Tongue Twister (Acts 2:1-21)

Sermon as preached 5/19/13 at Lambs and Evington UMC

 

Our scripture for today is quite a tongue twister. It’s one of those scriptures that you cross your fingers and hope that you are not asked to read it out loud. Just look at all of the names, “Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,  Cretans and Arabs.”  This is a scripture that even pastors struggle to get through when reading it aloud. Without all of these names, these regions of the world, our Pentecost story would look very different, and would not be nearly as spectacular and beautiful.  That is because each of these names, Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,  Cretans and Arabs,  not only represents a person that was gathered on that wonderful day, but it shows us that magnitude of God’s love and grace. It shows us that the power of the Holy Spirit has come for all of the world.

                Because what happens on that day of Pentecost?  We know the story pretty well. It was after Jesus ascended into heaven, and he told his disciples to gather and wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit. And that’s how we find the disciples in our scripture for today. They are gathered together, with many other Jewish followers from all over the world.  “And 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 were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”  What an amazing scene!  Violent rushes of wind, Tongues on fire resting on the shoulders of those gathered there, and to cap it all of the followers, began to speak in other languages.  It was such a spectacle that those who were observing what had happened thought that the followers were drunk.  But of course they were not drunk, they were filled by the Holy Spirit, and celebrating in its power and glory.  We here this story, we picture it in our own minds, we find the story to be captivating, but at the end of the day we may still be asking ourselves, So what?  This amazing moment happened about two thousand years ago,  what does it have to do with my own life?

                And yet this text has everything to do with our own lives.  This text teaches us so much about us both as a community of believers, and also it teaches  us about us about ourselves as individuals. So let us first look at what this story has to teach us about the church, or about the community of believers. Prior to this moment, the disciples and the other followers of Christ, had actually been able to follow Christ, walk with him, follow him, and learn directly from him. Jesus then ascended into heaven, and the followers of Christ were left to figure what to do next. Other than the disciples there was not real organization, there was no structure for how to proceed. Other than the life and teachings of Jesus there was no guidance on what type of ministry to do next.  And so the followers of Christ listened to what he commanded, and they waited for the Holy Spirit. This text is that moment in which a random group of followers, turned into a community of believers through the power of the Holy Spirit.  This is the moment in which followers from all around the known world became united. This truly is the beginning of the church.  (We) Many churches still celebrate this wonderful occurrence each week in worship, without really recognizing it. (We)   Many churches recite the apostle’s creed each week as an affirmation of faith. It is a way for us as Christians to reaffirm our beliefs in our  “God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ his only son our Lord. Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontus Pilate, was crucified dead and buried. The third day he arose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, where he sits at the right hand of God the father Almighty.”  And then when come to the next line in the creed, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy catholic church.” When we say catholic we don’t necessarily mean Roman Catholic like we think of the world now, but when we say the holy catholic church we mean the universal church; we are talking about the whole community of believers.  And yet when we read, or recite the Apostle’s creed we may find it to be strange that the Holy Spirit and the Holy catholic church are both lumped together in the same sentence. After all we had a whole paragraph to talk about God the father and about the life death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ; but here we have a sentence to talk about the Holy spirit, and half of it talks about the church.  At first it seems as though the Holy Spirit is getting the short end of the stick; but when we read our scripture today we come to find out that the Holy Spirit and the church are so integrally  tied together. God sends us the Holy Spirit to lead us, and the Church could not exist without the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Our scripture today is the story of when the two unite. It  is as  I said earlier when the church was formed, because the Holy Spirit had come to unite a random group of followers, and to lead them in the way of the Lord.

                This Pentecost story is also important to the church because it is a foretaste of what is yet to come. It is a reminder of what the church will be like in the end of times.  We can see this in Revelation, chapter 7 which says, “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. ¹⁰ And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God,who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.”  All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, ¹² saying: Amen!
Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!” ¹³ Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?” ¹⁴ I answered, “Sir, you know.” And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. ¹⁵ Therefore, “they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. ¹⁶ ‘Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them,’^[a] nor any scorching heat. ¹⁷ For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd;‘ he will lead them to springs of living water.’^[b]‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

