If you like Methodist traditions and history, you have hit the jackpot today. It is probably obvious to you, by now, that we are celebrating our heritage as United Methodists this morning. Every part of our service today is related to our founders, John and Charles Wesley: the hymns, the prayers, even the artwork on the front of your Order of Worship. This picture of John Wesley is from our new stained glass history window. I invite you to see the actual window after the service. Just go up the stairs on the left side of the Narthex and you can see it there. This morning, I kind of feel like a disc jockey on a radio station that focuses on one music format: "This is KUMC, all Wesley, all the time."

The reason I am flooding you with Wesleyan-style worship this morning is because today is designated Heritage Sunday in the United Methodist Church. This year is very special because 2003 marks the 300th birthday of the founder of Methodism, John Wesley. John was born on June 17, 1703 in Epworth, England, the 15th child of Samuel and Susanna Wesley. John would grow up to follow in his father's footsteps and become a priest in the Church of England.

In 1728, John and his younger brother Charles organized a small group of students at Oxford University for spiritual growth together. John established a very detailed schedule for their time together: reading assigned theological works, frequent taking of Holy Communion, regular periods of prayer and Bible study. Soon the other students on campus began to take notice and make fun of this group. They started to mock them and call them names like "Bible moths" or "the Holy Club." The name that finally stuck was "Methodists," because of their methodical approach to practicing their faith. (1)

People still make fun of us today. There is a series of jokes about religious groups and light bulbs that has circulated around the Internet for years. The joke begins with a question: "How many ____________does it take to change a light bulb?" In that blank you put in a denomination like Baptists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Pentecostals, etc. So, how many Methodists does it take to change a light bulb?

We choose not to make a statement either in favor of or against the need for a light bulb. However, if in your own journey you have found that a light bulb works for you, that is fine. You are invited to write a poem or compose a modern dance about your personal relationship to your light bulb and present it next month at our annual light bulb Sunday service, in which we will explore a number of light bulb traditions, including incandescent, fluorescent, three-way, long-lived, and tinted; all of which are equally valid paths to luminescence through Jesus Christ. (2)

We live in a time of our history that is sometimes called post-denominational. The differences between Christians who call themselves Lutherans or Presbyterians or Baptists or Episcopalians or Roman Catholics have been blurred. Christian unity is important and has taken some big steps forward in the last 40 years. Many of you here today have been Methodists all your lives; many of you were raised in a tradition other than Methodism, or maybe you had no tradition at all to call your own. Yet, all of us here today are part of a United Methodist congregation, and that connects us to 9.8 million other United Methodists throughout the world.

What is it that makes us First United Methodist Church of Santa Monica? This congregation is as old as the City of Santa Monica itself. We will celebrate our 128th birthday as a community of faith this October. In order to last this long, we must be united by something greater than our personal preferences for worship or individual beliefs. There must be something else that brings us together as Christians. John Wesley always believed that scripture was the primary source for understanding God, so let's look at our story for today for an answer.

Our gospel passage from John today takes place the evening following the first reports of Jesus' resurrection. The disciples are in hiding. They have received an eyewitness account from Mary Magdalene, but it sounds pretty unbelievable. Yet, the risen Christ returns through the locked door where they are holed up and says, "Peace be with you" (John 20:19). He gives them physical proof by showing them his wounded hands and side. Now that they can see and hear their leader, they believe.

What happens next seems a little strange. Jesus breathes on his followers and says, "Receive the Holy Spirit" (John 20:22). Why does Jesus breathe on the disciples? In Greek, the word for spirit is pneuma. Pneuma is the root for words such as pneumatic or pneumonia. It relates to breathing, the very basis of life itself. When you look back at God's creation of the first human beings in Genesis, you see that God formed us from the dust of the ground and breathed life into us (Gen 2:7). It is the Spirit of God blown into our nostrils that gives us life.

I remember a conversation my wife and I had with our obstetrician when our son was born. He described for us the dramatic changes that occur in a baby at the moment of birth. The most important change is the transition to breathing. The newborn's circulatory system must deliver a large volume of blood to the lungs. Two small openings in the newborn's heart begin to close as the heart begins to pump harder. The baby's red blood cells contain fetal hemoglobin that specializes in attracting oxygen in the blood. As the newborn begins to breathe air on its own, a new type of hemoglobin begins to develop to replace the fetal hemoglobin. All of these miraculous changes begin to happen in the first moments of birth.

