Holy Spirit – Salvaged Faith

From Terror to Awe

Posted on December 4, 2022Leave a comment

Text: Luke 1:26-38, Isaiah 11:1-10

This morning, we find ourselves in the second Sunday of Advent… this season of waiting for the coming of Christ.

This Christmas story is so familiar and comfortable, we could curl up in it like a blanket.

We are ready for the heavenly choirs of angels mingling with the smelly shepherds in the field, for the time when wise men led by celestial signs witness the fragility of an infant of a manger.

It is a season of holy anticipation – not for experiences beyond this world – but ones that are embodied in things that we can touch and feel, live and breathe.

We are ready for God to come and be with us!

This morning, we hear again the story of the annunciation – the announcement! – from Luke’s gospel.

The angel Gabriel appears to Mary.

The angel proclaims that Mary is favored in God’s eyes – blessed among all women – for she will bear a child who will be called the Son of God.

Mary asks but one question: How will this happen?

After a brief and yet wholly inadequate explanation, she responds:

“Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

I first heard this story as a child and so the image seared in my mind of Mary is of a wise and beautiful woman, full of the grace of God, who was ready for whatever came her way.

She always seemed so much older than me, but truth be told, she was probably only sixteen or seventeen years old at the beginning of this story.

This young woman was living in a world of prearranged marriages and had likely been promised to her husband-to-be, Joseph, for many years.

It was a world where a woman’s only education would have been in the home.

It was a world of Jewish faithful living under a Roman occupation, a time of darkness and poverty, disappointment and despair.

And yet, she found the courage to say yes.

Because of the nature of the season, often we hear the annunciation on Sunday, and just a few days or weeks later we have a beautiful, bouncing, baby boy in a manger.

There are so many details we skip over… in part because we don’t know what happened.

The scriptures leave us to fill in the blanks.

Or as AJ Levine reminds us in her book, Light of the World, “Matthew and Luke are not writing for children… nor are they writing newspaper reports striving for historical accuracy. [They] are designed less to ‘record what happened’ than to set the scene: to explain to readers removed from that time and place what the birth of Jesus signifies.” (p. 11-12)

There are truths in this story that are more important than the details.

Truths we have handed down from generation to generation.

Last week, we heard the record of ancestry of Jesus Christ from Matthew’s perspective.

Matthew traces a Jewish history of Jesus from Abraham, to David, through Exile and to the father of Mary.

He shows the arc of the promises of the Jewish story and how Jesus is fulfilling them.

Luke is telling a different sort of story.

In the first verse of our reading for this morning, he notes that an angel appears to a virgin, engaged to Joseph, who was a descendent of David’s house. Her name was Mary.

Her name means Bitter Tears, but it also calls us to remember the “Mary’s” who would have been in her spiritual ancestry… like Miriam, the sister of Moses.

Miriam who rescued her brother from certain death, helped to lead the people out of Egypt, and was later known as a poet and a prophet.

The focus here is not just on the lineage from the house of David.

It is on the woman.

One woman.

And the decision that is before her.

But there is more to this one verse.

We often read it out of context, but this angel, Gabriel, is the same who showed up to announce the birth of John to Zechariah and Elizabeth… we heard a piece of that story earlier in November.

He offers a warm and joyful greeting, but you have to remember, this is not just a friendly neighbor stopping over.

This is an angel of the Lord.

When a messenger of God shows up in scripture, there is always a catch, as Levine describes it.

You are expected to give a response.

Our minds are taken to Abraham leaving behind everything he knows and moving to Canaan, or Moses leaving his quiet shepherd life to confront Pharoah.

When an angel of the Lord shows up, your life changes.

Mary’s response to these words is understandable.

She is filled with confusion and terror.

Everything that she has known in her quiet life in the small, quiet village of Nazareth is about to change.

Who will she become?

Where will she be asked to go?

What will she be asked to leave behind?

We all carry with us fears of the unknown, fears of standing out, fear of loss, fear of failure…

And… she doesn’t even know about the baby yet!

Gabriel sees the fear flicker in her eyes and reassures her even while sharing the news.

“Do not be afraid.”

These words come to us in the scriptures 365 times.

One for every day of the year.

“Do not be afraid.”

Dr. Christine J. Hong writes about how these words don’t actually make us less afraid.

“Every day, people are faced with untold grief and pain, and the gospel, or the good news, is not enough to take that pain and fear away. Hope sounds hollow to those who are enduring the wretched parts of life… courage rises despite our fear, not in its absence.” (A Sanctified Art Sermon Planning Guide)

And I think courage rises out of our fear when we know that we are not alone.

When we can trust that we will be given what we need to move forward.

As the angel Gabriel speaks, “Do not be afraid,” Mary is also given a glimpse of the future that awaits her.

She will have a child.

Not just any child, but the Son of God, who will inherit David’s throne, and reign over an eternal kingdom.

In other words… everything that they have been waiting for will come to pass.

And that can be scary.

And it will take acts of courage in order to bring it into being.

So Mary has a very important question to ask.

“How?”

She isn’t focused on the whole eternal reign of David’s kingdom piece… but wants to know what is going to happen to her own body.

As Wil Gafney notes, “Before Mary said, ‘yes,’ she said, ‘wait a minute, explain this to me.’”

“In a world which did not necessarily recognize her sole ownership of her body… this very young woman had the dignity, courage, and temerity to question a messenger of the Living God about what would happen to her body before giving her consent.”

Gabriel’s answer is less about biology or the mechanics, and more about a spiritual reality.

It is about the presence of God with us.

It is about the action of the Holy Spirit – a core theme in the gospel of Luke.

It is about impossibilities becoming real – evidenced by the pregnancy of her very old cousin, Elizabeth.

It is about a kingdom of oppression being taken over by a kingdom of love.

When we find the word “fear” in our modern translations of scripture, it can come from two very different root words.

Here, in Luke, we find the Greek word, phobos, from which we get the idea of phobias today.

Fear stops us in our tracks, holds us back, and can be destructive.

But we are also told to fear God in other places in scripture.

In Isaiah 11, we are reminded of this shoot growing from the stump of Jesse… a symbol of the heir of David’s Kingdom.

The Spirit of God will rest on him… a spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord and he will delight in fearing the Lord.

The Hebrew word here is, yirah, and it implies a sense of reverence or awe.

I think part of what happens in this moment, and in the angel’s answer to her question is that Mary moves from terror to awe.

She moves from a fear of the unknown to a sense of awe about the impossible becoming possible.

In her memoir, This Here Flesh, Cole Arthur Riley writes, “I believe fear has the holy potential to draw out awe in us. To lead us into deeper patterns of protection and trust. To mold us into people engaged in the unknown, capable of making mystery of it instead of terror.” (p. 86)

As Isaiah tells it, and the hymn “O Come O Come Emmanuel” reminds us, God will come to be with us.

Christine Hong writes – “God’s spirit will intervene, leading to a world of righteousness and peace. Prey will no longer fear their predators. The vulnerable will be protected. All of creation will be filled with the wisdom of God.”

You see, God enters our fears.

God enters our struggle.

God enters our grief and pain.

It doesn’t always go away… but God is with us in the midst of it.

And in that presence, our fear is transformed.

We find the courage to say, “yes.”

We find the ability to say, “Here I am.”

We are given what we need in order to move past our apprehension and accept God’s invitation.

Two thousand some years ago, a young woman, a girl really, said “yes” to God’s invitation – and just look at how the world has changed.

It is how God has always worked.

From the very beginning, ordinary nobodies who hesitantly said “yes” to God were transformed by the spirit of God.

From the nomad Abram, to the murderer Moses, and shepherd boy David.

Each of them, in their own way, said “let it be with me according to your word.”

They opened themselves up to God’s will in their lives, despite their fears.

They answered the call and tried to live obediently.

And God accomplished amazing things through them.

Does that mean it was easy?

Did they suddenly face straight paths with no obstacles?

