Tag: Holy Spirit

Prayer for 11th Sunday after Pentecost

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Values

O Eternal One, the beauty of the summer season at my peaceful home battles in my mind with the harsh realities of life in our broken world. I feel like E.B. White when he said, “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to save the world and a desire to savor the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”

The 24/7 news cycle bombards us with news of desperate migrants from Africa overwhelming a Greek and European economy teetering on the brink. The next news story describes nursing homes in Japan exclusively for survivors of atomic bombs dropped on them as children 70 years ago this week. Wildfires destroy homes and force evacuations in draught stricken California while typhoon Soudelor ravages Taiwan and China. I turn the page of my newspaper, hoping for some good news, and read that 2000 Iraqis have reportedly been executed by ISIS.

My God, have you forsaken us? The scope and number of world crises is overwhelming, and that doesn’t even begin to count our individual concerns about illness, grief, employment, relationships, and our failures to be the kinds of caring people we want to be. We know we are supposed to respond to the needs of others, God, but the needs are more than we can cope with; and sometimes it all seems so hopeless we don’t even know how to pray.

Help us not to despair and lose faith. We are not the first to feel overburdened and lost, nor will be the last. Even Jesus on the cross drew on the lament of Psalm 22 when he felt forsaken. St. Paul, who is always so strong and certain in his faith, acknowledges times of doubt in Romans 8 and assures us “the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” Yes, God’s Holy Spirit intercedes for us. When we are at the end of our ropes, God prays for us!

But we have to be open to that intercession to receive it. Draw us close in our times of fear and uncertainty, God, like a loving mother comforting a child shivering in terror from a nightmare. Do not let doubt and fear drive us from you, Holy One, for it is exactly in such times that we need you more than ever.

We believe, Lord, help our unbelief. Let our weakness and helplessness in the face of everything happening in our lives and world be the motivation that brings us humbly back to you, admitting we can neither save nor savor the world without your divine guidance and eternal strength.

Pray with us and for us, O God, our hope and salvation. Amen.

“Witnesses for the World,” Ephesians 1:3-14

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Values, Lectionary Texts

It’s always a little unnerving to be a guest preacher. I remember too well how we treated some substitute teachers when I was in school. I know none of you would do that to a guest pastor. But sometimes things happen that aren’t intended. A young preacher was thrilled to be invited to be a guest preacher in a prominent church, but when she was introduced to the congregation that Sunday morning, she was not so pleased. The lay leader got up to make the introduction and got inspired when he noticed a piece of cardboard that was temporarily filling in for a piece of glass in one of the sanctuary windows. He said, “Our preacher today is like that piece of cardboard there, a substitute for our pastor.” The young preacher decided she’d show them what she was made of. She preached a marvelous sermon, and when she finished the lay leader got up to thank her. He said, “Thank you for that marvelous message, pastor. I was wrong in my introductory comments, and I want to apologize. After hearing you proclaim God’s word we all know you are no cardboard substitute, you’re a real pane!”

Preachers are sometimes the other kind of pain and for good reason – it’s our job. In fact all of us as Jesus’ disciples are called to comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable. Because it’s the comfortable who have the resources to change things for those who are afflicted.

Some of us here today need to be comforted because of personal suffering, broken relationships, grief or guilt or worry. There’s plenty of pain to go around, and if you’re doing ok personally one look at the morning headlines from Greece or Syria or Nigeria will fix that. We all have need for comfort, and that’s one reason we gather to worship; but when you look at how we Americans live compared to most other parts of the world, we must admit that we are quite comfortable . And that’s the other reason we worship – to give thanks and praise to God for our blessings, and especially for God’s saving grace, which is the only real comfort there is for some of the afflictions that plague us and our world.

Writer Anne Lamott says she has simplified her prayer life to two simple prayers: “Help, help help!” and “Thanks, thanks, thanks!” Ephesians puts the emphasis on the 2nd of those prayers, telling us that our primary job as Christians is to offer praise to God for the gift of salvation in Christ – for adoption into god’s grace in spite of our continual determination to prove ourselves unworthy of God’s unconditional love. I saw a post this week on Facebook that made those prayers from Anne Lamott even more meaningful. She was giving thanks for the 29th anniversary of her sobriety, a victory only possible with the help of a higher power. Thanks be to God.

We all know we need to praise God. The question is how to do that most effectively. Praise songs and prayers of thanksgiving are important. They lift our attitude toward gratitude and put things in perspective. Our praises need to be honest and from the heart, and not just empty words. Ever been to a funeral when you heard the praises of the deceased being given and you had to look in the casket to see if the eulogizers were talking about the same person you had known? That’s one of the nice things about praising God – we don’t have to make anything up – just tell the truth about God’s grace and love.

This passage from Ephesians reminded me of a warning I often give students in the preaching classes I teach. I tell them “don’t just give me pious platitudes; you’ve got to show us what those words mean for us in the 21st century world.” The God words are here in the introduction to this letter—“Blessed, blameless, adoption, praise, redemption, forgiveness, grace, mystery, fullness of time, heaven and earth, Holy Spirit….” All the right words, but what do they mean for our lives today? How do we make those words come alive in us so they offer life to others who desperately need to see and hear and feel it. What do they mean to a person who is lost and seeking his or her way in the darkness of addiction or crime or poverty or despair or over-consumption?

Words are cheap – even God words. Someone once said, “What you do speaks so loud I can’t hear what you’re saying.” A police officer pulled a man over and asked to see his license and registration. After taking those documents back to his cruiser the officer returned in a few minutes and apologized for the inconvenience and told the man he was free to go. The man was relieved but curious and asked the officer why he had pulled him over. The officer said, “Well you see, I was in the grocery just now and saw how rude you were to the other people in line and the clerk. So when I saw you get into a car with a Christian fish symbol on it, I just assumed that couldn’t be your car and wanted to make sure it wasn’t stolen.”

Author Madeleine L’Engle puts it this way – “We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want to know the source of it.”

One of my favorite descriptions of how actions speak louder than words is from the great musical “My Fair Lady” where Eliza is in a romantic moment with her bumbling suitor, Freddie, who is all talk and no action. She sings to him these words:
“Don’t talk of stars, burning above,
If you’re in love, show me!
Tell me no dreams, filled with desire,
If you’re on fire, show me!

Here we are together in the middle of the night;
Don’t talk of spring, just hold me tight
Anyone who’s ever been in love will tell you that
This is no time for a chat!

Sing me no song, read me no rhyme;
Don’t waste my time, show me!
Don’t talk of June, don’t talk of fall;
Don’t talk at all! Show me!”

That’ll preach! Can’t you hear Jesus saying to us – “If you love me, show me?” In fact that’s exactly what he says to Peter – remember that scene on the beach after the resurrection in John’s Gospel. Three times Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” And Peter says, “Yes, Lord you know I love you.” And Jesus says, “Then feed my sheep; feed my lambs; comfort those who are afflicted.”

The words that struck me from this Ephesians passage are in verse 13: “In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised holy Spirit.” Marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit – what does that look like? Just a few weeks ago we celebrated the powerful gift of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. Acts 2 describes that event as like the rush of a might wind with tongues of fire resting on every one of the Apostles. That’s powerful stuff – gale force winds and baptism by fire are not for sissies, and that power changed those apostles forever and through them the history of the world.

