Pentecost Sunday, 2023

Pentecost runs a distant fourth in the high holy days of the liturgical year, coming in behind Easter, Christmas, and Mother’s Day. (Yes, I know Mother’s Day is a cultural holiday, not a high holy day on the liturgical calendar, but most people know more about and pay more attention to Mother’s Day than they do Pentecost Sunday – hence, my giving it a fourth-place finish.) While most church members can associate Pentecost with either the pouring out of the Spirit or with the birth of the church, they know little – I fear - about the meaning or significance of Pentecost for their own lives as a follower of Jesus today.

The story of Pentecost, recorded in Acts 2:1-4, is rich with imagery. The meaning or significance of the event is found in that imagery. I identify four images embedded in the story. Each hold meaning for us as the followers of Jesus today.

The first image is found in the description of what happened as the Spirit was poured out on the disciples. The room was filled with “a sound like the rush of a violent wind” – think West Texas tornado – and “divided tongues, as of fire appeared among them,” Acts 2:2-3. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the presence of God is always represented by a storm or fire. God spoke to Job out of a whirlwind, to Moses out of a burning bush. The wind and the fire of the Pentecost event point to the presence of God in their midst.

This image draws on the Tabernacle the people of Israel built at Sinai. The LORD instructed the people to construct a Tabernacle “that I may dwell among them,” Exodus 25:8. When the Tabernacle was completed, the Shekinah presence of God filled the Tabernacle, represented by a cloud by day and fire in the cloud by night, Exodus 40:34, 38. The LORD dwelt in the midst of his people through the Tabernacle.

The destruction of the Temple by the armies of Babylon in 586 BCE created a spiritual crisis for the nation of Israel. They felt abandoned by God, forgotten and disregarded (see Isaiah 40:27). The unnamed prophet of the exile spoke to that crisis, assuring the people of God’s presence and care. “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior,” Isaiah 43:2-3. In the midst of their crisis and despair, God was still with them – in their midst.

On our spiritual journeys, we often walk through difficult times in which we – like the people of Israel in exile – wonder if God has forgotten us or if God cares. Like the psalmist, we experience times of spiritual dryness in which God seems distant (see Psalm 42). The Pentecost event reminds us that God is always with us. God is closer to us than the breath in our lungs.

The Pentecost event is the next expression of “God with us.”  God’s Spirit was not poured out onto a building such as the Tabernacle or the Temple, but onto a spiritual community of the followers of Jesus. We, the followers of Jesus, today, are “a holy temple,” the “dwelling place of God,” Ephesians 2:21-22. Through the indwelling Spirit, God is with us - in our midst as a spiritual community.

Of course, the ultimate expression of “God with us” was in Jesus, the Word made flesh. Jesus was Emmanuel in the fullest sense of the word. In the incarnation, God robed the divine self in human flesh and lived among us, as one of us, John 1:12-14. Through Jesus, we know what God is like. We know the ways of God. We know God’s truth. In him, we experience God’s grace – “grace upon grace,” John 1:16.

The second Pentecost image grows out of the first. Through the indwelling Spirit, God is not only with us, God is in us. In John 14, Jesus taught the Spirit “abides with you, and he will be in you,” John 14:17. In the Pentecost experience, the tongues of fire rested on each of Jesus’s followers gathered together in that place. The Spirit filled each of them.

Through the indwelling Spirit, God dwells in each of us. We are the continuing incarnation. We are the next expression of God-in-the-flesh. Through the indwelling Spirit, we are the presence of God in the world.

This image – the continuing incarnation – leads to the third image.

As the Spirit filled each of the disciples, each received the ability to speak a language that was not their native language. As a result, each foreigner visiting Jerusalem for the Pentecost festival was able to hear in their own native language what the disciples were proclaiming about Jesus, Acts 2:5-11.

This ability to communicate across national/cultural lines recalls the story of Babel, recorded in Genesis 11. In that story, everyone on earth spoke a common language. As a result, the people sought to invade the realm of the gods – represented by the tower reaching up to heaven (the realm of the gods). They were not content to be human (the same theme represented in the serpent’s statement to the woman, “You shall be like gods,” Genesis 3:5). Their arrogance and overreach led to the confusing of languages, resulting in the division that marks the world.

