(Scriptures: Numbers 11:24-30 Acts 2:1-21
I Corinthians 12:1-13 John 20:19-23)
Today we celebrate Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the believers and empowered them for ministry and proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Pentecost is also often called “the birthday of the church”. Before the coming of the Holy Spirit, Christ’s followers were a frightened huddle, meeting behind closed doors, uncertain what the future held for them. After the coming of the Spirit, they were united into the church, the body of Christ, empowered and equipped to proclaim and to serve.
Today’s Scriptures give us a variety, a kaleidoscope of images associated with the Holy Spirit. Our reading from the book of Numbers comes at a time when Moses was feeling overwhelmed by the burden of leading the Israelites through the wilderness. Moses told God that he’d rather that God killed him right there where he stood, than have to put up with the peoples’ complaints. Instead, God tells Moses to choose 70 elders that would help to share Moses’ leadership burden. God took some of the Spirit that was on Moses and gave it to the 70 elders. This is fairly typical of the Old Testament – it was not given to everyone to receive the Holy Spirit. Generally, when God wished to equip kings, prophets, and other leaders of the people, God gave the Spirit to them to provide the special stamina and insight needed for their special tasks. Likewise, when God had a special message that God wished to proclaim, God’s spirit would come upon the prophet or person God designated to carry the message. In our Numbers reading, we get the striking image of the Spirit falling upon the two elders who had stayed behind in the camp, so that they prophesied where they stood. Joshua is horrified and wants Moses to make them stop, but Moses responds that he wished the Spirit would fall on everyone. As it happens, Moses’ wish came true in our reading from Acts.
Our readings from John’s Gospel and from Acts give us two contrasting images of the coming of the Spirit. John’s image is quiet, almost unnoticed – Jesus breathes on the disciples and says “receive the Holy Spirit”. With that Holy Spirit comes the power to forgive sins. But John gives us none of the ecstatic behavior we see in Acts. In Acts, between the Ascension of Jesus and Pentecost, the disciples more or less mark time. They deal with organizational housekeeping matters – they felt a need to find someone to fill the position held by Judas, and choose Matthias for that role. But there were no mighty acts from them until the coming of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. The 2nd chapter of Acts gives the image we usually associate with the coming of the Spirit – the rush of a mighty wind, divided tongues of fire on the heads of the disciples, and the disciples declaring the Gospel in the languages of the many foreign pilgrims who were in Jerusalem.
Nowadays, we usually associate Pentecost with…..Pentecostals, whose manifestations of the Holy Spirit include “speaking in tongues”, “being slain in the Spirit” and other forms of ecstatic experience. Indeed, Paul’s letter to the Corinthians indicates that speaking in unknown tongues was a divisive issue in the church at Corinth. But in the Acts account of Pentecost, the disciples were speaking in tongues unknown to themselves, but known to those listening. While “speaking in tongues” was a divisive issue for Paul’s followers – and is still an issue that divides churches today – in Acts, the speech of the apostles was not intended to divide, but to unite; not to confound, but to make clear the Gospel to those present. It was sort of the Tower of Babel story in reverse: in Genesis, human beings were united in their hubris in trying to build a tower so they could climb up and look in on God – in modern terms, to climb up to heaven so they can walk up God’s sidewalk, ring the doorbell, and say ‘howdy’ - and God confused their language. On Pentecost, through the Holy Spirit, persons of many different languages who normally would be unintelligible to one another, were able to understand what the apostles were saying. Human initiative and human overreaching resulted in division and confusion. Divine initiative resulted in mutual understanding among humans.
In reading these passages together, we may be left with a question: why was the experience of the Holy Spirit opened up to so many. In the Old Testament, the Spirit was uniquely bestowed on select individuals gifted for ministry. And this appears to be the model in John’s Gospel as well – just as God had anointed Moses, David, and others with the Spirit in preparation for their leadership responsibilities, in John’s Gospel, Jesus bestowed the spirit on his disciples in preparation for the work they were to do. But in Acts, it is such a dramatic, open display of the Spirit, by contrast with the other readings. Why is this account seemingly different?
Part of this is because it is expected that, in the church, all believers, not just a select few, would be carrying out the ministry of the Gospel in various ways. Our reading from Acts, quoting the prophet Joel, says that in the last days the Spirit would be poured out on all flesh – sons and daughters, young and old, even slave and free alike – and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. I Peter 2:9 speaks of the church as “a holy nation, a royal priesthood” – and as ministers, those in the church – all believers - would need to be baptized with the Holy Spirit in order to be prepared for their duties. In his letter to the church at Corinth, the Apostle Paul goes to great lengths to describe the different gifts – wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues – given to equip the church by the one Spirit. In the words of a newer hymn that we sang earlier in the service, “Many gifts, one Spirit, one love known in many ways.”
However, the point I want to underline is that, while in our reading from Acts the Spirit is more widely distributed, the purpose has not changed. The gift of the Holy Spirit is to prepare us for ministry, for worship and service. This was the case in the Old Testament, in John’s Gospel, in I Corinthians, and in Acts. The Spirit is not given to us for our own gratification. While the Spirit acts as our Advocate before God, interceding for us before God with sighs to deep for words when we ourselves cannot find it in ourselves to pray – it is there not only for us, but rather to make us more able to be there for others. This is where the Corinthian church went off track – those with the more flashy gifts, such as speaking in tongues, felt that this gift conferred some special merit on those who practiced speaking in tongues, lacking in those who did not. And this is where some modern-day Pentecostal churches may go wrong as well, if they see their speaking in tongues as something that sets them above and apart from others. But in Acts and in Paul’s letters, quite the opposite is the intent – tongues and other gifts of the Spirit are intended, not to divide, but rather to bring us together as the Body of Christ.
