Freedom, Truth, and Luther

 Jeremiah 31:31-34; Romans 3:19-28; John 8:31-36

There is a television program called “This is Us” which has become quite popular in the past couple of years, but until recently I had never watched any of its episodes. Lately, however, curiosity has had me watching the first couple of seasons through a streaming app. This week I watched an episode in which one of the characters talks about the first time he got glasses with corrective lenses in them.

Before he could get the glasses of course, came the exam with what he calls the “Better Machine.”

Anyone who has had optical refraction is familiar with that machine. (Refraction is what they call it when they check to see how much – or how little correction your eyes might need to attain your best possible vision).

So, the “best machine” is the one where the doctor or optical technician flicks through combinations of varying strengths of lenses on a machine that you look through to read the chart on the wall. As lenses are changed, the patient is asked over and over, “Which is better, one or two?” click, click, “now which is better – one or two?” click, click, “two or one?”

The patient goes through a series of trial lenses in this way, while the world goes from blurry to clear and back to blurry again, until you finally arrive at the combination that provides the best correction you can attain to see the world.

I remember walking out of the optician’s office with my first pair of glasses when I was in fourth or fifth grade. I was amazed that the grassy lawn contained millions of individual blades of grass – and was not just the sea of green I had become accustomed to seeing. That’s what I remember most of that first step out into a vision-corrected world – individual blades of grass.

Today we commemorate Reformation Sunday, when we remember with gratitude the work of Martin Luther and the rest of the reformers, who gave us a clearer vision of God’s grace through their work with the Scriptures. We celebrate how, through the Reformation, our faith came to contain millions of beautiful blades of grass as we see God’s presence throughout our world, no longer a simple one-or-two-dimensional sea of green.

Luther and his friends never intended to split the church, or to create a new denomination in the Christian faith. They simply wished to share with the masses what they, through the power of the Holy Spirit, had come to understand more clearly; that what God has done in Jesus Christ, on the cross, is to pour our grace sufficient for new life for us all.

They wanted to devise better ways to teach the faithful that God’s unmerited, perfect grace is already accomplished for us all. They were, in a lot of ways, like the “better machine.”

They kept writing, studying, arguing and debating with each so that they could best understand and then convey the truth of Christ’s Word that is life-giving and not oppressive, as Jesus himself is life-giving and liberating.

In so doing, they looked through a variety of lenses and asked the question over and over, “which is clearer, one or two? two or one”? As they worked, their vision went from blurry to clear, back to blurry again, and then clearer than ever before, through reading Scriptures like those ones we just read.

Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you keep on living in my truth, you are really, truly my disciples; and you will know the Truth, and the Truth will make you free.”

The disciples answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone.”

Somehow, I don’t think the disciple are on the same page as Jesus.

·         Jesus is speaking of spiritual truth; of eternal truth; of divine truth. This is the truth that will outlive every human-constructed world or cultural reality. He is speaking of truth and freedom as infinite possibilities that are known only through him – through God’s almighty grace.

·         They are relying on the finite history and stories of the path trod by their ancestors.

·         Jesus is the embodiment of God’s love and mercy to all the fallen world, but despite having recently declared that they believe he is the Messiah, they still identify themselves through their traditional Jewish heritage, where their identity is found in Abraham, the father of the faith. The trouble is, in this way they give their association with Abraham priority over their relationship with Jesus.

·         Jesus challenges them to own their new identity as Christ-followers, saved now by God’s grace apart from any Law that has bound them in the past, but they worry that he is equating them with slaves.

·         They associate freedom with the physical removal of the shackles of enslavement in Egypt, while Jesus is talking about a much more profound and lasting liberation, where the heart itself is set free from that which binds it so that it can grow in the new, unalienable life that God gives us.

As Lutherans commemorate the Reformation, we remember that freedom was a crucial element in faith for Luther and the other Reformers. The big question they were driven to answer was, where and how are truth, freedom, and new life to be found? What is the truth about our salvation? What is necessary for eternal life?

Those questions burned for those who live in the Middle Ages of Luther’s world. There was an urgency to such understanding that is lost to those of us living in the 21^st century.