            What a beautiful vision of what it will be like. Where every tear will be wiped from our eyes and we will gather as one, though we are multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, and sing praises to the Lamb.  Does that sound familiar people from different tribes and languages coming together and singing praises? Well it should because it what we have going on in our scripture for today.  The beginning of the church and the church in glory is made up of all people gathering together to praise the Lord. But as believers of Christ we can work towards that vision today. It reminds me of my time in South Africa.  I was blessed to be able to visit South Africa for 11 weeks, and many of those weeks me and a few other students from Duke, stayed at a Methodist seminary in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.  We frequently ate, learned, and served with them, but maybe what was the most meaningful time there, was the moments in which we were able to worship with them. One thing to point out is that South Africa is very different than the US; we have one official national language English, while South Africa has twelve official languages, and many others that aren’t official.  South Africa also has a difficult past, where the English and Dutch colonized the many tribes, the English and Dutch descendants even fought each other, and until 1994, the country was under what was called the Apartheid rule, which meant that those who were not English or Afrikaans (which is the name for the Dutch descendants) were oppressed and had very little rights. And so here we are 4 Americans, gathering in South Africa only 12 years after the Apartheid had ended, with South African Christians who were English, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu and many more and we were worshiping together. I remember one service in particular in which seven different languages were spoken. We prayed in Xhosa, sang in Afrikaans, heard the scripture in Portuguese, and the sermon in English, and so on. I remember singing along with one of the songs in Zulu having no idea what I was saying, and yet feeling the presence of the Holy Spirit binding me closer to every one worshiping with me. And to top it off we gathered together and recited the benediction together in our own native tongue, saying the same words, just different languages.  This experience was a reminder that the universal church is a church made up of so many different people, and yet we are all bound together by the Holy Spirit.

            And that leads to our last point for this morning.  This Pentecost story not only teaches us about the church as a whole, but it also teaches us as individual believers. As I said, the universal church is made up of so many different people, and each one of us is a part of that.  Just like those who were gathered on that day of Pentecost, each one of us come from different places. Now we may not come from different tribes on countries like in our story, but each one of us has our own story that has brought us here. Not one of our stories is alike, and yet in all of differences we are all united by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Our differences also means that we each have unique gifts, experiences, and stories, that can be used to serve the Kingdom of God.  Our scripture for today tells us that each one of us play a role in the ministry of the Kingdom of God. It says, “ 'In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.
 Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.” The great news about the Holy Spirit is that we are all able to receive its guidance and power.  Each and every one of us have a special calling in our lives. Sons and daughters shall prophesy, upon both men and women in those days I will I pour out my spirit. No matter who you are, no matter what circumstances, the Holy Spirit has a way for you to serve God and to testify to the glorious name of Lord and savior Jesus Christ. So like those followers on the day of Pentecost let ourselves be ready to receive the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Let us be ready for it to lead us in whatever direction it calls us. Let us be ready to see how the Spirit can not only strength and empower our own lives, but how it may be leading us all, as a community of believers, and a church, as those who are so different, and yet are united by the Spirit’s power. Let us listen for the Spirit’s calling, and when we hear it, let us respond boldly, so that the world shall see us, and wonder what is going on there? Are they drunk? No they are just filled with the Holy Spirit.

Where Do We Go From Here? (Acts 1:1-11)

Our scripture for today may be one of the most baffling, most spectacular, and yet this Sunday is probably one of the least celebrated Sundays in the Christians church. Today is Ascension Sunday, the day in which we celebrate Christ ascending from Earth into heaven. We celebrate this fact every Sunday during  our Affirmation of Faith when we say, “he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty” and yet how often do we talk about it during the life of the Church. We talk a lot about the birth of Christ as we prepare for his coming during Advent and celebrate it during Christmas. We talk about Christ’s struggle with temptation in the desert during Lent and then there of course is Holy Week; we celebrate his Last Supper with the disciples, we remember his death on the cross, and of course we celebrate the good news that Christ rose again from the dead for the forgiveness of sins. Last week I lamented about how little we talk about the activity of the Holy Spirit, but at least we celebrate it once a year with the celebration of Pentecost (which is next week by the way). All of these things are important to talk about because they help us to relive the good news of the gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit and the Church.  Still, in the middle of this retelling of the story of Jesus Christ and the formation of the Church, why do we seem to neglect Christ’s ascension? We even talk about Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, and yet if we left the story at that, Jesus would still be walking the globe, or would have died again. When we think about it in those terms we start to realize how crucial the ascension truly is. So why do we so rarely talk about it? Is it because it is a difficult issue to believe? I don’t think that is the case because if we as Christians believe in the resurrection of Christ, then why would his ascension be any harder to believe? It seems as if the reason we don’t know how to address it. I have to admit as I read the scripture for this morning, as I prepared to write this sermon, I ended up staring at a blank computer screen for half an hour asking myself, What am I supposed to say about this? Where do I go from here? And then it hit me, that is one of the important questions of the scripture. Where do we go from here?

