Pentecost
Acts 2:1-21 Psalm 104:24-35b 1 Corinthians 12:3-13 John 20:19-23 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who blows new life into our lives. Amen It’s pentecost! The festival fifty days after Easter when we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit and the start of the church. Each year I’m reminded of a song from my children’s choir days - Mom you know exactly which one I’m talking about, and yes my mom watches the worship videos online- this pandemic has created avid youtubers out of moms of pastors all across the nation- anyway the song went a little something like this: Pentecost is happy birthday Happy birthday to the church When every single doubting Thomas Comes alive with Jesus’ promise That he would not leave them In the lurch. Now with the exception of the fact that the song continues to smear the disciple Thomas’ character for the sake of a rhyme it’s a pretty good basic interpretation of the day. We heard last week how Jesus promised the disciples the gift of the holy spirit and commanded them to take his message to the ends of the earth before ascending to the right hand of the father and we just heard in our reading from acts, how the spirit blew the disciples out into the streets, each speaking in a different language so that the people assembled from the ends of the earth could understand their message and later though it wasn’t part of our reading, we are told about 3,000 people are baptized and join the disciples and it is exciting and a great celebration but it’s one that comes as the culmination of a long time of waiting and uncertainty. We’re intimately familiar with those dual feelings aren’t we? uncertainty coupled with waiting and even if we are trusting in the promise of God to bring new life it can be really hard to wait, we get impatient, or we imagine what the future will look like which invariably ends up being unrealistic, because we always imagine ourselves in the role of the hero, we anticipate and hope that when our wait is over and the spirit is on the move that we will be like the disciples stepping forward to face the crowds but the reality is that often when the Holy Spirit blows in new life, it looks nothing like what we imagined and in turn we are act more like the crowds than the disciples Act tells us that the crowds gathered by the commotion the disciples are making are first astonished to hear the disciples whose accents betray them as Galileans, speaking in their own languages and then they have one of two reactions some in the crowd react with curiosity, asking “What does this mean? But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine." Their response is to immediately dismiss what is happening using the least generous possibility as an explanation, and while it is amusing to hear Peter protest that the disciples are not drunk because it is only 9am think about how the disciples felt, here they are receiving the long awaited gift from God, and some immediately dismiss them because they are disturbed. That’s the thing about the Holy Spirit, as new and exciting as it is, the new life it brings is coupled with the potential for destruction, the potential exists even in the way the arrival of the spirit is described, with a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and as tongues of fire, out here we know the power of wind and what it can do to trees and structures that seem strong in one moment and in the next are torn apart. Fire, used for cooking and heating, is always only one spark away from destruction. We also know that giving birth Even in the best of circumstances, is painful and dangerous and full of uncertainty Until the first breath is taken and even after. When we are faced with the arrival of the Holy Spirit, New life and all the comes with it to bring it into the world we are faced with two options: to dismiss the strange things before us with pat explanations that demean those through whom the spirit is working, or we can approach with curiosity, to ask the question: What does this mean? To take the time to listen to the ones who like Peter stand up and offer an explanation, to explore what others have experienced leading up to this moment That makes new life necessary to seek out those who have visions and dreams for the future, those who can help us imagine ourselves in that future, those whose faith remains unshaken even as we are unsure. In short, faced with the work of the holy spirit we need the help of the gifts of the spirit that Paul describes in our reading from 1 Corinthians, gifts that the spirit has distributed as she sees fit and never all in one person, when we need the gifts of the spirit we need the community. We need the people who are wise, and the ones that are knowledgeable, we need the ones that get things done, and the ones who are good at figuring out what we need to do, we need those who prophesy and those who translate that prophesy into a vision for the future. “All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free- and we were all made to drink of one spirit.” We are united in the spirit but Unity in the spirit doesn’t erase our individual identities, in fact we need people to be different so that we all can be whole Paul continuing with his body analogy later says “If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body.” and what keeps a whole body alive? Breath, the spirit. The common theme running through the major upheavals in our world right now is lack of breath, COVID19 is a sickness of the lungs, the people who die are those whose lungs are so compromised that they are no longer able to breathe. George Floyd could not breathe, his airway cut off by another person and he is not the first to have uttered those words in a similar circumstance. Those seeking new life for other Have their breath taken from them By those who want things to stay the same. Our world needs breath, needs the spirit, even as we are made aware that we are members of a community, that our health and wellbeing are tied up in the health and well being of our neighbors, the ones next door, across the country, and around the world. The world needs the spirit, and I believe that the spirit is at work, bringing new life, even, especially if it is life like we haven’t imagined, and the work of the spirit, like a strong wind, will be unsettling, even for those of us who long for the new life that the spirit brings. And when faced with the work of the Holy Spirit, we have two options: curiosity or dismissiveness. We can dismiss the need for finding new ways for common life that enable the health of all, we can dismiss the protests using whatever pat explanation comes to mind. Or we can ask: What does this mean? And listen with an open heart and an open mind to those, who like Peter, have the gifts of the spirit that allow them to explain the long history leading up to this point, who show us why this is a moment that should not be dismissed but paid attention to. And it may be hard to hear what the Peters in our midst have to say, and at each point when we feel discomfort, a sign that the spirit is working by the way, we once again have two options: we can dismiss it or we can ask what does this mean? And move further down the path toward new life and as we go down this path, we will never be alone because we have been given the gift of the spirit who is as close to us as the breath in our lungs, who is there to unsettle us when we need to be unsettled and to comfort us when we need to be comforted who activates in each of us gifts, who works in our lives through the gifts others share who gathers us together in community to wonder together: what does this mean? If you are feeling the moving of the spirit, If you ever want someone to wonder with and ask the hard questions, know that I am available to wonder and question with you, because this is something that we don’t do alone and if we can’t ask the hard questions in the church, where can we ask them? Pentecost is happy birthday Happy birthday to the church. What does this mean? It means the start of something new, something unsettling and comforting at the same time, it means God is with us and God is sending us. It means Jesus keeps his promises. Amen