Those frightened, uneducated fishermen were suddenly able to communicate with people from all over the world as they praised God and told the story of redemption. But their praise didn’t stop with words – they also practiced what they preached. Pentecost doesn’t end with the pyrotechnics like 4th of July fireworks. Those early Christians are claimed and marked by a life-changing force that affects everything they do. The end of Acts 2 describes that effect on their daily lives – “44 All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds[j] to all, as any had need. 46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home[k] and ate their food with glad and generous[l] hearts, 47 praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”

The church grew by leaps and bounds because it was acting like the church – praising God with both their words and their lives. St. Francis once said “Preach the gospel always, and when necessary use words.” One of my favorite sermons came from a high school valedictorian who gave the shortest graduation speech in history-just 17 words. She said, “2000 years ago, Jesus Christ said, ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’ I can’t add anything to that.” And she sat down. We can’t add to that either with words, but we can witness powerfully to God’s love by actually living it – being the light that is so wonderful that others want to know what we’re up to and run toward the light of the world reflected through us. We are not the light but reflections of it through Christ who lives in and through us.

Being marked by the Holy Spirit is like being branded –the way ranchers mark their cattle to show the world to whom they belong. We belong to Christ – not to the church, not to any race or nation or ethnicity, not to any club or organization – we belong to Christ.

This passage from Ephesians begins with a phrase that would have been very familiar to all of the Jewish readers of its day. Every prayer used in the Jewish observance of Passover begins with the same phrase, “Blessed are you, Lord God.” Both Jews and Christians use these words to give thanks and praise to God for the gift of deliverance, one from slavery and the other from sin and death. But there are several major important differences for Christians.

For the Jews the commandments of God are the means of salvation, and they are only for the believers who are marked with the sign of circumcision – a very private sign that is not on public display – at least we hope not. For Christians the means of salvation is the sacrifice and love of God demonstrated in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ – and it is for all of creation. In Christ God doesn’t say, “I love you if you do this or don’t do that.” God says, “I love you, period.” You are chosen and adopted, redeemed and renewed if you take upon yourself the mark of discipleship and receive the power of the Holy Spirit. The mark of personal holiness is baptism, but that invisible water becomes a visible mark that is a light to the nations when we live as members of the body of Christ and imitate his sacrificial love for others.

I learned an important lesson about praising God from a mentor many years ago when I was a rather naïve seminary student. Dr. Roy Reed, who taught Worship and Music at MTSO, was not a warm and fuzzy professor. In fact he was very direct and blunt at times, but always honest. Dr. Reed died earlier this year, and those of us who attended his memorial service got a good chuckle when the pastor eulogizing him talked about Dr. Reed’s direct style. He said even Roy’s mother once commented that “Roy was always so darn honest that sometimes I just wanted to slap him.”

In retrospect I have come to appreciate and cherish Dr. Reed’s passion for truth, but not so much when I was on the receiving end as one of his students. One of those days was when I preached my senior sermon in chapel and quoted a Ray Stevens song, “Everything is Beautiful.” It’s a song about inclusivity and tolerance, but Professor Reed took exception to the chorus and challenged me about its theological soundness after the service. The chorus says:

“Everything is beautiful in its own way.
Like the starry summer night, or a snow-covered winter’s day.
And everybody’s beautiful in their own way.
Under God’s heaven, the world’s gonna find the way.”

In no uncertain terms Dr. Reed argued that the evil in the world is not beautiful. If he were here today he would probably remind me of the atrocities of ISIS or Boka Haram or the killings at Emmanuel AME church last month. That senior sermon was in 1971, and the news headlines then were all about Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Laos. Memories of My Lai, Selma, assassinations and riots in 1968, student deaths at Jackson State and Kent State, and the first big oil spill in Santa Barbara were all fresh in our minds. The headlines don’t change from one generation to the next, just different names and places. Lots of very unbeautiful stuff.

With the benefit of more life experience I came to understand Dr. Reed’s point. Faith and hope are necessary for human survival, but so is a healthy balance of prophetic realism that shines the spotlight of truth on injustices that need to be made right. Sometimes when I reflect on my own life and career I find it hard to praise God because I see the lack of progress we are making as a human race. The church and the world do not seem to be much closer to God’s vision for creation than we were that day 44 years ago.

But when I am tempted to lament rather than praise God I remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s quote: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” When we are impatient or find it hard to praise God, we who are marked by the Holy Spirit know that our ways are not God’s ways and our time frame is not God’s eternal perspective. And so, even when we stumble in the darkness, unable to see where we’re going, needing to be comforted, we still walk with confidence and praise God who has claims us as his own. We praise God even though we don’t know what tomorrow brings, because we do know for sure who holds the future.

If I haven’t been enough of a real pain so far, let me leave you with one final question originally asked by Rev. David Otis Fuller, a 20th century Baptist pastor. The early Christians and many people of different faiths today still live in fear of persecution and even death for publicly professing their faith and praising God. Heaven forbid that should happen here, but imagine it was illegal here and Hilliard’s finest raided this sanctuary this morning and rounded us all up and arrested us for being Christians, the question is this – would there be enough evidence to convict you or me?

I urge all of you to pray about that question, and if like me you are unhappy with the answer you must give to that question, take heart, and praise the God of our Lord Jesus Christ who loves and adopts us and empowers us to keep growing as his witnesses to the world. Thanks be to God who alone gives us the victory.

Preached at Hilliard United Methodist Church, Hilliard, Ohio, July 12, 2015

Look, We CAN Communicate: Pentecost, Part 2, Acts 2:5-13

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Faith and Values

My Ph.D. in Communication is both a blessing and a curse. The curse is that when people know I studied communication at the graduate level they actually expect me to be able to communicate. My excuses that my research was theoretical and in rhetoric and public speaking, not in “normal” interpersonal discourse always fall on deaf ears. I sometimes feel like the undergrad who signed up for a course in interpersonal communication only to be very disappointed the first day of class when he discovered that the course catalogue description of a course about “human intercourse” was not exactly what he expected.

You don’t need a doctorate to know that communication is hard. Words are just symbols that represent objects or feelings or relationships. As symbols they can only point to the reality they represent. Communication goes through different filters of both the sender and receiver of the communication, and those filters are unique to each person. And of course communication occurs on multiple levels – verbal, non-verbal, emotional, rational, and all of those are culturally conditioned and affected by other environmental and genetic factors. This explains the popular success of John Gray’s book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.

Sometimes the challenges of communication produce humorous and embarrassing results. For example, “The V-for-victory sign was immortalized by Winston Churchill in the early, dark days of World War II, and the proper form is with the palm facing outward. But, a simple twist of the wrist puts you in dangerous cultural waters. Throughout much of Her Majesty’s realm, the palm-in V sign is the equivalent of the more infamous middle-digit salute.” (See the article by William Ecenbarger of the Philadelphia Enquirer for many other valuable tips on cultural competence, http://articles.philly.com/2009-02-22/news/25280966_1_taxi-driver-mumbai-desk-clerk.)