            In our scripture for today the disciples are in a crossroad in their ministry. For three years or so they have been following Jesus, listening to his teachings, following his commands, walking in his footsteps, literally.  We as Christians use the term following Jesus so often, and when we say it we mean that we believe in Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior and that we live our lives according to his will. We have to realize however that when we say that the disciples followed Jesus, they actually followed him. They followed him in deserts, the followed him into towns, the followed him up the side of mountains, and they followed him across seas. You can imagine the panic attack that happened when their leader was killed, but that panic was short lived because Jesus rose from the dead, and the disciples once again had their leader to follow. So here they are once again following their leader when all of the sudden Jesus tells them that they must stay in Jerusalem and wait. Wait? We are followers we don’t wait we follow. Then after speaking to the disciples some more, Jesus ascends into heaven, leaving the disciples staring into the clouds. Think about their confusion, their frustration, their fear, because they had been literally following Jesus for three years now, through stormy seas and dry land, and now Jesus ascends to heaven and the disciples had to come to the realization that they could no longer physically follow Jesus. So they had to ask themselves the tough question, how do we follow Jesus now? Where do we go from here?

            We can imagine that the disciples had a difficult decision ahead of them; what are they going to do now? On the one hand they could fall apart; they could throw up their hands and say, “our savior is gone, there is nothing more that we can do.” As they stood there staring at the heavens where Jesus just ascended to, it could also have been easy for them to sit there on their hands and simply wait for Jesus to come back. This is made even easier by the fact that Jesus told them to stay in Jerusalem. If the disciples were anything like me, their instinct would have been to make a plan on what to do next; where to go from here.” They had been following Jesus watching him serve and teach and I am sure that they learned that this was some of their responsibility as followers of Christ to do the same. If they were like me, they would have made a plan of action, and then tried to immediately implement it based upon our own desires and our own understanding of what we think is best. Yet this seems to be the tension that is happening here in our scripture. On the one hand Jesus is telling the disciples to stay in Jerusalem, to not try to follow him (as if they could if they tried), and to not disperse but to stay together.  On the other hand Jesus is telling his disciples to stay in Jerusalem, and we understand that this is because they have work left to do there. How are we supposed to both stay and wait, and at the very same time follow and serve? Doesn’t waiting seem contrary to everything that Jesus did while he was here on Earth?  He seemed to be always on the go, with the disciples on his footsteps, teaching, preaching, serving, and healing. Wouldn’t waiting be dropping the ball on those special ministries? At the same time, the disciples had always been followers, always just been behind Jesus watching what he did and listening to what he said, and then followed the examples. Jesus has ascended now, what are they to do? They know they should be in ministry, but where should they serve first? How should they go about doing it?  I can imagine at this time there were so many questions going on in the minds of the disciples.

            The problem is that as humans we seem to always want the answers immediately. We can see this with the disciples, Jesus had just told the disciples, “While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. "This," he said, "is what you have heard from me;

1:5 for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."  And what do the disciples ask Jesus, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?"  Jesus just gives them the command to wait for the Holy Spirit, and the disciples have to know the answer of whether or not this is the time in which Israel will be restored. We as humans have such a need to know all of the answers. We have such a need for control. When we don’t know what to expect, when we don’t know what to do, we start to freak out. Usually instead of waiting to discern what is the will of God, we try to jump in and decide what we think is best. We rush into making decisions, because we feel as if we always have to have an answer, that we always have to have the solution. But Jesus tells the disciples, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.  But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." In a time in which the disciples just wanted an answer, Jesus reminds them that it is God who is supposed to know all things, not us. That we do not know the will of God, nor are we supposed to. Our job is to wait for the Spirit to tell us her will, and then go out and follow it.

