Differing Voices, Differing Gifts; One Spirit, One Mission

Acts 2: 1-21, 1 Corinthians 12: 3b-13

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And they all spoke in different languages, and all the different people from different countries and different walks of life could understand them.

Different languages.

I was trying to think this week of how many different languages are spoken by people in this congregation.

If you can converse in another language, or read another language, would you raise your hand?

…..

I speak Engineer. Many people do agree that that is absolutely a unique language, right? Can I get an Amen for that?

But isn’t it true that, even if we don’t know the language of another nationality, that we each learn other languages based on our lives?

Life teaches us different languages.

Our different backgrounds

Our different geography

Our age

Our gender

Our family history

Our roles in life

Our gifts

All these give us different connection points with different people.

So, what other languages do you speak? Either raise your hand or just call them out, whatever makes you comfortable.

……

We all have our own multiple languages, whether we realize it or not. They are the basis of how we connect with one another. We seek common ground, a way of finding shared experience, shared understanding with one another.

All these different languages give us each a different connection point with the people around us.

The Word of the Lord, the Love of the Lord can be revealed to others by each of us differently, in different times, and places, and circumstances, based on the languages we have learned.

Our particular faith stories, the stories about how our lives have been changed by following Christ, these stories speak differently to different people at different times.

Paul wrote, “No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.” And we know because of Pentecost that the Holy Spirit is here, is in each one of us, and is working differently in each one of us, through our different lives, through our different gifts.

When we gather together to worship, we grow in understanding of the fullness of the Holy Spirit and what is intended for us as the church.

When we leave, we scatter to share the good news in the way each of us can show it and tell it best.

Gathering and scattering; learning and sharing; show and tell. This is the life of a disciple; this is the life of the church. Through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The parables, the lessons of the living Word have different meanings to us at different points in our lives, and so we can share them differently with others based on what they say to us and to them. We all become interpreters of the Word by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Henri Nouwen writes that the power of God, given to us through the Holy Spirit, is not power that controls, dictates, and commands. It is, instead, the power that heals, reconciles, and unites. That is the power of the

divine Spirit that Jesus wants to give us. The Spirit empowers us and allows us to be healing presences. When we are filled with that Spirit, we cannot be other than healers, reconcilers, and uniters. 

The different gifts, the different languages of the one Holy Spirit are in each one of us, encouraging and guiding us toward one common mission, one great commission, one church, serving one Lord and Savior.

Take a look at this video with me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmweXyEeoBw

The flame is in each one of us. It’s the desire, the burning in our hearts at those times we feel the need to say something to someone or do something for someone that will help heal them, that will bring reconciliation, that will unite rather than divide.

One of Eleanor’s languages is pies. Through her pies she warms the hearts of those who save lives by giving blood.

One of Janet’s languages is prayer shawls. She keeps making them, praying as she goes, and we take those gifts and share them with others who need to feel God’s presence wrapped around them.

One of Donna and Lynn and Francis’ languages is visiting those who are not able to be with us in worship. They are making the rounds behind the scenes, speaking their unique languages of the Holy Spirit to everyone they see.

One of Mike’s languages is the garden he is planting to provide good healthy food for people who would not otherwise get to enjoy a homegrown tomato in the middle of the summer.

And of course there are many others.

And we don’t need to know exactly what words to say – the Holy Spirit can be counted on to make them work, even when they feel lame or inadequate to us, if what is in our hearts is that desire to heal, to bring reconciliation, to unite.

Even our quiet presence with others brings to them the power of the Holy Spirit. We don’t have to do it right. We just need to keep our hearts open to the Holy Spirit, and we can warm the hearts of anyone with our reconciling, healing, uniting love – because that love comes from God, through the Holy Spirit.

Let’s keep finding ways to tell the story we have to tell, as individuals and as the church, in our words and in our work, always speaking and working out of love.

Thanks be to God for Pentecost!

Thanks be to God for the church!

Thanks be to God for love!

Amen.

Moving On

Acts 1: 1-11

This past Thursday is described on the church calendar as Ascension Day – 40 days past the Easter Resurrection, commemorating the day that Jesus was lifted up and taken out of sight, beyond the clouds.

And this past Thursday we learned that Dr. Maya Angelou had died. She was described by her family as a teacher, activist, artist and human being; a warrior for equality, tolerance and peace. In their statement, they described her passing as her ascension, interestingly enough.

One of Maya Angelou’s most well-known poems is called “Still I Rise”, and this weekend the Rev. Kathleen Sheets took excerpts from that poem, read by Dr. Angelou, and combined it with artwork depicting Christ’s life, death, resurrection and ascension. She then graciously offered it up for use by other clergy. I’d like to share it with you to begin today’s proclamation of the Word.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4ZzsoIOz0Y

Just when we’re getting used to life’s routines, it seems, something is bound to change. We finally get used to kindergarten, or high school, and boom! we graduate and on to the next unknown. We develop a stride in our career, or our home life, and something changes to make us learn how to live with a new normal.

Whether it’s a change we bring about ourselves, or a change that is imposed on us that we would rather not have happen – moving on is hard.