Of course not.

Mary could not know the course her life would take.

She would have to struggle to protect her child by fleeing to Egypt.

She would live to see her son crucified by the Romans.

Still fearing the unknown, she said, “let it be with me according to your word.”

The Word came and lived among us.

God took on flesh – God worked through human lives, and God’s will was embodied in the small “yeses” of many insignificant people.

And the world was changed.

Each of us have fears in our own hearts.

But God shows up in the midst of those fears and invites us to be transformed.

We find the ability to say yes, because we know the stories of these faithful ancestors who said yes.

But we also find the ability to say yes, because we hold onto beautiful impossibilities and the promises of what God’s love means in our lives.

In the midst of our grief and struggle and of all that is unknown, we know who holds the end of our story.

We stand in awe and reverence of what we know we are working towards:

A world where righteousness and equity reign.

A world where the wolf and the lamb sleep in peace.

A world in which we are led by a little child.

The fears of my heart cannot be quieted by anything I have at my disposal in this world.

But even in those fears, I need the Holy Spirit to do something new in our lives.

To do something new in our community and our world.

It is terrifying to think about what that might mean.

Because God doesn’t want to change the world without us.

And that means letting the Spirit of God dwell in my heart.

Not just on Sunday mornings, but every day, every moment.

Because if I… if you… if we really said yes, then everything would change.

That’s the point, isn’t it?

We don’t say yes because we are afraid of the risks.

We are afraid the path will be hard.

We are afraid to leave behind what we know.

And it will be.

And that is all hard.

But we don’t do it alone.

The angel Gabriel whispered to Mary, “Do not be afraid.”

If we say yes, God will be with us.

If we say yes, God will give us everything we need.

If we say yes, and face our fears, we might just see them transformed into the impossible.

May it be so.

Taste and See God’s Provision

Posted on June 19, 2022Leave a comment

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Text: Luke 13:6-9

Brandon and I planted raspberries in our backyard when we moved to Des Moines.

This is officially the eighth summer… and we have yet to see an abundant crop.

A handful of crumbling berries that won’t hold together is all we have ever had the chance to harvest.

There were a few years there when I thought I had done something wrong.

I pruned too much.

Or maybe I didn’t prune enough.

There wasn’t enough water.

Or too little sun.

There have been years when I’ve been like the vineyard owner in our parable this morning and wondered if we shouldn’t just cut it all down and start from scratch.

But we have tried to be patient.

One more year, we keep saying.

Over the last few months, we’ve watched them with care.

We added additional growing medium around them.

We have watered them frequently.

There have been abundant blossoms and the bees are certainly doing their work of pollenating.

But will we have fruit?

I must admit, I’m not entirely sure.

Will we have fruit?

Oh, friends, that is the question, isn’t it?

And it comes at us from so many different directions.

Will we have fruit… in the sense of will we have enough to eat?

Will we have the money, in the midst of rising inflation, to cover the costs of supper?

Can we find enough to sustain us and satisfy our needs?

But then again, we can turn the question around and think about our own productive lives…

Will we have fruit… in the sense of are we bearing fruit?

Are we making a difference in the world or are we just depleting and taking from the world around us?

And as we dive into the scriptures, we find stories of fruit and fruitfulness everywhere.

It starts with the third day of creation when God makes trees bearing fruit according to their seed.

But it continues through to the harvests of the Promised Land of figs, dates, pomegranates, grapes and olives… all fruits!

Prophets are called from the vineyards, and the instructions for the altar of God include images of pomegranates.

In the New Testament, we discover parable after parable filled with fruit.

The branches waved in Jesus’ Triumphant Entry would have been boughs of date palms.

Paul begs us to bear the fruit of the Spirit.

Even in the final chapters of Revelation, the trees bear twelve kinds of fruit, each for a different month.

And all of these scriptures are a mix of both God’s provision and God’s presence and power in our lives.

God provides abundantly so that we might be an abundant blessing to the world.

God is present with us, so that we might be God’s presence in the world.

We are fed… physically and spiritually… so that we might feed others.

As we think of all of those “fruitful” metaphors, Margaret Feinberg focuses in on one fruit in particular… the fig.

It is a constant companion in biblical times.

Adam and Eve used fig leaves to cover themselves once they discovered they were naked. (Genesis 3:7)

The mark of abundance, security, and prosperity in the time of King Solomon was that the people lived securely under their vines and fig trees (1 Kings 4:25) … a sentiment repeated by the prophet Micah (4:4) and Zechariah (3:10).

Even the tree that Zacchaeus climbs in order to catch a glimpse of Jesus…

you know, that wee little man Zacchaeus…was a sycamore fig tree.

Fig trees were, after all, big enough to climb.

Big enough to provide shade… and apparently clothing… with their leaves.

They are full of essential vitamins and minerals like potassium and calcium – providing energy, and are easily dried for storage and transport.

In the parable that we heard today, we hear about a fig tree that is not fruitful.

In three years, it has not born fruit.

One fact about figs that Margaret Feinberg discovered in her process of writing “Taste and See” is that a single fig tree can produce tens of thousands of figs every year.

TENS OF THOUSANDS.

So, when this fig tree isn’t producing, the owner is furious.

I might be upset, too!

“What a waste of perfectly good soil!” they exclaim.

But the gardener is patient and merciful.

“Let’s give it one more year,” he says.

“Let me dig around it and add some more fertilizer.”

Feinberg goes on to share about the lifecycle of the fig itself.

“The first year a fig won’t produce any fruit, and depending on the variety, you may see a handful the second year. The third year will produce more, but the fourth year is the one that will yield a substantial crop.” (Taste and See Bible Study Guide, p. 45)

So… the owner might just be impatient.

It isn’t time yet for the fig tree to be filled with abundant fruit.

It needs time.

But fig trees also need to be pruned… extensively… in order to produce.

In the first year, it is cut back by around half so that it can focus on growing deep roots.

In future pruning, you have to care for the suckers on both lower branches and that come up from the ground near the tree.

When the gardener says, “let me dig around it,” they are likely cutting away and removing those suckers and shoots that are detracting from the fruitful growth of the tree.

Pruning creates future abundance.

In the book of Leviticus, amidst all sorts of provisions like “respect your mother and father” (19:3), “do not turn to idols” (19:4), “you must not steal or deceive nor lie to each other” (19:11), and even “any immigrant who lives with you must be treated as if they were one of your citizens” (19:34), is a provision about fruit trees:

“When you enter the land and plant any fruit tree, you must consider its fruit off-limits. For three years it will be off-limits to you; it must not be eaten. In the fourth year, all of the tree’s fruit will be holy, a celebration for the Lord. In the fifth year you can eat the fruit. This is so as to increase its produce for you; I am the Lord your God.” (19:23-25)

Did you hear that? This is to increase its produce for you.

An abundantly fruitful tree requires pruning.

It requires time and nurture.

But it also requires a season of sabbath and rest and dedication to God.

We impatiently ask that question, “will we have fruit?” in the midst of a culture of convenience.

Anything you want can be delivered the next day to your doorstep.

To wait for not just days, but weeks and months and years for fruit is almost too much to bear.

But I actually think this is a story about grace.

You see, in our fast-paced culture, we also find ourselves expecting instantaneous results in our own spiritual lives.

We join a church, we attend a retreat, we go to a bible study and we think that we should now have it all figured out.

We should be ready to go out and bear fruit for God.

And then we have a set-back.

We slip up in our faith.

We get discouraged.

Friends, the good news is, you don’t have to have it all figured out.

Discipleship, faith, and fruitfulness all take time.

And you might spend a couple of years attending a church before you find the ability to take the next step and sign up to join a bible study.

You might be in a book group for a couple of years before you are ready to ask the deeper questions.

You might go out and serve each week filling the food pantry for a good long while before you are ready to confront justice issues around hunger.

And, as the story of Zacchaeus reminds us, you might even be living a life that is not only fruitless, but is actually sucking up life and nutrients and taking advantage of others.

