Sermon
May 27, 2012
Acts
2:1-21
Ezekiel
37:1–14
Psalm
104:24-34, 35b
Romans
8:22-27
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15
“Witness
to Re-Creation”
At
the transformation workshop I attended a few weeks ago, the young
woman who preached proclaimed a word from Job. She spoke about
meeting a God who met her in her pain and in her brokenness. She also
spoke of a church where she felt ignored and left out, abandoning her
to her brokenness. As she traveled a journey back toward God, she
found that some congregations left her alone in her struggle. She is
now one of the founding pastors of an emergent church in the Chicago
associated with the (Disciples of Christ) area. Her sister is a
pastor and she comes into the church out of a career in marketing.
And to us as preachers, she proclaimed something that is repeated
daily in marketing, something that we sometimes forget in churches,
“Everything speaks.”
We
speak when we say nothing and we speak we when do nothing. Sometimes
even louder than with our words. It's one of those things that we
know, but something that's easy to ignore, easy to forget. Everything
speaks could be applied as much to our study of the bible as it could
be applied to our interactions with our neighbors and with strangers
as it could be applied to our spiritual lives, prayer, meditation,
devotions and all.
What
we say and do speaks about who we are, what we believe and what kind
of God we say that we believe in. What we don't say and what we don't
do also speaks about who we are, what we believe and what kind of God
we say that we believe in. What we say matters and it matters just as
much how we say it. When we make an effort to speak for the comfort
of another, we are much more welcoming than if we expect others to
hear us and the message we carry, no matter how it is expressed.
Therefor
when we read this text, as when we read all biblical text, we need to
pay attention to how the story is told because it is all a part of
the story.
First
of all, the event in question begins on the day of Pentecost, which
has come to be known as the “birthday of the church,” but it was
initially and more essentially here the first day of the festival of
weeks. This harvest feast was celebrated a week of weeks after the
Passover, which means it was a very celebratory kind of holy day. It
was given the name Pentecost or πεντηκοστή,
for "fiftieth day."
It
was a harvest festival held at the time of wheat harvest, but it's
religious significance was that it Shavuot
commemorates the anniversary of the day God gave the Torah to the
entire nation of Israel assembled at Mount Sinai. So when the
apostles and other believers began to preach the gospel that day in
what people understood to be their native language, it was also the
gift of this message of God to the people gathered in Jerusalem.
Secondly,
it is important that they heard in their native language. Now, I
don't speak any other language than English, not really, though I can
pronounce a few words in other languages. But many people who speak
more than one language say that when they dream, they dream in their
first language, the language of home. I can imagine that when you do
speak several languages, it is comforting and maybe even relaxing to
hear the language of your birth. I can imagine the welcome you might
feel to hear the words or the songs that your mother and father spoke
in your first memories.
And
so, though the men and women who heard the preaching of the apostles
were all Jewish or converts to Judaism, it is important that the
message they heard wasn't in the common tongue of Greek or the
biblical language of Hebrew or even the common language of Aramaic
that they might expect in Galilee. It was confusing, Luke wrote, but
I can't imagine that this spoke volumes for God's intentions for the
message of Jesus Christ.
The
devout Jews of Israel, who spoke so many languages, were now brought
together in this message, though they maintained their diversity at
the same time. In the incredible symbolic action of the Holy Spirit,
their unity and diversity were expressed all at the same time.
Through this message of the Spirit, they weren't called give up what
made them different from one another as faithful people, only what
divided them from one another.
The
message of Jesus Christ, in the fullness of his life and teachings as
well as in his death and resurrection, can be delivered in many ways.
I grew up in a very conservative traditional Disciples of Christ
church with male preachers and all male elders and deacons, and there
was a message in that. And I argued with the elders and the message
itself when I began adolescence. I argued with it inside of myself
for many years and argued with it while I attended seminary, until I
argued it out of me and began to preach despite the messages I had
received in my childhood—at church and at home, at least on the
surface. My mother told me at least once that she didn't really think
or believe that women should preach. But because “everything
speaks” I heard another message, too. My mother taught me the
importance of her faith. And she wasn't afraid to speak her mind, so
I put those things together.
