The celebration of Pentecost has its roots in the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament, certain feast days were chosen after the Israelites became settled in the Promised Land, in order for them to remember the goodness of God and experience gratitude. The Feast of the Passover in which was remembered the deliverance from slavery in Egypt. And the Feast of Pentecost, which celebrated the first harvest in which gratitude was expressed to God for the first fruits. The word Pentecost, means 50th day and referred to the 50th day after the Passover celebration. It is the day in the Christian year when we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit to the world, the Holy Spirit, the third person in the trinity. Other names describe the function of this definitive nature of our God. The present presence of God: Counselor, Teacher, Comforter, Helper.
Over the season of Pentecost, which will carry us through out the summer, we will have the opportunity to consider God's presence in our lives Sunday after Sunday, but today we are privileged to read of the events of the day when the Holy Spirit first came.
There are two accounts of the coming of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament One is immediately after the resurrection when Jesus appears in the Upper Room and is found in John 20:22 where Jesus appears to the disciples and "he breathed on them saying: Receive the Holy Spirit". The other account has been read this morning when on the day of Pentecost, the disciples were together for the feast day of the first harvest, in the Upper Room and they are filled with the Holy Spirit. These are not contradictory as they are but different testimony of a common reality where those who believed in Jesus, when they were together, experienced God's mysterious presence. Jesus was not gone; he was vitally and actually alive in their very midst.
To this very day, when two or three gather together in his name, sensitive individuals become aware of the presence of more than the sum of the number of those who can be counted. He is here. He is in this very room. He is present to teach, to counsel, to comfort, to help, to heal.
Just as our first breath was the breath of life, so also in the atmosphere of this room, we receive the breath of life, which heals, comforts, directs, helps, equips. The Holy Spirit, God is present with us, is in the breaking of bread. God is present with us in the silent stillness of our prayers. In the songs we sing, in the word read and proclaimed, in the breaking of bread.
Over the coming weeks we will consider the difference God makes by his holy, divine presence. But for this morning, consider this: On the day of Pentecost, God's people experienced God's presence and realized a spirit of unity, oneness the likes of which God's people had not experienced for centuries. Since the very early days of Israel and Judah, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Romans, all had in their time conquered the Israelites and hatreds ran deep.
I used to laugh about the old Southern hostility towards Yankees. One day I was visiting with my father and he was trying to talk to someone in the telephone company about something, I have long since forgotten. But I have not forgotten the conversation where he said: "Lady, you must be a Yankee, seeing you can't understand."
There is so much that divides us:
The peoples of the world are separated often by ways which create tension and antagonism if not outright hatred and war: Palestinians and Israelites, male and female, black and white, rich and poor, haves and have-nots, the old and young, the educated and the uneducated. The silly tribal divisions of the people of the world, God must be amused if not heart broken.
Remember, our faith is described in both the Old and the New Testaments: in the Old Testament there is the story of the so-called "Tower of Babel.” It is found in Gen. 11:3-9 and is the record of the origin of separate languages. It is said that once humankind spoke one language. But then people settled in Babylonia and began to build with bricks and other building materials a tower which they said "would reach to the heavens", God was not pleased with their inflated estimate of their own abilities, so he destroyed the tower and scattered abroad the people and confused their languages, thus creating linguistic havoc and by scattering the people, they became divided. When a child "babbles" it means he is speaking in a language, which doesn't make sense.
So when you put this memory of the "Babel of the people" with the story in Acts Two, where all the people come together, one of the amazing things that happened on the day of Pentecost, was that all the people are brought together in a common language. Partians, Medes and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Pamphylia, Egypt and visitors from Rome, Cretans and Arabians, all heard them speaking in their own native tongues of the mighty works of God. And the people were amazed and perplexed, saying what does this mean?" I will tell you what this means:
The linguistic chaos, the babal of the past, is overcome in the presence of God. As is all chaos overcome in the presence of God.
It is the chaos of our life with which God's presence overcomes. Chaos, turmoil, confusion is overcome when we are in God. If today your life is overrun with confusion, inner turmoil, difficulties, or characterized by divisions, the animosities, the hatred, the antagonisms, which divide people, then you need today to open your heart to the unifying work of the Holy Spirit.