          Their world was dark and dangerous, with death from plague, starvation, disease and poverty literally just around the corner in a way that we comfortable Americans cannot fathom; life was beyond hard.

          The desperate hope and desire of the people therefore, was that the life that awaited them when they departed this mortal coil would be better than the one they traveled in this life.  They were desperate to know that they and the loved ones who had passed on before them would not languish in a continual cycle of suffering, but that they had believed correctly or done enough or lived a sufficiently good life to be assured that they were heaven-bound. They desperately needed the assurance that God would judge them worthy of a sweet eternal life after this world of infernal suffering.

As the reformers studied and debated the Scriptures together, the core belief that God’s Word of forgiveness and grace won through the cross of Christ alone as the ultimate power to save us, became their battle cry against the forces of darkness.

They were convinced that this essential truth had been lost in the medieval pietistic teachings and indulgences of the church of their time. Determined to share the Word that only belief in Jesus Christ could save, that only God’s grace could save, and that on the cross, God’s determination of salvation was accomplished for the whole world, they turned to passage like the ones we read today.

This Word of God has the authority to grant perfect vision to all people by conveying to us the truth and light of God’s steadfast love and mercy for all God’s creation.

The world today may be different from that of the reformers of over 500 years ago. Faith is no longer deemed as essential to life as it used to be. The conviction that our salvation comes from God alone has been lost to the masses – even the need for salvation by Christ is questioned by so many people around us.

The thing that hasn’t changed is that there is still vast suffering in the world. The past week has exemplified this truth: children senselessly die and people are maimed in car accidents, bombs sent through mail terrorize us, faithful worshipers and first responders are gunned down in a worship place – a synagogue; millions of children suffer the evil and pain of starvation in a war-torn land, and gang violence drives thousands from their homes to seek the refuge which just a few of them will receive in time. There are times when the dimness of our vision may be fueled by our despair and hopelessness.

Yet, here we gather today, by the will of the Holy Spirit. Together we confess the faith of our baptism, the same faith that four young people will affirm during the Rite of Confirmation.

We are so much like the disciples – while we may not locate our identity in Abraham any longer, our faith and our trust in Jesus’ words still need to be clarified so that our vision of God’s grace might be renewed, and we might be freed to live in the light of Christ.

The lenses our world offers us can blur our vision. But God restores it. As Lutherans we confess that we are at the same time sinner (by our response to the temptations and pull of the world) and saint (by the sweet gift of God’s grace).

We are not saved by our own understanding but by the mercy of a God who loves us so much that despite our blurry understanding, despite our indistinct vision of grace, despite our frequent blindness, God forgives us and renews us over and over again for the sake of Jesus Christ.

Jesus makes it possible for us to grasp the new life we are given at baptism – the new life our confirmands claim as their own this day.

And so today and every day, let us offer our thanks and praise to God for the “better machine” of our faith – for the corrective lenses that give us not perfect faith or perfect life – only God can to that – but the best vision of which we are capable, until that day when God perfectly restores our vision and our understanding with the fine heavenly vision given all the saints in light. Amen.

The Alternative Truths for Jesus People

Matthew 5:21-37

The Gospel this morning is a continuation of the Sermon on the Mount, but today’s teaching by Jesus are some of the most troubling in the entire bible, for us to comprehend.

Jesus has just called this community salt of the earth and light for the world. Yet as we examine ourselves in the light of this teaching, we might well feel convicted as Jesus expands the scope and application of each of these commandments.

Lately, in our everyday lives, we have been hearing a great deal about “alternative truths” and “alternative facts”, much to my dismay and perhaps to yours. Yet in our Gospel today alternative truths and facts are exactly what Jesus is giving us. the “alternatives” that Jesus delivers are not truths and facts that disregard, contradict, or go against the commandments as much as they offer a different, deeper, more complete way of understanding the impact of each commandment for the life of the community. If the church is to truly function as salt and light for the society around it, then Jesus wants us to understand these truths.

We know from our readings of Exodus and Deuteronomy that God gave the Ten Commandments to the people for their own good, and for the good of the community.

Moses says, If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. 

God gives the commandments as a gift, that God’s people might live in good, healthy, mutually supportive and loving relationships with God and with one another. Fact.