What does the coming of the Spirit look like in Bridesburg? What does it look like here at Emanuel Church. What are the signs of the Spirit here? Our congregation will not likely be mistaken anytime soon for what is commonly called a Pentecostal church. Anyone coming to Emanuel church to see people speaking in tongues, dancing in the aisles, falling to the ground, slain in the Spirit as the saying goes, will walk away sadly disappointed. The Spirit has not endowed Emanuel Church with those gifts. But look at the gifts the Spirit has given us. Here we bring together our Bridesburg neighbors with those who live in other neighborhoods. Here we are equipped to view our daily work not just as a way to earn a living, but as vocations dedicated to God’s glory. Here those who are weighed down with life find new hope and strength. Here the members of a small church “pray big”, remembering persons and situations all over the greater Philadelphia and New Jersey region. Like the small frightened huddle of disciples emerging from their locked rooms to go forth and minister across the known world of their day, we through our partnerships with the Bridesburg Council of Churches and the United Church of Christ send our prayers and our offerings to join with those of others to bless struggling people outside our door and around the globe.
As I said at the beginning of this sermon, Pentecost is called the birthday of the church. So, as we prepare for Communion, let me say, “Happy birthday, church.” As we prepare to approach the table, may we open our hearts to the Spirit’s prompting. Amen.
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Please join us for worship on Sundays at 10 a.m. at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street, just off Thompson. www.emanuelphila.org
Friday, June 17, 2011
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Going and Coming
(Scriptures: Acts 1:1-14, Ephesians 1:15-23,
Luke 24:44-53)
Today’s reading from Luke and Acts remind us, if nothing else, that Acts is a sequel to the Gospel of Luke. Luke’s Gospel tells of the acts of Jesus during his earthly ministry, and Acts tells us about the acts of the Apostles, of the early church – the acts of Peter, of John, the acts of Philip, James, etc. - and after the account of Paul’s conversion, the focus rapidly shifts to the acts of Paul.
Acts is a sequel to Luke, and so Acts basically picks up where Luke begins. Luke tells us that Jesus led them out as far as Bethany, and as he blessed them, he was taken up from them. Acts begins by retelling and to some extent expanding and reshaping the narrative at the end of Luke. In Acts, Jesus’ “blessing” sounds more like a “challenge”. In today’s reading, Jesus is spending his final moments with his disciples before ascending to heaven. And as usual, the disciples are out to lunch, oblivious to what Jesus is telling them. “Now will you restore the kingdom to Israel?” they ask. Jesus is about to leave them, and they’re still caught up in their parochial, tribal, nationalistic concerns.
Jesus, even in his last minutes on earth, is to the last a master teacher. Jesus was unwilling to engage the explicit question the disciples asked, but he realized that behind their explicit question was an implicit question, sort of a “question behind the question”, which went as follows: “Where do we go from here, Jesus?”. Jesus’ response is worth noting. He redirects them from the specific question they did ask – which they had no business asking – to the implicit “question behind the question”– which Jesus answered graciously. He responds to their explicit question by basically telling them to mind their own business – “it’s not for you to know the times the Father has set by his own authority” – but then answers their “question behind the question” – “where do we go from here” - by going on to say that they will receive power to be Christ’s witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and the whole world. Jesus gives them an expanded frame of reference, a greatly expanded mission field. The disciples prematurely want to declare “mission accomplished”, hoping that they can bask in the glory of having been by Jesus’ side as he restored independence to Israel. By contrast, Jesus is telling them that their adventures in faith, far from being over, were really just beginning. Like a loving parent caring for toddlers, Jesus had walked beside the disciples and held their hands through the course of his earthly ministry. Like tuckered-out toddlers, the disciples thought it was high time for milk and cookies and a nice nap. But instead, Jesus would now be ascending to the Father, and, like growing children, they were going to have to learn how to look both ways and cross the street on their own. It must have been a jarring conversation for the disciples.
It may also be a jarring conversation for us. Listening to the disciples may be like looking at ourselves in a mirror. Like the disciples, we may define our faith in ways that are narrow and self-centered. We may define our faith primarily in terms of “I” and “me” and “my” – Am I saved? What will happen to me when I die? Will I get to heaven? Will I see my family again? And there is a time and a place for these concerns. They’re very important concerns. When we’re grieving the death of loved ones, when we or our family members are on beds of pain and illness, when we or our family members faced with our own mortality, our faith can become a great source of personal strength and comfort. Truly, what a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and grief to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. As the saying goes, when we’re at the end of our rope, it’s time to tie a knot and hang on…and we do that by leaning on the everlasting arms of God.
But if we define our faith in Christ primarily in those terms – what’s in it for me? – we’ve greatly truncated the mission Jesus laid out for his disciples. Sort of like that movie from a few years ago, ‘Honey, I shrunk the kids.’ - ‘Honey, we’ve shrunk the mission.’ We’ve shrunk the mission of witnessing to the Gospel in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the whole world into “Well, at least I’m saved” or “Well, at least my family will be together in heaven. Us four, no more. Everyone else can fend for themselves.” No wonder we may latch onto to those who huckster and traffic in myths about the end times. After all, we and our families are saved….what else is there to do? Mission accomplished! Time for milk and cookies and a nice nap. I think part of the reason so many get caught up in the end-times mania is that the mainline churches haven’t done what Jesus did for his disciples in our reading from Acts, haven’t done a good job of helping their congregations understand their mission, understand why we’re here. Because of this lack of a big picture focus, we’re prone to focus on ourselves, prone to declare “mission accomplished” when in fact our mission has hardly begun. Peter and Paul and the rest of the apostles didn’t sit around obsessing about their own salvation – come to think of it, they didn’t sit around much, period - they had much bigger things on their minds.