Leo Tolstoy once wrote: "A lot of people want to change the world, but few want to change themselves." It is ourselves who are in great need, of the restorative work of the Holy Spirit. It's not my brother, not my sister, not my neighbor, but it’s me O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.
So we learn from Acts two and this rather fascinating record of the realization of the Holy Spirits' presence, that:
1. The Holy Spirit comes when we come together.
Isolated and alone, we experience divisions and death. Judas committed suicide alone in a field of empty dreams. Thomas alone was filled with doubts, but when he came to the upper room, he found fellowship and he found Jesus. When you find family, with Church, with community, we find strength. Alone we find chaos, turmoil, and death.
AA groups in our city provide community for so many.
2. The Holy Spirit overcomes our divisions . . .we live today in an age when there is much turmoil. It is hard to envision a united people, when there are such divisions. But here this clearly: Unity and peace happened for the Disciples on Pentecost and it can happen on this Pentecost for you!
Some things I just don't understand:
I don't always understand dreams-they are a great mystery. I believe that sometimes they are a simple processing of the day's events. Sometimes they are insights about our thinking that is flawed and we need to change. Sometimes I think dreams are God's way of guiding us into the truth about the future. Dreams are interesting, but I don't always understand the why and wherefore of the dreams or why disease and accidents and riptides can end our lives prematurely.
I cannot understand, for the life of me, what good cancer does in the world. I cannot understand the reason for snakes, I tend to accept so many of the things I cannot understand - but for cancer I pray that we will conquer it as we have Yellow Fever and Polio. One of our Sunday School classes, the Olive Branch Class, recently participated on behalf of our whole church, in the "Relay for Life" which celebrates survivors of cancer and raises money to support research. We pray for the eradication of cancer from the face of the earth one day.
There is much that I don't understand. Why was I born so blessed with so much - great parents, a loving, loyal wife, good children and on the affluent side of the tracks? I grew up in Marengo County at the edge of a black community that was called "The Ditch." Why was I born on the edge of the ditch while others were born "in" it? I have come to know individuals who were born in Sierra Leon, Palestine, in the Sahara and Zimbabwe. Why were they born "in the ditch" and I on the side of it?
Neither do I understand how the butterflies, Humming Birds, and Blue Buntings migrate. They fly such long distances and some die, but those homing instincts are passed on to their off spring and they return like "Swallows to Capistrano" or "Blackbirds to Cordova Mall, or the Robins to my back yard. Some things I just don't understand.
I don't understand Albert Einstein's formula E=MC2. I just have never gotten it. I'm glad that there are some who do understand such things, but while I can appreciate it, I got through my science, geometry and math courses by simply memorizing what was, without ever understanding.
But there are some things I do understand and one of the most important is the nature of the divine mystery, which we call God. The reason I understand God is because God has chosen to reveal this great truth to me and to you. He does so through the Holy Spirit as a response to our faith in Jesus Christ. The Bible states the nature of the divine so clearly in the most plausible ways imaginable, and all is confirmed by my experience. A lot of things I don't understand, but God I do understand. I don't always understand all of his ways, or administrative policies for "His thoughts are beyond my thoughts, His ways beyond my ways." But he probably doesn't always understand me either. I can't imagine that, but I guess anything is possible.
Jesus said in John 16-I will send the Holy Spirit and he will lead you into the truth. He is our guide, our Counselor. Our Teacher. I have come in more recent years, to appreciate the fact that the Holy Spirit is the bridge we walk on to the place of mystery. Think about this wonderful news: God has given us a bridge to mystery. God is a Creator, Redeemer, and an ever-present Spirit.
The Church refers to our understanding of the mystery as the Trinity-God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity. In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
It has been interesting to watch as Larry has struggled with his coming retirement years. He has been Father Timothy in the Midford Series of novels - a delightful summer read. But Father Timothy, an Episcopal priest, and "Preacher Larry" have struggled like many as they begin to deal with who they are when their profession doesn't define everyday what they are.
