Scriptures: Acts
2:1-21, Psalm 104:24-34, Romans 8:14-17 John 14:8-17
Today is Pentecost, when according to Luke’s account
in the book of Acts, 50 days after the resurrection, the Holy Spirit came like
the rush of a mighty wind, and like divided flames of fire on the head of each
of the apostles. Jewish believers and
converts from all over the known world were present, and by the power of the
Holy Spirit, the apostles spoke in the languages of all those present, so that
each one present heard the good news of Jesus in his or her own language. Pentecost is also known as the birthday of
the church, because it was on this day, with the coming of the spirit, that
what had been a disorganized band of dispirited disciples became a mighty
witness to the goodness of God.
Usually on Pentecost – originally a Jewish festival
commemorating the giving of the law to Moses on Mt. Sinai, and now celebrated
by Christians as commemorating the giving of the Holy Spirit – the law of love
written on the hearts of believers - to
the early followers of Jesus – we focus on the account in Acts, on the gathered
crowd of Jewish believers and converts from all over the known world, on the
spirit coming like the rush of a mighty wind, on the appearance of divided
tongues of fire on the heads of the apostles, on the apostles proclaiming the
good news of Jesus in the many languages of those gathered there that day. It’s an amazing account – in effect, like the
Tower of Babel story in reverse – at the Tower of Babel, God confused the
languages of those who were trying to rebel against God, while on Pentecost,
people of many languages heard the good news in all their many and varied
languages. The Tower of Babel was an occasion of division and scattering; the
day of Pentecost was a day of gathering and mutual understanding.
I think it’s natural to focus on the sound and light
show, on the special effects described by Luke to identify this moment as
something beyond everyday human experience.
But for this moment I’d like to focus, not on the special effects of that
particular day, but the ongoing effects of that day in the life of the
believers. And so I’d like to read again
these words from Paul’s letter to the Romans:
“For
all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not
receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a
spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very
Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if
children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we
suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him”.
Paul describes the Holy Spirit as “a spirit of
adoption”, which he contrasts with a spirit of slavery and fear. For Paul, a spirit of slavery and fear is our
“default setting”, our normal existence, unless the Holy Spirit steps in to
free us and give us the spirit of adoption instead.
Frank Herbert’s 1984 movie “Dune” contains the following lines: “I must not
fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total
obliteration. I will face my fear.” There
is truth in these words. Fear can be a
useful emotion, a rational response to potential danger. If I see a dog lurching
toward me, mouth frothing from rabies, guess what, I’m not gonna run up and pet
it. Sometimes fear and avoidance are
rational responses. But fear is a
powerful emotion that we can misuse, or that others can misuse to control us.
And so words such as “do not fear” and “do not be afraid” appear over and over
throughout the Bible, Old and New Testament, Genesis to Revelation. (There’s an internet meme that says that the
words “fear not” appear 365 times in the Bible, one for each day of the
year…I’ve done a few quick online searches and don’t come up with that number,
and so once again you can’t take everything you read on the internet as gospel
truth, but even though the math may not add up, there’s still a valid
point: the words “fear not” or similar
words pop up in the Bible plenty often.)
When there are encounters between humans and angels or between humans
and God, often the first words spoken by the angel or by God are “Do not be
afraid”. In Genesis, when God appeared
to Abram, God said, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield.”[1] At the Last Supper, Jesus said, “Do not let your
hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”[2] In the book of Revelation, when John had his
vision of the Son of Man exalted in glory and nearly passed out from terror,
we’re told that “He laid his right hand upon me” – that is,
upon John – “saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last, and the
living one. I was dead; and, behold, I
am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.”[3] If I heard those words, I’d probably be more terrified than
ever…unless I come to trust the One who holds the keys. If I trust the one who holds the keys, I have
nothing to fear.“Fear is the mind-killer.” Indeed, fear has the power to destroy our powers of rational thought, if we let it. Fear has the power to make us give over control of our lives to others, if we let it. A fearful person is a puppet lying around waiting for others to pull its strings. Truly, the person with the power to make us afraid is the person who has the power to manipulate us and control us. Let me repeat that, because it’s important: The person we allow to make us afraid is the person we allow to control us. Throughout religious history, religious leaders – or rather religious misleaders – have used fear – fear of eternal torment, fear of separation from God – to manipulate their followers into giving over their money, their time, even their lives, to the control of the leader. Religious cults win over their followers by isolating them from their families and friends, and then making their followers fear the consequences of leaving the cult – “If you leave us, the leader won’t love you anymore. If you leave us, God won’t love you anymore.” Or sometimes the threat is more down to earth – “If you leave us, we’ll send people to hunt you down and hurt you, make you lose your job, attack your family, maybe even kill you.”
