learn more. Later, I met Dawn for the first time at the Refreshing Mountain Youth Retreat and then again at the Leadership Training Seminar in Harrisonburg. Every encounter with her is full of energy and enthusiasm. I’m so glad to finally be here to meet her beloved church family.
In looking over your informative and colorful website and reading about your church history, it’s no secret how involved you are in the surrounding community. I learned you’ve recently planted a community garden. I hope to go out and experience it after the service and find out what inspired the community garden to come to be.
I’ve always been amazed by the beginning of things - their history, where they started, who started it, and why. Being a mother of five children, I’m astounded by the birth of new life. The seed that begins that life, is planted in a vulnerable space and almost always during a vulnerable time. Then, something magical happens to spark the life within it. No one really knows it’s alive at all for a while. At some secret point in time, the germination process is ignited. All the seed needs to sustain its beginning growth lies within it. Fascinating, to think about really.
Brené Brown has said: “To create is to make something that has never existed before. There’s nothing more vulnerable than that.”
From vulnerable spaces, new life begins. In our scripture reading for today we have a similar beginning. Something is being born. That something is a team of leaders that grow to form what we know to be the first church. The holy spirit has ignited a germination process in the disciples and Peter makes a declaration that shoots a root in the ground for the church to begin to grow.
Our scripture text today is from the book of Acts, which is the sequel to the book of Luke. Eloquent writer, physician and apostle of Jesus, Luke beautifully narrates the story of Jesus’ life on earth, his ministry, death and resurrection. But, it doesn’t end there. In Acts he continues God’s story of redemption and how adequately equipped his apostles become to fulfil God’s mission and build the church.
God’s work throughout history has been aimed to create an all-inclusive community of loving persons with the love of God himself at the very center. The apostles are assigned to this work and began by reuniting the crew of disciples and choose Matthias to replace Judas. Peter is standing out as the representative for the group and identified spokesperson.
Their mission begins during one of the three great jewish pilgrimage festivals. Every Jewish male living within twenty miles of Jerusalem was legally bound to attend. It commemorated the renewal of the covenant of loyalty between the Jewish people and God beginning with the giving of the Torah on mount Sinai. They counted down the days to this celebration naming the event Pentecost - pent - Greek for fiftieth - the fiftieth day after Passover.
During this celebration God sends a message for new life to begin. This was the day that the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples of Jesus.
At that time of year, travelling conditions in that part of the world were at its best. Perfect weather attracted everyone drawing a massive international crowd from surrounding countries.
[pic of Jerusalem]
Where do they all meet? The captivating city of Jerusalem. In the first century, it was a cultural center of the Mediterranean. Not only did it serve as a major place for trade, it was a majestic scene sitting at the top of the highest edge of the tablelands of the country. When approaching Jerusalem from the West or East, the city stands elegantly tall, enthroned to breathe the mountain air. If you were God, and you wanted to send a message to many people at one time, wouldn’t Jerusalem be a good place to start?
Living in Lancaster County, we’ve experienced the beautiful spring weather too, and how it draws an amazing influx of folks from other parts of the world. More than tourist attractions though, family is often the draw. My sister returns here periodically to reconnect with me, our family and friends. She has lived with her husband and two daughters near Lyon, France for more than 14 years now.
My sister’s husband, a native to France, spent a year living in Lititz as a foreign exchange student before they met and has a natural ability to translate languages. It’s rather amazing to watch him hold a conversation as the mediator for fluent english and french speakers. He is gifted in many other ways, but most of us who know only one language, truly appreciate how easily he creates a bridge for us uniting two cultures and translating two languages. He’s a vital connecting piece in my mono-lingual Family.
His two daughters, my nieces, having been raised in France, have been taught to know the French language first. It’s their heart language, the beginning of understanding for them. The girls were about 3 and 5 years old, When they traveled to my home for the first time. I learned they had never been camping nor have ever slept in a tent or a sleeping bag, so it became my mission to create the wonderful experience with them. Taking into account their ages, the backyard was a perfect beginning space.
Like the people in Jerusalem, my sisters family was home, we have come together for a holiday. No one was working, we were celebrating, and “offering” the first fruits of the harvest, which in this case were strawberries and an international group of cousins had already started a memorable time playing together. They are happy, I’m happy, the kids are happy, it’s all good.
The disciples in our story, are doing all good things, too. They are following the final instructions left for them at Jesus’ ascension to stay in the city and wait for further instructions. Sometimes following the word of God is easy, right?
[wind storm audio]
Then suddenly, the spirit begins to move. We read in verse 2 of scripture, “the sound of a violent wind, filled the entire house where the disciples were sitting.” Let’s think about this for a second. A few of these disciples knew what a windy day was like, they worked a lifetime as fishermen on the sea of Galilee. It wasn’t the wind that filled the house… it was the sound… Perhaps they heard something like this. . .
How would a sound like that belong in a place like this? It’s spring, the weather was calm, the sun shining… everyone began to wonder what was happening. I would imagine a hint of panic might have started. At the very least It certainly got everyone’s attention.
[image of courtyard]
To get the attention of my nieces and children, I too filled the room with a sound… the sound of my voice. By calling out to them, “it’s time to get ready for our campout! Clean up the toys and let’s move outside.” My nieces look at me perplexed. My kids quickly began to pick up their toys to head outside. But their cousins did not follow. I could see it in their eyes. They did not understand a word I was saying. They looked around for their parents, who were not there.
You see, communication was established with their cousins, but at their young ages, it did not include words. Four year olds don’t necessarily need to speak to one another to interact with one another. But now, with an adult involved, there were verbal instructions and no translator. Things just got weird, and I didn’t know quite what to do. In my slight panic, I try to speak to them in more simple terms - “camping”… nothing… “back yard”. . . their eyes are wide… they look like they are about to cry… “tent”… in desperation… I say, “marshmallows?!”