And even as we try to settle into a new normal, there are times that we wish things would just go back to the way they were – back to when the place was familiar, the faces were familiar, the expectations were familiar.

There is grieving associated with change. Because change means giving something up. There is a loss involved.

The disciples had settled into something of a routine as they followed Jesus. Even though their lives had changed dramatically the day they left their fishing boats and their families, it appears from the scriptures that the pattern of their lives were shaped by following Jesus, listening to Jesus, doing whatever tasks Jesus assigned to them.

Even though the three years brought many strange and unimaginable experiences, the pattern of their days was not all that different than the life of any student who apprenticed to a rabbi. They didn’t have to make many decisions for themselves; they followed Jesus.

As the time drew near, and Jesus knew his days on earth were numbered, his words of instruction were still so confusing that they didn’t really sink in. What was happening was not clear. And so his arrest, trial and death were a terrible crisis for them. And so it’s not surprising that they responded first with fear, and then with disbelief, as they tried to imagine life without him, and then tried to comprehend the fact that there he was, alive again.

So for the next 40 days, even though he was saying to them, “I will rise; I’m not staying long; the Holy Spirit is coming and you will learn a new way of following”, who could blame them for falling into the old routine; listening to him, following him as much as they could in this new way of experiencing him, and hoping that things would stay as close to the same-old, same-old as possible. As long as Jesus was there, they could all safely play second fiddle; none of them really dared to step out on their own, to move on.

And then one day, without any real warning, Jesus rises up, up, and away, and he’s gone. It’s not hard to imagine the disciples standing there, looking up, their mouths hanging open with astonishment. Until the angels on the ground say, come on now, it’s time to move on. You have work to do; kingdom work. Jesus will be coming back again, don’t forget. And he left you specific instructions until then. Which did not include going back to the way things were; that is no longer an option. Don’t look back; we’re not going that way.

My friend, Jenee Woodard, lives in Jackson, Michigan. She graduated from a Methodist college, and married Bob, who is a special ed teacher. Jenee worked in a variety of ministry capacities, and planned to attend graduate school and pursue an academic career. Her interests were the Bible, early Christianity and commentary on Biblical texts.  

She gave birth to her daughter Jaie, who is now 25 and a biophysicist pursuing her Ph.D. at Harvard. Several years later her son Phil was born. He is now 22, and at age two he was diagnosed with severe autism. And that is when Jenee’s life took a hard left turn.

For Jenee, that change in her life’s reality meant dropping plans for the doctorate, dealing 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with Phil’s autism, and figuring out how she could still develop a ministry. And so in 1998, with the internet still in its infancy, Jenee imagined how cool it would be if a pastor preparing a sermon could read all of the different commentators right next to each other.

So she began to collect all the online commentaries, liturgies, articles, and other sermon supporting materials she could get her hands on, and she organized them online according to their related scripture texts.

And she named it The Text this Week. It’s now internationally known as textweek.com, and it gets over 2 million “hits” (or people clicking on its links) each month – 4 million around Easter!

In an article written last year about Jenee in Faith and Leadership Journal, the Rev. Peter Wallace, the president and executive producer of the Alliance for Christian Media and on-air host of the Day1 program, said, “Her influence on the Christian church today is unbelievable. If you think of all the preachers who use her resources and preach sermons from all those resources, she probably has more influence on mainline churches than any resource today.” 

Jenee lives just down the road in Jackson, Michigan, and still is a one person show handling textweek.com. It never would have come to be if Jenee hadn’t landed in the midst of a life changing situation that caused her to change her life reality, and to move on from the initial plans she had made for herself and her family. 

As she says now, “A ministry, to me, means giving myself away – not for what it gets me or God or the church – but for the act itself. To me, this is probably the essence of faith.”

The disciples had to move on without Jesus in their daily midst – without him being visible and follow-able. Their challenge was to continue following him, feeling his love, hearing his voice, all through the power of the Holy Spirit, and finding new ways to be his hands and feet and body and ministry in the world, to share his love so others would experience him and want to follow him too.

And this is our challenge as well. In order to follow Jesus we have got to be ready and willing to move on when the time comes to change. We cannot turn around and fold our arms and say we want it the way it used to be, the way it always was. Christ makes all things new.

Christ calls us to follow, including following in new directions when it is time to move on. 

And so, despite grief and loss and fear, still we rise, and still we go forward, in the words of Maya Angelou, in the path of Jesus Christ our Savior, in hope, in trust, and in faith.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

More Than Memories

John 14: 15-21

[Jesus said] “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.  This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. “I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.  In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. 

On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.  They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day, and it began after the Civil War to remember and honor all the soldiers, both Union and Confederate, who had fought and died in that war. Then as now, volunteers would place US flags at the gravesites of soldiers. Later, parades began to be held. Nowadays, it sometimes seems, this national holiday is mostly marked by barbecues and appliance sales as a way to spend the extra day off from school and work. But in the midst of all that, we do still remember and honor those who gave their lives to protect our freedom.

