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.

                                 

               

Let Go My Legos!

John 3:1-17 ~

My grandson Alex loves Legos. Who doesn’t, right? Back in November or December, when my husband and I asked our son Bill what he might suggest we get for Alex for Christmas, we were told that just about anything Legos would be great, that Alex was really into them.

Now, at the time Alex was not quite 4 – his birthday is in January. And as anyone familiar with Legos knows, the really good ones, the ones that make castles and planes and pirates ships and the really cool stuff that appeals to an almost any 4-year-old child, are recommended for children within certain age ranges – for instance, from 7 to 9 years old, or 8 to 12 years old, or something like that – and for good reason. A reason frequently overlooked when purchasing the Legos for that really bright child of yours. While you are sure this child has the ability to figure out how to build a master creation with these small blocks and all the teeny tiny pieces that come with them, they are not necessarily as easy to put together as they appear.

Finally, Christmas came and the family gathered at our house. Alex was uber-excited and happy with the Legos he received. And while the rest of us were all relaxing, preparing dinner and visiting with one another, our son Bill spent the rest of the day constructing Lego sets into the exact design required to replicate the castle, or the plane or the pirate ship pictured on each box, which was what was expected by little Alex.

Of course, by the time the blocks and the rest of Alex’s Christmas booty made it home, the pieces from the various sets were hopelessly dismantled and intermingled. And Alex was incapable of building the specified designs on his own, especially from the confusion of blocks in front of him now. So, a month later when it was time for Alex’s birthday celebration, the request came down from his parents – please – no more Legos!

There is something that often happens between the development of our expectations and how reality plays out. When we approach something with preconceived ideas thoroughly cemented by ironclad ideologies, it can be hard to comprehend and face the mental complexities that result when our ideas are challenged. Alex expected to be able to make those Legos into the desired designs easily, each and every time he brought them out (and the adults around him had no more realistic expectations, apparently). The Legos could, in fact, be built into other creations. They didn’t have to become a plane, a castle, or a pirate ship. They could probably also be made into a house, a sail boat or a train. They could come together to form a church or a school or a spaceship. However, Alex couldn’t comprehend those possibilities at first, couldn’t grasp that these blocks could come together in ways that he hadn’t even imagined.

In our gospel narrative, Nicodemus comes to Jesus under cover of darkness. He is a Pharisee – a leader within the Jewish holy establishment – a man of tradition, a man faithful to Jewish law. When Nicodemus came to visit Jesus he came with some preconceived ideas. He came with a firmly cemented ideology, with particular thoughts and philosophies and convictions about how things work – about how God, in particular, works. And he begins by saying to Jesus, “we know that you are a teacher who has come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” So far, so good, right? Rapidly, however, we begin to see that the darkness that shrouds Nicodemus also keeps him from comprehending the truth of Jesus’ radical, unexpected message.

Here in John’s gospel, where “signs” are not “miracles” but are actions and events that point to the presence and activity of God, and where the gospel repeatedly points to Jesus as the way that God is in the world and acts on behalf of the world, Nicodemus acknowledges that what Jesus is doing and saying points to God. But when Jesus answers Nicodemus with words about birth and water and Spirit, Nicodemus simply cannot understand what Jesus is saying.

The radical design and reality of God’s tremendous love and liberating Spirit don’t fit on or into the box of Nicodemus’s worldview. The deep darkness of his unbelief obscures his vision of God’s mysterious and redemptive work. The Lego pieces of his deeply-held convictions don’t fit into the radically creative and restorative design of God’s redeeming love for the whole world. Jesus changes the game. God is making a new creation in this kingdom of God, and all the old ideas and previous designs of our imagining are dismantled and redesigned through the cross of Christ.

Jesus says, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” The Greek word ἄνωθεν (anothen) can be translated “again”, “anew”, or “from above” – and here, it seems that Nicodemus assumes the first meaning – “again” - and is confused, because how can anyone be, literally born - again?

I don’t think that we can really blame poor Nicodemus for his inability to imagine new lives and a new world transformed by God in the radical nature of Jesus Christ. And, beyond this exchange, we don’t really know what the impact of this conversation with Jesus had on him. We do see him later in the gospel, as he half-heartedly speaks on behalf of Jesus to the temple elite, and then again, when he again comes under cover of darkness, this time to aid Joseph of Arimathea in preparing Jesus’ body for entombment following his crucifixion. The fact that he seemingly stuck around and continued in some way to grow into a follower of Christ would suggest that although he may have lacked belief in Christ during this visit, some kernel of faith was planted and slowly grew. And he was changed.

The thing is, that is the way of faith. In his gospel, John never uses the word “faith” as a noun. It is not something you “get” or something that belongs to you; it isn’t something that you possess or manipulate. Rather, in John’s gospel we see faith as a verb. It is an action word. It is continuously working, continuously growing, and continuously changing everything around it. Faith comes through the Spirit, which, as Jesus points out, blows where it will. It never rests. It never sits still. It cannot be fit into a box, be built into a cookie-cutter design, or be pinned down by expectations and pre-formed convictions. Rather, through the Spirit of God, given at our baptism, faith challenges our assumptions, and opens the door to living, breathing union with God that impacts and guides our actions and our lives, forever changing them. Faith confounds us.  

But it is not always easy. We’re not talking about a magic elixir that solves all of our problems and puts an end to the current pain and suffering of the world. Living on this side of the cross as we do, we are vulnerable, we remain broken, we are mortal, imperfect creatures who all too frequently behave as Nicodemus, and demand that our blocks fit together to meet our expectations to construct that picture on the box. We are often crushed by disappointment, devastation and despair when they do not.

The reality of living in this complex world means that we stand in the shadow of the cross of Christ, where dreams are sometimes shattered and suffering not only exists but seems to thrive. Planes fall inexplicably out of the sky and vanish without a trace. Buildings that have stood strong and firm for over one hundred years disappear in a flash, taking the lives of ordinary people going about their ordinary business. Young parents learn that their small child has terminal cancer, and there is nothing they can do about it. Unexpected phone calls forever change lives. Civil wars drive millions of innocent people into exile. Addictions steal dreams and destroy families. Bodies, minds and spirits are laid waste by failing health and aging. We could go on and on listing all the kinds of losses we endure, and all of the ways that the reality of the world confounds our expectations of justice, and of life as it should be.

And into that reality comes Jesus, rearranging our blocks and building something new, something beyond our imagining. God enters our fragile, hurting, suffering humanity in the Word made flesh, and joins us in our suffering. God chooses not to be aloof from us, God chooses to be in the trenches with us. God accompanies us through every triumph and every challenge of life. God lifts up those who suffer. God sends loving hands and spirits to aid those who are stricken.

The cross of Christ stands as witness to these facts, offering us a place where the suffering of the whole world is connected, and embraced in God’s loving care. “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only son…God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the whole world may be saved through him”. The cross—and all the suffering, sadness, and sorrow it bears—stands as witness to God’s presence and power and embrace…promising that even in the abrupt changes, God is present, and somehow holding it all together: connecting us with one another, embracing us fully in His arms. And into this same world, God’s Spirit continually blows freely, bringing us comfort, strengthening us in every adversity, empowering us in Jesus’ name, and sending us into places we’d never imagined, to build up blocks of resiliency and love. As the darkness gives way to Jesus’ eternally penetrating light, may God grant us new life in this endless baptism of God’s grace.