The Hebrew Scriptures explain the origins of different languages in various parts of the world via the Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11. In that story it is human pride, a belief that humans could build a tower tall enough to reach to the heavens and establish their importance that leads to this judgment from God: 6 And the LORD said, “Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”

That story is a mythical way of explaining the reality that languages are unique to different cultures, countries and ethnicities. While I don’t believe God would throw that kind of monkey wrench into the communication machinery as a punishment for our pride, the language barrier is a major challenge to communication. There is a joke that defines “multi-lingual” as a person who speaks 3 or more, “bilingual” as a person who speaks two languages, and someone who speaks only one language as “an American.” That unfortunate state of affairs was demonstrated in a grocery checkout line when a woman finished a cell phone conversation in her native tongue. The man behind her in line said to her, “Excuse me, ma’am, but this is America and we speak English here. If you want to speak Spanish, go back to Mexico.” The woman calmly replied, “Sir, I was speaking Navajo. If you want to speak English, go back to England.”

The task of bridging cultural differences and communication challenges in our global village is very daunting. Technology offers help through on-line language lessons, apps and programs that automatically translate text from one language to another, and systems like the one at the United Nations where people from all over the world can hear a translation of a speaker’s words into their own language through a set of headphones. But those technologies do not solve the deeper spiritual divisions at the root of human suffering that manifests itself in prejudice, racism, economic injustice, terrorism and full scale war.

The on-going cultural and religious conflicts in our world are proof that we’ve a long way to go to overcome our failures to communicate. The Pentecost story in Acts 2 addresses those concerns, not from a technological or academic perspective, but from a spiritual point of view. Acts 2: 5-13 describes it this way: 5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,11 Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

Jews and non-Jews from all over the world hear the apostles sharing their faith story in their own language. This is not some ecstatic, unintelligible speaking in tongues, but genuine communication made possible by the power of the Holy Spirit. These apostles are not educated linguists. They are common fishermen and tax collectors. They have not suddenly been empowered by Rosetta Stone; they are filled with the only force capable of overcoming human fear and division. At Pentecost the confusion of tongues from the Tower of Babel story is reversed and the response of those who have ears to hear the Gospel is both amazing and confusing.

People from all over the world have come to Jerusalem for the Pentecost Festival and some are apparently there on other business – Romans, Cretans and Arabs. The story shows us that as insurmountable as our communication barriers are, be they religious, cultural or political, we cannot just throw up are hands and say “we can’t do that!” Whatever happened in Jerusalem that day, this story makes it very clear the “this is impossible, we give up” excuse simply will not fly. It is easy to despair and say the hatred and divisions in our world today between Islam and the West, for example, are not amenable to any simple communication skills. Anyone who thinks so must be filled with new wine or smoking those funny weeds.

But this story counters with evidence that the Acts 2 audience is exactly like our multi-cultural world. A cross section of the whole world, people from Asia Mesopotamia, Judea, Egypt and Libya are identified; and the message is clear. Because they have received the gift of God’s spirit, a spirit of unity and love that is universal and offered to all of God’s creation, these apostles are able to overcome all of the cultural and communication barriers and share their amazing transformation stories in ways that are heard and understood.

That is a word of hope that our war-weary world desperately needs to hear. We may see no hope for peace and justice because we rely too much on human ways of dealing with our problems. We still think we can build towers or systems or networks that will make us the heroes and heroines of our story. The problem is it’s not our story. And when our best efforts fail, in desperation and fear we think destroying our enemies will bring peace in spite of centuries of evidence that violence and death only beget more of the same.

God’s answer that is blowing in the wind of Pentecost is that the transforming power of the God of the whole universe is the only hope for overcoming human differences and conflicts. The God of Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia is still the God of Americans and Syrians, of Islam and ISIS, of every soul that breathes; and those who dare to believe that are not crazy or filled with new wine. We are filled with the Holy Spirit of the Source of our being, and we speak a language of peace and grace that everyone can understand because it is the message that the world is longing to hear.

Peter’s summary of that message follows in Acts 2:14-36 and will be addressed in the next segment of this series on Pentecost.

(All Scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version)

The Answer is Blowing in a Mighty Wind: Acts 2:1-4

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Values

A recent study by the Pew Research Center on “America’s Changing Religious Landscape” has generated much hand wringing and discussion because it indicates that the percentage of the American population identifying themselves as Christians is in serious decline. The release of that study just before Pentecost in the Christian calendar is a perfect motivation for us to take seriously what is often called “the birthday of the church” in Acts 2.

The second chapter of Acts is a wonderful summary of the Christian Gospel. It begins with the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, but that is just the beginning. The chapter goes on to describe the whole Gospel of both personal and social holiness which I outlined in my last post, and this article is the first in a series on Acts 2 that will reflect on our Judeo-Christian roots as a way of moving from hand wringing to spirit-led witness to our faith in both word and action.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about discouragement as an obstacle to resurrection living, and the evidence for being discouraged has not abated in the interim. ISIS victories in Iraq and the ensuing political posturing and blame game, a horrific shoot out in Waco, a deadly train crash in Philadelphia, a huge oil spill and draughts in California while rains and flooding of biblical proportions hammer parts of Texas.

Such bad news everywhere reminds me of a conversation I had with one of my seminary professors back in 1971. I attended Dr. Roy Reed’s memorial service last week, and that brought back lots of memories. One of them was the day I preached my senior sermon in chapel at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio. I invited a talented group of youth from Wapakoneta, Ohio where I was youth pastor to join me for that service. They had formed a folk music group called “The Get Together,” and one of the numbers they sang in chapel that day was a Ray Stevens song, “Everything is Beautiful.” It’s a song about inclusivity and tolerance, but Professor Reed took exception to the chorus and challenged me about its theological soundness after the service. The chorus says:

“Everything is beautiful in its own way.
Like the starry summer night, or a snow-covered winter’s day.
And everybody’s beautiful in their own way.
Under God’s heaven, the world’s gonna find the way.”

The pastor at Dr. Reed’s memorial service talked about how honest (sometimes brutally honest) Dr. Reed could be. He even said Roy’s mother once remarked that Roy was so honest you sometimes just wanted to slap him! In retrospect I have come to appreciate and cherish that passion for truth, but not so much that day when I was on the receiving end as one of his students. In no uncertain terms Dr. Reed argued that everything is not beautiful, and as in every generation there were plenty of current events to support his argument. The news headlines in 1971 were all about Viet Nam, Cambodia, and Laos. Memories of My Lai, Selma, assassinations and riots in 1968, student deaths at Jackson State and Kent State, and the first big oil spill in Santa Barbara were all fresh in our minds.

With the benefit of more life experience I came to understand Dr. Reed’s point. Faith and hope are necessary for human survival, but so is a healthy balance of prophetic realism that shines the spotlight of truth on injustices that need to be made right. Sometimes when I reflect on my own life and career I get discouraged at the lack of progress we are making as a human race. The church and the world do not seem to be much closer to God’s vision for creation than we were that day 44 years ago.

But when I am tempted to lament the fact that the world is going to hell in the proverbial hand basket I remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s quote: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” My alma mater, MTSO, is a good example of why we need to see things from God’s perspective. God’s time is not our time. That spring that Dr. Reed and I had our memorable discussion was a different era and the seminary we both love was not the same place it is today. The school was only 13 years old in 1971, and even though it had been founded by a wonderful faculty and board committed to progressive theology and the social gospel, it was a creature of its time and culture. In my class of 50 students there were only two women, and neither of them was in the track for ordination. The faculty we studied under was top-notch, but they were all white males. (The first female and minority faculty members were hired the year after I graduated.)