From Genesis to Revelation, we witness a God who pursues, guides and provides for good, healthy, lively relationships for God’s people so that they might live in harmony with God and with and for each other and the creation God has made. Fact. It’s all about relationship!

God’s Law guides human relationships and keeps people focused on God and on such life-sustaining behavior. Fact.

So, if we accept as fact that God gave the Law for the welfare of all people, and that God’s Law is good, why does it seem that Jesus is changing the law? If God says obey this Law because it is good; then why does it seem Jesus is offering ‘alternative fact’? Is Jesus giving us alternative rules?

At the beginning of the Gospel for today, Jesus says, you shall not kill and that anyone who commits murder is liable for judgement; but I say to you that even when you are angry with a brother or sister you are still guilty, or even if you simply insult one of these, you will face judgment.

We’ve been hearing terms like alternative facts and alternative truths, and we might be tempted to see what Jesus is doing in the negative light of that experience. But what Jesus is doing here is not trying to change the Law but to give an alternative way to look at the Law that deepens and broadens our understanding of God’s intent and desire for living out our relationships.

In each of these alternative statements, Jesus goes deeper; “you’ve heard it said,” he begins, followed by a commandment, to which Jesus then responds, “But I say,” and then Jesus’s teaching point – his alternative fact.

The thing is, Jesus isn’t there to disregard or change the old teachings, rather, this Son of God will fulfill, amplify, deepen and transcend the Law. In this Sermon on the Mount, Jesus instructs his disciples on how to look more deeply and broadly at these commandments and to see how they are lived out in our lives and in our world today.

Jesus just finished telling this community of Christ followers that they are salt and light for the world, and now he teaches them what it means to live like it.  Following Jesus’ alternative facts means choosing life in his name.

Jesus frames teach teaching by reminding us of the literal reading of the law but then broadens its meaning and impact: he does this each time he says, but ‘I say to you’ a statement that carries the same weight in Matthew’s Gospel as his ‘I Am’ statements do in John’s Gospel.

This is the royal, the divine statement of identity and authority of Jesus in this Gospel; this is the divine ‘I’, reminding us that all religious and ethical authority rests on Jesus the Son of God, the Messiah. In obedience to God’s voice which spoke from heaven at the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River, we should ‘listen to him now’.

The students in our Confirmation class are currently studying the Ten Commandments, and one of the things that we are doing is going deeper, looking at the broader scope of each of the commandments.

In Luther’s Small Catechism, Luther asks the question of each commandment, “What is this?” or, “What does this mean?” – these are like the “why” questions our kids love to ask, and the story goes that they are mirrored after his own children’s questions. In each case, Luther gives an answer, for teaching of the faith.

As we look at this commandment, Jesus invites us to go deeper and wider with our understanding of how this commandment – ‘Thou shalt not kill’ guides our relationships.

Jesus gives us an alternative way of looking at the commandment. Killing is not just murder. Killing is not just shooting someone or stabbing someone or poisoning them until they are no longer breathing. Truth be told, as far as I know we are all probably innocent when it comes to murder.

But here is Jesus’ alternative fact regarding murder. …..if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire. Wow. Jesus has just put a different spin on our understanding of the commandment, and has probably indicted all of us.

We might think, that hardly seems fair. How can Jesus fault us for anger? It is an essential human emotion, isn’t it? While there are people who have anger management issues and seem to get angry about everything, acting rashly and even dangerously when they do, they are more the exception than the rule.

But for the rest of us, isn’t anger a good thing? Isn’t even the most sainted, mild-mannered among us likely to get angry sometimes? Shouldn’t certain things make us angry, and doesn’t anger sometimes spur us on to godly action, like fighting for justice, and caring for our brothers and sisters? Didn’t Jesus himself reveal anger on occasion? How can anger be equated to killing?

Well, the good news, my friends, is that Jesus isn’t talking about legitimate angry response in the face of injury, injustice, sin, and the things that, indeed, should make us angry. Instead, the Greek word that appears in this passage refers to anger that is long-lived, simmering, glaring anger, the anger that is nursed, the anger that is less a reaction to a passing insult or injury than it is a choice that is made - to hold a grudge, to fan the flame of rage or antagonism, to destroy a reputation.