Someone said: "When I retire, I'm going to learn about things I have always wondered about: The planets above and the plants on the earth. I'm going to claim a regular life so that I can water my plants everyday, a little bit."
Someone else said: "When I retire, I'm going to grow in my spirituality and I'm going to learn more about God." Well, let me tell you this, you don't have to wait on that one.
You can read and study the Bible, Disciple Bible Study groups are forming all the time and if you are ready today to start, call me and we will start one, you and me. You don't have to wait to learn God's truth about himself.
1. God is Creator. Like a parent from whom creation is born.
Childbirth is done a bit differently today than when our girls were born. The father was normally kept as far away from the action as humanly possible. Today, the Father is often present in the birthing room and is hands on. Not me. I prefer to sit in the comfort of a waiting room reading a Sports Illustrated or Field and Stream and be told when everybody is rested and washed.
Well to give credit where credit is due, the style today does seem to have a certain bonding quality about it. Creation is a joint venture from conception through birth and then beyond. As a matter of fact, being a parent never ends. There is a bond that can legally be changed, but there are emotional bonds, which can not be severed. Creation binds us with the Creator.
Amazing really, that the Creator of the Universe as Jesus taught us can be referred to as "Our Father." Approachable, caring, present. God is father, Our Father.
2. And secondly, as Jesus showed us, God is our Redeemer. Jesus was from the very beginning of his ministry the one who was to "bear our grief and carried our sorrows…He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed."
In the service of Holy Matrimony in our Church liturgy, there is no longer the vow "wives be obedient to your husbands." Nor the vow that "husbands are to provide for their wives.” These phrases over the years have become confusing with the changing roles of men and women in the modern age. In some cases the wives are the provider and the husbands are the supporters of their wife's work. The business of wives being obedient to their husband" comes from Ephesians 5:21 where the Apostle Paul calls upon husband and wife to "be obedient to one another out of reverence for Christ."
There is something in the Ephesians chapter, which we need to not lose as the older established roles of men and women change. This Biblical teaching does in fact say that both husband and wife are to be "obedient to one another out of reverence for Christ" and that husbands are to love their wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for the church."
Love in Christian understanding is a verb not merely an adjective. It is something you do, not merely a description of something you feel. As Christ died for the church, so also a marriage that endures is one in which both partners are willing to sacrifice for the one they love.
God, in whose image we are made, is one who "Loved the world and gave his only son, so that whosoever believes in him should never perish, but have eternal life."
God, Jesus showed us, would die for the likes of us. We know that God, is like Jesus in his willingness to sacrifice and die for us.
3. And thirdly, God is a present spirit guiding, teaching and counseling
Recently my Grandson and I went down the Blackwater River in a canoe.
Going downstream is easy and not a great deal of struggle, it's when you are trying to swim upstream that you have difficulty. The spirit of the force of the water flowing downstream is like that of the spirit of God guiding us. If you don't feel it, perhaps you need to explore other streams.
Often I have felt God's guidance, but the other day it was so very evident. Sometimes it is a strong urge, a powerful hunch, a persistent thought, constant prodding. I was pushed to do something, which called for my presence and discovered that a friend had just that morning died. If we will follow the guiding impulses, God will lead. Our great God is like a Father – a redeemer – an ever-present spirit.
The Gift of Love
Galatians 2:15-21
A second-grade class was asked this past year to write about their personal heroes. It is always a great honor to make a list of "the heroes" of a second grader. One of the fathers was flattered to find that his son had chosen him. He asked: "Why did you pick me?" And he answered: "Because I couldn't spell Arnold Schwarzenegger."
I think it fair to say that most of us would like to be considered "a hero" in the eyes of our children or our grandchildren. I would like to be remembered as a person who made a difference in my lifetime in my community, my church, and my family as a person in whom Christ lived. So this morning, It is my purpose to encourage you to "Live By Faith.”