The Pentecost event is the reversal of Babel. Through the gift of the indwelling Spirit, cultural divisions were overcome. The church as the dwelling place of God on earth transcended cultural distinctions. “In Christ Jesus, you are all children of God through faith. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus,” Galatians 3:26, 28. Rather than ethnicity or socioeconomic status or sexual orientation, the Spirit makes Jesus the defining characteristic of a person’s life. Through the work of the indwelling Spirit, oneness can be experienced in the midst of the world’s brokenness and division, in and through Christ.

As the continuing incarnation of God in the world, we are God’s partners, doing God’s work, working to bring God’s ultimate purpose into reality. God is seeking to restore oneness to all of creation – unity in heaven and on earth. “To gather up all things in him (Christ), things in heaven and things on earth,” Ephesians 1:10. The church as a spiritual community learning and living the ways of Jesus is both a foretaste of that oneness and the means by which that oneness is demonstrated to the world. As the continuing incarnation of God in the world, we are the means by which God works in the world to achieve that eternal, redemptive purpose. Through the indwelling Spirit, we are God’s partners in the world, doing God’s work.

The thought of being God’s partners, doing God’s work often stirs a sense of inadequacy in our minds. We think of ourselves as incapable, as insignificant. Who am I? What do I have to offer? What can I do? This sense of inadequacy leads to the fourth image buried in the experience of Pentecost.

For the Hebrew people, the festival of Pentecost celebrated God’s giving the law to Moses on Mt. Sinai. The law was God’s greatest gift to them as a people, setting them apart from all others.

It was central to their identity as the people of God and to how they sought to live as the people of God.

The gift of the law sets the stage for understanding the gift of the Spirit. These two gifts represent two different ways of living as the people of God. (The apostle Paul contrasts life in the Spirit and life in the law in Romans 8 and Galatians 5.) The gift of the Spirit brings a new way of living for the followers of Jesus.

The law tells us how to live. It focuses on behavior - what to do, what not to do. It emphasizes conformity. The law depends on self-effort and self-reliance. We conform to the demands of the law by trying harder to do better.

The apostle Paul – who built his early life around strict obedience to the law – identifies two weaknesses inherent to the law. First, whereas it can tell us what to do, it cannot give us the power to do what it demands, Romans 8:3-4. We are left to our own to power to live up to what the law requires. The second weakness is its focus. The law focuses upon behavior, leaving the heart unchanged. Jesus, following Jeremiah the prophet, identified the heart as the source of the problem, Mark 7:14-23.

The Spirit empowers us to move beyond both of these limitations. The Spirit not only teaches us the ways of God, the Spirit also empowers us to live the ways of God. The Spirit empowers us to love as Jesus loved – which Paul identified as the fulfillment of the law, Galatians 5:14. The Spirit empowers us to love – thereby fulfilling the law – by transforming our hearts and minds.

The Spirit works from the inside, out. The Spirit teaches us the ways of God Jesus taught – spiritual truth. This renewing of the mind (Romans 12:2, Ephesians 4:22-24, Colossians 3:9b-11) leads to a cleansing of the heart. As our minds are renewed and our hearts cleansed, our lives are transformed. The Spirit empowers us to fulfill the law – love – by transforming our hearts and minds and lives. The Spirit empowers us to love by growing us up in the likeness of Christ.

The Pentecost experience introduced a new way of living as the followers of Jesus. Paul spoke of this new way of living as being led by the Spirit (Romans 8:14) and as living by the Spirit (Galatians 5:25) and as walking in the Spirit (Galatians 5:25). The indwelling Spirit leads us to love as Jesus loved, to love those Jesus loved. As we love as Jesus loved, as we loved those Jesus loved, we are God’s partners in the world, doing God’s work – the continuing incarnation of God in the world.

We are able to do God’s work in the world - loving as Jesus loved, loving those Jesus loved - because God is with us through the indwelling presence of the Spirit.

May we reclaim our life in the Spirit as we celebrate Pentecost this Sunday.

Merciful God, may it be!