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Seventh Sunday in Easter
Acts 1:1-11 Psalm47 Ephesians 1:15-23 Luke 24:44-53 Alleluia Christ is Risen! Christ is risen indeed Alleluia! Well, here we are, at the end of the Easter season, our celebration of the resurrection was a bit quieter than what we’re traditionally used to but perhaps more poignant for the much needed message of hope, the proclamation of Jesus’ ultimate victory over death. We’ve heard how Jesus appeared to the disciples giving them what they needed to believe and reminding them of all that he had taught them, and we’ve heard once again, of Jesus’ promise that he will not leave us orphaned but send an advocate, the holy spirit to show us the way, and now here on our last sunday in Easter we hear of Jesus’ ascension, his return to heaven and the right hand of the Father as we confess in the words of the Apostle’s Creed, we confess this but I don’t think the ascension is one of the parts of Jesus’ life that we think about all that often, in fact, why mention it at all? As it turns out, the Ascension, which some smart alec online defined as “when Jesus started working from home” is crucial for the spread of the good news of Jesus Christ. While it seems counter intuitive, Jesus has to leave so that the work of the church can begin. Luke tells us how after appearing to the disciples in several ways, Jesus finally gathers the disciples together, reminds them of all that he taught them while he was with them, opens their minds to understand that he is the fulfillment of the scriptures, “that because he rose on the third day, repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in [Jesus’] name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” and that they are the ones who will be making those proclamations Jesus reminds the disciples “You are witnesses of these things.” the life, death, resurrection and now ascension of Jesus. Witnesses who now have the responsibility to share what they have seen and heard with all nations, of course Jesus will give them the gift of the Holy Spirit to help, though that comes next week, first though Jesus has to leave, and with a final blessing he is carried into heaven, the disciples return to the temple blessing God and soon, next week, the holy spirit will blow them out into the street, to share what they have seen with all the nations, and this wouldn’t be possible without Jesus leaving, as long as Jesus is around, he will be the center of attention, ascending to the Father, fulfills the scriptures and gives the disciples space to live out the mission he has given them. Because let’s be honest, as humans we tend to get distracted by the physical, by what is before us, what we can hold on to, in Acts the disciples stare heavenward as Jesus ascends and two men in white (indicating that they are messengers of God) come alongside them and ask why they keep staring up to heaven when what is important is before them on earth, Jesus will come back they remind the disciples but until then you’ve got work to do, the work of becoming the Church, the people of God on earth who, in relationship with God and partnership of the holy spirit, grow in their own faith even as they share the hope of Jesus. This is what Paul reminds the Ephesians of in his letter to them, a new community in Christ who heard of Jesus through Paul who is now encouraging them from afar, giving thanks to God for them in their growing relationship with God and reminding them that while Jesus is the head of the church, they are the hands and feet of the body of Christ their presence in the world is how Christ works now. In sharing the good news and loving the neighbor the Ephesians bring Christ into the midst of their community. How they do it will be different than the Philippians, or the Corinthians or the believers in Jerusalem because of the differences in community, and that is okay because different communities have different needs and ways of doing things but they are all valuable members of the body of Christ. Wherever there are people whose hope is in Christ, who look to God for wisdom and understanding, who listen to the holy spirit that calls us to love and serve our neighbor, that is where the church is, that is Jesus present in the world. And Jesus needed to ascend to the father for this to happen, it’s like giving kids progressively more independence as they grow up, as care givers we still direct and encourage but they need the space to learn to do things on their own. Jesus being physically separate creates the space the disciples need to do the work set out for them, and with the help of the promised holy spirit they will take Jesus’ message to the ends of the earth. And sure, sometimes our attention gets stuck in one direction for awhile but that is when Jesus sends messengers to redirect our focus, To see once again all the people who need to hear of the hope of Christ, who need a living community one that adapts to the times and challenges while proclaiming the timeless message of Christ, and with the eyes our our hearts enlightened our hope is renewed and we work to become a community that reaches out to the forgotten that need to be remembered and the hungry that need to be fed, the lonely that need a friend, in these acts great and small whether it is one person or a whole multitude the church is present and that means Christ is present. Today as we reflect on the ascension of Jesus to his father, we are reminded that distance, whether it is physical like what we’ve been practicing or Jesus ascending to his father is sometimes what is needed for growth, for new life and that often the new life that emerges is even more powerful than what existed before, because it means that more are empowered. You are witnesses to these things, you have heard repentance and forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name, you have the gift of the holy spirit. YOU are the church. Amen Sixth Sunday in Easter
