Pentecostal Prophecy (Sermon)

 “Pentecostal Prophecy”

Genesis 1:1-5 and Acts 2:1-18

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

5/28/23

 

When God began to create the heavens and the earth— ² the earth was without shape or form, it was dark over the deep sea, and God’s wind swept over the waters— ³ God said, “Let there be light.” And so light appeared. ⁴ God saw how good the light was. God separated the light from the darkness. ⁵ God named the light Day and the darkness Night.

There was evening and there was morning: the first day. (CEB)

 

When Pentecost Day arrived, they were all together in one place. ² Suddenly a sound from heaven like the howling of a fierce wind filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³ They saw what seemed to be individual flames of fire alighting on each one of them.⁴ They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them to speak.

⁵ There were pious Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. ⁶ When they heard this sound, a crowd gathered. They were mystified because everyone heard them speaking in their native languages.⁷ They were surprised and amazed, saying, “Look, aren’t all the people who are speaking Galileans, every one of them? ⁸ How then can each of us hear them speaking in our native language?

⁹ Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; as well as residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰ Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the regions of Libya bordering Cyrene; and visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism), ¹¹ Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the mighty works of God in our own languages!”

¹² They were all surprised and bewildered. Some asked each other, “What does this mean?”

¹³ Others jeered at them, saying, “They’re full of new wine!”

¹⁴ Peter stood with the other eleven apostles. He raised his voice and declared, “Judeans and everyone living in Jerusalem! Know this! Listen carefully to my words!¹⁵ These people aren’t drunk, as you suspect; after all, it’s only nine o’clock in the morning! ¹⁶ Rather, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

^17 “In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
    Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
    Your young will see visions.
    Your elders will dream dreams.
¹⁸     Even upon my servants, men and women,
        I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
        and they will prophesy.” (CEB)

 

 

         Pentecost. The spring harvest festival fifty days after Passover. What appears to be “individual flames of fire.” The litany of toungue-twisting names. The scoffing cynics saying, Who let Drunk Uncle in?

         No one’s drunk, says Peter. It’s only 9am. Then he quotes the prophet Joel who speaks of “the last days,” days when the gift of prophecy will enjoy a new beginning.

         And now, says Peter, God is revealing those last days.

The thing about those last days, though, is that they aren’t really last at all. They are, as with all “last things,” brand-new first days, a fresh start marked by a revitalizing re-emergence of God’s Spirit. And as that Spirit permeates the Creation—the same Creation over which it once merely hovered (Genesis 1:2)—prophecy breaks free from old confines. It’s no longer a rare gift. It’s a new way of life for “all flesh,” a new reality for sons and daughters, young and old, male and female.

Pentecost, then, marks not so much the arrival of something brand new, but of humankind’s re-awakening to the eternal mystery called the Holy Spirit. And we discover, sometimes to our chagrin, that the Spirit is slave to no one—not to any nation, or language, or even theology.

         “I will pour out my Spirit,” says God, “and they shall [all] prophesy.”

         My southern upbringing in church left with me with a rather cartoonish image of prophets—guys walking around in dark robes tied with rope, their heads hidden inside deep, drooping hoods, and each arm stuffed up the wide sleeve covering the opposite arm. These prophets knew God’s mind. They could read our minds, too. Obviously appalled at their reading material, they shouted judgment and hellfire to scare people into righteousness. All-in-all they seemed to have more in common with teachers of the dark arts at Hogwarts than anything that looked like Jesus. Since scripture describes prophecy as a gift given generally, generously, and graciously in the Creation, I have to wonder where all that fiction came from.

         Harper’s Bible Dictionary defines a prophet as “a person who serves as a channel of communication between the human and divine worlds.”¹ In terms of potential, that leaves no one out.

         If we are the Church, and if Pentecost is in some way the birthday of the Church, then Pentecost must reveal something of our call to­—and new birth into­—a prophetic life. Remember Paul’s words to the Romans: “We know that the whole creation is groaning together and suffering labor pains…And it’s not only the creation. We ourselves who have the Spirit as the first crop of the harvest also groan inside as we wait to be adopted…” (Romans 8:22-23) And to the Galatians Paul wrote, “God sent his Son…so that we could be adopted. Because [we] are sons and daughters, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father!’” (Galatians 4:4ff)

Now THAT is prophecy!

