Oak Chapel United Methodist Church

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We're looking at both Nicodemus and John Wesley this morning, and there's not really time enough for either. But here we go.

Nicodemus. A powerful man. Comes to Jesus under cover of darkness and says, "We've decided -- that is, the other rulers of the Jews and I -- we've decided you are from God, because (you know) the miracles and all that." But the words are hardly out of his mouth when Jesus blurts out, apropos of nothing, "You must be born again." It's like he wasn't listening, but he was. He was right on the mark. He was saying, "This conversation is off to a bad start. Talking about me in a detached way like that, as if I were a butterfly on a pin to be examined, perhaps even admired, is a spiritual dodge, Nicodemus. Come on, my friend, let's cut to the quick: it's not for you and your cronies to decide. My presence in your world means you'll have to change, and you know it, and you don't like it -- you'll have to change your hearts and change your lives. In fact, I alter the rules of your game so dramatically, you'll have to start all over again. As if (my God!), as if you were reborn. That's why you want to talk this thing to death.

John Wesley. Born in an English parsonage, 1703, one of nineteen children, to loyal Anglican parents (remarkable people in their own right, Samuel and Susanna Wesley), but with non-conformist grandparents on both sides. He and his brother later would meld Anglicanism and non-conformity into one faith, called Methodism. As an infant, John was rescued in the nick of time from a house fire. His mother took it as a sign that he was special and reminded him frequently as he grew up that he had been "plucked as a brand from the burning". He want off to college, to Oxford, and there (with his brother Charles and George Whitefield) started The Holy Club. (Can you imagine, in college today, young men belonging to something called "The Holy Club?") The other, more sophisticated students mocked them because they took religion so seriously, carefully scheduling, as they did, every activity -- rising at 4 a.m. (which Wesley did all his life), then reading scripture for a set period of time, praying for a certain period, visiting the sick and those in prison -- everything on a precise schedule. The mockers laughed at the Holy Club, because its members, they said, had a method for everything they did, and jokingly called them "Methodists". But in spite of all that holiness, a life dedicated to God from morning to night, Wesley was still not certain of his own salvation. Religion was a chore for him, a duty, until he was converted, and his heart "strangely warmed," at a little Moravian meeting on Aldersgate Street, in London. After that, after he had learned to combine piety and warmth, he was truly unstoppable. Between his conversion, at age 35, and his death, at 88, John Wesley rode 250,000 miles on horseback, the equivalent of ten times around the earth, and preached 50,000 sermons along the way. (We are certain about this, by the way, because Wesley kept a meticulous diary. Why are we not surprised? In fact, thanks to that diary, we know exactly where John Wesley was and what he was doing almost every day of his adult life.) He became a powerful force for good in England. He spoke out against slavery and child labor, long before it was fashionable to do so, and he warned about the rampant abuse of alcohol (noting that on some London streets "every other house was a gin house.")

At the time, you remember, many English, including a good number of Wesley's followers, were emigrating to the "new world". Wesley sent Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke to lead them -- he had a good eye for people. And it was here, in the backwoods of America, that Wesley's warm and pious faith took off. There was a time, in the 1800s, when Methodists in America were building a church a day! There are now 8 million United Methodists, but there are another 40 or 50 million Christians, around the world, who trace their spiritual heritage to John Wesley. We often forget that, over the years, dozens of churches have spun off from Methodism: the Free Methodist Church, and the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Weslean Methodist Church, and the A.M.E. Zion Church, and the Church of the Nazarene, and the Salvation Army, and most branches of Pentecostalism, and scores of indigenous churches in countries around the world -- some have "methodist" in their names, and some do not, but all have their roots in the work of this one man.

He was a stellar human being. Not just books, but whole libraries have been written about him. Even non-religious historians recognize the enormous impact of John Wesley and the Methodist movement on life in England, and America, and the world. And it's not over yet. Amazing what God can do with one man, or one woman, who has been born again. Who doesn't think, like Nicodemus, that Jesus is someone we need an opinion about, but rather that Jesus is someone we need to change for -- change heart and mind, body and soul -- be recreated, be born again.

In our admiration for John Wesley the preacher and reformer, we sometimes lose sight of John Wesley the theologian. And that's wrong, because successful movements, like the Methodist revival, are not born of enthusiasm alone. Someone does the homework. Someone carefully thinks out the issues. And John Wesley did that. He accepted everything Luther and Calvin before him had said, about how men and women were sinners, saved only by the grace of God. But Wesley focused on what happens after a person is saved. He reminded his Lutheran and Calvinist friends that people were not created sinful, but perfect (in the Garden of Eden), with the image of God in their hearts. That divine image, that heavenly spark, he said, is never extinguished, not even in the worst of our depravities. And when we are saved in Christ, and know God has forgiven our falling away, we then fan that spark into a fire again. We start the long road back. He called that process, that growing in Christ, "sanctification." Conversion, as Churchill might have said, "is not the end. It is not the beginning of the end. It is the end of the beginning."

I told you a few months ago about a man who said to me, "I met Jesus in 1972, but I haven't done much about it." I said at the time that I didn't understand that. Wesley wouldn't have understood it either. For when we truly meet Jesus, we are born again, with all that that entails. Our direction and our intention change. What was of minor interest to us before becomes critically important, and what used to be important now seems trivial. We cannot sit on our salvation. We have to change -- that's what Jesus wanted to tell old Nicodemus, when he said, "You must be born again." We have to seek Christ every day and continue to grow in him. That is sanctification, what happens after we are saved, fanning the divine spark within us.

That's why true Methodists are never do gooders but are always good doers. That's why Methodists established 150 colleges in America, and founded thousands of hospitals, and schools, and orphanages, and retirement homes around the world. That's why we are always in the forefront of disaster relief, and feeding the hungry, and providing shelter for the homeless. That's also why good Methodists, true followers of John Wesley, are very serious about their soul work: praying, studying the scriptures, worshipping, learning more about Christ and loving him more each day. It's not that we're trying to earn our salvation. (We know we are saved by Christ long before we do these things, or we wouldn't do them.) But, as sinners washed in the blood of the Lamb, we have work to do. If ours is truly a recreational (a re-creational) faith, that is if we have been born again as babies, then (like all healthy babies) we are expected to grow. And in that growing, that sanctification, we apply what Wesley was so good at: discipline, and order and method. In his weekly class meetings, he didn't ask his followers what great thing they had done for Christ in the past seven days -- he asked what steps they had taken toward perfection.

When I was in the business world, from time to time, I had to call customers who hadn't paid their bills. They usually offered one of two excuses: either, "I don't have enough money to pay it" (in which case I would say, "O.K. How much can you send, John?), or they would say, "I don't agree with your bill -- this or that is wrong!" (in which case I would say, "O.K. John, why don't you deduct that charge for now, until we can figure it out, and send us the rest of the money.") It was a practical, methodical approach, and it often worked. John Wesley uses that same practical, methodical approach with converted Christians -- and he never lets them off the hook. Can't do it all? Can't be perfect, as Christ is perfect? O.K., what can you do? Send it in. Don't agree with this doctrine or that? O.K., let's set it aside, and not be waylaid in our faith. What can you believe? Send it in. Don't fail to take a small step because a big step is beyond your ability. Small steps add up. Keep growing. Measure your progress. Be sure you don't slide back. That's John Wesley. Not as glamorous as some kinds of religion, that's for sure! Not a lot of shoutin' and stompin'. But my! Methodists have accomplish a lot with that kind of plodding!