Acts 17:22-31 Psalm 66:8-20 1 Peter 3:13-22 John 14:15-21 Alleluia Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen Indeed Alleluia! We are still in the season of Easter, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, but even as we celebrate our texts are starting to turn us toward the ascension when Jesus returns to his Father and the bodily resurrection appearances stop, leaving the disciples wondering, where is God? Where is God? I think this is a question that we’ve all asked at some point in our lives, whether in the depths of sorrow or simply musing about the meaning of life, in fact, how we answer the question is impacted by who we say God is. In our reading from Acts, Paul is traveling, telling all he meets of Jesus, when he comes to Athens he encounters multiple ideas of gods, each with their own places of worship, images, and spheres of influence and though he considers them all idols he recognizes that the Athenians are very religious so religious that they have covered all their bases by even erecting an alter “to an unknown God” a God without image or idol, and Paul grasps on to this imageless God, I know who this God is Paul tells the people, this God that you consider unknown, possibly in part because you have not been able to come up with an image, is the God who made the world and everything in it, God who rules the heavens and the earth and who created all people doesn’t live in a shrine or need the sacrifices of humans, God cannot be contained in precious metals or even in the imagination of mortals because God is so much bigger than all that, and though this makes it seem like God is far away and that we humans have to search for God in reality God is never far from us “for in him we live and move and have our being” we are offspring of God, Paul tells the crowds, which means we are in relationship with God, God the creator of heaven and earth is a relational God, found in relationships rather than places. Which is good news because it means that we are not tied to any particular place for the worship of God but it does mean that we need to maintain relationships, with God, with other people whom God works through, and maintaining these relationships leads to regular places of gathering. God is not tied to these buildings and locations and yet it is undeniable that there are particular places where we feel closer to God, sacred spaces where the veil seems thinner somehow and we seem to more easily slip into the presence of the divine, and separation from these places is not to be taken lightly because they play such a role in maintaining our relationship with God. I found one of those places in college, at Gustavus there is an arboretum attached to campus, with a variety of walking paths, sometimes it seemed like the only place for an introvert to go to get away from all the people on a residential campus. There was a particular stone I’d go to and sit on and talk to God, pour out the anxieties and troubles of my late teens and early twenties and there I felt the presence of God. When I graduated and moved away, I was surprised by the ache I felt deep within at being separated from that sacred space. It made me think of the Native Americans, whose spirituality is so closely tied to the land and who were forcibly removed from their sacred spaces and the ache that they still feel generations later. Even if we acknowledge that God is greater than a single space or image, we humans still search for more solid connections to God, whether it is a place, a building, a community, or something else, and when we find one of these connections we hold on for dear life. The disciples in our gospel have found one of those connections in Jesus, in fact Jesus has told the disciples that in seeing him they have seen the father, to see Jesus is to see God. and yet now Jesus is telling them that he must go away, that they will no longer see him. And the disciples are understandably feeling some trepidation, if they can no longer see Jesus, they will no longer be able to see God and then where will God be? It’s hard not to feel like they’re being abandoned. And Jesus knows this and promises the disciples “I will not leave you orphaned” he’s using the language of relationship, Jesus’ going away is necessary but he reassures the disciples that it doesn’t mean the end of a relationship with God it will just take another form: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth.... You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.” The gift of the spirit, received at our baptisms means that God is always with us, is as close to us as the breath we take, even when we feel separated from God, God is there residing in us, advocating for us. I don’t think we often think of God this way, even as we acknowledge the gift of the spirit we still think of God as separate and far off and it takes a moment where the spirit makes herself very clear before we feel the intimacy of God, for the disciples this happened at Pentecost, for the rest of us it happens at different times, perhaps in a special place, through prayer or in the course of everyday life, often it happens at times when life has changed in some way and we are feeling separate from God that’s when God, through the spirit, reminds us that God is with us. We are in a time of change right now, whether it be anticipated like the graduation from high school or other life events, or because of what is going on in the world around us, we may be feeling separated from God, but Jesus is with us sending the gift of the holy spirit, keeping the promise that he made to the disciples “because I live, you also will live.” Christ is alive, Alleluia Where is God? Right here with us. Amen Baptism of Our Lord
Isaiah 42:1-9 Psalm 29 Acts 10:34-43 Matthew 3:13-17 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who is continually doing a new thing with us. Amen So in the story of Jesus we’ve jumped thirty some years between last week and this week. Mostly because the Bible doesn’t really tell us anything in between Jesus’ birth and his appearance in the wilderness by the Jordan river to be baptized by John, the event that starts off his public ministry. Jesus is starting something new, and God calls him to begin with baptism, so Jesus goes from Galilee out into the desert to the Jordan river where John the Baptist is preaching repentance for the forgiveness of sins, calling people to turn their lives around, to start new, and is baptizing people as a sign of that repentance, that commitment to new life, John is preparing the people for Jesus and he’s doing quite well gathering big crowds and now Jesus goes up to John and says, ‘I’m ready to take over, baptize me.’ And John says, ‘wait a minute, that’s not how this is supposed to happen, you’re supposed to baptize me.’ And Matthew tells us that “John would have prevented him” and Jesus has to convince John that this is what God wants, finally John consents to baptize Jesus and when Jesus comes up out of the water the spirit descends and the voice of God is heard and it’s all amazing, but it might not have happened if Jesus hadn’t been able to convince John that this was the way God was working. I don’t know about you, but this sounds like kind of a rough start to Jesus’ ministry. After all if John, whose whole purpose in life was to prepare the way for Jesus had to be convinced, how much more convincing is the next person going to take? Now to be fair to John, it wasn’t what Jesus was planning on doing that threw him but how he wanted to start going about doing it, Jesus just wasn’t what he expected, but he was open enough to be convinced and the ministry went forward. We see this pattern replicated over and over again, God doing something new and since God works in the world with people, we see God partnering with someone who while open to the new thing must be convinced of the how and when they consent, even a little bit, the holy spirit swoops in to make the new life possible. We see this in our story from Acts, we only read a part of it but it is the story of the first Gentile converts to the way of Jesus. Jesus has died and risen and appeared to the disciples and before he ascends back up into heaven he commands them to spread the news of the new thing God is doing, and to baptize those who desire it and with baptism will come the gift of the holy spirit so that’s what the apostles are doing, they’re creating a new community, people are hearing their preaching and believing and are being baptized and things are going great, until Peter has a vision from God. God wants to do a new thing within this new thing! God wants to expand the ministry to the Gentiles which is really just short hand for everyone else, literally it means “the nations”, there’s the chosen people and there’s everyone else and up until this point the Jesus movement has been a strictly Jewish thing and one very strong characteristic of being part of the chosen people is to remain separate from everyone else, so much so that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate or to visit a Gentile and yet that’s what God is calling Peter to do, and Peter resists, he protests that he’s followed the law his whole life, why break it now? But God is insistent and Peter is just open enough to the idea that when the spirit nudges Peter to go to the house of Cornelius who is a Roman soldier but worships the God of Israel, Peter goes. Cornelius has had his own vision from God And as a result sends for Peter and after he explains his vision Peter begins to speak, and this is the part of the story we had for our second reading he starts off “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” and then Peter who is opening up to this new thing of God preaches the good news of Jesus Christ to those assembled, Cornelius and his household and a remarkable thing happens: “While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, ‘Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.” God is doing something new, Peter protests but is convinced enough to make enough room for the Holy Spirit to sweep in making new life possible in ways that even Peter can’t argue with, the spirit is supposed to be a result of baptism but the spirit descends on the gentiles while Peter is speaking making it hard for anyone to argue against baptism, seeing as they’ve already received the holy spirit God is making God’s will known and Peter gives up his protests, baptizes the household, and then stays with them breaking many of the laws he’d spent his whole life keeping but which don’t matter anymore because of God’s new thing. And things are great, until Peter goes home and the other Apostles give Peter a hard time for staying with gentiles and he has to go through the whole story before they accept that God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life. But this leads to the first major conflict in the church, the conflict over whether the gentile converts must be circumcised to be an official part of the community. Even having accepted that God is doing a new thing, there are those who disagree with the how, and the cycle starts to repeat, again and again and again. And honestly, the resistance that comes from God doing a new thing is rarely about God opening the community even wider, we all theoretically get on board with that pretty quickly the idea that God loves everyone, that’s kind of hard to argue with the resistance comes from the how, how this new broader circle changes the community, changes our lives and more importantly to us humans, how we know who is in and who is out. And that takes us back to that pesky original sin, the desire to be God, We want to be the ones that determine the boundaries of the community when that is God’s job. It’s all a bit of a mess isn’t it? And yet, God still comes to us, God claims us at our baptisms, making sure that we know that we have been chosen by God, and then God calls us to share the gift we’ve been given with others, to expand the community, and when we get caught up in the how, God calls to us again, to repent, to see the new thing God is doing, and God works to convince us with the holy spirit, even as God forgives us our resistance, our desire to hold fast to the way things have been when God is clearly doing something new. And for this I give thanks to God, for the grace and mercy shown to us each and every day, for the water that reminds us of God’s claim on us and the spirit’s movement among us. But it also makes me wonder, what new thing of God are we resisting? Festival of Pentecost
Genesis 11:1-9 Psalm 104:24-35 Acts 2:1-21 John 14:8-17 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one casts out fear with love. Amen Happy Festival of Pentecost, Easter was 50 days ago and now we celebrate what is often called the birthday of the church, the moment when the spirit came upon the disciples and in as many languages as there were people to hear they preached the good news of Jesus and many heard, believed and joined the Jesus followers in their quest to share the news. That was just the beginning, the work of the spirit continued on through the faithful all the way to here today, where we are gathered as followers of Jesus who have heard the good news and have been tasked with sharing it with others. It’s quite a remarkable progression, and yet when we humans work together we often make what at first seemed impossible, possible though the result isn’t always good, it depends on our motivation, which has a way of coming back around to us at the end. We heard just such a story this morning for our first reading, the building of the Tower of Babel. To put it in the context of the larger biblical narrative after God saves Noah and his family from the flood God instructs them to repopulate the whole earth. we get one of the Bible’s famous genealogy passages detailing the descendants of Noah and his sons and then we hear about a time in the midst of this when there was still one people with one language but they were getting big enough that people might start splitting off, forming their own tribes and going their own way, and while this is what God intended the people were afraid of this happening so when in their wanderings they reach what seems like a nice place with plenty of space they decide to settle down and to make sure people stick around they decide to build a city “Then they said, ‘come let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.” and that’s just what they do, they begin building the city and they make a great tower and then God decides to come see what they’ve been up to and upon seeing the great building project what the people have accomplished “the Lord said, ‘look, they are one people, and they all have one language; and this is