But these parables and stories remind us, it is never too late.

Fruitfulness will require pruning… as we let God cut away those things that suck the life right out of us.

Fruitfulness will require nurture… sun and rain and even a good dose of fertilizer… and in our spiritual lives that comes from things like prayer and studying scriptures and worshipping with others.

But fruitfulness also requires the time and space to simply be.

Earlier this week, I had ice cream with someone who is entering her third year of seminary.

This person has been involved with the church her whole life and a relationship with God was always in the background.

After college, she pursued work in her chosen field and it took her to a number of places and companies across the country.

But one day, her position was eliminated and she found herself without a job.

She went home and sat and listened.

It was only in the space in which she stopped focusing on what she could produce that she noticed God speaking.

Only in the space where she dedicated some time to discernment that she noticed God moving.

Only in the space where she let go that she was aware of how God was already providing.

We often look for fruitfulness in places that aren’t quite ready.

We try to make our own fruitfulness with endless busyness.

We refuse to let go of dying branches so that we can bear fruit in other places.

And we miss out on the provision that God has already planned for us.

“This is to increase its produce for you,” God promises.

You see, fruitfulness doesn’t come from me or you or our actions.

It comes from God working in and through us.

Only when we make space for the Holy Spirit to fertilize our souls will we find love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.

God has given us commandments like being honest, and loving our neighbors, and honoring the sabbath, not to see how many mistakes we will make, but because these are the things that will increase our fruitfulness.

These are the things that will increase abundance and blessing – not just for ourselves, but for everyone around us.

And God is a patient gardener, full of mercy and love, pruning us, tending our lives, pouring out grace at every turn.

So, that’s the spirit I’m taking with my raspberries.

I’m going to keep working on them.

Will there be fruit?

Only God knows…

But I’m going to try to pass on the love and grace and mercy that God has shown me.

May we do the same.

Not just with our patches of berries or fig trees, but with our family and friends and even with perfect strangers.

And by the grace of God, may there be fruit.

No Additional Burdens

Posted on August 1, 2021Leave a comment

Text: Acts 15:1-2, 4-6, 12-13, 19-21

This week at VBS, we learned a lot of awesome stories about how Jesus power is with us.

And every single night we had a totally true, awesome story from the Book of Acts.

We talked about how Jesus helps us do hard things with the story of Ananias who went to help Saul.

We talked about how Jesus’ power gives us hope with the story of Paul’s shipwreck.

We talked about Jesus power helps us be bold with the story of Peter and John healing a man.

And we learned about how Jesus’ power helps us live forever as we let our light shine and share God’s story like so many disciples did.

Last but not least, we remembered that Jesus’ power helps us be good friends and learned about how that community in Jerusalem were connected.

But as we have talked about over these last couple of months, it isn’t easy for a church to get along.

There is going to be conflict as we have different ideas about how to lead and what to do and who is welcomed.

So today we have another totally true story from the book of Acts…. About the first official church council meeting.

In the history books and in the headings of our bibles, we know this as the Council of Jerusalem. It was the first time the leaders gathered to make an important decision about what the rules of the church should be.

As the Holy Spirit moved through this early church argument, we can learn about how we, too, in the 21st century can learn to get past our disagreements.

First – when you see a problem… address it!

The issue here is whether or not Gentiles had to be circumcised before they could be part of the church.

Another way to put it – did you have to fully convert to the Jewish faith before you could accept Christ as your Lord and Savior.

We’ve heard about the missionary work of Paul and Barnabas and how Gentiles were accepting Jesus right and left.

All along, they taught that Jesus was the way and the truth and the life. No prerequisites. No admission exams. Christ and Christ alone was the source of salvation.

But then group of folks comes along teaching something different.

Paul and Barnabas could have ignored them and kept doing what they were doing… But that only delays the debate until a time when people are more entrenched in one position or another.

They could have bullied the newcomers and ran them out of town… after all, that is what often happened to them.

Instead, they addressed the conflict directly.

They confronted the teachers in debate. They spoke their piece. They defended their position.

Of course, the other side made their arguments as well. A healthy conflict allows room for disagreement and conversation. It allows for people to stand in one place or another. They talked and argued… but there were no winners or losers.

And they all realized that this wasn’t something that could be settled once and for all in Antioch.

Which leads me to the second point… some arguments and debates are bigger than us as individuals.

Sometimes you reach a stalemate in a fight. And you need someone else to come in and help.

Paul and Barnabas are sent from Antioch to Jerusalem to get an official ruling on the issue.

In the world of business, this might mean calling in a mediator.

When you are fighting with your brother, this might be when your mom steps in.

In a church, this is the point when you call the district superintendent.

Someone who can help us think bigger and solve our problems.

And… sometimes we need to move the conversation up the chain of command because the impact of our decisions involve more than simply us.

The church in Antioch realized this debate was going to repeat time and time again across the world.

It was not just a conflict they needed to solve, this was a question for the whole Body of Christ.

And how the Body of Christ decided to live, one way or the other, would define the church.

They could either be a church who welcomed Gentiles as they were or a church who demanded circumcision, but they couldn’t be both.

So they sent their questions to Jerusalem and the apostles.

That is not to say that all arguments require calling in the head honcho. If a church can’t agree about what color of carpet to install, you don’t need to call the Bishop.

But there are some disagreements that are more fundamental – questions about our identity and our witness in the world – about who we are as a people… and sometimes we discover they are bigger than just one congregation.

In these cases, we have the opportunity to participate and share our experience and voices, but also, we are asked to listen to the experience and voices of others who are impacted by what we do.

This, is a lesson the partisan politicking in our world today desperately needs to remember.

The third thing that we can learn from this passage is how to engage.

As Acts 15 describes this debate, it plays out much like a courtroom scene. Parties stand and argue their case. People listen and wait their turn. The gathering is respectful and honest.

Oh, how I wish this were true in our local, state, national… or even denominational politics.

One of the more powerful realities of this testimony of scripture is that names are not tossed back and forth. No party made out to be the bad guy. There is no negative campaigning or slander.

Each group simply speaks the truth about who they are, what they have experienced, and what they believe.

Those who believed that all must be circumcised stood and made their case from the perspective of tradition and then others began to speak as well.

Peter talked about the conversion of Cornelius and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Barnabas and Paul shared about their ministry with the gentiles and the signs and wonders they saw.

And in each case, the people were allowed to tell their whole story without questions or cross-examination.

The others listened completely… not with the intent of finding flaws in their argument or how to beat them… but openly.

When one party was done speaking, the body was silent until the next voice was ready to speak.

There is this air of respect and love… it was holy space.

The final lesson comes in the answer to this debate – we should respect and honor each another and God.

When there was no more to say, James stood up to speak.

Having listened to what each party valued, James went back to scripture. He noted the precedent for ministry among Gentiles and the continued value of the teachings of Moses.

And then he made a declaration that was affirmed by everybody.

They didn’t have to vote with winners and losers. They all just agreed.

Gentiles would be welcomed, as they were… no additional burden would be placed upon them.

In many ways, James helped to build a bridge between these opposing groups. He helped them to find their common ground of respect. Each position would be respected and affirmed in its own way… by declaring what was essential and what wasn’t and requiring that all parties treat one another with respect.

John Wesley was often fond of saying: In essentials, unity; in unessentials, liberty; in all things – charity (that is to say, love).

God had moved among the Gentiles and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit showed that a practice like circumcision must not be an essential component of what it meant to be saved in Christ Jesus.

However, this didn’t mean that anything goes. N.T. Wright describes this compromise as “the double principle of no needful circumcision on the one hand and no needless offense on the other.” The Gentile Christians were to honor the scriptures by refusing pagan worship, refraining from sexual immorality, and respecting the dietary laws of their Jewish kin.

The early church would continue to argue about the essentials of who we should be as the people of God and what would be required of us.