Now we have a similar situation: Jesus is giving new life to his followers by breathing upon them the Holy Spirit. Throughout this gospel account, Jesus has promised that the Holy Spirit would be sent to guide his disciples after he was gone. Now the time has come. Christ has conquered death through the miracle of resurrection. But Jesus is not going to be with us very long. As he told Mary Magdalene on Easter morning, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, 'I am ascending to my father and your Father, to my God and your God'" (John 20:17). Just as suddenly as he appears to the disciples, Jesus will disappear again. But he does not leave them without guidance, for he gives them the Holy Spirit.

This is a crucial moment in our story, for this is the birth of the Church in the Gospel of John. After receiving the Holy Spirit, Jesus leaves his disciples with one more instruction: "If you forgive the sins of any, they will be forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained" (John 20:23). That's it, nothing else. I'm sure these first Christians thought, "Hey, wait a minute, don't go Jesus. How do we determine who to forgive and who not to forgive? What do you mean by retaining sins? Will the Holy Spirit tell us what do in your absence, Jesus?"

This is where our tradition can help us. John Wesley was more than just a very organized religious leader. He provided some new insights about the Spirit and our response as Christians. In 1739, Wesley preached a sermon entitled "The Great Privilege of Those that Are Born of God."

In that sermon, Wesley compares the first moments of a child's birth to our spiritual birth as Christians. Here is how he describes the first moments of birth for a child:

But no sooner is the child born into the world than he exists in a quite different manner. He now feels the air with which he is surrounded, and which pours into him from every side, as fast as he alternately breathes it back, to sustain the flame of life. (3)

Just as the newborn begins to breathe the air of a new world outside the womb, so does the soul of a believer in God. Now listen to how Wesley describes our relationship to the Holy Spirit in that same sermon:

It immediately and necessarily implies the continual inspiration of God's Holy Spirit: God's breathing into the soul, and the soul's breathing back what it first receives from God; a continual action of God upon the soul, the re-action of the soul upon God . . . . (4)

What Wesley is teaching us is that the Holy Spirit is not simply a one-way gift from God to us. In order for us to experience new life, we have to respond to the Spirit through our actions. While Wesley emphasizes the free gift of God's grace, he also emphasizes our responsibility to do something with that gift. That is why he gives us a method of practicing our spiritual disciplines. That includes reading Scripture, praying on a regular basis, helping others through acts of mercy, and worshipping together as a community. (5)

The tricky thing about all of this is that the Holy Spirit can be quite elusive. We can never know when or where it may be experienced. Sometimes when you expect it, it doesn't arrive. Some-times when you least expect it, it overwhelms you with its presence. It is like the wind in the trees, coming and going as it pleases. And we so desperately need it to give us new life. Over the past three years, I have had the opportunity to go with many of you to Camp Colby for our annual Fellowship and Work Weekend. Each spring, about 70 of us head up into the Angeles National Forest to a United Methodist camp. We usually have a broad range of people, from children to youth to young parents to older adults. Also, in each of the last three years, Ron Theile from our congregation brings a group of youth bell ringers. Most of these youth are from the inner city and this is their first experience camping outdoors.

When we are all together, we become a new, unique community for that weekend. On Saturday morning, we break into work teams for repairs and clean up of the grounds. We share all of our meals in the dining hall, we perform skits and sing songs around the campfire on Saturday night, and we worship together on Sunday morning.

At the worship service, we gather under the trees as the bells play. We pray and we share with each other how we experienced God during the weekend. Then we end with Holy Communion, sharing the body and blood of Christ with each other. Each year, I have marveled how this odd collection of people comes together and forms a new community of faith for that weekend. The wind comes and rustles the leaves of the trees and I always feel the Holy Spirit breathing new life into us that weekend. Just as God breathed life into Adam and Jesus breathed the Holy Spirit upon his disciples, so we, too, are filled with the Spirit at Camp Colby. I always thank God in that moment for the gift of life. I thank God for the church and the hope that it brings. I thank God for my Methodist heritage and the community of faith it provides.

We have an opportunity today to learn from our great tradition. One of the miracles of Easter is that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead. Another miracle is that the breath of new life was given to the disciples that same day through the gift of the Spirit. The Spirit continues to breathe upon us this very day and will remain with us until Christ comes again. All we need to do is breathe back to God. Amen.

NOTES:
1. See William Kellon Quick, "Methodists Celebrate John Wesley's 300th," www.umc.org.
2. See www.Lightbulbjokes.com.
3. From The Works of John Wesley, Vol. 1, ed. Albert C. Outler (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984), 433.
4. Ibid., 442.
5. See Randy Maddox, "Wesley's Prescription for Making Disciples of Jesus Christ: Insights for the 21st Century Church," Quarterly Review (23:1), Spring 2003, 15-28.