the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will not be impossible for them.” but because this project was built out of fear and self-interest rather than obedience and service to the Lord, the Lord gives them different languages and scatters them all over the face of the earth- the very thing that the people feared, the reason they built the tower in the first place. We humans can do great things when we work together but motivation matters, when we act out of a place of fear, what we fear often still comes to pass or even something worse. Which is why, ultimately Jesus came and living among fearful humans preached love as the motivation for action, Jesus preached love as the law, then destroyed the thing we fear most, death and gave us a new project to focus on, sharing this message with the whole world. But of course it’s not quite as simple as that is it? Because there are times when we are afraid and times we act out of fear rather than love Luther noted that while we were made saints at our baptism, until Jesus comes again we also remain sinners, and it is that part of us that gets afraid. Jesus knew this too so he gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit to help guide us, the spirit moves us to act out of love, even when that itself scares us. Fear is something the disciples are very familiar with. When we join them in Acts they are all together in one place, they’ve stuck pretty close together since Jesus died. Even after Jesus rose, appeared to them and told them to bring his message to the ends of the earth, they’ve stuck together in one place and into that place, into their fear the Holy Spirit rushes with the force of a strong wind and the energy of fire, and filling each of the disciples it rushes them outside, out of that place where they’ve been staying put and outside they begin to preach in different languages and the crowd that has gathered because of the commotion understands what they are saying! This crowd who has gathered from the ends of the earth now hear the message of Jesus and will return with it to the ends of the earth and the apostles will go with them. But first they have to figure out what is going on. The gathered crowd hears this group of Galileans speaking about God’s deeds of power in their own languages “All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’” What does this mean? The gateway question to faith, those of you who grew up Lutheran and went through confirmation will recognize this question as it is posed again and again in Luther’s Small Catechism, and if you are unfamiliar with this little document come and see me because one of the gifts of our heritage is understanding questions as crucial to faith. When we ask questions it means that we are open to hearing what God has to say to us, to hearing what new adventures the Holy Spirit is calling us to. Of course some in the crowd explained the events away by saying that the disciples were drunk. When faced with something strange and new it is much easier to find a reason to dismiss it than to engage it because if you engage it, you might be changed yourselves. So though some dismissed the disciples, others in the crowd asked ‘what does this mean?’ Having asked the question they were open to hearing Peter’s interpretation that what they were experiencing was the fulfillment of the prophet Joel’s words, that the Lord’s great and glorious day was coming and those who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. And though we didn’t hear it read out loud Peter goes on to proclaim Jesus as Messiah. When Peter finished with his sermon those listening “were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles. ‘Brothers what should we do?’ Peter said to them, ‘repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that yours sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.’” (Acts 2:37-39) and that’s what the people do and Luke tells us about three thousand were baptized because of this. That’s amazing, it seems like an impossibly large number even now and yet with the help of the Holy Spirit the disciples are no longer afraid and stuck in one place but begin working together to start making the impossible possible and this work continues and people respond to it because it is a message and a movement based on love. When we are loved as deeply as we are by God any fear we feel is momentary, sure sometimes we get stuck for awhile, but then the Holy Spirit blows in, and blows us out into the world uniting us in the mission to share the love of God with others, and our fear disappears because the answer to the question what does this mean? Always starts with the love of God Who gathers us together To make the impossible, possible You are loved by God, now go, tell others of that love. Amen Fifth Sunday of Easter
Acts 11:1-18 Psalm 148 Revelation 21:1-6 John 13:31-35 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who defines who we are and whose we are. Amen So Peter has a crazy thing happen to him, he’s out and about spreading the good news that Jesus is the Messiah, he’s doing it among his fellow Jews because they’re the ones waiting for the messiah the one sent from God to the chosen people of Israel. Now remember these are the people who God chose and set apart a long time ago and to mark their apartness God gave the chosen people all these laws to follow as a gift, you know the main ten, no other Gods, don’t use the name of God in vain, keep the Sabbath, don’t kill, don’t covet etc. and then after the main ten there came a whole lot more, some six hundred more laws and the arrangement was that as long as the people followed the law life with God would be good but if they broke the law God could do everything from hide to downright punish the people usually through occupying armies taking over the promised land. Now this is over simplifying the relationship because God is also gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, but the essence is that the mark of the chosen people is the following of the law, however imperfectly, it’s how the Israelites show they are chosen both to God and the world around them. Following it is a big deal. Which brings us back to Peter and his crazy experience. Peter is in Joppa sharing the message of the messiah He takes some time to pray and while he’s praying he has a vision, in the vision he sees a buffet of animals that are prohibited for food by the law, and a voice tells him to “Get up, kill and eat” Peter protests saying “by no means Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth” he’s a faithful follower of the law it’s the right response, but instead of congratulating Peter for his faithfulness the voice says “what God has made clean, you must not call profane.” as the vision ends some gentiles arrive, gentile is the blanket name for everyone else those who are not chosen by God and they invite Peter to come with them and nudged by the Spirit Peter does and as he shares the news of Jesus the Holy Spirit comes on these outsiders in the same way that it had on all the disciples and faced with the actions of the spirit Peter goes ahead and baptizes the people and stays with them and by doing so breaks the law. Which is why when word of this gets back to Jerusalem