New questions would arise as the church continued to expand into new places and new cultures.

But this Council of Jerusalem set a new standard for how we should have these conversations… with grace and love and respect.

Their actions were not focused on creating winners and losers, but on discerning what God was doing.

They returned to scripture and allowed it to speak anew into the present moment.

The questions were important… but even more so was how they chose to answer them.

We have a lot of things we disagree about today.

And the peacemaker in me always hopes that we can find a solution that can bring us all together… a compromise that would unify us, like this moment in Acts 15.

But then I read just a few more verses… and Barnabas and Paul have a disagreement.

They decide that for the sake of the mission they need to part ways.

What is the most important thing that we discover in this chapter is that how we talk to each other… how we listen… and how we show respect to God… and how we protect the most vulnerable is what is really important.

Sometimes that means we can work together.

And sometimes that means we need some time apart.

I don’t know where the church or country or world will be in a few years.

I pray constantly for the healing of our relationships.

And I keep remembering the lessons of the Jerusalem Council.

We need to directly face our conflicts and bring in folks to help us when necessary.

We need to share our stories fully… and listen with hearts wide open…

But above all… rather than our own agenda, we should seek answers that help us to best love and honor and respect one another and our God.

Expanding Our Vision

Posted on July 11, 2021Leave a comment

Text: Acts 10: 1-5, 9-15, 19-20, 24, 27-28, 34-36, 44-48

Eighty five years ago, I probably would not have been welcomed in this pulpit.

As a woman, ordination was out of the question.

A combination of tradition and a patriarchal society and a way of reading the scriptures precluded the church from welcoming women as preachers and pastors.

It still does in some places and traditions.

But here I stand… ordained, my calling from the Holy Spirit confirmed by the church.

As a young(ish) woman, I have always lived in a church that ordained women. I have always been a part of a church that valued the contributions women made in ministry, in leadership, and in the world. It has been a given.

But I also know what it took to get here.

Late this spring, folks from Immanuel joined with other churches in our circuit to read together through a series of essays called, “I’m Black. I’m Christian. I’m Methodist.”

While their experiences were contemporary, these pastors wove into their narrative the history and legacy of exclusion and discrimination of our church. While some Black Methodists chose to leave, for those that remained within this denomination, separation and exclusion and discrimination continued to be our legacy.

Our church divided over slavery, rather than taking a stand for the full humanity of our siblings.

When we finally re-united, it was as a segregated church, with black churches and clergy all set apart in the Central Jurisdiction until 1968.

The impact of that structural racism continues to be felt today.

What surprised us the most as we read through that book of essays, however, were parallels between these stories of exclusion and discrimination and our current debate within the church about the lives and leadership of our LGBTQ+ siblings.

I am here today because how we understood God’s call in the life of women changed.

In the same way, we have claimed a more expansive vision of what it means to be the church from other cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

The church is more diverse and beautiful and powerful today because we have recognized how the Holy Spirit is moving through one another.

I wonder where God is going to change our minds next…

This isn’t a new question…

It is a question as old as the church.

As we journey through the book of Acts, we see God’s Kingdom widening.

From Jerusalem, to Samaria, to the ends of the earth.

The faithful Jewish disciples begin to welcome and share the good news with those on the margins of the community…

And those who are converts in more far flung places…

And now we have a story about God speaking into the life of a Gentile and how God moves Peter to share the good news.

As the leader of the apostles, Peter had been visiting all of the house-churches where the followers of the Way were gathering in the wider area, especially on the coastal plains of Sharon.

He had just been to Lydda and then spent some time in Joppa.

And it was there, moved by the Spirit, that Peter had raised a faithful servant named Tabitha from the dead.

He was able to do amazing things, working and teaching in that community.

He was faithfully serving God and thought he knew exactly what that meant.

He presumed that he understood the rules of faith.

But just like Saul in the chapter before, Peter was about to have his world turned upside down yet again.

He was about to catch a glimpse of the scope and the breadth and the depth of God’s love for all people.

Our story today starts in the home of a gentile. A captain of the Roman army, named Cornelius, receives a vision from God and sends for Peter.

Let’s talk a little bit about this guy and what it means…

A Gentile is anyone who is not Jewish, someone who was not a part of the family of Israel, either through birth or conversion.

An outsider… as far as the faith was concerned.

There were gentiles, like Cornelius, who were described as “God-fearers” or “God-worshippers” which meant that they would have practiced elements of the Jewish faith and worshipped the God of the Israelites, but they were limited in their participation.

The temple had many different courts, and the requirements to move further and further into the temple, towards the holy of holies, left many out. The big open area you see in the photo is called the Court of the Gentiles. That was the only part of the temple Gentiles could enter, divided from even the steps leading up to the building by a wall.

These folks would not have kept the same ritual laws and for that reason, it was forbidden for Gentiles to enter these holy places or for Jews to enter the homes of Gentiles… lest they encounter something that would have made them unclean.

But many faithful god-fearing folks like Cornelius continued to show up. They continued worshipping God from those outer courts. In spite of the barriers, they wanted a relationship with God.

And God wanted a relationship with them.

So God prepares Peter’s heart for a more expansive vision of who was included in the Kingdom of God.

Before he is summoned to Caesarea and the home of Cornelius, Peter is given a vision of the clean and unclean joining together and he is asked in the vision to eat something that is unclean.

He doesn’t want to embrace it.

Everything in his very being tells him that it is wrong.

The holy was being profaned by the ordinary.

And then the voice in his vision speaks: “Never consider unclean what God has made pure.”

There is a knock at the door and the Holy Spirit whispers to him… go.

Peter is summoned to the home of Cornelius, and although he was not allowed by Jewish custom to enter, he did.

He entered the home of a gentile and broke bread with the unclean.

And when Cornelius asked about why God had brought him there, Peter shares the good news of Jesus Christ.

As he preaches to the entire gathered household, the Holy Spirit descends upon them and they receive the gift of faith.

The profane, the ordinary, the unclean… these people who were outside of all that Peter knew to be holy… the spirit and presence of God filled their lives.

He and his companions could see it… feel it…

And Peter exclaims: “These people have received the Holy Spirit just as we have. Surely no one can stop them from being baptized with water, can they?”

None of the disciples could deny their gifts.

Water was brought and Cornelius and his whole family were baptized on the spot…

They were part of the family of God…

At various points throughout the history of the church, faithful folk stood up and exclaimed: These people have received the Holy Spirit… just like we did – How can we stop them from being baptized?

How can we deny them a place at the table?

How can we continue to reject their leadership when God has so clearly spoken in their lives?

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism was against women preaching in principle… until he witnessed the Holy Spirit working through the lives of women like Sarah Crosby, Grace Murry, and Hannah Ball. He relented and licensed them for preaching in the circuits across England.

Likewise, Wesley was a staunch opponent of slavery the very first Discipline of the church prohibited members from owning slaves.

In fact, that Methodist egalitarian spirit is what drew large numbers of Black people to the movement in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.

As Rev. Erin Beasley writes: “Under Methodist, all Christians became brothers and sisters despite their background… “ and no matter their gender, ethnicity, or class.

And yet, even as God pushes us to expand our vision of who is included, that long-memory of what we had believed is hard to shake off.

It is not easy to let go of control.

Or upend our expectations.

Or give way for others to lead in new ways.

Sometimes the witness of the Holy Spirit is sometimes rejected by those who are trying to follow God’s will.

Even after John Wesley licensed women to preach, it was not until 1956 that women were granted full clergy rights in the church.

The anti-slavery position of the early Methodists quickly became more lenient as they sought to establish more congregations in the South. Black ministers like Richard Allen were not allowed to be ordained as elders… requiring them to be supervised by white clergy… eventually leading these folks to leave the church.

It is hard to let go of our traditions, our rules, our power.

We hang on to what we know and understand.

There is an uproar in Jerusalem when the hear about what Peter had done.

The apostles summon him back to the city to account for his actions.