By comparison, the faculty of that school is now led by a female dean and is 43% female, 29% minority, and serves a diverse student body that is over 50% female. Does that mean it is utopia or that the church is now a perfect place? Of course not. Even though women clergy are now a very significant part of the fabric of our church, the truth is that clergy women still far too often hit a “stained glass ceiling” and are rising to leadership positions in large churches at a much slower rate than women in comparable positions in other professions. We can’t ignore the need for continual progress in the church or society, but neither should we discount the significant gains we have made in women’s rights, civil rights and human rights. Everything is not and never will be beautiful in this imperfect world, but some important things are certainly more beautiful than they once were, and those things can inspire us to keep the faith and continue the quest for truth and justice.

If someone had tried to tell Jesus’ frightened band of disciples just before Pentecost that everything is beautiful, I’m sure they would have objected even more strongly than Professor Reed did to our song. Jesus had been brutally executed and all their hopes for political liberation from Rome and reestablishment of the glory of Israel were crushed. Then their hopes rose again. Jesus was back with them for a short time only to leave again permanently on Ascension Day. He promised to be with them always in spirit but told them to wait in Jerusalem for that promise to be fulfilled (Acts 1).

And that brings us to Acts 2:
“When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” (Acts 2:1-4)

Not too long ago it was common to find a yellow and brown post-it note on one’s door notifying the occupants that UPS had attempted to deliver a package but could not leave it because someone needed to sign for it. That practice has changed because the percentage of people who are home during the day makes it impractical. But God’s delivery policy has not changed. You still have to be fully present to receive God’s spirit. It can’t be done half-heartedly or in absentia. The disciples were told to wait in Jerusalem until they received the Holy Spirit. Jerusalem was not a safe, cozy place for them to hang out. They had good reason to believe their lives were in danger at the hands of those who had killed Jesus.

Given their track record for bravery it is pretty amazing that the disciples obeyed Jesus’ command. They were more likely to go into a witness protection program than to become bold witnesses for the faith. Let me remind you that the Greek word for witness also means “martyr.” Discipleship was not and still is not for sissies, but wait and obey they did; and on the day of Pentecost God delivered an event that transformed their lives and the world forever.

That kind of transformation requires tremendous power to overcome fear and inertia; so the delivery does not come in the form of a gentle dove alighting on their heads. It comes in the form of a violent wind and flames of refining fire that propel the apostles out of their man cave sanctuary into the cosmic battle with the forces of evil and darkness. So be careful what you ask for. Those baptized into the Christian community are playing with fire and will never be the same.

Baptism initiates all who accept it into the priesthood of all believers. Peter and his gang were not seminary grads, just forever changed by their encounter with Jesus and now filled with his spirit to do, as he predicted, even greater things than he did because he was in them and they were in him (John 14:12-20).

The seeds Jesus had planted in the disciples came to fruition on the Day of Pentecost, a significant Jewish holiday, The Festival of Weeks. Our English word “Pentecost” comes from a phrase in Leviticus 23:16, which instructs the Hebrews to count seven weeks or “fifty days” from the end of Passover to the beginning of the next holiday (pentekonta hemeras in the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scripture). This Jewish holiday was originally a harvest feast when the first fruits of their labors were brought as an offering to God. That is important to the Christian observation of Pentecost for two reasons.

The new birth of the spirit in Jesus’ followers represents an offering of their best to God first and foremost. The disciples are all in for the first time in their commitment to Christ, offering themselves completely to God’s kingdom and not to any false idols of comfort, wealth or worldly power. It is a new beginning for them, the church and the world.

Secondly, the date is important because it explains why people from all over the world were in Jerusalem. They were there for the Jewish Festival, and that’s why we hear in verse 4 that the first way the spirit manifests itself in the disciples is through a new found ability to communicate in languages they had not previously known. That is an appropriate first fruit of the spirit because it goes without saying that communication is a necessary skill for any human interaction but never more so than when it comes to the mysterious matters of faith.

The Hebrew Scriptures explain our human failure to communicate and understand each other as a punishment for human pride in the Tower of Babel story (Gen. 11). Now at Pentecost a new wind is blowing that restores the ability to bridge the communication chasm and open the potential for genuine community. I will address what that gift of communication means and why we all need God’s unifying spirit more than ever in our global village today when we turn in the next part of this series to verses 5-13.

Pentecost and Beyond: Christian Theology in Acts 2

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Values, Lectionary Texts

We were out of town for Memorial Day weekend, and I was reminded again why Pentecost should not fall on the same weekend as a secular holiday. The empowering of God’s spirit is absolutely critical for faithful living; so for many Christians to be absent from church on Pentecost while traveling or doing other holiday activities is regrettable. Fortunately, Pentecost season in the church is like Eastertide, it is not a 24-hour event but a way of life.

To that end I am going to post here a series of reflections on Acts 2 which is one of the most important and complete summaries of Christian theology in the entire Bible. That one chapter covers a remarkable summary of the story of repentance, salvation, the power of God’s spirit to create both personal and social holiness, individual evangelism and conversion, and the resulting transformation of servant disciples into a model faith community.

Over the next few weeks I will reflect on different parts of Acts 2, and the outline for this 5-part series, at least at the outset, is as follows:

Verses 1-4: Obedient waiting for the Holy Spirit. If you are expecting a nice gentle dove be forewarned that the power of God’s spirit is not for sissies.

Verses 5-13: The communication barriers created at the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11) are miraculously removed and spirit-drunk apostles emboldened to preach the word.

Verses 14-36: Through the Holy Spirit all people of any age, race, and gender are capable of being God’s prophetic witnesses. As proof of that the former Christ-denying Peter’s first sermon summarizes salvation history culminating in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Verses 37-42: The overwhelming response to authentic preaching – 3000 people from all over the world repent, believe and accept the gift of God’s grace.

Verses 43-47: The proof in the pudding. True conversion and salvation are not one and done personal events, but result in an authentic community of social justice, compassion and holiness.

LIVING RESURRECTION: EASTERTIDE WEEK 3

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Values, Lectionary Texts

As I continue to ponder what it is that keeps me from living into the power of resurrection, fear and doubt keep bubbling to the top of my list. And the Gospel post-resurrection stories speak directly to both of those experiences. John 20:18-31 is perhaps the best example of how fear and doubt can be transformed into faith and belief.

Fear and doubt are like the proverbial chicken and egg question; it’s hard to decide which comes first, but the two certainly seem to usually come in tandem. John’s Gospel tells us that the disciples are hiding in a locked room on the night of Jesus’ resurrection because they are afraid. Earlier in Chapter 20 Peter and John have seen the empty tomb, but we get conflicting reports about what that experience meant to them: “Then the other disciple, who reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples returned to their homes.” (20:8-10). Verse 8 says they believed, 9 says they didn’t understand; and 10 says they were so unmoved they simply go back home.