the people there are pretty upset with Peter, in spending time with the gentiles he has betrayed his identity as an Israelite in our first lesson we hear Peter’s explanation to his fellow apostles and believers, and at the end of his story he concludes: “And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” With this the complaints are silenced and the apostles praise God for giving even the gentiles the good news. Faced with a huge shift in identity Peter and the apostles hesitate, push back even it’s a natural reaction to changing identity but despite their misgivings as they pay attention to the work of the spirit and as they remember the teachings of Jesus they are able to praise God at the new thing God is doing in their midst. After all, on their last night together Jesus did give them a new commandment, a new identity marker for the community when he told them “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Love is the new law The new marker for the community and honestly we struggle with that, even after all of these thousands of years, like the Israelites we go through periods of struggle where the communal identity shifts toward a more inclusive understanding of community and then we settle in until it seems like we’ve always done it this way And that’s when God shakes things up Reminds us of the law of love and breaks out the phrase “What God has made clean you must not call profane” And once again we struggle with our identity because things are changing, those we thought were out are now in, these are the moments where we must follow the lead of Peter and pay attention to where the Holy Spirit is moving and working around us and remember the teachings of Jesus and perhaps then we will conclude with Peter “who was I that I could hinder God?” Because when we think about it, what God is doing for them, whoever that happens to be, it’s the same thing God has done for us, In love God claimed us and gave us an identity that will never change, child of God that identity is ours no matter what anyone else says, or how the community changes we are God’s beloved, and when we think of it in this way, who are we to hinder God? Amen Festival of Pentecost
Ezekiel 37:1-14 Psalm 104:24-35 Acts 2:1-21 John 15:26-27, 16:4-15 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who sets loose the spirit. Amen The spirit is on the loose. That’s what Pentecost is about, the unleashing of the spirit in the world we have three readings today that help us understand what this means who the spirit is, and in each of these readings we find that the spirit is the gift of God, it is unleashed by testimony and brings life where it is heard and received. In Ezekiel we have the story of the dry bones, because we hear it in English we miss some of the nuances of the story, Hebrew is a language where a lot of words have double meanings and authors often play with those double meanings, in this story that word is ruach which means both breath and spirit pointing to the intimate connection between the two there cannot be life without breath and when we think about it can there really be life without spirit? God takes the prophet Ezekiel and sets him in a valley of dry bones, then asks the prophet if the bones can live? all indicators say that these bones are dead with a capital D but the prophet defers to the power of God saying “O Lord God, you know” and God instructs the prophet to speak to the bones, to tell them of the promise of God, that God will bring them back together into bodies and will cause breath to enter them so that they will live. Instead of speaking to these bones directly God gives the words to Ezekiel to tell to the bones, and Ezekiel using his own breath prophesies to the bones and they come together and form bodies but they are not alive until the prophet speaks to the breath, to the spirit to come into these bodies that they come to life. Then God explains the object lesson to the prophet, the people of Israel feel like these dry bones, dead with a capital D, but through the words and breath of the prophet God promises to breathe life back into the people who thought there was no life left. That is the power of the spirit Perhaps you’ve experienced something like this, you were in a dry valley of faith or life and it seemed like there was no climbing out of it and then someone spoke a few words to you and things didn’t seem so hopeless anymore. That is the work of the spirit set loose in the world, the spirit that is as close to us as our own breath. In our Gospel we hear Jesus promise to send the disciples an advocate, the spirit of truth and this advocate will testify, will speak on behalf of Jesus so that the disciples may also testify, tell others of Jesus and his love. As he is saying good bye to his disciples Jesus acknowledges that there’s a lot that’s been left unsaid “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” the spirit is truth, that comes to advocate when the time is right. We are abundantly aware of the things left unsaid, there are a multitude of issues in life that Jesus in the Bible does not directly address that we struggle with, we have trouble bearing them we disagree about what to do when we are faced with them, they divide communities, and yet in the midst of it all is the spirit of truth showing us the way, speaking through a prophet or two or three the words of Jesus, “love one another as I have loved you” the message spreads, slowly sometimes and as it spreads Jesus is glorified in the love of the community that is growing and expanding through those who tell what they have heard from the spirit of truth The spirit is on the loose spreading the truth. Finally we have our reading from Acts, the account of the first Pentecost. The risen Jesus has appeared to the disciples and they have witnessed Jesus’ ascension into heaven. They know they are on their own so to speak and they are preparing to continue on as a community, on the morning of Pentecost, a festival observed fifty days after the Passover the community is gathered they hear a sound like the rush of a violent wind, this sound fills the house where they are and the holy spirit appears like tongues of fire above their heads and fills the disciples who begin to speak in different languages, all of this causes such a racket that people are drawn to the house and as a crowd forms and the disciples spill out of the house still speaking in their given languages the crowd is amazed because they can understand the disciples, they are hearing the message of Jesus in their own languages, of course there are some naysayers who think the disciples are drunk, but Peter interprets what is happening through the prophesy of the prophet Joel, the prophesy that says in the last days the spirit will be poured out on all people young, old, slave, free, male, female, everyone all the distinctions that normally divide will fall as the spirit is given out equally and all shall share the words of the spirit with the world and these words will spread like wild fire. The spirit is fire, by nature it spreads often unpredictably, and even we humans who have harnessed the power of fire appreciate that it is a wild thing that we manage and contain but really have no control