Selfish and idolatrous motives often corrupt our intentions and turn us toward domination and self-aggrandizement rather than service. Still, if we’re called and equipped to serve as “channel[s] of communication,” then in some way God is choosing to see, to listen, to speak, and to act through us on behalf of the created order. And THAT, too, makes us prophets.

         I think that the big difference in this new, Pentecostal prophecy lies in what we look for and what we find at the very core of ourselves and others.

         For millennia, the church has taught that sin is the core reality of each of us and of all of us together. Sin is real, of course, and we need to name it and resist it, because it not only excuses but justifies violence, racism, sexism, materialism, and schism. I do, however, take issue with manipulating people by telling them that they were born depraved, that their fundamental identity is one of guilt before God. It also seems to me that this shame-fed understanding of self and of God almost always creates more sin. It creates communities of fear and enmity rather than faith. It also strips faith communities of their trust and vision and leads them to do more to try to maintain a status quo and guard material assets than to follow Jesus in transforming ministry. And while part of me understands that, especially in our increasingly unpredictable world, it’s still sin, or as the Greeks said, hamartia, which means missing the mark.

         Listen, we are people of Incarnation, Resurrection, and Pentecost. So, we are being led by God’s transforming Holy Spirit which is always in the process of creating and re-creating the world and our places in it. And as the story in Acts reveals, that re-creation is always toward wider inclusion and more far-reaching ministry.

         Because the essence of God is holy, dynamic, and creative relationship, and because God made us in God’s image, humankinds’ own fundamental essence is holy, dynamic, and creative relationship. Being created by relationship, for relationship, community is our true home. And a Christ-following community is one of trust, openness, and self-emptying discipleship.

On top of all that is the gloriously complicating wonder of our own uniqueness, our own gifts, capabilities, incompletions, and vulnerabilities. We bring all of these things to every relationship. So, just as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist as an inseparable whole, we need each other. We find our wholeness, our true selfhood when we enter relationships that nurture us by asking as much of us as they offer to us.

A distinction may be helpful here. I define individualism as the depleting and destructive belief that I am absolute, whole, and complete in and of myself. And that is true of no one. Even the most isolated hermits need the earth, don’t they?

Individuality is much different. True individuals express their individuality by recognizing, celebrating, and developing their unique set of gifts and experiences so that they might enjoy them and share them with others. True individuals also express their individuality by welcoming the gifts and experiences of others so that everyone might know a new depth of wholeness and joy.

Pentecost reveals that, through holy and spirited relationship, we draw closer to God even as we draw closer our neighbors and the earth. In relationship, we claim our blessedness. In relationship, we claim ourselves and one another as blessings. And in Christ-like relationship, we become prophets—“channels of communication between the human and divine worlds.”

The point of the prophecy unleashed at Pentecost transcends any personal salvation that merely makes the individual feel safe from hell.

 The point of the prophecy unleashed at Pentecost is a life of Holy-Spiritedfullness, mystery, and love. And this life is for everyone, of every language, everywhere, and all the time.

 

¹Robert. R. Wilson, Harper’s Bible Dictionary, Paul J. Achtemeier, General Editor. Harper & Row Publishers, San Francisco, 1985, p. 826.

Don't Worry?! (Sermon)

 “Don’t Worry?!”

Psalm 104 (Selected Verses) and Matthew 6:25-34

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

5/14/23

 

Let my whole being bless the Lord!
    Lord my God, how fantastic you are!
    You are clothed in glory and grandeur!
² You wear light like a robe;
    you open the skies like a curtain.
³ You build your lofty house on the waters;
    you make the clouds your chariot,
    going around on the wings of the wind.

¹⁰ You put gushing springs into dry riverbeds.
    They flow between the mountains,
¹¹         providing water for every wild animal—
        the wild donkeys quench their thirst.
¹² Overhead, the birds in the sky make their home,
    chirping loudly in the trees.
¹³ From your lofty house, you water the mountains.
    The earth is filled full by the fruit of what you’ve done.
¹⁴ You make grass grow for cattle;
    you make plants for human farming
        in order to get food from the ground,
¹⁵         and wine, which cheers people’s hearts,
        along with oil, which makes the face shine,
        and bread, which sustains the human heart.
¹⁶ The Lord’s trees are well watered—
    the cedars of Lebanon, which God planted,
¹⁷     where the birds make their nests,
    where the stork has a home in the cypresses.