Further, Jesus addresses the angry retort, the name-calling, the tendency to strike out in anger with harsh words that wound and scar. I read somewhere that “Resentment and hard words kill more people than drugs, alcohol and tobacco combined.” I don’t know about the statistics on that, but I do know, as we all do, that our angry words and actions can and do kill relationships, the very thing that God has created us for.

Anger and the actions and words that we use within the sphere of anger hurts, wounds, kills, scars, and has lasting effect on the person, family, or communities whose quality of life is whittled down by the lingering effects of anger.

Jesus came to bring life and love, grace, mercy and forgiveness to the world. Jesus came to teach us to be bridge builders and disciples, carrying his radical message of inclusivity, acceptance and deeper, broader engagement with God and with each other through the Word he brings into the world. As we look at the commandments, Jesus offers us the alternative ways of life that invite us to go deeper, and broader in our relationships. Jesus encouraged us to seek to understand how these directives for life address each and every one of us.

Today, when I look at my news feed, read news reports and editorials, when I have conversations with you, when I search my own heart, I confess that it is anger that I see rising to the top of so many of our communications and interactions that surround us. Not anger within this community so much, but anger at our neighbor. Anger born of fear and anger that inspires fear.  I confess that I feel anger at what is happening in our country and in our world. Again, some of this anger is healthy but truth be told, I know that much of it is not. It is the result of our collective feeling of helplessness. It is absorbed from the culture around us in which the debilitating, destructive, fuming, unproductive kind of anger is prominently being promoted, encouraged, and its flames fanned. And it isn’t good.

The color is seeping out of this beautiful world and the life that God offers us all through Jesus. Instead, faithful people on both sides of every argument inappropriately use the church and Scripture as a weapon to wound, insult, and drive a wedge between people.

The gospel good news that I wish to share with you today my friends, is that God is present and working in the midst of this chaos. Jesus came that we might have life and light in his name. We are disciples of Christ, called to bring healing and blessing to the world around us.

So let’s begin by each of us looking at this commandment and searching our hearts, our actions and our words, and remembering who we are and whose we are. There is a difficult fight ahead of us, and today more than ever before, we are sent to proclaim the love and justice that Jesus brings.

The good news is that Jesus has called us as disciples and had made us salt and light for the world, and he does not leave us alone to do this. Instead, he sends the Spirit to guide our hearts and our ways.

Jesus has called us to bring his Word of peace and grace into just such a world as this. Through baptism Jesus has anointed us to speak grace into the turmoil that surrounds us, has called us to be his church, and his blessing for the world.

Sometimes, this means that we will agree to disagree about things like politics. Sometimes this means we will get angry about social injustice and oppression. We will work together to speak out against it or to combat such things.

Always, being called to be the church of Christ and God’s heart and hands in the world, we will be guided by his love. It is love that will defeat the sin of the world when the kingdom comes to its fullness at Jesus’ return. May the alternative truth, the message of love, mercy and grace, guide us and shape us as Jesus people, for the sake of the world. 

  

Blessing and Challenge of the Promise

Sermon on texts from Acts 2:1-21 and John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

Creator Spirit, heavenly dove, descend upon us from above;

                With graces manifold restore your creatures as they were before.   

         

To you, the Comforter, we cry; to you, the gift of God most high,

                True fount of life, the fire of love, the soul’s anointing from above.

(Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymnal, #577, verses 1&2)

Beautiful words, yes? Inspiring words. Comforting words.

With its evocative melody, this chant, Creator Spirit, Heavenly Dove is frequently sung during  ordinations, consecrations and commissionings of individuals set apart to serve in specific ministries in the church.

This chant is selected in part, I am sure, as a means to inspire the newly commissioned, consecrated, or ordained, as well as to remind us all of what God is doing in our midst- calling us together, equipping us for ministry, teaching us the ways of God, feeding us, and then sending us out in mission and service to the gospel. 

I clearly remember hearing this hymn chanted at my own ordination – some of you were even there. Referred to as the Hymn of Invocation, the entire assembly sang that day as many pastors surrounded me and prepared to lay their hands upon me.