over and we get into trouble when we forget that fact. The spirit set loose in the world, through the gift of God and the testimony of the disciples is out of the disciples’ control just like that the people who come from all corners of the earth who hear the spirit filled message of the disciples will take it home with them, and they will tell others and Jesus’ word will have spread to the far corners of the earth far away from the original disciples. It’s quite a contrast to the first part of Acts, the measured preparation that the disciples take, casting lots to choose the most worthy follower of Jesus to join the in crowd the spirit busts that all open because it’s not about worthiness it’s a gift of God to all people regardless of how they are defined and divided by the world the spirit, breath, truth, fire shows up especially when people are defined and divided and interrupts those divisions, that attempt at controlling who is in and who is out, who claims to have the truth there the spirit interrupts breathing new life into places we have caused death, spreading the love of Jesus like a fire that cannot be contained showing the truth found in love all while working through us, the words we speak the love we share. Life, truth, fire Watch out, the spirit is on the loose. And I say, come Holy Spirit. Amen Second Sunday of Easter
Acts 4:32-35 Psalm 133 1 John 1:1-2:2 John 20:19-31 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who comes to us in community. Amen Today we hear reinforced in our readings that for better or worse, the way Jesus has decided to come to us, to continue the relationship post resurrection is through community, namely the community of disciples that gathers in Jesus’ name, or as we sometimes call it ‘the Church’ with a capital ‘C’ Thomas was absent the first time Jesus appeared to the community of the disciples, and while his demands have been played up as doubt vs the disciples’ belief, all Thomas wanted is what the other disciples first received, to see Jesus, and when he is with the community the next week Jesus comes again and Thomas has his chance and exclaims “My Lord and my God.’ Out of Thomas’ questioning comes deep faith, facilitated by the community gathered. Then the gospel writer takes the opportunity to offer a blessing for all of us who have believed without placing our hands on the resurrected Jesus as Thomas had opportunity to. We may not have placed our finger in the spot on Jesus’ hands where the nails when in, nor have we place our hand in his side where the soldier’s sword pierced him but we have all encountered the body of Christ on earth, we would not be here today had we not come into contact at some point with that body and members who make up that body, who brought Jesus to us and into our lives, because that is how the gospel message is spread, through the community. We heard in Acts, the history book of the early church, how the church formed and spread after the ascension of Jesus, how the believers were of one heart and soul, how they gathered together to hear the testimony of the apostles and how each member of the community was as valued as the next, as lived out in the distribution of communal property such that poverty in the community was wiped out. Other places in Acts tell how this community attracted more and more believers every day. Now I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds like a pretty good community to be a part of. In confirmation this week our lesson, serendipitously was on The Church, each lesson starts out with a Bible passage and questions to get us into the lesson and this week the passage was a very similar passage in Acts as our first reading, and the writers of the curriculum remarked that the description of the early church sounded like a party that anyone would want to join, then asked the confirmands to consider how the actions of the church members helped or hindered how Christ’s message first spread. In talking about it we agreed that the character of the community had a lot to do with the success of the early church, and then we agreed that it is still the case, how church members and communities act make or break how the message of Christ is spread, whether or not people want to take part in the community, the primary place in which God chooses to be revealed in the world. And if the community is like the one described in Acts, that’s great, but we don’t have to think very hard to find an example of when a community did not live in a way that made people want to take part in the community in fact I think it might almost be easier to think of negative examples, the times of exclusion, hate, petty bickering and power dynamics and all of a sudden what sounded like gospel the proclamation that Jesus comes to us in community, starts to sound like law, because we are intimately aware of the fact that the church is not perfect, nor are the people that make up the church perfect and yet we’re the primary way that Jesus uses to build relationships with people? That’s a lot of pressure, there is a lot riding on our imperfect selves and the imperfect community we make up. But lest our despair at our imperfections cause us to give up on the community , as so many have done, there is a word of grace, forgiveness, that when we sin we have an advocate in Jesus Christ. John, in our second reading addresses the reality of the Christian community, both the good and the bad, his description of how the community works is beautiful, how the older community members share their experiences and build relationships with new community members so that in these relationships, relationship with God is built, and then John acknowledges the reality that communities don’t always practice what they preach, just saying we have fellowship with God is not enough, we must also live out that fellowship. oddly enough John doesn’t seem too concerned about the particulars of the sin present in the community, he acknowledges that it’s better not to sin but if anyone does there is forgiveness in Christ Jesus, what John seems more concerned about is the failure to acknowledge our sin, our imperfections, from this passage we get the line that is used in confession and forgiveness “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, if we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The key then to the Christian community is authenticity rather than perfection, I mean which community would you rather belong to? one that pretends it’s perfect and points out others’ imperfections or one that acknowledges its faults, asks for forgiveness and moves forward with the intent of not repeating those past mistakes or harmful actions. I know which one I choose, and strive to create. and perhaps that’s the genius of God working through an imperfect community and imperfect people, it’s the way to connect with others who are not perfect and to share with them the grace that has transformed our lives. One person who has lived this out in a very public way that comes to mind is Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber, she’s a Lutheran pastor and public theologian and author and has been quite open about her struggles in life with addiction, and through her openness about her