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05/23/21 – Bad Breath, Birthday Candles, and Hope

BAD BREATH, BIRTHDAY CANDLES, AND HOPE

May 23, 2021
Pentecost Sunday
Ezekiel 37:1-14, Romans 8:22-27, Acts 2:1-21
Elder Alan Willadsen

We want to be in control.  “So much of our time is spent attempting to control every aspect of our existence from the upbringing of our children to the next five-year plan for our business.  We try to control our time, our environment, our future, our health, and our weight as if our desire for an outcome is the same as reality itself.

“Much of the impulse for control is based on a fear-driven life; we fear the worst and therefore try to design our actions and behavior in a way that will avoid risk.”[1]

Boy Scouts know about controlling risk.  Ask any Boy Scout what the motto is and they’ll say, “Be Prepared.”  Even though that organization has influenced cultures throughout the world for over 100 years, nothing could prepare us for the last sixteen months and the COVID-19 pandemic.  Like wildfire, it spread rapidly, consuming energy, life, and resources.  We cannot prepare for how we will be a community in a post-pandemic world.  Neither can we expect a return to what we thought was “normal”—that is, life as we knew it in 2019.

A gathering of Jews, approximately 120 in all, including eleven of the original Christian apostles, was meeting in an upstairs room in Jerusalem.  Jesus’s last words to them had been, “This is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.  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.” I suspect some of these words may have presented a foreign concept and been forgotten while they were waiting, focusing on how to carry out Jesus’s charge, and electing Matthias to replace Judas. Nothing could have prepared them for what was about to happen.

Jerusalem was full of pilgrims from throughout the world, gathered for worship to celebrate the first fruits harvest festival, Shavuot (literally “weeks”).  It is celebrated 50 days after the start of Passover, and is also known as the “Feast of Pentecost,” a term derived from the Greek word meaning “fifty.”  Leviticus 23 prescribes the timing of this mandated feast day of gratitude. As the second most important feast day in their calendar, Jewish males were required to observe this festival at the Temple in Jerusalem.

The city was crowded.  Jesus’s followers had separated themselves to plan how to go forward.  While there, apart from the crowd, a noise intruded.  It was not any noise, but one like the “rush of a violent wind.”  Here in central Illinois in 2021, we are familiar with violent winds in the form of tornadoes.  We rely heavily on the National Weather Service to let us know when a violent wind is coming.  We hunker down and try to control the risk such storms create.  The disciples could neither anticipate nor control what happened next.

When meeting with Nicodemus, Jesus said, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.”  We might also add, “or when.”  Peter’s group could not prepare for the arrival of the Holy Spirit, even though it had been promised as imminent.  This noise was accompanied by some sort of visual image, described as “tongues of fire.”  Every single person in the room was given the ability to speak in other languages.  Think about who these people were.  Peter had been recognized in the courtyard by his Galilean accent.  They all had spoken the same language but were now gifted to speak other languages, a necessity to be witnesses to the ends of the earth.

The wind-like noise certainly drew a crowd.  The foreign visitors were welcomed by this Christian group who spoke in their own languages so they could understand.  In their own language, they heard about God’s deeds of power.  What a mystery!  No translators needed when God provided the gift of language to the messengers.  Is there any modern-day parallel?  Would we hear it or recognize it?  What sort of message would—or could–cut through all the conflicting media?  There may be a parallel, but we would want to understand the facts of the situation and control the explanations—or, more likely, let CNN or Fox News do the explaining.  I think we tend to be more skeptical and ask, like some in the crowd, what have those people proclaiming a message of God’s power been consuming?

Luke records 15 different nationalities hearing about God’s power.  When our children were at Northmoor-Edison primary school, there were more than 20 languages spoken as the primary language at the students’ homes.  What would our community or neighborhood be like with such diversity?  We live in a time when calls increase for including the other and treating them fairly, a time when we hear a lot about “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”  Can there be any better example than this Pentecost experience, in which God’s power brings all people to the table?  Remember—this table here is Christ’s and is open to all who call Him Lord.  We will experience such fellowship in a short while, even if we participate remotely—the Holy Spirit will see to it.