³¹ Let the Lord’s glory last forever!
    Let the Lord rejoice in all he has made!

(Psalm 104 [selected verses] – CEB)

 

²⁵ “Therefore, I say to you, don’t worry about your life, what you’ll eat or what you’ll drink, or about your body, what you’ll wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds in the sky. They don’t sow seed or harvest grain or gather crops into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth much more than they are? 

²⁷ “Who among you by worrying can add a single moment to your life? ²⁸ And why do you worry about clothes? Notice how the lilies in the field grow. They don’t wear themselves out with work, and they don’t spin cloth. ²⁹ But I say to you that even Solomon in all of his splendor wasn’t dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If God dresses grass in the field so beautifully, even though it’s alive today and tomorrow it’s thrown into the furnace, won’t God do much more for you, you people of weak faith?

³¹ “Therefore, don’t worry and say, ‘What are we going to eat?’ or ‘What are we going to drink?’ or ‘What are we going to wear?’³² Gentiles long for all these things. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³ Instead, desire first and foremost God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴ Therefore, stop worrying about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:25-34 – CEB)

 

Last week, we heard John’s Jesus telling the disciples not to let the world rattle them. This week, we’re listening to Matthew’s Jesus say a similar thing, but to a very different audience in a very different context.

Back in John, Jesus tries to assure his disciples at the very end of his ministry. In Matthew, Jesus is giving his sermon on the mount to the crowds right at the beginning of that ministry.

In John, Jesus has just told his disciples a lot of disturbing stuff about what’s going to happen in the next few days. In Matthew, Jesus has just told the crowds what makes for true blessedness. Then, he basically re-writes key points in the law by saying, for instance, You’ve been taught to love your friends and hate your enemies. And I say, love and pray for even those enemies. Only that will bless you both.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus isn’t preparing his listeners for his absence. He’s preparing them for living a life that doesn’t look like the grasping and fearful lives of those who are privileged and powerful. Those who have more than their share almost inevitably end up, like the hideous Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, worshiping and guarding their possessions because they’re terrified of losing any part of them. Instead, Jesus is preparing the people for a simple life of gratitude, generosity, and joy. And while that’s wonderful, the simple life requires trust—and lots of it. And the kind of trust that leads to and nurtures faith in the goodness and grace of God, begins with a basic awareness of God at work in the Creation.

Look at the birds, says Jesus. Look at the lilies of the field and the grass. They don’t worry!

One can imagine that Jesus read or heard Psalm 104 just before saying these things. That ancient hymn praises God for the gift of the Creation and for God’s faithfulness in sustaining and delighting in all that God has made.

 While most of us can appreciate these earthy images, we’ve also seen how, during drought, flowers pale, bow toward the dry earth, and die. We’ve seen how quickly lack of water can turn grass into fuel for devastating wildfires. We’re also seeing now how much more frequent all of that becomes as our climate deteriorates from humanity’s lack of faithful stewardship.

As for the birds of the air, I’ll say this: We don’t have a cat anymore, but when we did, during nesting season, we had to keep our sweet kitty in the basement so he didn’t kill every fledgling in the neighborhood and leave the carnage scattered in our driveway. All of that is to say, unless you’re drought-resistant, or occupy a higher link on the food chain, Jesus’ advice not to worry may ring hollow.

         Parents who live in poverty and struggle to feed their children can’t imagine a place or a time when worry is not part of their reality. Those who suffer abuse or violence of one kind or another may never return to a place of un-worried peace. Many soldiers who survived the dehumanizing brutality of war, and even more of the innocent people who watched loved ones suffer, die, and then get dismissed as “collateral damage” often sneer at the very idea of God. And who can blame them?

         So sure, consider the lilies, the grass, and the birds. Lilies and grass may face threats to their well-being. But they don’t worry. Birds can be stressed, but do they really know fear as human beings do? Jesus’ audience are people who constantly confront the merciless manipulations of the emperors and his minions, all of whom are willing to abuse and kill to maintain their power.

For us, these are days of relentless worry and fear. Wars and rumors of warsare always with us. In recent years, an exclusive and violent hyper-nationalism has found traction in our nation, and around the world—even among many who call themselves Christian. Inflation and the threat of recession keep us on edge. Politicians, TV networks, advertisers, and anyone else who has something to gain or lose will exploit the anxiety and distrust in our culture to achieve their selfish ends.