Every Memorial Day weekend when I was growing up, after church on Sunday, my mom and dad would get my grandma and we would have lunch, then head over to White Chapel cemetery, where we would drive somewhere into the center, near a large sculpture I can still see in my mind’s eye, and stop the car, and count our way down the rows and then down the grave sites, until we found the grave site of my Uncle Kenny, who I never met; my dad’s older brother, who was killed in France in 1944 during World War II.

Dad would carefully trim away any grass that was growing long around the edges of the gravestone, while Mom and I took the upside down vase out of the ground, turned it right side up, went to a nearby pump and filled a container we had brought with water. We’d transfer the water into the vase, and then carefully arrange half the flowers we had brought from our garden in the vase, saving the other half for my grandpa’s gravesite nearby. A bit of the water would be poured carefully onto the gravestone so we could rub it clean. I can still remember the feeling of my fingers outlining the name and the cross etched into it, or the water and the cool stone, or the times it had been warmed by the sun.

I remember how strange it seemed to go to my grandpa’s gravesite next, and see my grandma’s name already etched into it, her birth year there too, with a dash next to it, waiting for the unknown future year of her death to be added later, even as she was standing there with me.

I haven’t been back there since Grandma died while I was in high school. I stopped going when I went away to college, and I don’t think I’ve been there since. But I’m going to go there this afternoon, to search for their graves, and to remember them in that strange, tangible way that cemeteries seem to offer us. It seems like a cemetery is one of those places where you feel like you are in that thin space between heaven and earth, where you can sense them both.

And in that time of standing still, of kneeling down to lovingly clean up the gravestone, of placing flowers, and during the drive there and back in the car, the memories do come back to you. You remember the times you spent with the person, and you think of the stories you have been told, even if you never met them. It is all a part of you, and through these memories they abide with you, they remain a part of you.

When Jesus speaks the words of our scripture text this morning to the disciples, they still do not understand what is coming; that this young man, this teacher they follow, will die a violent death in just a few days.

He is trying to prepare them for what is to come.

He knows that they will feel like they have been orphaned, these disciples who have left their work, their homes, their families to follow him. And he knows they will think that all they have left are the memories of the brief time they had with him. And so he tells them, I will not leave you orphaned.

         You will see me, even though the world cannot.

         You will live because I live.

         You will be in me, and I will be in you.

It sounds a bit like memories, doesn’t it? The way those we love seem to live on inside of us, in our memories.

But Jesus is speaking of more than memories. He tells them that God will give them another Advocate, the Spirit of truth. He tells them that this Spirit already abides with them and will be in them.

He knows that memories will not be enough to sustain them for the kingdom work that lies ahead for them all, for us all.  And as time goes on, and all of us who are followers of Christ look back over the past 2000 years, and we try to understand the meaning of Christ’s life and death and resurrection, and to explain to others the hope and promise that has been given to us, we need more than memories, too.

The Bible, on its own, is a type of memory book, a scrapbook, a recording of the ways that God has worked in the world, how God has taken the brokenness of humanity, over and over again, and redeemed it, redeemed us.

But the Bible is more than memories, because it comes alive through the Holy Spirit. It is because the Spirit abides in us that we keep Christ’s commandments, to love God and love one another. Our memories are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit into the ways God calls us to action.

Christ says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. If you love me, you will live a life of obedience to my commandments. And what are those commandments? To love God with our whole heart, mind, strength, and to love our neighbors the same way we love ourselves. Our memories – both our personal experiences and the stories we hear that remain with us, including the Bible stories –

our memories go beyond just making us feel good, when we let the Holy Spirit work on us to show us what to learn, how to live, how to love. How to love God, and how to love one another. 

Sometimes the Holy Spirit is helping us see through our experiences and our memories how not to love God, and how not to love one another.

Always, the Holy Spirit is there as our Advocate, our Counselor, our Trusted Advisor and our Friend.

This is God abiding in us, helping us to know what to do, helping us to translate and interpret our memories and the stories of life all around us into new direction, new hope, new ways to work together – if we will open ourselves to hear. Joan Chittister wrote, “God is calling lovingly to us always, if we will only stop the noise within us long enough to hear.”

It is by the power of the Holy Spirit that God calls to us, that Christ comes to us. We are not alone, in any of our joys or our sorrows, because God has given us the Holy Spirit, to be with us, to abide with us forever. Christ is revealed to us in our everyday lives, in the Holy Spirit who urges us toward love, who urges us toward keeping Christ’s commandments. This participation of the Holy Spirit in our understanding and our actions, is about so much more than memory; it is what forms the ongoing life of discipleship; it is what shows us how to live our lives in new ways, as Easter people; it is what Jesus told his disciples they (and we) would have to provide help along the way; it is the Spirit of the life that has conquered death, the life that truly is life.

And so our lives as disciples are not just based upon memories, even as we continue through our lives to hear and to ponder and to tell others the stories, as the words of a hymn put it, “to tell the old, old stories, of Jesus and his love.” We continue to take these old, old stories and interpret them in the new contexts of today’s world, in communion with the Holy Spirit, in order to use these stories full of memory and of future hope, to dedicate our lives to loving God and loving one another, and in that way reflecting our love of Christ to the world, recognizing with grateful hearts that God has given us so much more than memory in order to guide us in lives of obedience to Christ’s commandments.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.