Because the mission that Jesus defined for his disciples – “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and the whole world” – still stands. It’s an ongoing mission. Think of it this way: everytime a baby is born, surprise! - there’s a new person who hasn’t heard about Jesus. So the mission field is ever before us.
Another way to think of it is to go back to the Luke narrative – Jesus led the disciples out to Bethany, from whence he ascended. Bethany, where Jesus visited Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and where he was hosted by Simon the Leper. While there are some disputes as to the meaning of the name Bethany, most authorities interpret the name as meaning “house of pain, house of suffering” – “Beth” means “house”, and “ani” or “anya” means “pain” and “affliction”. Some think there may at one time have been an almshouse or poor house there. So, before his ascension, perhaps Jesus gave the disciples not only verbal instructions, but visuals as well – a place of suffering, a place which needed the good news of Christ.
I suspect that, at this point, we may be feeling a little exhausted at the thought of witnessing to Jesus in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and the whole world. Me too. If it’s only up to us, we’re not going to get very far. We’ll feel worn out, feel like settling down for milk and cookies and a nap. Hey, I feel worn out after a morning of handout of Emanuel church flyers in Bridesburg. We’ll want to declare “mission accomplished” prematurely, want God to fast forward to the 2nd coming. And so here’s where it’s appropriate to lift up another part of Jesus’ words – “you will receive power when trhe Holy Spirit comes upon you.” God isn’t asking us to do all this on our own. God will send the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will empower us to do far more than we could ask or think. One of the fascinations of Luke-Acts is watching how the disciples, who, as in the other Gospels, are about as clueless as can be, suddenly become powerful preachers and teachers and evangelists. Think of Peter, who, when he walked alongside Jesus during Jesus’ earthly mission, never missed an opportunity to put his foot in his mouth. After the coming of the Holy Spirit, Peter once again opened his mouth – and three thousand people were saved. Same disciples. Very different results. The difference is the coming of the Holy Spirit, having God’s spirit planted within them, empowering them and guiding them and directing their paths.
Next Sunday, we will celebrate Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit on the church. The Holy Spirit can empower and direct us, if we allow, if we get out of the Spirit’s way. Like the apostles, we may find that we have to set aside our own agendas. Like the disciples, we may find that if we are left with unanswered questions, it may be because they’re not the questions God would have us ask. We may be asking God the wrong questions.
I’ve taken beginners Spanish courses several times – despite which I’ve never really learned Spanish beyond a handful of phrases. I really don’t have an aptitude for language, and my brain forgets the unfamiliar phrases almost immediately. My middle-aged brain’s attempts to absorb Spanish is like a brick attempting to soak up water. But the last time I took Spanish, I remember our teacher telling the class that we need to learn to tune our ears to understand Spanish. And that phrase stuck with me. I remember when I visited Cuba with the Penn Southeast Conference, at first the conversations going on around me were just background noise, babble. But as the days went on, I could start to pick out a word or a phrase here and there. By the last day, I understood much of what was being said around me, and could even put in a few words of my own here and there. (Of course, when I got home, it all went out the window by the time I’d gotten home from the airport.) But in the same way I tuned my ears in Cuba for at least a few days to understand at least a little Spanish, we may need to tune our spiritual ears to hear the whisperings of the Spirit, in the midst of all the background noise – including all the religious background noise. We need to tune our ears to pick out the voice of the Good Shepherd, amid the voices of all the hirelings and hucksters that would lead us off course, who at best seek to fleece us, and at worst may seek to destroy us.
Having tuned our ears to the voice of the Spirit, may we be like the church at Ephesus to whom Paul wrote, saying, “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of the glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.” May Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians be answered for us as well, as in a few minutes we come to the table and share the communion meal, and in so doing experience the presence of Christ, now raised from the dead and seated at God’s right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name, not only in this age but in the age to come. May it be so for us, the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. May it be so for us at Emanuel Church. Amen.
***************************
Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org
Luke 24:44-53)
Today’s reading from Luke and Acts remind us, if nothing else, that Acts is a sequel to the Gospel of Luke. Luke’s Gospel tells of the acts of Jesus during his earthly ministry, and Acts tells us about the acts of the Apostles, of the early church – the acts of Peter, of John, the acts of Philip, James, etc. - and after the account of Paul’s conversion, the focus rapidly shifts to the acts of Paul.
Acts is a sequel to Luke, and so Acts basically picks up where Luke begins. Luke tells us that Jesus led them out as far as Bethany, and as he blessed them, he was taken up from them. Acts begins by retelling and to some extent expanding and reshaping the narrative at the end of Luke. In Acts, Jesus’ “blessing” sounds more like a “challenge”. In today’s reading, Jesus is spending his final moments with his disciples before ascending to heaven. And as usual, the disciples are out to lunch, oblivious to what Jesus is telling them. “Now will you restore the kingdom to Israel?” they ask. Jesus is about to leave them, and they’re still caught up in their parochial, tribal, nationalistic concerns.