It isn’t just toxic religious groups that use fear to manipulate their followers. Politicians use fear all the time to gain votes. All the time! Those of you alive in the 1950’s remember the McCarthy era, the Red Scare, when people were looking for so-called “godless communists” under their beds. Now, when I look under my bed, I find dust bunnies, but apparently looking under your bed for communists was quite the hobby in the 1950’s. Careers and lives were ruined as a result. With the fall of the Soviet Union in the late 1980’s and communists no longer available as a bogeyman, politicians have whipped up fears of different targets: fears of blacks, fears of gays, fears of immigrants, fears of Muslims, fears of transgendered persons, on and on and on some more, to the point of nausea…. Meanwhile, off camera, these fearmongering politicians laugh at us, as they laugh all the way to the bank with campaign contributions stoked by fear. It’s a great racket – scare voters silly and watch the dollars roll in. And in most elections, the majority of political ads are what are called “negative ads” – that is to say, ads based on fear. More money is spent trying to make voters fear the opposing candidate than to say positive things about their own candidate. The effect of such political advertising is to make people stay home, so that turnout in our elections becomes increasingly pathetic with every year, and our political leadership is being selected by an increasingly small sliver of the populace. Especially in off-year elections, the candidate of choice for most people is “none of the above”.
We can do better than this. God does not intend for God’s people to live in fear. I John 4:18 states, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears is not perfect in love.” And I think this sheds some light on what Paul meant by “the spirit of adoption”. Through the work of Jesus, God adopted us because God loves us. Because God loves us, we don’t have to cower in terror before the powers that be. Because God loves us, we can have confidence that, in our trials, God will be with us.
There will be trials. Let’s hear these words from Paul again: When
we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with
our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of
God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in
fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him”. We’re quick to claim
the good stuff – “children of God, and if children then heirs, heirs of God and
joint heirs with Christ” – and we like the phrase “so that we may also be
glorified with him” but want to wish away the phrase: “if, in fact, we suffer with him.”
Jesus did not promise that his followers – that we - would not suffer,
but rather than the Holy Spirit would be with us in our sufferings. What the Holy Spirit does is cast out the
spirit of slavery to fear, help us get past our fear of suffering so that we
can follow where Jesus leads. Often the
fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. If we follow Jesus, truly take his teachings
seriously, we will be out of step with those around us. And as a result of being out of step, there
will be a price to pay – at the very least, loss of popularity, loss of
respectability – “respectability” itself can be an idol, a false god, if the
fear of losing it keeps us from following where Jesus leads, and following
Christ may force us to lose respectability in the eyes of the world, as we
become “fools for Christ”.[4] And at the most, in some countries, following
in the way of Jesus can lead to imprisonment and death. And make no mistake: Christians can be
arrested even in this country, if their beliefs – if our beliefs - lead them and
us to oppose the powers that be. But we
can have confidence that Jesus will be with us; as Paul wrote, “I regard everything as
loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his
sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in
order that I may gain Christ”[5]
I want to say one more word about the spirit of slavery to fear from which
the Holy Spirit would lead us. The Holy
Spirit, the spirit of adoption, seeks to cast out our fear of others. That same spirit also seeks to cast out from
us the kind of dominating, bullying spirit that would seek to cause fear in others. Whether it’s bullying on the playground or
bullying from the pulpit, it doesn’t come from God. It is
people who are insecure, people who feel something lacking within themselves,
who feel they have to prove their power by dominating others. People with the Holy Spirit, the spirit of
adoption within them – people who are confident in God’s love – people who are
confident, period, don’t need to try to impress the people around them by
bullying or beating up on those they consider “less than”. Indeed, Jesus said that our lives will be
judged by what we did to help the least of our sisters and brothers, not by
what we do to terrorize them – because whatsoever we do to the poorest and
weakest of our sisters and brothers – for good or for bad – we do to Jesus.Tony Campolo is emeritus professor of sociology at Eastern University – located right here in Philly - and an American Baptist pastor. Tony Campolo is invited to speak at religious gatherings across the country, and in his talks often recounts a tale from his high school days. He tells of a classmate named Roger, who was gay. Campolo is now in his early 80’s, and so we can only imagine the abuse his classmate Roger would have faced as a gay teen in high school some 65 years ago, back in the early 1950’s, when gay and lesbian adults were being fired from jobs, evicted from apartments, and even arrested. On one fateful day, Roger was cornered in a locker room by a number of bullying classmates, who urinated on him. No doubt they went home from school congratulating themselves on having carried off a fun prank. Roger also went home from school that day, and after he got home, he committed suicide by hanging himself. Campolo writes of his reaction at the time: “I knew I wasn’t a Christian. If I was a Christian, I would have defended Roger.” Even in his teens, Campolo knew his Christian duty was to defend Roger, not to stand by and let abuse happen – and he knew he’d failed. Almost 70 years later, Campolo is still carrying that awful memory of bullying – not even bullying that he himself did, but bullying by others that he had failed to prevent. Almost 70 years later, Campolo is speaking out, telling of the bullying and suicide of his long-ago classmate Roger, and trying to prevent the bullying and suicide of present-day Rogers.
“Fear is the mind-killer.” Whether we are dominated by fear, or whether we use fear to try to dominate and bully others, our mind are not right and our hearts are not right with God. May we live, not as slaves to fear, nor as bullies seeking to enslave others by fear, but as believers filled with the Holy Spirit, the spirit of adoption, confident in God’s love for us; indeed confident enough in God’s love that we are willing to risk inconvenience, unpopularity, loss of respectability, even suffering, to follow in the way of Jesus, and to love and serve those whom Jesus lead us. Where Christ leads, may we follow, confident of God’s love for us, and confident of God’s call for us to invite others to experience God’s love. Amen.
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