In addition to enabling the disciples to speak to others in their own language, the Holy Spirit emboldened Peter.  We remember how impetuous Peter was, but we also remember he was the one Jesus said would deny him.  Now Peter proclaims Jesus.  Relying on the power of the Holy Spirit, Peter boldly spoke to the crowd in Jerusalem, quoting from Scripture and speaking of fulfillment of prophecy.

The prophet’s words would have been familiar to these observant Jews.  Joel paints pictures of ruin and restoration in an agricultural allegory about the nation of Israel.  Much of Joel speaks of desolation in the fields, rather than gratitude for a bountiful harvest.  The passage from Joel Peter quotes refers to how God will pour out God’s Spirit on all flesh—old, young, male, female, slave, and free—all people will benefit from God’s Spirit. This portion of the prophet’s writing is hopeful and future-oriented, about a time when God restores a diverse, equitable, and inclusive order.

Is there any more vivid, powerful image of restoration in all scripture than Ezekiel’s description of the valley of dry bones?  The Spirit of God breathes new life into a community in new, unexpected ways.  Here, as in Acts, the Spirit comes without man’s bidding.  Instead of giving words of God’s power to all people, God gives words to a single person.  Those affected by the Spirit do not request the Spirit—neither Ezekiel nor the dry bones call on the name of the Lord.

The dry bones, representing the whole house of Israel, are hopeless.  They feel abandoned and cut off from their community.  After more than a year of social isolation and worship in absentia, and being part of a declining mainline protestant church, it seems pretty easy to think of ourselves as the dry bones.  Are we like the house of Israel, saying we are dried up and our hope is lost?  NO!  I challenge you to hear and live like the prophet who hears God’s promise: “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.”

Paul hearkens back to Shavuot when he writes how we possess “the first fruits of the Spirit,” reminding us of the festival in which the first fruits of the harvest are brought and offered to God.  In this case, the first fruits are given to us.  Paul also reminds us God has given us the Spirit, an active, loving Spirit, interceding with God on our behalf.

Bishop N.T. Wright put it this way: “We in the modern West have actually shrunk the gospel into being a message simply about how I get to heaven, rather than a message about how God and God’s life and God’s Son and God’s Spirit come to earth to dwell with us and to transform earth so that it becomes the New Heavens and New Earth.”[2]  This is Good News:  the Holy Spirit is with us

What was. . .  is no longer.  “The Spirit of God transcends human ability and transforms human inability.”[3]  As followers of Christ, the Spirit gives us new life and leads us to the future of hope.  When we cede control, the Holy Spirit breathes new life into us and transforms a dry past into a hopeful future.

“In Acts, the Spirit empowers the disciples to speak in languages they had never learned and gives them a boldness to do so publicly—a boldness that up to this point they had not had. [In Ezekiel, the Spirit breathes new life into a weary, hopeless nation.]  In Romans, the Spirit helps believers pray in ways that they could not pray on their own. . . In other words, God has both knowledge and resources that we don’t have. And in sharing these things freely with us, God makes it possible for us to do what we cannot do alone.”[4]  God freely shared the Son with us.  The Son’s death saved us—something we cannot do ourselves.  Jesus’s resurrection shows God’s power to give life.  At this table, we remember Jesus and how He gave us knowledge and resources to live as God’s ambassadors on earth.

Amen and Amen.

 

 

[1] Kampmann, Eric.  Trail Thoughts.  New York:  MJF Books, 2008.  “May 14.”

[2] N.T. Wright on the Dangers of Neglecting the History of the New Testament (churchleaders.com)

[3] McKnight, Scot.  A Fellowship of Differents:  Showing the World God’s Design for Life Together.  Grand Rapids:  Zondervan, 2015.  Amazon Kindle edition, p. 91.

[4] Merola, Rob.  “Living by the Word:  Radical Reliance.”  The Christian Century.  Radical reliance: Acts 2:1-21; Romans 8:22-27; John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15 | The Christian Century