Jesus, even in his last minutes on earth, is to the last a master teacher. Jesus was unwilling to engage the explicit question the disciples asked, but he realized that behind their explicit question was an implicit question, sort of a “question behind the question”, which went as follows: “Where do we go from here, Jesus?”. Jesus’ response is worth noting. He redirects them from the specific question they did ask – which they had no business asking – to the implicit “question behind the question”– which Jesus answered graciously. He responds to their explicit question by basically telling them to mind their own business – “it’s not for you to know the times the Father has set by his own authority” – but then answers their “question behind the question” – “where do we go from here” - by going on to say that they will receive power to be Christ’s witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and the whole world. Jesus gives them an expanded frame of reference, a greatly expanded mission field. The disciples prematurely want to declare “mission accomplished”, hoping that they can bask in the glory of having been by Jesus’ side as he restored independence to Israel. By contrast, Jesus is telling them that their adventures in faith, far from being over, were really just beginning. Like a loving parent caring for toddlers, Jesus had walked beside the disciples and held their hands through the course of his earthly ministry. Like tuckered-out toddlers, the disciples thought it was high time for milk and cookies and a nice nap. But instead, Jesus would now be ascending to the Father, and, like growing children, they were going to have to learn how to look both ways and cross the street on their own. It must have been a jarring conversation for the disciples.
It may also be a jarring conversation for us. Listening to the disciples may be like looking at ourselves in a mirror. Like the disciples, we may define our faith in ways that are narrow and self-centered. We may define our faith primarily in terms of “I” and “me” and “my” – Am I saved? What will happen to me when I die? Will I get to heaven? Will I see my family again? And there is a time and a place for these concerns. They’re very important concerns. When we’re grieving the death of loved ones, when we or our family members are on beds of pain and illness, when we or our family members faced with our own mortality, our faith can become a great source of personal strength and comfort. Truly, what a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and grief to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer. As the saying goes, when we’re at the end of our rope, it’s time to tie a knot and hang on…and we do that by leaning on the everlasting arms of God.
But if we define our faith in Christ primarily in those terms – what’s in it for me? – we’ve greatly truncated the mission Jesus laid out for his disciples. Sort of like that movie from a few years ago, ‘Honey, I shrunk the kids.’ - ‘Honey, we’ve shrunk the mission.’ We’ve shrunk the mission of witnessing to the Gospel in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and the whole world into “Well, at least I’m saved” or “Well, at least my family will be together in heaven. Us four, no more. Everyone else can fend for themselves.” No wonder we may latch onto to those who huckster and traffic in myths about the end times. After all, we and our families are saved….what else is there to do? Mission accomplished! Time for milk and cookies and a nice nap. I think part of the reason so many get caught up in the end-times mania is that the mainline churches haven’t done what Jesus did for his disciples in our reading from Acts, haven’t done a good job of helping their congregations understand their mission, understand why we’re here. Because of this lack of a big picture focus, we’re prone to focus on ourselves, prone to declare “mission accomplished” when in fact our mission has hardly begun. Peter and Paul and the rest of the apostles didn’t sit around obsessing about their own salvation – come to think of it, they didn’t sit around much, period - they had much bigger things on their minds.
Because the mission that Jesus defined for his disciples – “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and the whole world” – still stands. It’s an ongoing mission. Think of it this way: everytime a baby is born, surprise! - there’s a new person who hasn’t heard about Jesus. So the mission field is ever before us.
Another way to think of it is to go back to the Luke narrative – Jesus led the disciples out to Bethany, from whence he ascended. Bethany, where Jesus visited Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and where he was hosted by Simon the Leper. While there are some disputes as to the meaning of the name Bethany, most authorities interpret the name as meaning “house of pain, house of suffering” – “Beth” means “house”, and “ani” or “anya” means “pain” and “affliction”. Some think there may at one time have been an almshouse or poor house there. So, before his ascension, perhaps Jesus gave the disciples not only verbal instructions, but visuals as well – a place of suffering, a place which needed the good news of Christ.
I suspect that, at this point, we may be feeling a little exhausted at the thought of witnessing to Jesus in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and the whole world. Me too. If it’s only up to us, we’re not going to get very far. We’ll feel worn out, feel like settling down for milk and cookies and a nap. Hey, I feel worn out after a morning of handout of Emanuel church flyers in Bridesburg. We’ll want to declare “mission accomplished” prematurely, want God to fast forward to the 2nd coming. And so here’s where it’s appropriate to lift up another part of Jesus’ words – “you will receive power when trhe Holy Spirit comes upon you.” God isn’t asking us to do all this on our own. God will send the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will empower us to do far more than we could ask or think. One of the fascinations of Luke-Acts is watching how the disciples, who, as in the other Gospels, are about as clueless as can be, suddenly become powerful preachers and teachers and evangelists. Think of Peter, who, when he walked alongside Jesus during Jesus’ earthly mission, never missed an opportunity to put his foot in his mouth. After the coming of the Holy Spirit, Peter once again opened his mouth – and three thousand people were saved. Same disciples. Very different results. The difference is the coming of the Holy Spirit, having God’s spirit planted within them, empowering them and guiding them and directing their paths.
Next Sunday, we will celebrate Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit on the church. The Holy Spirit can empower and direct us, if we allow, if we get out of the Spirit’s way. Like the apostles, we may find that we have to set aside our own agendas. Like the disciples, we may find that if we are left with unanswered questions, it may be because they’re not the questions God would have us ask. We may be asking God the wrong questions.