Corrie ten Boom was a courageous Dutch woman who was interned in a Nazi prison camp during World War II because her family helped to hide Jewish people from the Gestapo. During her and her sister's imprisonment, and her sister died in the camp, Corrie lived by faith in God and demonstrated to her fellow prisoners and to the prison guards that circumstances or how other people behaved would not dictate how she would behave. Her faith in God, her confidence in a power beyond herself and beyond the dreaded cruel guards, that's what shaped her life. Corrie liked to define faith as FAITH.
Fantastic---Adventuring----In --Trusting ---Him. Corrie was right on target as faith is an act of trust that comes from being in a living relationship with God.
I. Faith begins as we first of all, REPENT OF OUR SIN, relinquish our strong wills, AND TURN OUR LIVES OVER TO GOD'S CONTROL.
Each week, we have a building committee that meets and monitors the progress of the construction work going on all around us. It is an interesting process to observe the relationship between the architect and the contractor, as we proceed on what is a rather complicated, challenging project of remodeling the Sanctuary and Youth Center buildings that are over one hundred years old. The architect and the contractor have to work together. The contractor, who is on the job site every day, doing the work, cannot ignore the architect's designs.
It is interesting to think of the architect as God while we are the contractors. We are on the job site, but we cannot do whatever we desire at the moment, we have to trust the dreams and design of the one who sees the larger picture. And every day we have to decide to follow God's plan for our lives rather than creating our own designs. We are empowered to decide "How" we do it, but not "what" we do.
There is a power greater than yourself and as you turn your life over to his design, you will find peace and fulfillment. Any other way is frustration and eventually death. To repent of our sin, is to turn from trying to dictate everything on our own terms. We, you and I, are a part of something far larger than our individual roles.
The Apostle Paul wrote: "I have died, and it is now Christ who lives in me." "Christ in me" is the design for God for each person. "I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and delivered Himself up for me."
Living by faith is "dying to self". The theologian Karl Barth has written: "Those who believe in Jesus can no longer look at their death as though it were in front of them. It is behind them." To die to one's self is to put behind us the illusion that we are in control of our destiny. That we can live our lives on our own terms. That if God, or the Federal Government, or my boss, or my spouse, or my parents will leave me alone, "I can handle my life." That's simply not true. You are a part of something far larger than yourself.
Timothy McVeigh's death, and I hesitate to give his tragic life any more press time than it has already received. We know his name but few of us can recall any of the 168 names of the creative, hard working, honest, innocent, citizens who died because of his warped attitude toward life and toward the government. Nevertheless, one of the things we can learn from his execution, is that his death was the inevitable consequences of a life lived beyond the laws of the nation and the moral law of the universe. You are the contractor on the job, but you are not the architect, God is. You may not like the design of the building, but you are not the architect. God is. You may not like the color of your skin, the situation of your circumstances, the limited abilities you possess or the way things seem to fall out for everybody else, except you, but you are not the architect, God is. God was here before you, and he will be here long after you are gone. And whether or not you will be in heaven, is not because of you, it is because of a loving creator who has called you into being and who of Jesus Christ who said: "Because I live, you will live also."
We have developed quite a resource in our Church library, resources for all ages, both audiovisuals and reading materials. Treat yourself and your family to a trip to the Church library. It could be a summer adventure for the whole family.
Some of you are familiar with the biblical commentaries of Dr. William Barclay. Barclay was a Scottish Scholar. He was a pastor and a theology school professor. Barclay knew what it meant to die to self and to live by faith in God. Shortly after his death, it was discovered that when he was a young man he had written on a plain piece of paper "An Act of Commitment". In this act of commitment, Barclay had surrendered his life to the Jesus Christ. He dedicated everything he had-his mind, his body, time, possessions to the glory of God. Now, what I want you to hear is that Barclay signed this act of commitment, every year until his 85th birthday. By then it had become quiet yellow in color and worn around the edges. His pledge ended with these words: "To thee O God, I leave the management of all events and say without reserve, 'not my will but Thine be done."
Living by Faith means first of all, dying to self, that we may be made alive by Christ.
In the Mitford Series of novels, the prayer that the Episcopal Priest says is "the prayer that never fails” is the one that Barclay concluded his act of commitment: "not my will but thine be done."