7th Sunday of Easter, 2023 - That They May Be One

The New Testament records the content of three prayers that Jesus prayed – the prayer found in Matthew 6 and Luke 11 in which Jesus taught his disciples (us) how to pray – commonly called the Lord’s Prayer, his prayer in Gethsemane the night of his arrest, and the prayer found only in chapter 17 of John’s gospel (today’s lectionary gospel reading). Some scholars refer to this prayer as Jesus’s high priestly prayer. It takes the place of his prayer in Gethsemane. (John’s gospel does not record that prayer or the struggle it reflects.)

The prayer divides into three parts. In verses 1-5, Jesus asks the Father to glorify him – a reference to his resurrection and ascension. Verses 6-19 record his prayer for his followers – his disciples. Verses 20-24 record his prayer for those who would become his followers through the witness and work of the disciples - us.

It is helpful to note what Jesus wanted for his followers, for us.

Jesus wanted his followers – us – to know the Father the way he knew the Father, John 17:2-3. In John’s gospel, revealing the Father was central to Jesus’s work. (See John 1:14, 18; 17:6.) To know the Father is to experience the Father’s love in the gift of forgiveness. It is to live in relationship with the Father as a beloved child. It is to experience eternal life. “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, thee only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent,” John 17:3. Note that Jesus defined eternal life as knowing the Father, not as life after death. To know the Father is to experience God’s quality of life – eternal life – here and now.

Jesus wanted his followers – us – to be one as Jesus and the Father are one, John 17:12, 21-23. “Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one,” John 17:12. The oneness or unity of the Godhead (Father, Son/Jesus, Spirit) is a oneness grounded in their mutual character of self-giving, servant love. They experience oneness in the midst of their differences. Their oneness respects and values their differences, recognizing differences as a strength that opens the door to greater possibilities and creativity. Their oneness transcends any hierarchy. Biblical scholars use the term “unity in diversity” to describe this oneness.

Jesus wanted his followers – us – to experience the life of the Godhead – their unity in the midst of their diversity. The apostle Paul reflected this quality of relationship in his imagery of the body of Christ, 1 Corinthians 12. We experience this kind of oneness as we grow spiritually in the likeness of Christ – as the character of Christ is engrained in us.

Note that this prayer for us to experience the oneness of the Godhead is embodied in Jesus’s prayer for the Father to protect us, John 17:12. His followers were in the world but did not belong to the world, John 17:14-15, because they lived by the truth Jesus taught them. That truth put them out of step with the world. They were no longer at home in the world. Thus, Jesus prayed for their protection, from those who opposed them and particularly from the evil one, John 17:15.

The world’s concept of oneness is sameness – think alike, believe alike, live alike. It fears diversity (differences), demanding conformity. Jesus prayed that his followers – us – would be protected from such thinking.

The oneness Jesus desired for his followers – us – was the means by which the world would know that the Father sent Jesus, John 17:21. Such oneness stands in marked contrast to the ways of the world. Such oneness moves us beyond the world’s us-them thinking and relating, embracing diversity as a gift as we function out of self-giving, servant love.

Jesus wanted his followers – us – to experience the fullness of his joy, John 17:13. Joy is what we experience as we abide in Christ, loving as he loved. “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete,” John 15:11. Joy is the fruit of the Spirit – what the Spirit produces in our lives, Galatians 5:22. It is what we experience as we grow in Christ, living out of the peace of Christ, loving as Jesus loved. It is the inner spirit out of which we live when we live in oneness.

Jesus wanted the Father to sanctify his followers – us – in the truth. He identified truth as God’s word, John 17:17. To be sanctified is to be made holy or whole. Jesus wanted his followers – us – to grow in our understanding of God’s truth so that we could grow into wholeness – maturity.

Finally, Jesus wanted his followers – us – to be with him, John 17:24.

This priestly prayer of Jesus centers on oneness. Knowing the Father leads to learning and living by his truth. It leads to oneness which, in turn, leads to joy.