         And let’s be honest. As an institution, the Church has always used fear to help keep itself awash in money and influence. Indeed, many within the Christian family have done as much to keep people terrified of and bound to a vengeful God and a bloodied Jesus than all the Mother Teresas and Martin Luther Kings have done to reveal the compassionate, liberating, and fearless Christ.

Under the influence of fear, evangelism gets reduced to, basically, Believe as you are told, or go to hell. Now, vote this way, put your paycheck in the basket, and don’t worry about anything. God will provide.

         Because of this kind of abusive theology, more and more people who used to be involved in the church are leaving it. They’re tired of being associated with such worrisome speech and behavior.

         Worry does not have to define us, though. Anxiety and fear are not the last words. Jesus’ assurance that God can be trusted to respond to the needs of the Creation means that, in the end, love wins, and God’s shalom will prevail.

You and I, we’re more than flora and fauna. And while, as Jesus says, every tomorrow holds worry of its own, we are, nonetheless, God-imaged creatures with creative consciousness, and a spirited unconscious, as well. Through these gifts, we can do wonderful things, deeply spiritual things—holy things. We can imagine, dream, create, and love.

Our call as the church, then, is to model an alternative way of living in a world racked with worry and enmity. Our call is to trust God, and through that trust, to seek, find, and share God’s realm of grace which permeates every here and every now in which we live.

Road, Truth, and Life (Sermon)

 “Road, Truth, and Life"

Psalm 130 and John 14:1-11

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

5-7-23

 

I cry out to you from the depths, Lord—
² my Lord, listen to my voice!
    Let your ears pay close attention to my request for mercy!
³ If you kept track of sins, Lord—
    my Lord, who would stand a chance?
⁴ But forgiveness is with you—
    that’s why you are honored.

⁵ I hope, Lord.
My whole being hopes,
    and I wait for God’s promise.
⁶ My whole being waits for my Lord—
    more than the night watch waits for morning;
    yes, more than the night watch waits for morning!

⁷ Israel, wait for the Lord!
    Because faithful love is with the Lord;
    because great redemption is with our God!
⁸ He is the one who will redeem Israel
    from all its sin.

(Psalm 130 – CEB)

 

^1-4 “Don’t let this rattle you. You trust God, don’t you? Trust me. There is plenty of room for you in my Father’s home. If that weren’t so, would I have told you that I’m on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I’m on my way to get your room ready, I’ll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I’m taking.”

⁵ Thomas said, “Master, we have no idea where you’re going. How do you expect us to know the road?”

^6-7 Jesus said, “I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him. You’ve even seen him!”

⁸ Philip said, “Master, show us the Father; then we’ll be content.”

^9-10 “You’ve been with me all this time, Philip, and you still don’t understand? To see me is to see the Father. So how can you ask, ‘Where is the Father?’ Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you aren’t mere words. I don’t just make them up on my own. The Father who resides in me crafts each word into a divine act.

¹¹ “Believe me: I am in my Father and my Father is in me. If you can’t believe that, believe what you see—these works. (John 14:1-11 – The Message)

 

 

         On Wednesday afternoon I looked at my phone and saw that I’d missed a call from someone in my church. So, I tapped the missed-call notice and rang him back. Instead of hearing some customary greeting, I heard, “Nothing’s wrong! Don’t worry. Everything’s alright.” So, I immediately thought, “Oh no. What happened?” As it turned out, everything was okay. We just had some food pantry details to tend to.

Still, when someone says, Don’t worry, or Don’t let this rattle you, or Don’t let your hearts be troubled, isn’t it human nature to start worrying, because isn’t what we hear, Don’t worry, but…?

         When Jesus says, “Don’t let this rattle you,” but I mean, “You trust God, don’t you?” he does nothing to ease the disciples’ already-significant apprehension. Let’s remember, Jesus says this right on the heels of having washed the disciples’ feet, of having announced his betrayal, of having told the disciples that he’s about to leave, of having told them to keep loving each other no matter what, and, finally, of predicting Peter’s denial. So, when Jesus says, “Don’t let this rattle you,” it’s kind of like telling a child whose dog just died, Don’t be sad. That ship has sailed.

         John 14 is a staple of Christian funerals—times when many people are, indeed, rattled and hungry for words of comfort. And even though we, as Christians, speak of a life to come, there’s an undeniable finality to death. As much gratitude and joy as memories can evoke, the person who has died has left this life forever. They’ve left our lives forever.