I wonder if the crowd in Jerusalem began to feel just as perplexed. What is that sound? Where is it coming from? They begin to see a sign… verse 3 “Divided tongues, as of fire appeared among them and a tongue rested on each of them.”
A vulnerable space is opened and something beautiful was about to happen.
There’s more… in verse 4 “all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them the ability.” Wait… What?! Yes, the people respond similarly… in verse 7 the story continues: “Amazed and astonished, they asked, are not all these who are speaking Galileans?” How in the world are these common, uneducated, fisherman able to speak so eloquently and easily for the international folks there to completely understand them? They were suddenly speaking in such a way everyone understood in their own native tongue. But how could this be?
When God shows up, sometimes we can’t help but wonder how can this be? Even though the Holy Spirit had descended on the disciples, and was present with everyone else in the room,the message still wasn’t clear. If anything, it was chaotic, questionable and unsettling. After all the disciples have done, the experiences and conversions they’ve had, the death of Jesus they endured, the resurrection they’ve witnessed... why didn’t life get any easier?
Couldn’t they have savored the truth of the resurrection for themselves, cherishing the pleasant memories of Jesus into their ripe old age? No, that is not what they were commissioned to do. They were vulnerably exposed in a massive crowd – many of whom witnessed, if not participated in, the crucifixion of Jesus – to bear witness to a difficult truth. Yes, the disciples boldly preached and thousands responded.
In this life and world, when you solve one problem, there seems to be another one waiting for you. Problems don’t go away. The Spirit doesn’t solve our problems, but invites us to see possibilities we would not have seen otherwise. Rather than remove our fear, the Spirit grants us courage and understanding to move forward. Rather than promise safety, the Spirit promises God’s presence. Rather than remove us from a turbulent world, or even cover our vulnerability, the Spirit enables us to keep our footing amid the tremors. Keep in mind that after the Spirit is given to Jesus at his Baptism, it immediately drives him into the wilderness. The very same Spirit!
And this Holy Spirit fills the rift between us and God. Much like my gifted brother in law, the Holy Spirit here is a translator between God and His people. Through the Holy Spirit, God is able to use their own native languages to speak straight to the heart of each one in the international crowd.
As with any abrupt change, they are at first hesitant to believe it. In verse 13 “but others sneered and said, they are drunk!” Are we like those men who sneer and choose not to believe… do we yearn for something simpler, something a little more settled or reliable. Don’t we work and plan and pray and strive, to overcome challenges, hoping that when we’ve addressed the major ones in front of us – whether personal or professional or congregational or whatever – then we will encounter some smooth sailing. But that doesn’t seem to be how the Spirit works.
The Holy Spirit continues to help us see possibilities where others see only problems and grants us the strength and energy to move through the challenges with equal measures of confidence and joy and to the benefit of those around us.
The Holy Spirit continues to help us see possibilities where others see only problems and grants us the strength and energy to move through the challenges with equal measures of confidence and joy and to the benefit of those around us.
Someone saw a possibility… back to my story… my oldest daughter at the time was about nine, and understood the misunderstanding that was happening. Words weren’t working. They needed a sign, a symbol. She ran and retrieved a sleeping bag from the hallway. Her cousins standing close to one another, very unsure now. She unrolls it, and climbs inside, laying her head down, pretending to sleep peacefully. We all watch… and wait…
The people witnessing this sign of fiery tongues also are watching and waiting. They are deciphering the symbols. Tongues symbolize speech in this text and the communication of the good news. Fire symbolizes God’s purifying presence, which turns away the undesirable elements of our life and sets our heart aflame to ignite a new life in others.
Filling in the gap, closing the distance, by indwelling us with his Holy Spirit. It’s like a new birth. A new birth that allows the transition of sound to make sense to our hearts. Here in this story it just . . . sounds like God . . . to show up in this vulnerable way in this vulnerable place using the most unlikeliest of people.
In my story, at the presentation of the symbol, of the sleeping bag, my nieces too begin to understand. They translate the sign. My oldest niece throws her hands in the air and shouts “s-l-ee-p-ing b a g”! She finally understood.
God is still talking to us now. How are we translating God’s message?
[Flame Photo]
In Jerusalem, Peter, gets it. He’s standing with the eleven, as respected spokesperson, raises his voice and addresses them. He sets them straight and fills in the blanks. Like Jesus did during his ministry, he makes the connection and quotes an old testament prophet, Joel: “in verse 17 “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy…” sons AND daughters. That means everyone there! That means you. And me. And everyone here.
My niece will never forget her backyard camping experience in her sleeping bag. I will not forget her first english words - “sleeping bag”. I wonder if God feels this joy, when we finally get to the place where we truly and deeply in our hearts say “yes, I understand”?
In closing, We celebrate Pentecost today, a magnificent, fiery beginning, commemorating Peter’s first sermon given to an international audience, that resulted in a world-wide harvest of new believers - the first converts to Christianity . . . the first church.
Just like a faithful Mennonite let’s celebrate with a Birthday song. I would like to lead you in the happy Birthday song to the church.
Are we listening for the sounds of God in our daily lives? When we walk out these doors, are we continuing to search for where he is filling your space with sound to get your attention? Is it in the rain, the wind, a storm or a whisper? It may most likely be in a place - a secret place to us anyway - or through a person that we would least expect. That sounds like God. Do you hear it?
Amen
Benediction
As we go out from this place, united in Christ, filled with the Holy Spirit, may we gain an understanding and listen for the sounds of God.