I’ve taken beginners Spanish courses several times – despite which I’ve never really learned Spanish beyond a handful of phrases. I really don’t have an aptitude for language, and my brain forgets the unfamiliar phrases almost immediately. My middle-aged brain’s attempts to absorb Spanish is like a brick attempting to soak up water. But the last time I took Spanish, I remember our teacher telling the class that we need to learn to tune our ears to understand Spanish. And that phrase stuck with me. I remember when I visited Cuba with the Penn Southeast Conference, at first the conversations going on around me were just background noise, babble. But as the days went on, I could start to pick out a word or a phrase here and there. By the last day, I understood much of what was being said around me, and could even put in a few words of my own here and there. (Of course, when I got home, it all went out the window by the time I’d gotten home from the airport.) But in the same way I tuned my ears in Cuba for at least a few days to understand at least a little Spanish, we may need to tune our spiritual ears to hear the whisperings of the Spirit, in the midst of all the background noise – including all the religious background noise. We need to tune our ears to pick out the voice of the Good Shepherd, amid the voices of all the hirelings and hucksters that would lead us off course, who at best seek to fleece us, and at worst may seek to destroy us.
Having tuned our ears to the voice of the Spirit, may we be like the church at Ephesus to whom Paul wrote, saying, “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of the glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.” May Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians be answered for us as well, as in a few minutes we come to the table and share the communion meal, and in so doing experience the presence of Christ, now raised from the dead and seated at God’s right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name, not only in this age but in the age to come. May it be so for us, the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. May it be so for us at Emanuel Church. Amen.
***************************
Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street (off Thompson). www.emanuelphila.org
Love and Obey
(Scriptures: Acts 7:55-60, 1 Peter 3:13-22, John 14:15-21)
In this morning’s Gospel reading, Jesus and his disciples are celebrating the Last Supper, and Jesus is continuing his farewell address to his disciples. Jesus has been preparing them for the reality that he will not be with them much longer. Of course, the disciples are full of questions: where are you going? Why can’t we come? Are you coming back? Perhaps most pressing, how will we be able to live when you’ve gone away. As I considered how the disciples must have been feeling, a Laura Branigan song – or maybe the Michael Bolton remake, depending which version you’re familiar with – started playing in the back of my mind – “How am I supposed to live without you....” and the disciples may well have been thinking something very similar. How are we supposed to live without you, Jesus? How are we supposed to carry on, when you, who are all that we’ve been living for will soon be gone?
Jesus assures them that he will not leave them orphaned. Jesus’ words are mysterious: even though “in a little while” he’ll be going away, still, Jesus says, “I am coming to you.” “In a little while” Jesus says, “the world will not see me, but you will see me.” Jesus tells the disciples how they’re supposed to carry on, how they’re supposed to live: “Because I live, you also will live.” The earthly Jesus, the man of Nazareth with whom the disciples had walked for three years, would be with them no longer, but Christ’s spirit would continue to be beside them, even within them. Jesus tells them that he will ask the Father for “another Advocate”, whom Jesus calls “the spirit of truth” who will abide with us and be with us forever.” The original Greek word, “Paraclete” – means “someone along side us” – as an Advocate – like our attorney at trial – or as an intercessor, someone to go to God on our behalf – or a Helper - or a Comforter, one to strengthen us in difficulties. The world cannot see or receive the spirit of truth, because the world is not open to the truth. But Christ’s disciples will receive this Spirit. Two Sundays from now we will celebrate Pentecost, the story of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the early church.
Of course, I’m considering the text in light of last weekend’s excitement about Harold Camping’s false predictions about the Rapture. It was certainly interesting, if that’s the word, to hear Camping’s last-minute elaborations on his predictions – on May 21, there would be earthquakes at 6 pm in each time zone around the world, and the graves would be opened, the righteous would be Raptured, caught up in the clouds, and the bodies of any unsaved people would be thrown on the ground to be shamed. And, of course, the members of the VFW and legion posts visit our cemetery on the Sunday of Memorial day weekend every year…and we surely couldn’t have them seeing open graves and century old corpses and such. I’m only one person, 50 years old, overweight, short of breath and out of shape….How would I ever get all that mess cleaned up in time for the visitors from the VFW and the Legion and such later today?
OK…I’m being a little tongue in cheek. But, amid the laughter, I think that there’s some truly sad commentary to be found underneath the silliness. We may shake our heads wondering how on earth people can get caught up in Camping’s silliness, or the silliness of other End Times preachers that are just as off-base. People run around here, and there,
and everywhere, looking for Jesus’ second coming in glory, at the end of time – and it is indeed part of our tradition that Jesus will come again in glory, though we don’t know when this will happen - but, if we take today’s Gospel reading seriously, we realize Jesus never left. Jesus never left. Jesus said that, “in a little while, the world will no longer see me, but you will see me.” We live in an in-between time: Indeed, the earthly Jesus ascended to the Father – we’ll be considering the Ascension next Sunday – and Jesus will come again in glory at the end of time – but in between the Ascension and the Second Coming, this in-between time in which we live, Jesus said “I am coming to you. I will send another Advocate, the Spirit of truth.” And in two weeks we will celebrate Pentecost, when Jesus’ promise to come again to his followers, to send the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Advocate, the Spirit of Truth, was fulfilled. Jesus specifically said, “I will not leave you orphaned.” I will not abandon you. And Jesus did not abandon us. Why do we sometimes find ourselves acting like orphans, acting as if we’d been abandoned, acting as if God has left the building?