They start with criticism. They launch into accusations. They read off the rules.

I can imagine their frustration growing as they start to wrestle with the implications of what has just happened.

The leaders of the early church, like Peter just days and weeks before, believed that faith meant one thing, and God was trying to show them it meant something else.

It doesn’t stop the Holy Spirit from moving however.

Not only does God act by giving us these unique and undeniable experiences of grace and power and Holy Spirit-led transformation… like Peter experienced with Cornelius…

But God also expands the vision of the whole church by calling those who have had these life-altering experiences to tell their story.

The apostles were furious and demanded an explanation.

Peter gave them one.

He told them about his vision.

He told them about how God led him to the house of Cornelius.

He connected what he had experienced of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit with what he witnessed first-hand in Caesarea.

In chapter 11, verse 16-17 he testifies: “I remembered the Lord’s words: ‘John will baptize with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, then who am I? Could I stand in God’s way?”.

“I really am learning that God doesn’t show partiality to one group of people over another,” Peter says.

I give thanks that the apostles rejoiced in his witness.

They came to understand that God wants to be in relationship with all of us.

With the whole of creation.

With you and me.

And we keep learning that lesson…

We keep discovering and remembering and learning all over again just how far our vision needs to expand…

With black and white and brown.

With young and old, and gay and straight,

Folks who are married and single and divorced and widowed.

cis-gender, transgender, and non-binary folks,

with those struggling with mental health and those who love them.

With life-long Americans and with people who have just arrived in our country.

Are we there yet?

No.

Have we sometimes taken steps backwards?

Absolutely.

Like Peter, we are still learning that God shows no partiality to one group of people or another.

It has been a hard lesson… centuries and millenia in the making…

But God keeps pushing us… stretching us… calling us into a more expansive vision of what the church can and should be.

God is God.

And we can fight it.

We can resist it.

But God will keep pouring out the Holy Spirit on whomever God chooses.

The Sorcerer and the Eunuch

Posted on June 27, 2021Leave a comment

Text: Acts 8: 4-6, 9-10, 12-13, 15-24; 26-27, 29-31, 34-39

Last week, the Jerusalem community of disciples was shaken when Stephen, one of the first deacons, was killed for his beliefs.

The church scattered and one of those deacons, Philip, found himself in Samaria, preaching Christ.

That moment of tragedy and the threat of persecution could not stop the good news from moving beyond Jerusalem… to Samaria… to the ends of the earth.

Before we get too far this morning… why Samaria?

Why is this place so important?

Well, first, we have to remember that Samaria isn’t a far flung place, but had been right in the center of Jesus’ ministry. In order to get from Jerusalem to Galilee you had to pass through… Samaria!

The Samaritans were distant cousins, “lost sheep of Israel” as J. Jervell describes them.

These neighbors were not Gentiles, not complete outsiders to the Jewish faith, but there were differences between more traditional Jews and their Samaritan kin that created animosity and division.

The reason the story of the Good Samaritan was so controversial was the very fact that the priest and Levite – faithful Jewish folks – didn’t stop… but the Samaritan, whom the crowds would have expected to do the wrong thing, did.

This is where Jesus promises that the ministry of the church will spread first.

From Jersualem… to Samaria… to the ends of the earth.

This journey of Acts starts with the Jewish faithful… but then it starts to take root in those who are on the fringes of God’s people.

Philip finds in Samaria an audience that is eager to hear more about Jesus and the good news.

But his ministry in this chapter is largely the story of how two folks on the fringe of faith receive the invitation.

The sorcerer and the eunuch.

One arrogant and brash, the other humble and full of questions.

For one, the power of the Holy Spirit is a commodity to be bought and sold, possessed and tamed.

For the other, that power is precious, mysterious, and a gift to be treated delicately.

Let’s dive in deeper.

In Samaria, “Simon the Great” was known throughout the area for his dazzling performances of sorcery.

But he finds that notoriety fading as a new player, the deacon Philip, comes on the scene.

Suddenly, it is someone else doing the healing…

Someone else drawing the crowds…

And Simon Magus, himself, is astonished by the power that this follower of Christ displays.

He is overcome by the good news of God and joins in the fellowship of believers.

But we get the sense that stepping out of the limelight was a really rough transition.

Simon misses drawing a crowd and being the center of attention.

Now, there is an interesting point here that I want to mention.

Philip, as a deacon, appears to have the authority to preach and to baptize folks, but it wasn’t until the apostles Peter and John show up that the gift of the Holy Spirit was received.

Philip had the gift of the Holy Spirit, but he didn’t have the ability to share it with others.

The apostles did. They began to lay hands on folks so that they, too, could be filled with the Spirit, and when Simon Magus sees this, he suddenly wants their job.

He perceives the Holy Spirit as a kind of magical ability that could be possessed and he wants to take it on the road to give some new audience a show.

So this former sorcerer runs up and throws down a bag of coins… “Give me that authority!” he demands.

Faith in Jesus Christ is a new part of Simon’s life and so he naturally starts from what he knows and where he is gifted. He knows how to draw a crowd and perform and thinks…“I could do that.”

What he has misunderstood, however, is that the Holy Spirit isn’t interested in being possessed. The apostle Peter calls him out and rebukes him for trying to buy God’s gifts.

We remember what happened not that long ago to the likes of Ananias and Sapphira and you almost have to hold your breath waiting for Simon Magus to drop dead.

But he is invited to pray, to repent, and our last impression of this sorcerer has him asking the apostles to intercede on his behalf.

Maybe there is hope for him, after all.

After this encounter, Philip is led by the Holy Spirit in a different direction, this time southwest of Jerusalem to another person on the fringes of the Jewish faith.

Whereas in Samaria, the Holy Spirit was a power that amazed, in this story, she seems to be moving subtly behind the scenes.

Our text tells us that this individual was coming from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for worship in the temple. We might assume that they were a God-fearer… a term used for those who followed the God of Israel, but like Samaritans, they found himself on the margins.

In this case, it wasn’t because of their own religious history, but because of their identity.

Luke tells us the passenger in the carriage was an Ethiopian eunuch – which might not mean a whole lot to us today – so I appreciate Gary DeLashmutt’s more modern description: this was a “sexually altered black man from a pagan country.” [1]

Despite their standing in the court of the queen of Ethiopia, their wealth, and all the power they did possess, this eunuch knew they could not buy a place in the family of God. They understood the barriers.

And yet, we can’t help but ignore that the eunuch is reading the words of the prophet Isaiah – who talked about Ethiopia’s inclusion in God’s blessings (18:1, 45:15) and who shared God’s promise that outcasts like eunuchs and foreigners who kept the Sabbath would be welcomed in God’s family (see chapter 56). They knew how important scripture was in their quest for a relationship with God… even though they were on the fringes of the Jewish faith.

The Holy Spirit brought these two together in this moment and Philip climbs in the carriage to lead a Bible Study. And in this dialogue with Philip, they discovered someone who, according to DeLashmutt, “understood that their standing with God was based not on ethnic identity, moral record, religious heritage, etc.—but through Jesus’ death alone…”

Philip is led by the Holy Spirit to tell this fellow sojourner the good news about Jesus and the eunuch is ready and eager to receive this word and join in the fellowship.

In spite of the lingering suspicion that the answer might be no, when the eunuch and Philip come to a small oasis of water by the side of the road, they ask a heartbreaking question: “What would prevent me from being baptized?”

It is not a demand, it is a humble question of faith from someone who has everything in the world… except for a place in the family of God.

Because they were castrated, this eunuch could never have completed the conversion to Judaism – which would have included circumcision and then baptism.

But if it is the death and resurrection and exaltation of Jesus that brings us salvation, and if this eunuch has taken this message to heart, why should anything stand in their way?

Philip is led by the Holy Spirit to baptize the eunuch and they go on their way rejoicing.

The story of the church began with a small crowd in Jerusalem, but already it is defying our expectations.