But Mary Magdalene, who was the first one at the tomb remains behind and personally encounters the risen Christ (vs. 11-17), and in verse 18 she goes to tell the disciples, “I have seen the Lord.” They must not have believed Mary’s tall tale. Women are still often ignored as being overly emotional in such situations. So that evening all the fearful disciples (except Thomas), even though they heard the amazing news of the resurrection, are still locked away in a self-imposed prison of doubt and fear. Jesus comes to them, brings them the peace of the Holy Spirit, shows them the proof of his scarred hands and side, and they see, believe and rejoice.

My friend and colleague, Mebane McMahon, pointed out in last Sunday’s sermon that even though “Doubting Thomas” gets a bad rap for his lack of faith, at least he was out somewhere in Jerusalem while the other ten were in hiding. There’s some evidence of Thomas’ bravery earlier in John (11:16) when Jesus puts his own life in even more danger from his powerful enemies by raising Lazarus from the dead. It is Thomas who says to the other disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.”

But courage is not the same as faith. When told by his friends later that they have seen and touched the risen Christ, Thomas says, “Sorry guys, unless I see this with my own eyes I cannot believe this impossible story.” His rational doubt is stronger than his hope, bolder than his experience of seeing Lazarus resurrected. He, like us, wants evidence, tangible take-to-the bank proof.

Don’t we all? In life’s darkest moments don’t we want certainty? When I was a very naïve college student a co-worker of mine learned of my decision to finally accept my call to ministry. Thinking that one small step gave me insider theological information, she asked me a tough question one day at lunch. Her husband of many years had died suddenly several years before, and even though she seemed to be getting along well as a widow, she was still troubled by something that her pastor had said to her when her husband died. She had asked the pastor an honest doubting question, namely would she see her husband again in heaven. Like all of us, no matter how strong our faith, she wanted some assurance about what happens when we die. The pastor gave her an equally honest answer which was, “I don’t know.” I’m sure he said some other words to comfort her, words of hope and faith in what he believed the answer to her question was, but what she heard and remembered was the doubt.

Of course, unless one has had a near-death experience, “I don’t know” is the only honest answer to that question, and I admire that pastor for his honesty. I do, however, have serious questions about whether he picked the most teachable or pastoral moment to demythologize my friend’s concept of heaven. But the point of the story is that knowledge cannot be the solution to theological doubt. Knowledge about God is important, but living into the power of resurrection requires more than facts to empower a leap of faith.

I am still learning that lesson. I remember walking into my first intro theology class in seminary many years ago thinking, “Finally, I am going to know the answers to all my nagging questions about God!” Remember I said I was even more naïve back then. I had been educated in a system where there was always a 1:1 ratio between questions and answers, not in the mysterious realm of theology where ambiguity is the normal state of being. I wanted concrete answers and instead was taught to seek a faith in things unseen. I felt like Einstein’s teacher the day she asked him “what letter comes after ‘A?’“ His reply was not the “correct” answer she expected. He said, “They all do.”

Like that teacher we want one correct answer to our faith questions. We want faith to eliminate our doubt, but in this life we must learn to be content and trust God when we barely “see in a mirror dimly.” (I Cor. 13:12). Part of our humanity is living with the paradox expressed by the man whose son was healed by Jesus and proclaims, “I believe, help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). Jesus has his moment of doubt on the cross, Peter’s doubt sinks him when he tries to walk on the water; the women at the end of Mark’s Gospel are scared into silence about the resurrection. So how do we live in the power of resurrection, even when doubt threatens to overwhelm us in fearful situations? Is the answer information and education and knowledge, or is it faith and belief? Is it a matter for the head or the heart?

It is, of course, both/and. From the perspective of 68 years of life experience, I am now much more afraid of dogmatic certainty than honest ambiguity. Dogmatic religious certainty in any form results in the kind of bloody conflicts we see all around us today between Sunnis and Shiites, Jews and Palestinians, and yes, the ideological wars between different factions within Christianity. Dogmatism declares exclusion for those with different perspectives and experiences of God, and that exclusion threatens the security and survival of the human race. Paul O’Neill, former Secretary of the Treasury under President George W. Bush, described that danger by comparing philosophy with ideology. The former he said is open to dialogue, change and growth, but ideology is impenetrable by new ideas or facts. Questions of faith belong in the realm of philosophy, but we too often turn them into matters of ideology.

Frederick Buechner says, “Doubt is the ants in the pants of faith,” it is what keeps us alive and growing. Faith and doubt are two sides of the same coin. As good as certainty may appear as a cure for doubt, the reality is that it also kills faith. As Buechner also says, it is not the presence of God in our lives that keeps us coming back to church each week but the absence, the need for assurance to balance our doubt.

But here’s the good news. When it appears that doubt and fear have the upper hand, resurrection comes to the rescue. God breaks through whatever barriers we have created, appearing in a locked room, not once but twice. The second time is a full week later but notice Thomas is still there – his doubt has not driven him away, nor has it excluded him from the Christian community. And Jesus comes right to Thomas and offers him the same peace and power he gave to the 10 a week before.

Does our search for information, for knowledge about resurrection keep us from experiencing it? One of my personal problems with spending much of my adult life in academic settings is that intellectual pursuits can become doors that lock God’s mystery and ambiguity out. Heavy doses of education can make one suspicious of simple childlike faith. When we sing the great old hymn, “In the Garden,” it’s comforting to walk and talk with Jesus, but then it says, “He tells me I am His own,” and my degreed self cries out, “No, I don’t want to belong to anyone, I am my own person. I can think and reason things out for myself.”

I value my education highly, but I also know the limitations of the human intellect. Jesus doesn’t send Thomas off to seminary or grad school to resolve his doubt, but neither does he send him to an extremely dogmatic faith community on the emotional end of the religious spectrum. Jesus knows Thomas. He accepts him and his inquiring mind that is not afraid to ask hard questions. He has experienced Thomas’ doubts before. In the famous “farewell discourse” in John 14, after Jesus says, “I go to prepare a place for you, and you know the way,” it is honest Thomas who raises his hand and says, “Wait a minute, Jesus. We don’t know the way.” And Jesus, to paraphrase, perhaps showing a little frustration says, “How long have I been with you? How many parables have I taught you? How many signs and miracles have I given you? But you do know the way Thomas because you know me, and I am the way.”

Jesus doesn’t want or need disciples who just know about him; he needs followers who know him so personally that we are willing to be like him, resurrected people who embrace fear and doubt and are not crippled by them. Academics would say faith is not simply about epistemology (knowledge) but about ontology (Being). God’s response to fear and doubt is not an on-line course in theology. God doesn’t text us the answers to life’s hard questions. God inserts God’s self into the very midst of our doubting, fearful world to transform our whole being—body, mind and spirit, to resurrect the church, the body of Christ, and through us to transform the world.

God’s peace in Christ finds us, not vice versa, in the midst of our doubt and fear, not after all doubts are resolved. That peace finds us behind locked doors, in classrooms, factories, offices, in churches and seminaries, and even sometimes in the halls of Congress.

But here’s the catch – God’s peace comes only in surrender and relationship with God, to the power of Being itself. “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” (Vs. 21-22). Peace and faith come only when we get close enough to Jesus that he can breathe on us. That’s really close. But we don’t like anyone invading our personal space, not even and maybe especially Jesus. I sometimes wonder if the disciples were hiding not just from the Jews that day but also from Jesus.