Where will we find Jesus? One place to find Jesus is in church. Jesus said, “where ever two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in their midst.” But it’s easy, especially in a small, struggling congregation like Emanuel, where I’m sometimes sending up prayers at 9:30 that more than 2 or 3 show up, to wonder some weeks if anything worthwhile is going on. We show up, greet each other, stand and sit for the various portions of the liturgy, hear some stirring organ music – or some hit or miss guitar playing – and sing some hymns, and take up the offering, and listen to Pastor Dave natter on in the pulpit – once a month we come forward for our cube of bread and cup of wine, and at the end hang around for coffee and cake and maybe a Bible lesson – and if we think that’s all that’s going on, no wonder we’re feeling empty at the end of the service. If we miss the presence of Christ in our midst, no wonder we feel let down. If all we expect to find the coffee and cake, or Ralph’s organ playing, or heaven help us my guitar playing, or the sermon, or even the fellowship, no wonder we leave feeling hungry. No wonder we feel leave feeling empty. No wonder we feel a need to look for someone or something that can help us feel more a more vivid, tangible connection to God.
I recently read part of one of Martin Luther’s sermons that seemed to speak to our present situation. Of course, Luther was preaching in the 1500’s in very different circumstances, and yet in some ways, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Luther’s sermon dealt with those in the Roman Catholic church of his day who advertised various religious relics, such as articles of clothing worn by various saints, which people would travel long distances to see, while missing God’s presence in their own churches and their own homes, missing God’s presence right in front of their noses. Here’s a few words from Luther:
“In times past we would have run to the ends of the world if we had known of a place where we could hear God speak. But now that we hear this in sermons, we do not see this happening. You hear at home in your house, father and mother and children sing and speak of it, the preacher speaks it in the parish church – you ought to lift up your hands and rejoice that we have been given the honor of hearing God speak to us through the Word. Oh, people say, what is that? What do we get out of it? All right, go ahead, dear brother, if you don’t want God to speak to you every day at home in your house or in your parish church, then be clever and look for something else: in Trier is the Lord God’s coat, in Aachen are Joseph’s britches, go there and squander your money. You have to go far for these things and spend a lot of money, leave house and home empty….all the while anyone can go to Baptism, the Sacrament, and the preaching-desk! How highly honored and richly blessed we are to know that God speaks with us and feeds us with the Word, gives us Baptism, and all the rest! But people say: What, baptism? Sacrament? God’s Word? – Joseph’s britches, that’s what does it!”
These days folks who are, in Luther’s words, being clever, no longer travel here and there to see religious relics. Joseph’s britches are no longer much of a draw. These days, instead of traveling to view relics, we clamor for people to tell us about the End times. And these days we don’t have to travel at all – we can stay home and turn the dial on our radio and TV for spectacular predictions of the End Times, one after the other, the more over-the-top, the more outlandish, the better. Reading the various predictions of end-time prognosticators is like listening to the old radio show, “Can You Top This?” Yet we forget that, for the prophet Elijah, God was not in the earthquake or the windstorm – not in the spectacular - but in the still, small voice that followed. We can find God right here, right now at Emanuel Church, in the sacraments of baptism and communion, in hearing the Word preached, and in the love we find when Christians gather. We, you and I can experience God’s presence here – both comforting us and challenging us - week by week, in worship, in hearing the Word, in the sacraments, in Christian fellowship. Like Jacob, having wrestled with the angel, we can say, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” Having experienced God’s presence here at church, our eyes and ears will be tuned and our hearts opened to God’s presence elsewhere in our lives, as we see God’s hand at work in our lives, the lives of our families, our communities – and if we are open to it, we’ll see God at work in all manner of unexpected places. And having experienced God’s presence, we can share that presence in our homes, our offices, everywhere we go.
There is one part of Jesus’ words that always brings me up a little short: “If you love me, you’ll obey my commandments.” As protestant Christians we believe in salvation by grace through faith, not by works, that we should boast. And yet Jesus speaks of obeying his commandments. Is Jesus saying we need to earn his love by our works? If so, boy are we in deep trouble! Jesus’ words could also could come across sounding manipulative, like a spouse telling us, “If you love me, you’ll take out the trash.”
But maybe Jesus was not manipulating, not coercing, but just observing, just describing how his followers would act. If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments. And Jesus summed up the commandments in the two Great Commandments; Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and Love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus also said, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” We can’t do this on our own. It is only by having God at work within us, that we can love God and neighbor. But with God at work within us, we will more and more live into being able to love God and neighbor more fully. We can’t please God on our own by trying to will ourselves to love. We can only love because God first loved us, and because God’s love is within us. But because God’s love is in us, we can carry out Jesus’ commandment to love – a love that’s not just about warm fuzzy feelings – heaven knows my feelings aren’t always warm and fuzzy, and yours may not be either – but in Christ’s love we’re can work for the good of others, even those we may not like very much.
Keeping Jesus’ commandments is not easy. It can be dangerous, showing God’s love to folks who may not necessarily be ready to receive it. We’ll need God’s help to do it. In Acts, we read the account of the martyrdom of Steven, the first Christian martyr, who was killed for proclaiming the Gospel of Christ. Stephen’s obedience cost him his life. But Stephen was granted a vision of Christ in glory. We also, when we’re struggling to be faithful, may find Christ’s spirit to be present, giving us strength to carry on. Likewise, our reading from I Peter tells us that we should be willing to suffer, for Christ also suffered for sins, once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God. We need not despair over our weakness against sin and suffering, for, as Jesus told the Apostle Paul, God’s strength is made perfect in human weakness.