Those on the fringes are ready and eager to hear the good news and to join in the community of God’s people.

They might not all respond in the way that we want them to and there are sure to be challenges along the way… but the Holy Spirit is constantly reminding us… we don’t get to control who hears the message.

[1] https://teachings.xenos.org/es/teaching/1484

Real Church is Messy

Posted on June 13, 2021Leave a comment

Acts 5:1-11, 6:1-7

This summer, as we study together through the book of Acts, I wish that we could talk about every single verse… but we simply don’t have time.

So I hope that you are checking out our daily video devotion – which can be found on our facebook page OR on our church website.

In fact, we made it even easier to find on our website… just go to iumc.org and scroll to the bottom and you’ll find the latest three posted right there!

Today, we are skipping over chapter three and four and diving into more of what it meant for these first faithful folks to live with one another.

Two weeks ago, our Director of Youth Ministry stood here and shared this beautiful, rosy picture of a church community that seemed perfect.

They devoted themselves to prayer and teaching and fellowship and sold everything they had and make sure everyone’s needs were met.

And, if you are anything like me, we hold our own imperfect, human community up to that standard and get a bit discouraged.

But never fear… things were not as perfect as they seemed.

This community was messy.

After all, it was full of humans, too.

Real humans with real problems.

People who are dishonest.

Others who are ignored.

There is jealousy, and complaining, and growing pains.

It is church, after all.

So let’s dive into the dirt and the muck as problems of the church appear in chapters 5 and 6.

First, we’ve got a problem that results from dishonesty and disrespect.

In our short video clip from The Bible Project, we are reminded once again of the temple.

God’s presence once led the people through the wilderness.

Then it was understood to dwell in the temple in Jerusalem… a building… and people would travel to Jerusalem to encounter God’s holiness.

But the story of Pentecost is how God’s presence now fills individuals through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Body of Christ is the temple.

I am the temple of God.

YOU are the temple of God.

And so we have these lovely, good, and holy things happening that would you would expect in God’s presence… teaching and fellowship and reaching out to the needy.

But when we say that something is holy, we also have to acknowledge the danger.

We stand in God’s presence with fear, with awe, with trembling…

There is a line I love in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” by CS Lewis which captures this idea perfectly.

The lion, Aslan, is a Christ figure in the narrative and one of the children is apprehensive…

“Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.”…
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver… “Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King; I tell you.”

God isn’t safe.

But God is good.

And God calls us to a better way of living.

We don’t have to be perfect.

But we do need to bring our full selves into this community.

We can’t simply dip our toes into the water and pretend.

In fact, the story of Ananias and Sapphira is not about how this couple should have sold all they had and given it to the community.

It was about the fact that they lied.

They could have chosen NOT to sell their property.

Or they could have sold the property and chosen to be up front about keeping some of the funds.

But they wanted all of the benefits and glory without actually doing the work.

As Peter says, they lied to the community and they lied to the Holy Spirit.

They disrespected the presence of God that was dwelling in their midst and are struck dead.

I started thinking about that scene from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark when the Nazis think that they can open the Ark of the Covenant and take the power of God for themselves…

Dr. Jones and Marian know that God’s power is holy… They shut their eyes and refuse to look.

But the Nazis have no respect for God… only what God can do for them… and when they reach in to take it with fury and fire, God’s presence overwhelms them and their faces melt off.

Just like the priests in Leviticus who disrespected God in the temple.

You can’t use the presence of God for your own selfish purposes and you shouldn’t reach beyond your own limitations.

When I think about how we might apply this lesson to our relationships with one another today, I think about that idea of respecting the presence of God that dwells within each of us.

We need to respect one another enough to be honest.

If you aren’t able to say yes, then you should have the freedom and ability to say no.

We don’t have to pretend, but can simply bring ourselves and our gifts into this community without apologizing.

Whether they are gifts of finances, or time, or abilities and talents that you might offer.

You don’t have to sell everything you have to be included, or sign up to serve on every committee.

In fact, as we heard in one of our daily devotions earlier this week, you don’t even have to have a penny to your name.

Honor what you have.

Offer what you can.

God’s Spirit dwells within you and your gifts, however big or small, matter.

A flip side to this is that each one of us is called to honor and respect the gifts of others.

Sometimes we find ourselves in that ugly, jealous, comparative mode.

We think that someone is offering too little… and then rub it in or make them feel guilty.

Or we get overwhelmed by what someone else can do and become ashamed about our own value.

God’s presence is working through every person.

Be grateful and honor the faithfulness of each person you encounter in this community.

Our job is not to compare what other people can do… but to celebrate what every person offers.

The second real community problem that this early church struggles with has to do with some growing pains and, to be honest, some discriminatory behavior.

As the community kept growing, suddenly they began to notice there were differences among them.

It was all nice and good and warm and fuzzy to be able to hear in new languages on that day of Pentecost… but it’s a whole other kind of conversation to figure out how all of these different groups are actually going to live together.

And some people began to raise real and honest questions about equity in their midst.

While it might not have been intentioned, the widows who came from a more Greek, or Hellenistic cultural background, were being neglected compared to those who identified more with the Hebrew culture.

Someone stood up, and basically said, “Greek widows matter, too.”

If we are going to be a community that takes care of the needs of everyone, then we need to do what we say.

And when we aren’t living up to that value, if we are overlooking someone, then we need to address it.

What I love about this story is that there is an obvious flaw and problem in the community.

But the leadership listens and calls together the people to solve the problem.

And then they think outside the box.

They don’t just add a task to the job description of those who were already leading, but come up with a new and creative solution that actually allows more people to serve and engage in the work.

The church lifts up new leaders who can help make sure that each person is cared for in the way they deserve.

And these new deacons, servants, are blessed… commissioned… into this ministry of waiting tables.

Friends, we will encounter problems in our church and in our larger community.

There are times when we will be come aware that someone or a group of folks has not been treated fairly.

In fact, I’ve had this on my mind as we think about how this coming Saturday, our nation celebrates Juneteenth.

You know, I’ve never really thought about Juneteenth as a national holiday.

I’m going to be totally honest, I didn’t know what it was and maybe you don’t either.

Juneteenth is the day we commemorate the ending of slavery in the United States.

This date comes two and a half YEARS after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation… but remember, this was not a time of 24/7 cable news.

It wasn’t until General Lee finally surrendered in April of 1865 and Union troops landed in Texas on June 19^th that the war ended and the word reached these communities that all slaves were free.

Now, every single American should claim this day as our own.

We didn’t always get it right, just as the early Christian community didn’t always get it right.

But we can do something about the harm.

We can listen to the pain and we can work for a better future.

And we can celebrate the steps we have taken, the leaders we have raised up, and claim the task that is still before us.

The early church was not perfect.

Because it was filled with imperfect people who were learning and growing and still discovering what it meant to follow Jesus.

And friends, we aren’t perfect either.

We are going to get it wrong.

We are going to make mistakes.

We are going to have days when we focus on ourselves and what we want and forget about others.

But the word I find in these chapters of Acts is this:

We are the Body of Christ, the dwelling place of God’s Spirit, and how we treat one another matters.

So we should hold one another accountable.

We should honor the presence of God that lives within us.

And we should keep working to do better every day.

May it be so.

The Spirit of the Lord is Upon Us!

Posted on May 23, 2021Leave a comment

Text: Luke 4:18-19, Acts 1:8, 2:1-4, 38-39

One of the things that we have re-discovered and remembered this year is that church is not a building.

We have a building, sure.

But the church is the people.

You and me.

The body of Christ.

In the same way, the presence of God is not confined to this physical structure.

And, we don’t have to travel to the Holy Land to be in the presence of God.

It is right here.

Among us.

Wherever two or three are gathered, there I am… Jesus said. (Matthew 18)

Well, that is exactly what happened on that Pentecost morning.

The disciples were gathered together, worshipping, praying, waiting for whatever was supposed to happen next.

