Fan into Flame the Gift of God; Prayer and Ministry

October 21, 2007

II Timothy 4:1-5

Luke 18:1-8

Our theme for this series of sermons is “Fan into flame the gift of God.” Let’s look at the story that Jesus told in this morning’s scripture. There is a woman who has a case in court. The judge doesn’t seem to be paying any attention. She has no legal dream team or even a public advocate. It is just her and the judge and her adversary. She does the only thing available to her. He keeps going back to the judge, over and over and over again. She refuses to let up. She refuses to back away. Over and over again, she goes to the judge and she demands justice.

Finally, the judge says to himself, if I may paraphrase, this woman is a royal pain. The only way that I am going to get her out of my face is to give her the justice that rightfully belongs to her.

Then Jesus asks the question, if that corrupt judge can finally be hounded into granting justice, think how much more quickly God, who is not corrupt and who cares for you, will hear your persistent pleas and respond. The point is this, God hears your prayers and God wants to respond. But there is more to it than that. Jesus never told the entire story in a single story.

This week I began reading a new biography of Adoniram Judson and was reminded that sometimes you fan the flame and sometimes the flame of God fans you! There are times when, I suspect that we think that we are fanning the flame when God is in fact stirring around in our souls. Truth is, that is probably most of the time.

Adoniram and Ann Judson were the first missionaries ever to sail form the American shore. At the age of 16 he went to Brown University where, because of his academic abilities, he entered as a second year student. As all college students must, he struggled with the faith that had been given to him. He met a slightly older student named Jacob Eames who convinced that the heart of wisdom lay in the Deist perspective on things and Adoniram abandoned his belief in a personal God.

When he graduated, God, for him, was a distant creator who had set the universe in motion and then left it to govern itself and Jesus was nothing more than a very good man.  He set off to find himself as a man of the theater in New York and found that to be a disappointing adventure.

Then one night, in the course of his travels, he stopped in a roadside inn and asked for a room. The innkeeper said that there was one room but that it could be a noisy one. The man next door was ill and was coughing loudly. Adoniram took the room and, sure enough, he was kept awake by the coughing and by the man’s moans, “God, God, lost.” Over and over again he moaned, “God, God, lost.”

The next morning he asked the innkeeper about the man and was told that he had died during the course of the night. With simple curiosity, Adoniram asked if he knew anything about the man and the innkeeper replied that he was a college student named Jacob Eames. Through the long night, Adoniram had listened to his friend die and he was profoundly shaken. 

Here is a question. Was it coincidence or providence? And who is fanning whose flame?

The shaken Adoniram then set out on a teaching career until he read a book that caused things, spiritual things, to fall into place and he entered Andover Seminary. But that is not all.

Judson had developed the habit of walking in a nearby wooded area where he thought and prayed. On one of those walks, December 2, 1808, he wrote, “This day, I made a solemn dedication of my life to God.”

As a student at the seminary, he reads a pamphlet, a printed sermon from a chaplain who was working in India and his interest in mission work is stirred.  At the same time, there was a group at nearby Williams College that has been meeting and praying about world-wide missions. Those prayer meetings came to a climax as the group prayed in an open field and then took refuge under a haystack. Many historians credit this “haystack prayer meeting” as the beginning of the mission movement in America. They called themselves “The Brethren.”

Several of them graduated from Williams College and went to Andover Seminary where they meet Adoniram Judson who was quickly drawn into their group. It was this group, that included Luther Rice, who later formed the first Baptist mission society in America; this group formed in the solitary prayers of Adoniram Judson and in the shared prayers of the Brethren at Williams College that the modern mission movement was formed. They petitioned the leaders of the Congregational Church to send missionaries and that body, to its eternal credit, responded and shortly after sent the Judsons to India.

Prayer, who can understand it? Look at the brethren. Did God put that notion of mission into their heads and hearts and then prompt them to pray back to God for the resources to do it? Did they have some kind of idea and then ask God’s permission and blessing.

About this I am very certain. When we open our hearts to God’s spirit, we find that we are led to pray. Some of our prayers will seek God’s grace for ourselves and our immediate friends. And always, when we are open to God’s spirit, we will be led to pray about ministry and we will be led to engage in mission. Prayer and ministry can never be separated. Like the song from our grandparents’ generation, like love and marriage and the horse and carriage, prayer and ministry cannot be separated. God will not allow it. Show me a life of prayer without a concern for ministry and mission and I will show you a life that has shut itself off from the spirit of God.

In the passage that we read from Second Timothy, we hear Paul say to his friend, “Preach the word. Be prepared in season and out of season.”  A little later he says, “Discharge all the duties of your ministry.”

Most of us were not called to be preachers…for which I am very glad. I do not need the competition!  But we are all invited by God to be women and men of prayer and ministry.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells his students, his disciples, to go to a closet where they can escape the distractions of life and give their full attention to God in prayer. He teaches them that God, who sees what is done in secret will respond to their prayers.

A little later he tells us, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened. 

The great mission movement in America began with the solitary prayers of Adoniram Judson and his wife Ann and with the small group prayer meetings of the Brethren meeting in Williams College. That small flame burned until it caught fire in the Congregational Churches who sent the first missionaries from American soil.

And then something else happened. The Judsons and Luther Rice became Baptists and Luther Rice returned home and transferred the blaze to the Baptist churches. 

I remember sitting in a seminary class as we were talking about prayer and Professor Summerville asked me about prayer. I answered truthfully, “I don’t understand it.”  He seemed to be disappointed. Well, I still don’t understand how the Master of the Universe gives full attention to all of people of this world. My small brain won’t wrap itself around that one. But I am also convinced that God’s mercy and power are not limited to my ability to understand. God hears our prayers.

I believe that there is nothing that you can do each day that is more important for this world, for this church, for this town than spend a few minutes each day, fully aware that you are in the presence of God. Your personal and regular prayers are essential to the healing of this world and the ministries of this church and the well being of this town. Your life of prayer and ministry matter; they really do matter. 

Fan into flame the gift of God. Pray. Pray. Pray. You never know where that little flame may lead.