We may suffer, but we will not suffer alone. We have the community of the church to support us, to carry us when we can’t carry ourselves. And we have the love of God in Christ. Remember Christ’s words: On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. It sort of sounds sort of like a big cosmic group hug, doesn’t it? – an embrace that begins with our baptism, as we are washed from our sin and clothed with Christ.
As disciples of the Risen Christ, we are Easter people, expecting life where the world only sees death. We know that life, not death, has the last word. As we journey together in the Spirit, because the Paraclete, the Advocate, the Comforter from God is among us, we can comfort and advocate for one another in our needs and in our tragedies, and remind one another that whatever road we walk, however painful, however long, however seemingly lonely, we do not walk alone, for God’s spirit, the Comforter, the Advocate, walks with us. Amen.
*****************
Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ for worship on Sundays at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street just off Thompson St. www.emanuelphila.org
In this morning’s Gospel reading, Jesus and his disciples are celebrating the Last Supper, and Jesus is continuing his farewell address to his disciples. Jesus has been preparing them for the reality that he will not be with them much longer. Of course, the disciples are full of questions: where are you going? Why can’t we come? Are you coming back? Perhaps most pressing, how will we be able to live when you’ve gone away. As I considered how the disciples must have been feeling, a Laura Branigan song – or maybe the Michael Bolton remake, depending which version you’re familiar with – started playing in the back of my mind – “How am I supposed to live without you....” and the disciples may well have been thinking something very similar. How are we supposed to live without you, Jesus? How are we supposed to carry on, when you, who are all that we’ve been living for will soon be gone?
Jesus assures them that he will not leave them orphaned. Jesus’ words are mysterious: even though “in a little while” he’ll be going away, still, Jesus says, “I am coming to you.” “In a little while” Jesus says, “the world will not see me, but you will see me.” Jesus tells the disciples how they’re supposed to carry on, how they’re supposed to live: “Because I live, you also will live.” The earthly Jesus, the man of Nazareth with whom the disciples had walked for three years, would be with them no longer, but Christ’s spirit would continue to be beside them, even within them. Jesus tells them that he will ask the Father for “another Advocate”, whom Jesus calls “the spirit of truth” who will abide with us and be with us forever.” The original Greek word, “Paraclete” – means “someone along side us” – as an Advocate – like our attorney at trial – or as an intercessor, someone to go to God on our behalf – or a Helper - or a Comforter, one to strengthen us in difficulties. The world cannot see or receive the spirit of truth, because the world is not open to the truth. But Christ’s disciples will receive this Spirit. Two Sundays from now we will celebrate Pentecost, the story of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the early church.
Of course, I’m considering the text in light of last weekend’s excitement about Harold Camping’s false predictions about the Rapture. It was certainly interesting, if that’s the word, to hear Camping’s last-minute elaborations on his predictions – on May 21, there would be earthquakes at 6 pm in each time zone around the world, and the graves would be opened, the righteous would be Raptured, caught up in the clouds, and the bodies of any unsaved people would be thrown on the ground to be shamed. And, of course, the members of the VFW and legion posts visit our cemetery on the Sunday of Memorial day weekend every year…and we surely couldn’t have them seeing open graves and century old corpses and such. I’m only one person, 50 years old, overweight, short of breath and out of shape….How would I ever get all that mess cleaned up in time for the visitors from the VFW and the Legion and such later today?
OK…I’m being a little tongue in cheek. But, amid the laughter, I think that there’s some truly sad commentary to be found underneath the silliness. We may shake our heads wondering how on earth people can get caught up in Camping’s silliness, or the silliness of other End Times preachers that are just as off-base. People run around here, and there,
and everywhere, looking for Jesus’ second coming in glory, at the end of time – and it is indeed part of our tradition that Jesus will come again in glory, though we don’t know when this will happen - but, if we take today’s Gospel reading seriously, we realize Jesus never left. Jesus never left. Jesus said that, “in a little while, the world will no longer see me, but you will see me.” We live in an in-between time: Indeed, the earthly Jesus ascended to the Father – we’ll be considering the Ascension next Sunday – and Jesus will come again in glory at the end of time – but in between the Ascension and the Second Coming, this in-between time in which we live, Jesus said “I am coming to you. I will send another Advocate, the Spirit of truth.” And in two weeks we will celebrate Pentecost, when Jesus’ promise to come again to his followers, to send the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the Advocate, the Spirit of Truth, was fulfilled. Jesus specifically said, “I will not leave you orphaned.” I will not abandon you. And Jesus did not abandon us. Why do we sometimes find ourselves acting like orphans, acting as if we’d been abandoned, acting as if God has left the building?
Where will we find Jesus? One place to find Jesus is in church. Jesus said, “where ever two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in their midst.” But it’s easy, especially in a small, struggling congregation like Emanuel, where I’m sometimes sending up prayers at 9:30 that more than 2 or 3 show up, to wonder some weeks if anything worthwhile is going on. We show up, greet each other, stand and sit for the various portions of the liturgy, hear some stirring organ music – or some hit or miss guitar playing – and sing some hymns, and take up the offering, and listen to Pastor Dave natter on in the pulpit – once a month we come forward for our cube of bread and cup of wine, and at the end hang around for coffee and cake and maybe a Bible lesson – and if we think that’s all that’s going on, no wonder we’re feeling empty at the end of the service. If we miss the presence of Christ in our midst, no wonder we feel let down. If all we expect to find the coffee and cake, or Ralph’s organ playing, or heaven help us my guitar playing, or the sermon, or even the fellowship, no wonder we leave feeling hungry. No wonder we feel leave feeling empty. No wonder we feel a need to look for someone or something that can help us feel more a more vivid, tangible connection to God.