If Jesus gets close to us, really close, there’s a good chance we will never be the same again. They say that a child dies from poverty and hunger somewhere in the world every 3 seconds. 700-800 children have died in the time it takes to read these few pages. If Jesus gets too close to me I might have to actually do something about that, about those 20 that died in the last minute!

If Jesus gets close enough to breathe on us we might have to get out of our heads and into our hearts and out into the world. Faith is a very personal issue, not an intellectual one. It is not what we know but who we know and who knows us. It is who we allow to know us, doubts and all. And if we let Jesus get close enough to get into our hearts, faith trumps doubt and even we who have not seen but still believe can proclaim as Thomas does, “My Lord and My God!”

Going with the Easter Tide

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Values

Eastertide 50 daysEastertide = the ebb and flow of the ocean level on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. Not exactly! But that’s a more likely answer than most people might give if asked for a definition of that word. Eastertide is in fact the liturgical season in the Christian calendar that begins on Easter Sunday and ends seven weeks later on Pentecost. (April 5 – May 24 this year). Just as Christmas doesn’t officially end till Epiphany, the season of Easter lasts much longer than the peeps and chocolate bunnies, but one would never know it to observe most Christians or most churches.

The standing room only crowds last Sunday will shrink to a “low Sunday” attendance like that first big drop on a roller coaster, the lilies and Easter finery and decorations will be gone. It’s almost as if Jesus goes back into the tomb like the groundhog that sees his shadow on February 2nd.

The resurrection of Jesus is central to the Christian faith and ironically one of the hardest things for Christians and non-Christians to believe. St. Paul says, “But we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” (I Cor. 1:23). The original version of Mark’s Gospel, the earliest one written, ends with the women fleeing from the empty tomb “because terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” (Mark 16:8).

Do we do the same thing by failing to move into Eastertide with no significant changes to our way of living? Do we struggle with the resurrection because it defies all scientific and logical experience we’ve had with death? We’ve all lost beloved relatives, even pets that leave a huge hole in our hearts, and no matter how much we wish it weren’t so, they don’t come back.

So often we approach Eastertide from that perspective, and it keeps us from being able to trust the unbelievable news that resurrection is real, that it can make a lasting difference in our lives. We want to change, we want to live by faith, we want to take that leap of faith; but we don’t want to look foolish, we don’t want to be disappointed.

I remember a day many years ago when I was a student at the Methodist Theological School in Ohio. I don’t remember details of what happened in class that day, but I remember the ecstatic feeling of something extraordinary being said or done that transformed deadness in my heart and soul to a new enthusiastic spirit-filled joy. As I was leaving class that day I came out the front door of the building where we had met onto a large front porch of one of the beautiful Georgian buildings there so excited and full of life that instead of going left and down the porch steps I ran forward and took a flying leap over the large hedge that grew along the length of the porch. As I was air-born I remember suddenly realizing I wasn’t sure what was on the other side of that hedge.

So it is with death-defying faith. Faith is not intellectual belief – it is radical trust in a wild and crazy God who rolls away any boulder that keeps us imprisoned in doubt and fear, that keeps us from taking the leap of faith. When we play it safe, when we go along to get along, when we refuse to challenge political, economic, and environmental practices that kill dreams and perpetuate injustice, we are in effect rolling the stone back in front of the tomb and trying to keep Jesus from challenging the status quo of our broken world where fear silences faith. Just celebrating Easter Sunday and ignoring Eastertide is like locking the barn door after the horse has already escaped. It’s too late. God’s verdict has already declared life the victor over death and nothing we do or fail to do can ever put that genie back in the bottle.

One of my all-time favorite statements of what Easter living means came from the late Dwight Loder who was my bishop here in Ohio from 1976-1984. In a sermon he preached in the mid-1980’s Bishop Loder said, “Jesus was not resurrected by the church. Jesus was not resurrected for the church. Jesus was resurrected as the church.” Faith in resurrection is so much more than a personal assurance about our own salvation and eternal life. If we as individual Christians and collectively as the church, the body of Christ, fail to be changed by Easter, we are sending a terrible message to the world and to those longing for Good News that it’s back to business as usual after Easter Sunday.

Don’t believe it. Those frightened women at the tomb and Jesus’ other followers were scared into silence for a while, but God wasn’t finished with them. God always has the last word, and the stories in the Gospels during Eastertide are even more remarkable than the empty tomb. Skeptics could say the tomb was empty because someone simply came and took the body away. But the risen Christ appears over and over again to those who have eyes and ears to see and believe — on the road to Emmaus, in a locked upper room, on the beach. He continues to challenge his followers to be living witnesses that his spirit endures as the resurrected, life-giving, justice and peace promoting force for all that is good and pure in a world dying for Good News.

Easter Sunday is over, but Eastertide has just begun; and the life-giving Holy Spirit is waiting in the wings to blow into our lives with full force on Pentecost if we dare to believe. Resurrection is a spiritual event and how we live our lives in the crucible of the here and now is a witness to the world that we have either had our Easter fling and retreated back into the tomb, or we are boldly living as resurrected people. Easter people witness by every decision and act we take that the tide has turned and the light of the world has not and will never be extinguished by the darkness of death.

By the way, the landing on the other side of that hedge was nice soft grass; so it was OK to leap. And the message of Eastertide is “Go ahead, it’s safe to trust in Resurrection!”

“Sent,” John 20:19-22, Micah 6:8

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Politics, Faith and Values

In John 20:21 Jesus says, “As God has sent me, so I send you.” Let me share a couple stories about why and how the church is sent in mission and service. I walked into the church last Friday and smelled the wonderful aroma of 8 large pots of soup being prepared to feed hungry people at the Church for All People in downtown Columbus. Jerome UMC provides those 8 pots of soup and other food every Friday of the year in a ministry called Soup for the Soul. I did some quick math and realized that adds up to about 400 hundred pots of soup each year that serve homeless and hungry people.

The Appalachian Service Project team (ASP) recently spent a weekend in Guyan Valley, W.Va. One of the people ASP served this year was Mary, an 80 year-old retired school employee. Mary lives in a modest modular home, one of the neatest and cleanest the ASP team says they’ve seen in the 10 years they’ve been doing this work. But Mary’s house needed repairs that she couldn’t afford and her son could not do because of health concerns. Mary now has a new roof and porch thanks to ASP, and she was so grateful she cried that this group of total strangers would give of their time and effort to help her. But Mary had a deeper need. She’s lonely, and in the words of one of the missionaries, “would talk all day if we would listen… and we DID.” He summed it up very well when he said, ‘our mission work is not about the work we do, but the feeling that we give people that someone cares. Mary understood that and now we do.”

Two of our church members just came back yesterday from a medical mission trip to Haiti. They were there last fall too and got stranded for a few days by Hurricane Sandy. They told me that turned out to be blessing because in the extra days they were “forced” to be there, they were able to reach people that they otherwise would not have. Including kids who had not eaten in four days, kids with orange hair (not for Halloween, but because that’s what malnutrition does to your hair), and a family living in an open field during that storm. They set up a tent for that family that had no shelter, and while they did that others in the group shared the Gospel through translators. A naked little boy in the family was shaking from the cold, and one of the volunteers took the shirt off her back and gave it to him. They told me, “It was the most touching thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

We don’t have to go to Haiti or Appalachia or even inner city Columbus to serve God’s children. Service opportunities are all around us everyday and are as varied and numerous as the talents represented in this room – to teach, cook, sew, paint, build Habitat homes, make music, extend hospitality to guests new to the church. Whatever your talents are, what is clear from the Scriptures that we as Christians are all called to serve others in some way. In our Scripture lesson today from John, Jesus says, ‘As God has sent me, so I send you.”