When you turn your life over to God, you begin gradually to have a sense of new openness to the divine mystery. It sometimes is like the budding of a rose, slow, tentative and yet in the end something that is very beautiful.
Turning one's live over to God, leads to gradually seeing something good in every thing. You begin to believe that God is involved in your life, that he places things in your life to teach you something, or to provide a new opportunity for you, or to redirect you. Now, there are times when you wonder about God's wisdom. I often think he must have a keen sense of humor for doing some of the things he does in my life. I have a friend who is always open to learn something, because he believes that God is always placing someone or something in your life to help you along. So if I have lunch with him, he says things like "what have you got for me today?" Man, relationships with some people, really takes a lot out of you. But I love his spirit, he lives expectant of God’s promise.
One day, I was in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I had a little time before I was to catch a plane and get out of the far north and so I visited the Mall of the America's. This place was advertised as the largest shopping Mall in all of America. And it was huge. There were stores carrying everything you would ever need or want. I saw a couple of ladies who looked like Susan Davies, who looked like they were living in that mall. Having to live in the largest shopping Mall in America would be for me the closest thing to Hell, I can image.
Well here I have a little time to kill and I'm sure not going to shop, so I ride the NASCAR Race Car - no, make that, "I drive a NASCAR Race Car, eat some Chinese food, and then as I was walking down the main corridor I see this sign "Learn to Play the Piano in just five minutes."…I look around to see if there's anybody I know watching, and in I go. … I didn't do bad. I mean I was no Heidi or Rick Branch or no Tom Helms or Van Cliburn, but I didn't do half bad.
At the same time, 5 minutes does not a pianist make! Neither is there a shortcut to Spiritual formation. It takes a lot of dedication, discipline, focused reflection and prayer. "Dying to self" is a process and although it begins in our baptism, it is an everyday decision, coupled with God’s gift of His Holy Spirit guiding us every day.
The Mirror Tells It
All
Galatians 3:26-29
Summertime is one of the greatest of seasons and, at least for me here in Pensacola, it is right up there with fall, spring, and winter.
Every season has its joys and blessings, but every season also has its challenges. The heat of the summer and the heavy humidity and the need to work the yard every week… One of the other challenges is shopping for a bathing suit and having to stand in the dressing room of some department store in full neon light and see yourself in a three-sided mirror. What can I say, the mirror tells it all! A friend of mine expressed my feeling when she said, "you know, they don't make mirrors like they used to."
Although I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it, I do at times wonder, "do others see the real person I am or do they see the person they want me to be? When you look in the mirror, what do you see?
A long time ago a salesman stopped by a farm house in the county in which I grew up and asked the lady of the house: "Is your husband home? And she answered: "he sure is. He's out at the barn by himself cleaning out the hog pin." The salesman said, "well I've got something to show him. Will I have any difficulty finding him?" And she answered, "you shouldn't have any difficulties, there in the hog pin, he'll be the one in a t-shirt with a mustache."
Let us consider this morning the image in the mirror - the question of identity. Not so much what others might see when they look at us but who we really are; the person who looks back at us when we are by ourselves and we look in a three-way mirror. Obviously I’m not talking about physical attributes, but character and spirituality.
Well, the mirror tells it all. What do you see? Do you see a harsh person looking back at you or do you see a gentle spirit. Do you like the person you see looking back at you? You can tell by looking at some people that they have had a hard life, that they have had a heavy saddle and someone has ridden them hard. You can see anger, bitterness, guilt and regret. You can see love, faith and hope. Now I don't want to make you self-conscious, don't be overly concerned about what you may look like, but I do want to encourage you to become the person you really are, to be the person you want to be, and to be the person you truly believe God has created you to be.
Now it's fine to invest in exercise equipment or join a local gym and get regular exercise and to eat a proper diet so that you may look your best, but if you really want to look your best, then you really ought to invest in the kind of person you want to be. Your character can affect your appearance. A person’s self identity affects how they look. Of course genetics and physical health can certainly play a role in our appearance, but it is true that who we are affects how we look.