Hearing these words and then feeling those hands upon my head, my shoulders, my back, my arms - was a powerful experience, and not only for me personally, but for all present; each hand, each voice presenting the Church at large, united by the Holy Spirit.

In you, with graces sevenfold, we God’s almighty hand behold;

                While you with tongues of fire proclaim to all the world

                                God’s holy name.

(Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymnal, #577, verse 3)

Perhaps these words are meant to comfort and inspire, since these are part of the work of the Holy Spirit. But I know that on that day, I felt the weight of those hands, too.

For while the ministry of God is an important and life-giving ministry in which we all have a share, the truth is that there are also forces in the world which oppose God’s purpose and will. As Jesus points out in our gospel lesson, these forces do not believe in Jesus, or in his message of grace and love. They – those forces – those voices – can sometimes weigh us down, calling us to hate when we know we should love. They can create confusion, beseeching us to doubt, when we want so badly to believe. They can tear at our fabric of our faith, attempting to drown out the message of God’s grace and mercy.

They can cause despair to creep in. They can discourage. They can sometime lead us down the path of least resistance – the path of denial not only of God’s existence, but of God’s supremacy in our lives.

Come Holy Spirit!

Perhaps, we are all in need of a little soothing, inspiring and comforting from time to time, as we come up against those forces, and feel or witness their impact in the world. At those times it is good to know that God’s Holy Spirit is walking beside us each day in all ways encouraging us, inspiring us, and yes, comforting us. But these are not the only things that the Holy Spirit of God does.

If we look at the reading that we have from the book of Acts this morning, we see some words that do not evoke the sweet scenes of a gently descending dove sent to lull us back to peaceful reverie when we become disturbed by the cacophony of worldly sound and voice. Instead, in this reading, we get images of confusion and are reminded that in the beginning, God’s spirit hovered over the waters and did what? – Stirred them up.           

Those in attendance on that Pentecost day are described as being perplexed. The Holy Spirit is a rushing wind, stirring things up, filling the place where they were staying–

The text describes it as a violent wind – powerful, perhaps even relentless. Fire appeared among the people gathered there; divided tongues of fire rested on each one of them.

After checking for singed hair, the disciples start babbling to one another, even more startled and confused, because low and behold, suddenly, these friends who formerly spoke only Aramaic or maybe, a little Greek, were speaking in many other tongues!

Imagine this scene with me, if you will:

Look! There is our friend, John, is that Persian coming out of his mouth?

And what about James – he has never been to Babylonia, how can he be speaking their language, and so clearly, too!                                      

Bartholomew? Is that you? But it sounds like Elamite coming from your lips!

And is that really Nathaniel – speaking Egyptian, of all things? How? How can this be?

And people from throughout Jerusalem gather in the street outside the place they are staying, drawn by all the noise and captivated by what they see – by what they hear.

I’ll bet comfort isn’t a feeling that was much felt in that moment. Bewilderment, yes; maybe, fear; and amazement, surely. I’ll bet there was astonishment, excitement - and confusion.  

And then, there were those other voices too,

                the ones speaking in opposition to God’s powerful,

                                miraculous work on that Pentecost Day.

                                                “They are filled with new wine,” they sneered.

As I reflected on these scriptures this week, I began to wonder how this reading of the text might affect the way we understand the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives, beginning at our Baptism. Most of us present today were baptized as infants, as were our confirmands, who will each affirm her baptism in a few moments during the Rite of Confirmation. As babies, we might have missed the rushing wind and astonishing feeling of the Holy Spirit descending upon us – or perhaps we didn’t miss it – we just didn’t know what it was. We were babies, after all.

Others of us came to faith, or at least to the font of living waters, at an age of discretion – either as teens or adults. But, distracted by the human words that surrounded us that day, the music, perhaps even our own nervousness, we, too, may have missed the immediate feeling of God’s Spirit covering us and filling us up – although I have to tell you that the adults I have baptized describe an experience of amazing and powerful clarity and the power of the Holy Spirit palpably present on that day.

At our Baptism, the pastor said these or similar words, while tracing the sign of the cross, perhaps in oil, on their forehead: “(Your name, Child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.”

My friends, rather than words of comfort and consolation, these are words of invocation.