As we celebrate the wonderful mission and service the church is already doing, we have to keep asking ourselves where else is God calling us to go. To be sent means movement – it means going somewhere on a mission, with a purpose. Often being sent on an errand or a work assignment or to comfort a sick or grieving friend calls us to move out of our comfort zone and do things we’ve never tried before and would rather not do. The “As God sent me” part of John 20:21 gives me pause. Jesus was sent to the lost, the lonely; he was sent to confront people with their sin and unfaithfulness; he was sent to expose injustice and oppression; and his prophetic witness got him into a lot of hot water with people of power in his day. He was sent to sacrifice his own comfort to serve and save others – and guess what, he needs us to do the same.

Maybe teaching a class of pre-schoolers is out of your comfort zone – or visiting a nursing home – or talking about your faith to a new neighbor who lives in a house that costs a whole lot more than yours. Where is God sending you? The point is, Christian discipleship is much more than a nice warm comfortable relationship with Jesus. Jesus welcomes us into his merciful arms and loves us – but that is not our resting place — then he sends us out to do his work.

So what does the Lord require of you and me? The Hebrew prophet Micah asked that very question. In Micah 6:8 we read, “He has showed you what is good, and what the Lord requires of you is to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.” The verses leading up to this verse describe the easy way the Hebrew people wanted to get right with God. They simply wanted to offer animal sacrifices on the altar at the temple and hope that would appease God and get them off the hook for any sin they had committed. Micah says, not so quick folks – God sees through our attempts to use rituals and ceremonies to cover up our lack of righteous living. Worship, rituals and ceremonies are good as far as they go – but they aren’t enough. God is much more concerned about how we live our lives Monday through Saturday than just how we spend Sunday mornings.

We all have a pretty good idea of what mercy is. That word in Micah is also sometimes translated as kindness. So I want to focus on the other two key words in that verse, Justice and Humility. We sometimes use the English word justice to mean punishment, as in “she got her just reward.” We have a department of justice that is about laws and punishment. But the biblical term “mishpat” is much broader than that. That Hebrew word for justice means fairness and righteousness – living in a right relationship with God’s will and making sure others are assured of an equitable and fair life, especially the weak and powerless. The phrase “with liberty and justice for ALL” in our pledge of allegiance reflects that vision of what life should look like for all of God’s children. And where that liberty and justice is lacking, that’s where God sends us to help make it so.

Notice Micah says we are to DO justice. Justice here is not just a noun, but a verb, an action. It’s the same idea expressed in the letter of James when he says, “Be doers of the word and not hearers only.” What does doing justice look like? There was a story on NPR last week about a trailer park community in Palo Alto, California looking for justice. These hard-working people live modestly, often working more than one job to provide for their families. Their blessing and curse is that they live near Silicon Valley and developers want to displace all the residents to build luxury condos and apartments. The people in those trailer homes want to stay there because some of the best schools in California are there. Those schools are providing a way for the next generation to improve their lives. But, as the NPR commentator said, “they are confronting the harsh realities of money.“ The average home in that area costs $2 million.

Is it just that those who need the most help to break out of the cycle of poverty have fewer resources to do so? When I compare the urban school I used to tutor in to the wonderful suburban schools my grandchildren attend, it’s like two different worlds. Is that justice, fairness and equality? It’s tempting to say that’s not our problem. We’ve got enough of our own! But it is our problem if we take seriously what the Scriptures tell us God requires of us.

There was once a village on the banks of a river where people would sometimes have to be rescued who had fallen in the river somewhere upstream. As the rescues became more frequent the village built a rescue station and staffed in 24/7 and saved hundreds of lives. They were proud of their work, but one day a young woman said to the village elders, “it’s a good thing to rescue people, but I wonder what is causing people to be in the river so often. Why don’t we go upstream and find out why people are ending up in the river in the first place? Doing justice is not just rescuing the perishing, as important as those acts of mercy are. We are also called to change the systems and conditions that put people at risk for poverty, hunger, discrimination, or any other injustice. And God sends us to the ballot box, to the school board or the legislature, to write letters to the editor–to do justice.

Micah says we are also to “walk humbly with your God” – what does that mean? In a word, it’s the O word. The O word is not one we like to hear, it’s “obedience.” Humble obedience means that when God says “go” we don’t bargain or make excuses; we go where we are sent.

Does that feel overwhelming, a bit scary? It sure does to me. I preach this stuff better than I practice it. Where do we get the strength and courage to go where God is calling us to serve? This passage from John addresses that question. The disciples are afraid and for good reason. They have just seen their beloved leader brutally crucified. John tells us they are hiding from the Jews. Can’t blame them – I would too, but I wonder if they weren’t also hiding from God who wants to send them into that same world that killed Jesus? You’ve heard the advice to never play leap frog with a unicorn? Well it’s also not a good idea to play hide and seek with God. Won’t work. That’s where the phrase “you can run but you can’t hide” probably originated.

John says the doors are locked in that upper room and Jesus comes right into the room anyway. How he did that is an interesting question we could explore, but that’s not really the point. Jesus coming into that locked room means that God breaks through whatever barriers we try to put up – whatever excuses we offer: I’m too old, too young, too poor, too busy, not good enough, too scared. “Sorry,” Jesus says, “it’s your turn now.”

The best Easter sermon I ever heard was by Bishop Dwight Loder, and the phrase I remember from that sermon is this. Bishop Loder said, “Jesus was not resurrected by the church. He was not resurrected for the church. He was resurrected AS the church.” We are the body of Christ, and as such God sends us in mission and service to the least and the lost. We are transformed by the salvation of Christ, but the story doesn’t end there. We are transformed so we can go out and transform the world into a place of justice, mercy and humility.

How in God’s name can we do that? Exactly – we can only do it if we do it in God’s name and with God’s power. And here’s the good news – that power is ready and available for anyone who is willing to accept it and surrender to it.
Do you want peace in your life? We all do – real peace that only God can give, the peace that passes all human understanding. The secret to finding that peace is right here in John 20. The first thing Jesus says to the disciples is “Peace be with you.” He doesn’t send them out looking for peace on E-bay or Craig’s list; he imparts it in their hearts and then sends them out. We don’t find or create that kind of peace; it finds us, in the midst of our doubts, not after all our doubts are resolved.

How does that work? Notice what happens right after Jesus says “As God has sent me, so I send you.” “When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them ‘receive the Holy Spirit.’” He breathed life into them just as God breathed life into humankind in the creation story. God’s Holy Spirit empowers before it sends us out to serve.
But here’s the catch – that powerful spirit only comes in surrender. True peace only happens when we are vulnerable enough to get up close and personal with God. You have to get very close to let someone breathe on you. The question is do we want Jesus getting that close? Invading our personal space, meddling with our priorities? That’s scary. But, if we let down our barriers and allow Christ into our hearts we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to humbly and obediently do justice and act mercifully – outside our comfort zones in the world God sends us into. To say with all the saints that have gone before us, “Here I am, Lord, send me!”