Our sense of identity affects our appearance.
Do you see yourself as a "Child of God"? Created in his image?
To be made in the image of God is to claim a life of purity, honesty and sacrificial love.
Paul in Galatians suggested that we put on Christ. Have you put on Christ? In Colossians 3:12, he writes: "Put on then, as God's chosen ones, compassion, kindness, meekness and patience. And above all, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony." In this same section of scripture, he writes: "Put to death what is earthly in you; fornication, impurity, evil desire, and selfishness."
In World War II, a Dutch theologian named Henry Kramer met with a group of Christians who knew that their Jewish neighbors were disappearing from their homes and businesses everyday. And they asked Dr. Kramer "What can we do?" Dr. Kramer answered: "I cannot tell you what to do, but I can tell you who you are. And if you know who your are, you will know what to do." Our perception of ourselves-what we see in the mirror-is a reflection of who we are and what we consider important.
Individuals have made things happen in the world through our church now for three centuries. Because of our identity as a people we believe in unity with all the diverse people of the nation.
Alexander Talley, our first Minister, was in ministry with the Choctaw Indians. His ministry was reflective of other Christian groups in the U.S. in the early 19th century.
Jan De Hartog in a historical novel entitled "The Peaceable Kingdom" writes of the history of the people known as the Quakers in the U.S. In true Quaker fashion the Quakers would meet and come to a meeting of minds on whatever confronted their community. They model the best of our Wesleyan committee or Conferencing process. Increasingly the Quakers in Philadelphia came to their decisions on the basis of reason rather than on the basis of their Christian commitment and they drifted from their original basis as can easily happen with any person or group of persons. The 19th century Quakers were faced with the dilemma of their Christian commitment when a group of Delaware Indians who were running for their life from a group of frontiersmen, presented themselves to the city of "Brotherly Love" asking for sanctuary. The Quakers were faced with the dilemma of do they protect the Indians and thus run contrary to the times and national tendency of the 19th century or do they reject them and run contrary to our Christian beliefs? They met in silence and waited for God to move in and someone to speak a word of guidance. Finally a shy woman broke the silence and asked: What would we do if these were our children, our brothers, our sisters, our fathers, our mothers? Then she answered: “wouldn't we take them into our homes? Feed them? Care for them? How can we treat these people any differently?"
When you know who you are, you know what to do. And so over the years, our church has led the way in breaking down racial barriers and becoming an advocate for the teachers of the community and in times to come we must be aggressive in welcoming people who are different from most of us in our church family. We will need to be initially more aggressive to those individuals who are seeking to re-establish their lives, youth who are victims of their own poor choices or the choices of their dysfunctional parents, prisoners and foreigners trying to get a new start, former drug addicts trying real hard to find solid footing. I'm not telling you what to do, I am simply reminding you who you are, and if you know who you are, you will know what to do.
Finally, our sense of identity, what we see in the mirror, can affect our perception of God.
When you sit in the sanctuary, if you are uncomfortable, or if you feel that the eyes of God are judging you or if you are ridden with guilt because you feel you are letting God down, then you probably will not come back often, because those are not very pleasant feelings. The Church has a lot of dropouts. If you feel the church to be cold today, then you could be sitting in that spot right under the balcony, which is an arctic zone, or you could be taking your own spiritual temperature.
How you feel about yourself will often affect how you feel about God and God's Church. St. Paul tells us who we are in the scripture for today: "For now we are all children of God through faith in Jesus Christ."
So this is who we are, children of God. This is our true identity. We can relax knowing we are in God's hands. Be gone --- lines of worry and sadness and resentment in our reflected image. Be gone ---eyes of fear and confusion. Be gone…
You are going to look good in a mirror after this service this morning, for you are God’s child. The mirror will tell it all.
For most of us there will never be an expose on TV about us, and the tabloids will not reveal our deep dark secrets-at least I hope they won't. Our faces will probably never make the cover of weekly magazines. But if we know who we are and if we have a secure relationship with God, our lives can be counted a success and it will reflect in the mirror when we stand before it done.