They are a declaration not of who you are but whose you are:

They claim us, Child of God, and they challenge us, Child of God!; they charge us – You are a Child of God and they send us out – Go forth, Child of God!

It occurs to me that at the moment of our Baptism, these words do anything but comfort us.

The good news however, is that while they do all of those things – claim, challenge, charge, and send, those words – “child of God” - come with the promise that in faith God’s Holy Spirit goes with us. God’s Holy Spirit walks with, in, and beside us. God’s Spirit is there to inspire us when we soar   and to brush us off, heal our wounds, and send us back out when we fail.

Jesus makes the promise that he will send his Spirit upon us. A Spirit who will guide us in all we do and say, that in the vast experience of our lives, we might glorify God.

On this Day of Pentecost, the fiftieth day of Easter, we stand with all the faithful to proclaim that the powers of evil have been vanquished through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ.

We proclaim that through his victory over sin and death, Jesus has claimed the victory and that as he promised, Jesus sends the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to ensure that God’s vision and determination for the world will come to fruition.

As our young people are confirmed today, we celebrate with them and with all those in other places similarly being confirmed, together with the whole church, the power of God’s Holy Spirit to be present in every circumstance, providing exactly what we need to be God’s people.

We accept the Spirit’s challenge to be the church which acclaims the power and presence of God’s Holy Spirit as alive, present and active, constantly inspiring, leading, challenging, teaching, feeding, and sending us forth to be the hands and feet and heart of God in the world. We invite the Spirit’s stirring us up and renewing us to live the Way of Christ.

                                 

               

Dive-bombing Pigeons and loads of Hot Air

There is an indelible image that I carry with me. It comes from a description of the Holy Spirit which one of my seminary professors shared with my class early in my seminary career that has forever changed the way I think of the Holy Spirit. It is inspired by Greek vocabulary, the biblical witness, and our understanding of the character and nature of the Spirit of God. And here it is:

While we often think of the Holy Spirit in images of a soft white dove, lightly descending onto a scene, blessing its inhabitants with grace and peace as when the dove descended on Jesus at his baptism, and while we visualize the Holy Spirit as many artists have imagined and portrayed her in countless works of art, again as a rather sweet, radiant white, harmless-looking dove, there is another image that is likely far more likely in tune with the nature of the Holy Spirit.

So, when I read this account of Pentecost Day and what it was like in that upper room where the disciples were all gathered, what comes to my mind is the voice of Dr. Carlson, in Intro to New Testament Greek, translating this text and rendering this image of the Holy Spirit, now imprinted forever in my mind. Rather than a white dove sweetly descending on the disciples that day, the Holy Spirit enters that room as a dive-bombing pigeon, swooping into the room with force, accompanied by deafening sound and a powerful, hot wind, blowing new energy and vitality into these followers of Christ. This Holy Spirit with its power and force is able to do what disciples of Christ cannot do on their own – equip them for mission they can’t even imagine they are destined for.

While he was still with them, Jesus promised his disciples that he would send an advocate. He promised that he would NOT leave them alone. He promised that he will, through his spirit, equip, accompany and empower them for mission in the world. Those are promises that can only be kept through the powerful intervention and presence of God through the Holy Spirit.

When you come to think about it the dive-bombing pigeon may truly be the best way to come to full realization of how the Holy Spirit can inspire, empower and thrust us into the world and into the true mission of God as God intends it.

Debbie Blue, in her book, Consider the Birds, A Provocative Guide to Birds of the Bible, makes this distinction: “The dove has come to seem banal and bland and cutesy as far as Christian symbols go. It has come to represent something polite and petite and pure. Maybe this has worked to deprive us of a more robust view of the Holy Spirit. Isn’t it sort of limiting to imagine the spirit of God as something dainty and white?” Blue continues, “We are made of dirt, according to the creation account in Genesis. We are full of bacteria. We each carry two to five pounds of bacteria in our bodies – two to five POUNDS. We could kill a dove with one or two blows from the back of our hand. We need a spirit that can handle us.”[i]

We read Luke’s account from in the Book of Acts: Suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them the ability.” And the people who witnessed this, people of many tongues, who could suddenly each understand the disciples’ speech? What was their reaction? They were amazed and perplexed – everyone was. And why shouldn’t they be?