            It is so easy for us to get caught up in doing what we think we should be doing, and many times we do it out of compassion and love, we do it because we truly do want to serve God. Still we often forget the importance of waiting. This reminds me of a story of a Methodist preacher who was just assigned to a church in Georgia. The pastor arrived early to the church one day full of zeal, wanting to make a difference for that church. When he arrived the first thing he noticed was an old tree that was blocking one of the side doors of the church. The pastor thought that a way to show the church how committed he was to the church would be to cut the tree down for them so that they could once again use those doors, and that’s exactly what he did. The next Sunday the pastor arrives to the horror and anger of the members, because that very tree was planted by John Wesley himself when he came and visited Georgia, and now John Wesley’s tree was gone forever. We so often try to do the right thing, but don’t realize our need to wait for the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

            We however mustn’t confuse waiting for the Holy Spirit’s guidance with doing nothing. Waiting for the holy spirit does not mean inactivity, it means receptivity. It means we must find ways in which we can prepare ourselves to receive the Holy Spirit’s guidance.  As most of you know, the past few months I have been the chaplain at the hospital once a week. I didn’t however just walk room to room talking to people, instead I had a pager that would go off whenever someone needed a chaplain. You would be surprised that this happened less than you think; usually a chaplain is only called for a crisis or for a death, so I would usually only get paged once or twice a night. And yet I was at the hospital waiting, preparing for when I might have to respond. I would eat as soon as possible so that I wasn’t caught without dinner. I made sure I drank plenty of water. At night, I would lay out my clothes on the bed next to me, even keeping my tie tied, so that if I received a call that I could throw on my clothes and respond to the call as quickly as possible. Finally the last thing I did before I went to sleep was to check to make sure the pager was turned on loud, so that I would not miss a calling. While most of my time on call at the hospital was simply waiting, it was not doing nothing; I had to make sure that I was ready to respond at any moment.

            The same is true with the Holy Spirit. Although Jesus tells us to wait, we must do all we can to prepare ourselves so that we don’t miss it. We must gather for worship, partake of the sacraments, study the Bible, and of course we must as Paul says, pray without ceasing. If we prepare to receive guidance from the Holy Spirit, then when she comes, we shall be ready to follow God’s will. Patience is a virtue, and a difficult one at that; we can’t rush into ministry, or we like the minister who cut down Wesley’s tree may actually do more harm than good. But when we are led by the Holy Spirit then we truly can make a difference in this world. So what do we do now that Jesus has ascended?  Where do we go from here?  We go where the Holy Spirit leads us.

 

Musings: Let Everything that Has Breath Praise the Lord

There are 150 Psalms in the Bible. They span an array of emotions from praise to anger, from sadness to joy. The way the Psalms end however tells us so much about life as well about our relationship to God. Psalm 150 ends by saying, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.”  While this is a psalm that I had heard throughout my life, recently it has become so much more meaningful to me. As most of you know I have been fulfilling some chaplain duties as part of Clinical Pastoral Education. During this experience I have encountered people in some of their most intimate moments: fear of surgery, grief from the loss of a loved one, uncertainty of a crisis, and loneliness from being in a nursing home for so long. While ministry in all of these circumstances is a challenge I’m honored to have the opportunity to experience, one challenge has stood out above the rest as being the most difficult. That challenge is providing ministry to those who are unresponsive, those who may not even be aware that I am there. At first this was a frustration; what type of ministry can I provide if they cannot respond? How can I help them? How can I reach them? As I was reading scripture to one of these patients one day, I turned to this psalm and it all seemed to make sense when I read, “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.”

As I looked at this patient their eyes were slightly open,  fixated on the wall, they could not speak, they could not move, they could not even eat, all they could really do is breath; and yet let everything that has breath praise the Lord. This person, just like every person, is a one who is truly loved by God. While the world may see them as old, decrepit, and taking up space and money while waiting to die; the Lord sees each one as a precious child. The same Lord who breathed into man giving him life, is breathing into each and every one of us. From a baby who takes its first gasp of air to those who are exhaling their last breath; the Holy Spirit sings praises to God. For as Romans 8 says, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ²⁷ And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”

 Soon we will be celebrating  Pentecost and how the church was formed through the power of the Holy Spirit.  While we are called to be in ministry with the “least of these” let us be remind that our ministry is not a ministry of “results” but a ministry of love.  We serve others not for some benefit that we will gain, and not even necessarily anything those we serve will gain either; but we serve because we love God and because we recognize the sacred worth of all of God’s children.  If we love in this way then just like the psalms we will experience both joy and pain, fear and comfort, anger and praise. Still, at the end of the day when we recognize that the breath of God is in each and every one of us, working between us in a delicate dance of inhaling and exhaling, allowing two strangers who may not know each other or who may not even be able to communicate with each other to share in a sacred moment of praise, then we truly can exclaim,   “ Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.”