In a highly polarized world and church, Jesus’s prayer calls us to a way of thinking and relating than is different from that found in the world. It calls us to oneness, not division. Our division, fueled by conflicts and hostilities, reflects our humanness. Paul identified our conflict and division as works of the flesh, Galatians 5:19-21. Jesus’s prayer calls us – as the followers of Jesus and the children of God - to reflect the character of God and the life of God by living in the oneness of the Godhead.

6th Sunday of Easter, 2023, Mind--blowing Thoughts about the Incarnation

Incarnation – it is the major theme of the gospel of John. In Jesus, God robed the divine self in human flesh. The Word – who was with God in the beginning, who was a face-to-face equal with God, who was God (John 1:1) – became flesh and dwelt among us.

As God embodied in human flesh, in Jesus we catch a glimpse of who God is and what God is like (John 1:14, 18; 14:8-11) – a second major theme of the gospel of John. We learn of God’s grace and faithfulness (John 1:14). More, we experience that grace in our own lives – “From his (Jesus’s) fullness we have all received, grace upon grace,” John 1:16. We live in relationship with God as beloved children (John 1:12-13; 14:2-4 – see again last week’s blog, “A Place for You”).  

After his death and resurrection, Jesus ascended back to the Father. His incarnation did not end with his ascension. He did not set his humanness aside. He did not return to his pre-incarnation status described in John 1:1. Rather, he returned to the Father robed in his humanity. He returned to the Father as he had lived on earth, as God-in-the flesh. The apostle Paul pointed to this mind-blowing truth in the ancient hymn he quoted in Philippians 2:5-11.

            Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

            who, though he as in the form of God,

            did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited (for his own selfish gain),

            but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,

            being born in human likeness.

            And being found in human form,

            he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death –

            even death on a cross.

            Therefore God also highly exalted him

            and gave to him the name that is above every name,

            so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bend,

            in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

            and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

            to the glory of God the Father.

God’s self-emptying in the incarnation was not for the brief span of Jesus’s thirty-three years. It was for eternity.

The writer of Hebrews built his letter upon this great truth (Hebrews 1:9-18). The letter presents Jesus as the great High Priest interceding for us (Hebrews 4:14 – 5:10; 10:19-25). We have boldness and confidence in coming to God because Jesus understands our struggle, offering grace to help us in our time of need (Hebrews 4:14-16).

The gospel of John presents another mind-blowing thought about the incarnation. The incarnation did not end with Jesus. Through the Spirit who dwells in us and among us (John 14:17), the incarnation continues. We – the followers of Jesus, in whom the Spirit dwells – are the continuing incarnation of God in the flesh. We – the gathered followers of Jesus, the church – are the new temple, the dwelling place of God on earth (Ephesians 2:11-22).

The Spirit is the continuing presence of Jesus in the world, doing what Jesus did in his ministry on earth. The Spirit is God-with-us (John 14:17-18). The Spirit reveals the Father to us, teaching us the things of God and the ways of God that Jesus taught (John 14:25-26). The Spirit leads us into and empowers us to live out of the peace of Christ (John 14:27). The Spirit empowers us to love as Jesus loved, i.e., keeping his commandments (John 14:15, 21-24). The Spirit empowers us to do the works that Jesus did as well as even greater works (John 14:12) as the Father responds to our requests in Jesus’s name (John 14:13-14).

Through the presence and work of the Spirit in our lives – individually and as a spiritual community – the incarnation continues. We are the continuing incarnation of God in the world.

I wonder, what "greater works than these" (John 14:12) will God accomplish through this on-going incarnation. 

 

5th Sunday of Easter, 2023 - A Place for You

Jesus’s words in John 14 (today’s lectionary reading from the gospel) are one of the most commonly used texts in funerals for Christians.

“In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also,” John 14:2-3.

We use this text at funerals because we understand the place that Jesus was going to prepare for us was a place in heaven. We read the text as though Jesus was talking about heaven.

But what if Jesus was not talking about heaven in this text?

The word “heaven” is not used either in these specific verses or in the larger context in which they are found (John 14 – 16). The images generally associated with heaven (based on Revelation 21 – 22) are not used in the passage.

In the larger passage, Jesus taught his disciples that he was going away — a reference to his death, resurrection, and ascension back into heaven. He was seeking to prepare them for life in his physical absence. As he taught them about his “going away,” Jesus spoke of the coming of the Spirit. (The Spirit is the dominant theme of John 14 – 16.)