         Most of us have heard stories of near death experiences. Some of us may have read books like Heaven Is for Real or Proof of Heaven. Let’s be honest, though. None of that is concrete proof of anything except our very real and understandable desire for there to be something more. Now, I’m not denying that there is more. I’m merely saying that no one really knows what lies beyond death. Faith, not knowledge, is the basis for our claim to a life to come. So, to reiterate at funerals what Jesus says in John 14 becomes part of our faithful lament in the face of death. And what Jesus says to his disciples throughout the pastoral discourse of John 13-17 is about far more than life after death.

         Jesus is saying that beyond the life represented by Caesar and empire, beyond the life of material wealth and military domination to which many Jewish leaders have accommodated themselves, especially the Sadducees, there lies a place of spacious love, a place of deep unity with Jesus and with the Father. And when Jesus tells the disciples that they know the way, he’s trying to tell them something profoundly hopeful and life-transforming.

Speaking for the group, Thomas says, Jesus, we don’t know where you’re going. So how can we know how to get there?

         “I am the Road,” says Jesus, “also the Truth, also the Life. No one gets to the Father apart from me.”

         This is one of those passages that gets distorted into a warning. If you want to go to heaven, you must believe that Jesus is the only way to get there. And any theology which proclaims that kind of static certainty tends to get wielded like a weapon rather than offered as an invitation into grace. The thing about gospel grace, though, is that it requires much more of us than doctrinal purity, because it’s about more than getting to heaven when we die. It’s about living in holy union with God here and now as well as in the life to come.

         “If you really knew me,” says Jesus, “you would know my Father as well…[and] you do know him.” Jesus pleads with his disciples to recognize that following him and participating in his ministry means, ultimately, loving each other as God loves us. For me, if there’s a bottom line, that’s it. Through self-emptying love for others, anyone can experience the Road that doesn’t just lead to life, but which is, in Truth, Life itself, because to love as Jesus loves is to be with him. And because the Son and the Father are so intimately one, to be with one is to be with the other. If that’s the case, how can one experience union with God apart from Christ? Jesus comes to reveal that pre-existent truth, not to make it happen. God’s spacious realm is already something in which humankind lives, moves, and has its being.

Another challenging reality is that it’s terribly easy, like the Sadducees, to settle for a world where a rattled and fearful existence seems not only rational and responsible, but the only real possibility. In that world, though, people just give up and fall asleep behind contrived certainties that provide fertile ground for holding prejudices, casting judgments, building walls, amassing weapons, and reducing a storied and deeply transforming spiritual tradition into an inert doctrine that both religious and political leaders can use to control the masses and ensure their loyalty. That’s exactly what happened when, in the fourth century, Theodosius I made Christianity the official religion of the Roman empire. The emperor’s goal was political stability, not faithful discipleship.

Some within the first-century Jewish community expected and desperately wanted Jesus to be that kind of Messiah. And one can imagine their weariness of Rome. One can also imagine that, as Jews, many of them were tired of their story being one endless string of exiles. From Pharaoh, to all the various Nebuchadnezzars and Caesars, God’s people had known continual defeat and outside control. Why wouldn’t they want someone who could and would play hardball with tyrants?

Well, when we truly, as Jesus says, trust God, when we truly, as Jesus says, believe him, or at least believe that his works reveal the presence and will of God, then we can begin to understand that all the violent means of empire, and all the repressive certainties of imperial religion are roads that lead not to life, but to one dead end after another.

In claiming to be “the Road…the Truth…[and] the Life,” Jesus invites everyone who hears his story to immerse themselves in it, to live it. For in that immersion, we begin to recognize that Jesus truly is one with the Father—the Creator and Source of all that is genuinely loving and lasting. Jesus’ own trust and belief are evident in the ways he lives in the here-and-now, in the ways he loves those who seem unlovable, in the ways he cares for those who seem beyond help, in the ways he embraces all of life, and in the ways he includes all things—joys and sufferings—and transforms them into signs of God’s ever-present realm of grace.

Wherever Creator-Redeemer-Sustainer unity is evident, wherever death is giving way to life, wherever reconciling grace and love are at work, wherever people choose peace, inclusion, and forgiveness over whatever easy but violent alternatives are available, there Christ is present and forever will be.

May that be our reality, and the reality of this congregation today, tomorrow, and always.