Waiting for the power of the Holy Spirit.

And then there was a sound…

Like the howling of a fierce wind…

The entire room was filled with an overwhelming presence…

Tongues of fire danced over their heads…

The Spirit of the Lord was upon them.

The presence of God was right there, in their midst.

When the Spirit of the Lord first appeared to Moses in the burning bush, he heard the call to go back to Egypt and liberate the oppressed.

That power and presence of God released the slaves and set them free for the promised land.

Through a pillar of fire and smoke, the Spirit of the Lord was with the people as they journeyed.

God provided food for their hunger and water for their thirst.

God led them and healed them.

God dwelt among them.

On the mountaintop, the power and presence of God was seen for miles around in wind and fire and Moses journeyed back down forever changed.

He brought with him commandments that would allow them to live according to God’s will.

Laws to help them love God and to love their neighbor.

God wanted this people to bear God’s image to the world.

Yet, as time went on, and the people became settled and rubbed shoulders with folks from lots of different places and cultures, it became harder and harder to stay connected to God’s presence and power.

While the spirit of God continued to call prophets and leaders to keep reminding the people, it was easy to forget about a God who dwelt somewhere else.

So God decided to dwell among the people again.

The Word became flesh.

Jesus entered our lives.

And the Spirit of the Lord was upon him.

As Luke tells us, the Spirit of the Lord sent him forth to preach good news to the poor and heal the sick and to set people free.

People experienced the presence of God through his touch and his words.

And then Jesus promised this same power would be given to the people.

That the Spirit of God would come upon them.

That the presence and power of God would dwell in them.

And they, too, would be sent forth to preach, and to heal, and to change the world.

God would turn the world upside down starting in Jerusalem… heading out to Samaria… and to the ends of the earth.

This was not a promise just for the disciples.

Not just for the Jewish people.

God’s Spirit was pouring out on all people.

On that day of Pentecost, tongues of fire danced over their heads.

God’s presence filled their hearts.

And people from every corner of the world experienced it.

They heard God speaking to them.

They felt God’s presence among them.

And they allowed the gift of the Spirit to fill their lives.

Three thousand people were added to their community.

It is good to be in this space together with folks once again.

But I have to be honest… It is not the space that makes this time of worship holy.

The psalmist may have cried out “How lovely is your dwelling place” and at the time they were talking about the temple.

But the miracle of Pentecost is that the spirit of God dwells in you.

The very presence of God that set that shrub in the wilderness on fire…

And that led the people of Israel through…

That dwelt in the temple…

That filled the life of Jesus Christ…

The Spirit of God filled those first disciples… and then three thousand…

Through them, the presence and power of God moved from Jerusalem…

To Samaria…

To Rome…

And across the oceans…

And right now God’s spirit is upon you.

God’s power dwells in you.

Oh, and how lovely are your faces.

God’s presence is right here in this very room because you are here.

God is with you at home… on your couch… sitting around the kitchen table.

Because the gift of the Holy Spirit is yours.

Right here in the greater Des Moines area, God is with us.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon us right here in this city…

One of the unexpected miracles of Pentecost was the way that this presence of God brought people together.

In the time of exile, Jewish faithful were scattered the winds.

They made their homes in far away places and learned new cultures and languages.

But when able they made the pilgrimage back to Jerusalem to be in the presence of God.

Over these last fourteen months, we have felt a bit scattered to the winds.

We have felt like we were in exile.

Exiled from one another and familiar places.

But that exile is not just a result of quarantines and distancing.

This past year we have experienced political discord and division in our responses to racism and vaccinations and masks.

Although the official language we might speak is the same, the words we use have meanings that separate us.

And so even when we gather in the same space, we are not unlike those pilgrims to Jerusalem who can’t understand one another.

When I read through these verses in Acts once again, I am reminded that this division and discord is not what God intends for us.

As Jana Childers writes in their commentary on this passage, “The human community… begins to be mended. As the Spirit arrives… instead of widening confusion, there is dawning comprehension, incipient reunion. What was divided is mended… The Spirit-baptized are drawn together, this time in the Spirit’s power, for the purposes of extending the realm of God.” [1]

We are drawn together in the Spirit’s power to extend the realm of God.

When Jesus stood up in the synagogue at the beginning of his ministry, he read from the scroll of Isaiah.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, he said,

God has chosen me to preach good news to the poor.

To offer forgiveness and pardon to prisoners.

To be an agent of healing and ease the load of the burdened.

And when he finished reading he sat down and told the people, “Scripture came true just now in this place.”

Right there in Nazareth, the realm of God, the Kingdom of God, was at hand.

The as the disciples claimed the gift of the Holy Spirit and began to preach and teach and heal in Jesus’ name… the realm of God became a reality on the streets of Jerusalem.

People who had been divided began to hear and understand.

It didn’t matter their background or their language or their culture… the presence and power of God rested upon them as the Holy Spirit danced in their midst.

And over the course of this summer, we are going to explore just what it meant for those first disciples to be led by the Holy Spirit and how the realm of God expanded.

We’ll learn about what it means to be a community centered in God.

How to speak God’s truth in the face of opposition.

Along the way, we’ll meet sorcerers and centurions and kings.

We’ll experience earthquakes and shipwrecks, tragedy and miracles.

In the footsteps of Peter and Paul, Barnabas and Silas, Lydia and Tabitha, we will witness how the Spirit of God becomes known to the people of Antioch and Damascus, Lystra and Philippi.

And we will discover how we are “part of the widening circle begun in Acts – part of the growing momentum, building ripple by ripple…”[2] until the realm of God stretches to every corner of this world.

As United Methodists, we see ourselves as part of that widening circle. In our Book of Discipline, we claim that:

“Guided by the Holy Spirit, United Methodist churches throughout the world are called afresh into a covenant of mutual commitment based on shared mission, equity, and hospitality… we commit ourselves to crossing boundaries of language, culture, and social or economic status. We commit ourselves to be in ministry with all people, as we, in faithfulness to the gospel, seek to grow in mutual love and trust. We participate in God’s mission as partners in ministry, recognizing that our God-given gifts, experiences, and resources are of equal value… creating a new sense of community and joyously living out our worldwide connection in our mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” [3]

The Spirit of the Lord is upon us right here in Des Moines.

We might have a diversity of perspectives and backgrounds and gifts, but there is one Spirit.

And right here in this city, God is calling us afresh to focus on our mission… to cherish what each person uniquely brings… and to reach out in love welcoming all.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon us to bring good news and offer forgiveness and heal what is broken and divided.

May the winds of the spirit blow…

Amen.

[1] Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 3, page 19.

[2] Ibid.

[3] 2016 Book of Discipline, ¶125, p. 95-96

The Breath of the Spirit (2.0)

Posted on May 31, 2020Leave a comment

note… the original sermon for Pentecost was written over 10 days ago because of staff vacations and our own pre-recording for worship in the age of Covid-19. But I couldn’t rest with this sermon and felt the Spirit keep nudging me to talk about how breath this past week has been stolen from so many… so here is the update God put on my heart this morning.

Text: John 3:1-8

Most of us are familiar with the story of Pentecost from Acts.

As the crowds gather in Jerusalem for the Feast of Weeks, fifty days after Passover, the disciples of Jesus were also in town. Suddenly, the Holy Spirit rushes in, sounding like a violent wind and appearing as tongues of fire.

And then, the Holy Spirit empowers the disciples to reach out and speak to all who gather around, each able to hear in their own native language.

Three thousand people give their lives to Christ that day, receive the Holy Spirit, and the church is born.

Just six weeks before, those disciples had been gathered together behind locked doors. We heard this message right after Easter and also last week from Bishop Deb. Jesus is resurrected and shows these frightened disciples his hands and side and then he breathes on them, giving them the Holy Spirit. He offers them peace and sends them into the world.

This wasn’t the first appearance of the rushing, flowing, creative, breath of God.