The dive-bombing pigeon image appeals to me because it truly is how the Holy Spirit has worked throughout the history of the church and especially on that day – amazing individuals with abilities they never thought they could possess, surprising the world with unexpected gifts, disturbing structures of complacency and division, and always, disrupting the status quo, serving as God’s presence breaking into the here and now in and through the Spirit’s impassioned work, through inspired acts of love, dramatic acts of faithfulness and devotion, and encounters of grace and mercy with unparalleled promise. Jesus spoke at the beginning of his ministry, saying, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor,” the dive-bombing pigeon demonstrates to us that what God promises, God, in God’s abundance pours out, for the sake of the world.

Jesus came and stirred the fear and wrath and even hatred of those who were absorbed within the structures of human power and sin. But Jesus also showed us a new way to live – a new vision of the kingdom of heaven to focus our dreams upon – and a new covenant that included all people everywhere, a new commandment, to love as Christ loves, and a call to feed, clothe, shelter, forgive, pray for, accompany, and protect those who are placed along our path.

In his homily for Pentecost last year, Pope Francis, stated, “Only the Spirit can awaken diversity, plurality and multiplicity, while at the same time building unity. Here too, when we are the ones who try to create diversity and close ourselves up in what makes us different and other, we bring division. When we are the ones who want to build unity in accordance with our human plans, we end up creating uniformity, standardization. But if instead we let ourselves be guided by the Spirit, richness, variety and diversity never become a source of conflict, because he impels us to experience variety within the communion of the Church….. The Holy Spirit is the soul of mission. The events that took place in Jerusalem almost two thousand years ago are not something far removed from us; they are events which affect us and become a lived experience in each of us. The Pentecost of the Upper Room in Jerusalem is the beginning, a beginning which endures. The Holy Spirit is the supreme gift of the risen Christ to his apostles, yet he wants that gift to reach everyone.” 

Today we celebrate Pentecost, and the reality that through the gifts of the Holy Spirit, unity is not the same as uniformity, and diversity does not need to bring division. The spirit that was poured out on the day of Pentecost as the disciples huddled in the upper room, came swooping in, burst through the walls of fear and limitation to be seen, felt and heard beyond those walls. That same spirit is still at work in the church today, is still meant to be seen, and felt and heard well beyond our walls and beyond those of us sitting here today. God’s presence is breaking into the now through the Holy Spirit, and the ongoing work of the spirit takes place through us.

And yet we acknowledge that the work is long and hard and it is far from easy. We look at the state of the church today, and we wonder, how can this little church, how can I make a difference? How can my voice be heard? We look around and we see a pretty homogeneous gathering in this room. How do we welcome and embrace the kind of diversity that the spirit calls us to?

So, I invite you today to read the faith papers of our confirmands, printed in the back of your worship bulletin and you will see the spirit at work. More than one of them state that they certainly feel the tension created by an increasingly unchurched society and pool of peers. They feel it, perhaps more than many of us who grew up in what we now affectionately call the “glory years” of the church – when religious activities and commitment were held in esteem by our society rather than being judged by it.

These young adults feel that tension yet are committed to claiming for themselves the gifts of the Holy Spirit of God in order to live lives of faithfulness and to work for the good of God’s holy church in the world.  In a short while they will stand up and affirm their baptisms and claim for themselves the faith of this church that is calling them - and each of us - to mission and ministry. They will stand here and lead us all in reciting the creed that confesses faith in the God who works through adversity, in unexpected ways, redeeming us fr

om our sin, and granting us new life. They will lead us as we profess our confidence in the Holy Spirit who grants us identity, who accompanies, empowers and unites us in our work and makes it a holy offering to God.

This Holy Spirit of God blurs the walls of difference we create for ourselves. Then she opens the door and lets in the unfit, the sinner, the blind, the lame, the poor, the sick, the weak and the meek. Rather than pure white innocence and gentleness, this dive-bombing spirit of God in fact makes of us a fuller, richer, more varied and blessed body of Christ, equipped for sharing our individual gifts, working together for the benefit of the church and the good of the kingdom of God, for God’s sake.

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[i] (Debbie Blue, p. 6)