imperfections and her experience of grace God has used her to gather a community of people, many of whom who have felt excluded by other Christian communities in the past because of their imperfections. I’ve heard her speak several times and a couple times she’s mentioned that some people at her church have told her they feel less intimidated coming and confessing to her because they know that she’s done way worse things and that God has forgiven her. When we’re in a less than ideal situation, it’s comforting to know that there is someone else who has been through it and survived and thrived, and that is the essence of Jesus, Immanuel, God with us, who has experienced everything we do, even death and who live and loves us still, in fact on Maundy Thursday we heard Jesus command the disciples “to love one another as I have loved you, by this everyone will know that you are my followers, if you have love for one another.” The mark of the community gathered around Jesus is love, Jesus love, that he first shared in a community, that he continues to share in community. Jesus comes to us in community, Jesus comes to us in community so that as a community we can live and share the gospel message of Jesus’ love. That is why we are all here, imperfections and all, to experience the love of God through one another, and to share that experience with the whole world so that like Thomas all may exclaim “My Lord and my God.” Amen 7th Sunday After Easter
Acts 1:6-14 Psalm 68:1-10 1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11 John 17:1-11 Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, grace and peace to you from the one who prays for us. Amen Here’s the scene: you know you’re going to die soon. What do you say to the loved ones you’re leaving behind? What do you want them to know? To feel? To carry with them the rest of their lives? And how do you tell them this once you’ve got it all figured out? Or you’re on the other end of the good bye, wondering how you will move forward in life, who you will be in the absence of your loved one, wondering what you are supposed to do without them. This is the scene we find in our gospel for today, Jesus knows he’s going to die soon and this is his farewell address to the disciples, it reveals what is most important to him, what he wants the disciples to carry with them even as he answers their as yet unspoken questions of identity and purpose. Jesus starts by saying once and for all the purpose of his life, what he wants the disciples to remember - that God sent him, his son- to bring eternal life to all- that is why Jesus has been among them, and in the event that they are unclear on it he defines eternal life: being in relationship with the true God who is revealed in his Son Jesus Christ. Jesus’ purpose has been fulfilled in his relationships with the disciples, relationships where he has communicated who God is, through his presence among them and this has not been a general presence but a personal intimate presence, one built on relationships, it is a presence that participated in the whole range of the human experience from life to death, a presence who felt the pain of the mourning and raised the dead, a presence who felt the hunger of the crowds and provided bread and hope, a presence who became the life of the party when the wine ran out, who got to know the people he encountered and who loved them faults and all, Peter the blockhead, Thomas the questioner, Martha the overworker and yes even Judas the betrayer, Jesus loved them all and saw them as a gift from God, was honored by the relationships, the people that God had placed in his care and in the end, in his farewell address he gives thanks to God for them And it is in this thanksgiving for the gift of his disciples that Jesus begins to lay the foundation for the disciples’ future life, a life without his physical presence yet where they are still in relationship with God because they are God’s, he paints the picture a future where they will be the presence of Christ in the world, where their purpose will be to live the eternal life given them by Jesus and to share that eternal life with others by being the presence of Jesus in the world, in the same way Jesus shared it with them, by building personal relationships that reveal God as one who is intimately concerned with the lives of God’s children. Jesus knows that this will not be an easy identity and purpose to live out, especially in the sadness and confusion, the joy and wonder at his death and resurrection so he closes his prayer for the disciples with a prayer for protection and unity. He closes his prayer, that’s how Jesus has chosen to give his parting message to the disciples, through a prayer for them that they overhear. It is a beautiful and intimate thing to be prayed for and it is reflective of the intimacy Jesus has with both God and his disciples, it also creates new life in the people who pray and hear the prayer. Prayer is not just communication with God, a checklist of requested items but a time of relationship building where hopes and dream are exchanged and those involved are empowered to live into the new life envisioned in the prayer. Even as Jesus says good bye to his disciples he creates new life for them, just as he creates new life for us for we are overhearers of the prayer too, we are disciples, Jesus prays for us knowing what we need in his seeming absence. Today we mark the ascension of Jesus to heaven as we heard in our reading from Acts, and we remember the promise that Jesus will return, it has been many generations of waiting for Jesus to return and though Jesus has left us with our identity and purpose, comes to us in the bread and wine at the table and is present in the spirit sometimes we can’t help but feel his physical absence, and we wonder why, just as when we lose a loved one, we still miss them and wonder what the future will bring even as we live out that future. These are the moments when we go back to the farewell, we take time to remember and be renewed in the memories of our loved ones who have gone before us, who we are because of them and our purpose in life after them, and we are renewed in our convictions. In the same way we take time to remember Jesus, to hear his prayer for us, to be renewed in our identity as children of God and Christ’s presence in the world and our purpose of living and sharing the eternal life of relationship with God that has been given to us. It has been many generations since the first disciples witnessed Jesus’ ascension to heaven and yet here we are, children of God, living the gift of eternal life in relationship with the God who Jesus revealed to us by the community of disciples, Jesus’ presence on earth. We remember with thanksgiving those who passed the faith along to us and the prayer that Jesus prays for us, and so renewed in our identity as beloved children of God and our purpose of sharing that relationship with others we live into our eternal life in Christ. Amen |
AboutPastor Emily Johnson preaches weekly at Christ Lutheran. These are manuscripts of her sermons given at Christ Lutheran. Feel free to engage with them in the comments section of the blog. Archives
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