My
mother also taught the church when she chose the hymns for the church
services. She taught them what she liked, certainly. And she taught
them some theology that I don't necessarily agree with, but she
certainly taught them through those choices.
And
today, when we want to preach the gospel, teach the gospel: the life
and words of Jesus, we are called upon to speak the language of those
we wish to speak to in languages like facebook-ian,
text-ic
and Twitter-ese.
We might need to communicate—as a community, if not
individually—through unfamiliar things like Twitter, which I have
yet to use in any way. But, I think more basically and effectively,
we must speak through the language of relationship before the
language of corporate worship or corporate invitation.
Some
folks I've gotten to know on facebook, for example, planted a
church in Pueblo, Colorado about eight years ago. They began in the
couple's living room. She was the preacher; he had a guitar. I'm sure
they put the service together as a team. Some Sundays it was just the
two of them, even though there were other folks that were pretty
regular, they just didn't show up sometimes, so they would pray
together and go out for Sunday lunch.
One
of their observations about their experience was that, although they
were young, in their mid to late twenties themselves. And though they
were pretty hip and happening folks in their own, bilingual, guitar,
emergent theologies kind of way and all, they also had to earn the
right to invite people their age to church. The older folks, the
traditionally good attenders already from the ages of 50 on up were
relatively responsive to a direct invitation to worship. But they had
to earn the right to invite younger people, like themselves, to
worship. So they met them at pubs, had conversations with them at
restaurants, worked together in mission, responded to them in crisis.
The language they had to speak was the language of connection and
relationship—welcome and invitation weren't enough.
The
language they had to learn in the context of church was that of
relationship before invitation. And they learned that people their
age who were not still connected to a congregation, which were many,
needed to know about the church's purpose and reason for being before
they could connect to worship or any other kind of religious language
or context.
As
I read for the Pentecost sermon this week, my eyes were opened to
something I had ignored. In this particular place when Luke tells of
Jesus' followers experience with the Holy Spirit, he doesn't say that
they spoke in tongues or glossolalia, like Paul describes in ecstatic
prayers or in the spiritual ecstasies of other events. Luke describes
the people hearing the gospel clearly, not garbled, but transmitted
to them in such a way that was more familiar to them rather than
less.
Luke's
description is a clear witness to God's intentions through the
disciples of Jesus Christ. The message was more clear rather than
less. The message was brought to the people who were there to listen
in ways that were more familiar to them than any biblical language
would have been. The Holy Spirit, though it stirred up some trouble
and confusion with the power that was expressed, also made it
possible for the gospel of Jesus Christ to be preached anywhere, to
anyone.
As
Paul said, it even helps us speak from our hearts to God—the Spirit
intercedes with sighs too deep for words.
The
Holy Spirit often cuts through the garbage and reveals God's
intentions as directly as they are ever known—when we misunderstand
or are confused, at least in my case it's my own over-thinking or
stubbornness getting in the way. I'm not saying that there's always a
clear goal where I'm headed, but that my next baby step is usually
pretty clear.
This
week I've also been reflecting on my intentions when I started my
ministry and though I know what God wants, in the long run, it's been
a long messy set of pathways to get there. I hope that all along I've
been a witness to what God wants from me, but I'm sure that's been a
little muddled, too.
On
this Pentecost Sunday, after a few weeks of pushing us toward a
mission for the church, I also want us to realize that in our mission
we are witnesses to Christ in our lives. And that in our words of
compassion, comfort and hope, we are witnesses to Christ in our
lives. And that in our cards of comfort sent to those who are
suffering, we are witness to Christ in our lives. In all the little
things we do, whether we realize it or not, we witness to the savior
within. And as time goes by, I know that that witness will testify to
the life that is already here and the life that God has yet to
reveal, within us, around us and through us.
To
God's glory and in Jesus' name. Amen.