[This sermon was preached at Jerome UMC on October 27, 2013]

HEARING AND BEING THE VOICE OF GOD: Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29; Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11

by Steve Harsh, posted in Christian Discipleship, Faith and Values

There’s a famous line in the movie “Cool Hand Luke” where a frustrated prison guard tells the prisoner, Luke, “What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.”  It’s a great line but not quite true.  The problem is not communication; Luke heard the message, he just chose to ignore what the prison guard wanted him to do.  I wonder if we have a similar communication problem with God.   The lectionary texts for January 8th are all about communication, in particular about the power of the voice of God.  Literally from Day One (Gen. 1:1-5) to the Baptism of Jesus (Mark 1:4-11) to Paul’s ministry in Ephesus (Acts 19:1-7), God speaks and big things happen.  And the Psalm for this Baptism of the Lord Sunday, Psalm 29, speaks directly about the power of “Voice of the Lord” seven times in 11 verses and by implication several other times.

Communication scholars describe Speech-Act theory as the phenomenon by which language has the power to create or change reality.  Anyone who has ever stood before a clergy person or a justice of the peace and said two little words, “I do,” knows very well that their lives are forever changed from that moment forward.  “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” is a little ditty most of us learned at an early age.  The problem is it isn’t true.  Words have power to hurt and heal.  Most bullying begins with name calling and naming our political or personal enemies in ways that depersonalize and demonize them is the first step toward justifying abusive and unkind treatment that can ultimately lead to violence and death.

The words we use are a matter of life and death, of light and darkness.  Psalm 29 contains a whole litany of things that the voice of God can do: thunder, break cedars, fire, shake the wilderness, whirl oaks, strip forests and cause floods.  This must be where the insurance companies get their justification for excluding from coverage (read the fine print) natural disasters as “Acts of God.”

I am more interested in what these texts say about the power of God’s voice to transform human lives than I am the cause of natural disasters.  Genesis 1 tells us God spoke light into darkness, and that speech act is far more important symbolically than the on-going debate between creationism and evolution.  The darkness God expelled on day 1 of creation is wonderful, but a more relevant question is “what has God done for us lately?”  There are still far too many black holes of darkness in our world and our hearts today that need the light of God’s powerful voice of truth.

I love this parable by an anonymous author:

A pilgrim asks a wise one about the moment when we can tell darkness from the dawn.  “Is it when I can tell the difference between a sheep and a goat?” she asks.  “No.”

“Then is it when I can tell the difference between a peach and a pomegranate?”

“No,” says the elder. “When you can look into another’s eyes and say, ‘you are my brother, you are sister,’ that is the dawn.   Until then, there is only darkness.”

Both the Mark 1 text and Acts 19 deal with hearing God’s voice through the sacramental act of baptism.  Both texts tell us that John the Baptist preached and performed a baptism of repentance and belief in Jesus as the anointed one who came after John.  Mark doesn’t address the perplexing question of why Jesus needed a baptism of repentance because that’s not the point of that text, and not the full meaning of baptism.  Repentance is a critical first step in transformation, but only a prelude to what an anointed, spirit-led disciple can do.  When Paul asks the Christians in Ephesus “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you became believers?” they reply, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” So Paul proceeds to fix that problem but in doing so creates a theological dilemma for us.  Paul baptizes those Ephesians a second time.  To this day rebaptism is a controversial issue among Christians of different persuasions, along with what kind of baptism counts, how it’s done, at what age, by whom, etc.

Our different opinions on such matters can sometime be humorous.  One person, when asked if he believed in infant baptism replied, “Believe in it!  I’ve seen it.”   Or when my children were young and we were visiting a Baptist church where my daughter was playing in a piano recital.  After the recital our son went up to explore the chancel area and came back to excitedly report, “Dad, they have a Jacuzzi up there!”

Let’s put the debates about sprinkling or pouring or immersing aside for now and focus on one key point of the Acts text and Mark’s account of Jesus’ baptism– what the power of the Holy Spirit does to transform lives.  It’s not the water or how or when it’s applied that matters, it’s the voice of God and whether we hear it.    Jesus’ public ministry begins from the moment he hears the voice of God saying “You are my son….”   The question is have we heard God say, “you are my daughter, you are my son, and with you I am pleased?”

Gospel interpreters sometime wonder if Jesus was the only one who heard God’s voice there beside the Jordan. Given God’s propensity to speak in parables and metaphors and in “a still small voice” (I Kgs 19:12), I’d bet he was.  And so would Fred Craddock, I believe, who loves to say that when it came to his call to ministry it would have been so much easier if God had called him in a voice loud enough that his friends and relatives could have heard it too.

We liberal, sophisticated Christians are often afraid of the emotion associated with Pentecostal Christianity.  But we dare not let that fear make us miss the positive power of the voice, breath, and spirit of God to transform lives.    Jesus is transformed into the Messiah at his baptism and empowered by the voice of God to resist every temptation that Satan can throw at him in the wilderness.  God’s voice enables Jesus to find his voice to speak truth and salvation as God’s messenger.  We don’t know where Jesus was hanging out till he was 30, but we do know that at this pivotal moment Jesus emerges to “shout from the housetops what the Spirit has told him in a whisper” (Matt. 10:27).   By the power of God’s voice he is inspired to go public with his ministry with a passion that enabled him to set his face toward Jerusalem’s cross and never look back, even when his closest friends try their best to persuade him to renounce his calling and take an easier route.

And here’s the important point so don’t miss it– it’s not just Jesus who is transformed and empowered by the voice of God.  In the text from Acts 19 we see how the ordinary folks in Ephesus are also changed into God’s messengers. “The Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied” (19:7).   Those are loaded terms that may need clarification.  Speaking in tongues for many of us conjures up images of ecstatic nonsense speech that is unfamiliar and incomprehensible.  But what if we interpret tongues to mean that these people were on fire for God and spoke with passion about their faith in ways that people of many different cultures and ethnic groups could understand, as they did on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2)?   Acts 19 also tells us these new baptizees “prophesied,” another term that can have negative connotations if we take prophesying to mean what psychics who advertise on late night TV do.  Biblical prophets are not fortune tellers or crystal ball gazers.  A biblical prophet is simply someone who speaks for God.  They are those who know God’s truth and are emboldened by God’s presence in their lives to proclaim good news to a world starving for some.

The world needs people in every walk of life who have heard the voice of God and are willing not only to talk that talk but to walk God’s walk.  To do that takes incredible courage and faith in a world where people of faith are often aliens in a strange land.  To have the courage of our convictions means that all of us, clergy and laity alike are called to witness to our faith by word and action, even when we know the dangers and risks involved in speaking an uncomfortable truth – in love.  The risks of that kind of truth are exemplified quite simply in the fact that the Greek word for “witness” is also the word for “martyr.”

All baptized Christians are called to be witnesses and prophets for God, and the enormity of that calling means we all need to be anointed by God’s spirit.  We cannot hope to fulfill the ministry we are baptized into without the power of God’s spirit to guide and direct us.  God knows we all need a baptism of repentance, but we also need the power of the Holy Spirit to move us from repentance and forgiveness to become proactive messengers who dare to become the voice of God that transforms lives and the world.