I recently read part of one of Martin Luther’s sermons that seemed to speak to our present situation. Of course, Luther was preaching in the 1500’s in very different circumstances, and yet in some ways, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Luther’s sermon dealt with those in the Roman Catholic church of his day who advertised various religious relics, such as articles of clothing worn by various saints, which people would travel long distances to see, while missing God’s presence in their own churches and their own homes, missing God’s presence right in front of their noses. Here’s a few words from Luther:
“In times past we would have run to the ends of the world if we had known of a place where we could hear God speak. But now that we hear this in sermons, we do not see this happening. You hear at home in your house, father and mother and children sing and speak of it, the preacher speaks it in the parish church – you ought to lift up your hands and rejoice that we have been given the honor of hearing God speak to us through the Word. Oh, people say, what is that? What do we get out of it? All right, go ahead, dear brother, if you don’t want God to speak to you every day at home in your house or in your parish church, then be clever and look for something else: in Trier is the Lord God’s coat, in Aachen are Joseph’s britches, go there and squander your money. You have to go far for these things and spend a lot of money, leave house and home empty….all the while anyone can go to Baptism, the Sacrament, and the preaching-desk! How highly honored and richly blessed we are to know that God speaks with us and feeds us with the Word, gives us Baptism, and all the rest! But people say: What, baptism? Sacrament? God’s Word? – Joseph’s britches, that’s what does it!”
These days folks who are, in Luther’s words, being clever, no longer travel here and there to see religious relics. Joseph’s britches are no longer much of a draw. These days, instead of traveling to view relics, we clamor for people to tell us about the End times. And these days we don’t have to travel at all – we can stay home and turn the dial on our radio and TV for spectacular predictions of the End Times, one after the other, the more over-the-top, the more outlandish, the better. Reading the various predictions of end-time prognosticators is like listening to the old radio show, “Can You Top This?” Yet we forget that, for the prophet Elijah, God was not in the earthquake or the windstorm – not in the spectacular - but in the still, small voice that followed. We can find God right here, right now at Emanuel Church, in the sacraments of baptism and communion, in hearing the Word preached, and in the love we find when Christians gather. We, you and I can experience God’s presence here – both comforting us and challenging us - week by week, in worship, in hearing the Word, in the sacraments, in Christian fellowship. Like Jacob, having wrestled with the angel, we can say, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” Having experienced God’s presence here at church, our eyes and ears will be tuned and our hearts opened to God’s presence elsewhere in our lives, as we see God’s hand at work in our lives, the lives of our families, our communities – and if we are open to it, we’ll see God at work in all manner of unexpected places. And having experienced God’s presence, we can share that presence in our homes, our offices, everywhere we go.
There is one part of Jesus’ words that always brings me up a little short: “If you love me, you’ll obey my commandments.” As protestant Christians we believe in salvation by grace through faith, not by works, that we should boast. And yet Jesus speaks of obeying his commandments. Is Jesus saying we need to earn his love by our works? If so, boy are we in deep trouble! Jesus’ words could also could come across sounding manipulative, like a spouse telling us, “If you love me, you’ll take out the trash.”
But maybe Jesus was not manipulating, not coercing, but just observing, just describing how his followers would act. If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments. And Jesus summed up the commandments in the two Great Commandments; Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and Love your neighbor as yourself. And Jesus also said, “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” We can’t do this on our own. It is only by having God at work within us, that we can love God and neighbor. But with God at work within us, we will more and more live into being able to love God and neighbor more fully. We can’t please God on our own by trying to will ourselves to love. We can only love because God first loved us, and because God’s love is within us. But because God’s love is in us, we can carry out Jesus’ commandment to love – a love that’s not just about warm fuzzy feelings – heaven knows my feelings aren’t always warm and fuzzy, and yours may not be either – but in Christ’s love we’re can work for the good of others, even those we may not like very much.
Keeping Jesus’ commandments is not easy. It can be dangerous, showing God’s love to folks who may not necessarily be ready to receive it. We’ll need God’s help to do it. In Acts, we read the account of the martyrdom of Steven, the first Christian martyr, who was killed for proclaiming the Gospel of Christ. Stephen’s obedience cost him his life. But Stephen was granted a vision of Christ in glory. We also, when we’re struggling to be faithful, may find Christ’s spirit to be present, giving us strength to carry on. Likewise, our reading from I Peter tells us that we should be willing to suffer, for Christ also suffered for sins, once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God. We need not despair over our weakness against sin and suffering, for, as Jesus told the Apostle Paul, God’s strength is made perfect in human weakness.
We may suffer, but we will not suffer alone. We have the community of the church to support us, to carry us when we can’t carry ourselves. And we have the love of God in Christ. Remember Christ’s words: On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. It sort of sounds sort of like a big cosmic group hug, doesn’t it? – an embrace that begins with our baptism, as we are washed from our sin and clothed with Christ.
As disciples of the Risen Christ, we are Easter people, expecting life where the world only sees death. We know that life, not death, has the last word. As we journey together in the Spirit, because the Paraclete, the Advocate, the Comforter from God is among us, we can comfort and advocate for one another in our needs and in our tragedies, and remind one another that whatever road we walk, however painful, however long, however seemingly lonely, we do not walk alone, for God’s spirit, the Comforter, the Advocate, walks with us. Amen.
*****************
Please join us at Emanuel United Church of Christ for worship on Sundays at 10 a.m. We're on Fillmore Street just off Thompson St. www.emanuelphila.org
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