In the first verses of our scripture, God’s breath, wind, Ru’ach, sweeps across the waters as the world is being shaped.

And in the second chapter of Genesis, God scoops up a handful of topsoil and forms it into a human being. Then, God breathes life, Spirit, into its nostrils.

Birth and creation and the Spirit go hand in hand.

And wherever the Spirit shows up, the finite and the infinite are closer together.

Our very first stop on our summer road trip is Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota.

For the Lakota people, their story of emergence into this world is connected with this sacred place. Emergence in this tradition is not creation per se, but when their people came to the surface and emerged from the spirit realm.

Their story begins in a time when the plants and animals were being brought into existence, but there were no people or bison living on the earth.

The cave itself, is known as Oniya Oshoka, the place where the earth breathes. This cave is believed to be a passageway between the spirit world and the surface.

The Creator instructed their ancestor Tokahe to lead the people through the passage when the earth was ready for them. When they emerged, they saw the hoof print of a bison who had come before and were told by the Creator, “follow the buffalo track and you will have what you need.”

Then the Creator shrunk down the entrance to the passageway, leaving it as a reminder of where they had come from.

As a child, my family traveled through the Black Hills in South Dakota for our family vacation one summer.

Yes, in this picture my brother and I ARE handcuffed together. You see, we made a stop at Wall Drug and got some of those novelty handcuffs… and when we got out to take this picture we couldn’t find the key!

However, we never found our way to Wind Caves.

In fact, it most people traveling through the area probably would have been unaware of the intricate network of caves just below the surface. The opening from the Lakota Emergence Story is just a small hole where the wind moves in and out.

In 1881, the Bingham brothers were traveling by and heard the sound of a blowing wind, even though it was an incredibly calm day. They sought out the source and the wind blew one of the brother’s hats right off!

Many came to see the sight and explore the caves and in 1903 it was officially designated as a National Park. It is one of the largest cave systems in the entire world and still has not been fully mapped!

Scientifically, changing barometric pressure causes the air to move through this the small natural entrance to Wind Cave.

Yet that unseen force, that natural in and out, reminds us of the breath of life blown into Adam’s nostrils.

It reminds us of the wind hovering over the waters.

It reminds us of Jesus breathing the Spirit of peace upon the disciples.

It reminds us of the birth of the church!

And as fundamentally as our own life depends on every breath in… and breath out… our life in God depends upon the flowing of that Rua’ch, Pneuma, Spirit in our own lives as well.

Think about your own breath.

Inhale.

Exhale.

That breath sustains you every minute of every day.

But how often do you really notice it?

The air entering your lungs.

The muscles moving as it leaves again.

The oxygen moving to every red blood cell.

I must admit I’ve been thinking a lot more about my breath this week.

I’ve been thinking about it after seeing those images of George Floyd struggling to breathe on the ground.

As a white woman, I confess that when Eric Garner cried out that he couldn’t breathe and died in police custody in 2014, I was upset for a little bit.

But my life went back to normal.

Lord have mercy.

Hear my confession that nothing in my life changed, when I could have breathed in your Spirit and could have spent these last six years building capacity and standing up against racism in our community.

The anger and frustration we see spilling out on the streets is a direct result of the fact that nothing has changed.

That what is normal is the systemic racism embedded in the fabric of our country.

I’ve been thinking about my breath every time I check the daily numbers of coronavirus cases and deaths here in Iowa.

Because of the essential nature of their work, the virus is disproportionately impacting our black and brown neighbors here in Iowa.

But I also think about the stories of children in the documentary “The Human Element” who couldn’t breathe because of asthma. The film explored a school in a neighborhood with a lot of industrial pollution where so many of its children have this disease they have an entire asthma protocol.

We are so busy prioritizing livlihoods over lives we can’t hear the people in our community telling us that they can’t breathe.

My insides are just twisted from grief and anguish.

It is Pentecost and it is 2020 and it feels like the world is on fire.

Maybe you feel the same.

Our gospel lesson for this morning comes from very early in the gospel of John.

Enter Nicodemus.

He was part of the ruling class in Jerusalem.

He had done everything in his life right.

He was the epitome of privilege and power.

And I think he felt like his world was on fire.

He knew that something had to give, something had to change, knew that there was something he wasn’t seeing.

And he was scared.

He was scared for others to know what he was wrestling with or how he felt…

In some ways, he was waiting to emerge…

So he goes to Jesus under the cover of night to have a conversation.

What he hears surprises him.

Jesus tells him that unless he is born anew, born from above, re-created… Nicodemus will not be able to see the Kingdom of God.

It’s as if he is telling him, as long as you remain hidden, in the dark, under cover…

As long as you are comfortable with things as they way they are…

If you refuse to let go and leave behind what you know…

Then you’ll never really experience God’s Kingdom.

Nicodemus takes Jesus literally and tries to figure out what it means to re-enter his mother’s womb…

And that is when Jesus brings the Spirit back into the conversation.

We emerge…

We are recreated…

We are born again…

We wake up…

We are able to see and know and participate in the Kingdom of God only by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus invites Nicodemus to set aside his privilege and power and to let the power of God fill his life and guide his actions instead.

And just like that very first breath in Adam’s nostrils brought him to life, when the Holy Spirit moves into our bodies and minds and souls, we come to experience a life that we couldn’t even comprehend before.

God breathes into our lives and changes everything.

All around us, our neighbors can’t breathe.

They can’t breathe because systemic racism is holding them down.

They can’t breathe because of pollution.

They can’t breathe because of an uncontrolled virus.

They can’t breathe because of hatred and frustration.

And I am taking a good long look at my own life today and thinking about all of the ways that I have directly or indirectly contributed.

How have I stifled the breath of God?

How have I kept that life-giving breath from entering their lives?

Where do I need to emerge, wake up, be born again?

As Tim Nafziger writes, “Jesus understand that power warps the way you view the world. The more power, the greater the warp. Being born again is what it takes to start seeing things again in their proper light.”

It all feels so impossible.

It feels overwhelming.

The grief, the division, the anguish is palpable.

But you know what… it was for the disciples, too.

When I initially wrote this sermon, I said that on the day of Pentecost they were in Jerusalem celebrating.

But how can you celebrate when your leader has been executed by the empire?

How can you celebrate when you are still angry and frustrated and grieving?

It had to have felt impossible and overwhelming and they had to have still been afraid.

And that is when the Holy Spirit showed up.

Showed up with fire and with wind.

Turned the world upside down.

No doubt, some in that crowd had just fifty-three days before been crying out “Crucify Him!”

But the Holy Spirit showed up and they could see now what they couldn’t see then.

Three thousand people were born again that day.

Three thousand people woke up to a new way of life and living in the Kingdom of God where you put your neighbors first and love is the greatest command and you share what you have and make sure no one is in need.

I think again about Nicodemus.

If we follow his story through the gospel of John, we find him again at the end.

No longer is he hanging out in the night.

He emerges into public view, in broad daylight, after the crucifixion of Jesus.

In a time when it would have been the riskiest for him to do so, the Spirit pushes him to the seat of power to ask for the body of Jesus.

He puts his own life on the line for the sake of the Kingdom of God.

In the midst of all that seems impossible, Come Holy Spirit!

Come and blow your life-giving breath among our communities once again!

Come and breathe into our lives so that we might see Your Kingdom.

Come Holy Spirit!

Cleanse us of all within us that keeps others from breathing.

Cleanse us of all that has kept us from experiencing your life.

Burn away the sins of racism.

Melt away our tendency to put profits over people.

Come Spirit and help us to see things in their proper light.

Help us to see ourselves in our proper light.

Help us to see our neighbors in their proper light.

Your light.

Your life-giving, life-sustaining, cup-runneth-over, abundant love for all light.

Empower us to be your church.

Not in a building, but right where we are… in our homes, our neighborhood, our work, our world.

Come Holy Spirit and help us to set this world on fire once again with love and grace and mercy and kindness and forgiveness.