Although he was leaving them, Jesus was not abandoning them (John 14:18). The Father would send the Spirit to live in them and among them (John 14:17; 16:7). Just as Jesus had walked with them, so the Spirit would walk with them by dwelling in them. The term Jesus used to speak of the Spirit captures the idea of one walking with them to help them. Jesus spoke of the Spirit as “one called alongside” (John 14:16). This term has been variously translated as Advocate, Helper (NRSV alternate reading), Counselor, and Comforter. Unlike Jesus who was leaving them, the Spirit would be with them forever (John 14:16). The Spirit would continue to do what Jesus had done. Just as Jesus had revealed the Father to them (John 14:7, 9) and taught them the ways of God, so the Spirit — whom Jesus called the Spirit of truth (John 14:17) — would teach them, building on what Jesus had taught (John 14:26). The Spirit would lead them into even greater truth (John 16:12-15). In addition, the Spirit would empower them to do the things Jesus had done and to do even greater things (John 14:12). The Spirit would be like Jesus, doing what he had done and more. The Spirit would be the Spirit of Jesus, the Risen Christ, in their lives and in their midst. Thus, his going away was to their advantage (John 16:7b).

But what about the place Jesus was going to prepare for us? Where is it? What is it?

The text gives us hints. The place Jesus prepared for us is the place where Jesus is. “So that where I am, there you may be also,” (John 14:3. Where did Jesus go? Jesus went back to the Father (a recurring theme in the gospel of John). Thus, the place Jesus prepared for us is a place with the Father, i.e., a personal relationship with the Father. In Jesus, we are a part of God’s family, i.e., the children of God.

The imagery of many dwelling places in my Father’s house (literally, “many rooms,” John 14:2) reinforces this understanding. The world in which Jesus lived was a patriarchal society. The father was the head of the family, including the larger, extended family. When a son married, a new room was added to the father’s house for the new couple. A room was added for every child and grandchild who married and lived under the father’s protection and care. All of the resources of the father were available to those who were a part of his family. Thus, the meaning of Jesus’s imagery was that he was preparing a place for us in Father's family. The place he prepared was a place in relationship with God as Father.

The Spirit is the means by which we experience this relationship, including all that the Father has for us. Through the indwelling Spirit, Jesus and the Father live in us, John 14:23b. We live out this relationship by abiding in Christ, John 15. We abide in Christ and Christ abides in us – mutual abiding. “Abide in me as I abide in you,” John 15:4.

Jesus used the metaphor of a vine and its branches to speak of this abiding, John 15:1, 5. As long as the branch is connected to the vine, the life of the vine flows in and through the branch to produce fruit. In the same way, the life of Jesus flows in us and through us as we stay connected to him. We stay connected to Jesus and the Father through the Spirit who lives in us. This Spirit-based abiding empowers us to bear much fruit. The biblical writer described this fruit as asking and receiving in prayer, living the ways of God Jesus taught (my commandments), experiencing joy that flows from the depths of one’s being, and loving as Jesus loved (John 15:7 – 12).

Jesus spoke of going away. He also spoke of coming again. “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also,” John 14:3. His words are commonly understood as a reference to his second coming. The larger context guides us to a different understanding. Jesus came again in the person of the Spirit. In the Spirit, we experience the presence of the Risen Christ. The relationship we have with the Father, the life we have in Christ are ours through the Indwelling Spirit. Through the Spirit, we experience God’s quality of life as our own – here, now. God’s life, as revealed in Jesus, is a life of self-giving, servant love. This life of self-giving love is what the gospel refers to as eternal life. We don’t have to wait until we die to experience it.

Relationship with God, here and now, in which we experience God’s life in us and flowing through us through the Indwelling Spirit – that’s the place Jesus went to prepare for us.

But what about heaven?! Heaven – heaven is the word we use to refer to the place where Jesus and the Father live . . . which just happens to be in us through the Indwelling Spirit. “We will come to them and make our home with them,” John 14:23b.

Looks like we might need to rethink our understanding of heaven.