sermonboy.com

Pentecost

1 Corinthians 12
No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.
4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.
7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8 To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues,[a] and to still another the interpretation of tongues.[b] 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.
12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by[c] one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.


If you plan to travel to a new place, it’s good to learn a phrase or two.

Take the internet for example. If you are traveling online or on your smart phone, and someone says LOL, it’s not a sign of affection. They are laughing, most likely with you, but maybe just at you. A quick way to recover would be to type “LOL, I thought LOL meant something else. Okay, LOL.” There, you did it again.

So if you come across IMO, you’ll soon discover it means “in my opinion.” Likewise all the variations: IMHO (humble) and IMNSHO (not-so-humble). Or how about AFAIK? Once you crack the most common version (as far as I know) you will have an easy time with AFAICT (can tell) and AFAICS (can see).

And I discovered a new one this week, in an online forum discussing the future impeachment of you-know-who. Someone began a sentence with IANAL, and after a few minutes of careful pondering realized “I am not a lawyer” is common enough to become an online initialism.

(Just as an aside, our local scribe uses BIRT in her minutes, which I have since learned comes high school and college debating teams. So, be it resolved that Taye admit she was on the debating team.)

So a new language develops and we try to learn. And like technological infants, we begin one word at a time, until our vocabulary begins to fill out. Soon we think about proper usage, and how this strange language is constructed, and some day we master it. The first step, of course, is to understand that this language exists—to know it when we see it.

So too on the day of Pentecost, when wind and flame transformed followers into a church, and the message was shared in such a way that all could understand:

5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,[b] 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?” 13 Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”

Peter says “no, friends,” this is not inebriation, this is intoxication with the Holy Spirit, a day first described by the prophet Joel, when God’s spirit will be poured out on all flesh, when the young will see visions and the old will dream dreams. Signs and wonders will unite heaven and earth, and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

So the first sign, the miracle of translation, has these Galileans—fishers and farmers, tax collectors and sinners—greeting the diverse crowd in their own tongues, in a list that has caused many a lay-reader to run screaming from the lectern. You have to take it slowly, and visualize, and pause to marvel at the one anomaly hidden in the text—the appearance of time-travellers.

For you see, the people of the once great empire called Medes were witnesses on that day, hearing God’s massage in their own language, as the text tells us. But these are people that 500 years earlier had passed into history, a people who sadly left no texts, no inscriptions, no grammar: only a couple of chunks of cuneiform in Old Persian that might, might be a scrap of the Median language. But it might just be Old Persian.

So hidden in the miracle of tongues and translation is another miracle—the erasure of time. It doesn’t matter that your civilization is extinct, because the Spirit of the Living God can transcend time and space and circumstance to bring a message of new life. It doesn’t matter that any list of civilizations is also a list of friends and enemies and conflicting interests, because the vision and the dream of Pentecost is that all may be one.

So what’s underneath this vision, this unity that struggles to be a church? The answer comes from St. Paul:

No one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.
4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.

Wisdom, knowledge, healing, prophecy, discernment, tongues and the interpreting of tongues, all gifts, all given by the same Spirit to drink. And why, beyond the desire to declare God’s glory? Paul has an answer for that too: “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”

Clearly Paul has been reading his Aristotle, and since we’re talking about time-travel, maybe he’s reading Jean-Jacques Rousseau too. The sudden and unexpected appearance of some political philosophy in the shape of something called the “common good” may be Paul’s point after all.

The common good, you see, is more than a well-worn phrase that we seem to leave untended. The common good is Aristotle’s belief in something only a society can achieve together, but can be shared among it’s members. The common good is Rousseau’s belief that the only moral society is one that works together for the good of all. And the common good is Paul’s belief that when we build a community together—each of us given a unique gift to share.

So we seek the common good, and we never shy from naming it as our goal. It is both the heart of Christian ethics and the most practical way to demonstrate our love for God and for those around us. It is something we strive for, but it is also something that we seek to name in the world around us. God is busy, through the Spirit, pursuing the common good in ways that we can only begin to see:

Muslims and Jews praying together in Manchester, for the victims, and for a world at peace.
An MP from Quebec who came to realize that since his riding is on traditional Mohawk territory, perhaps he should learn to speak the language as an expression of reconciliation.
200,000 people will march in Tel Aviv's Pride Parade next week, when nearby states continue to regard homosexuality as a capital crime.
And even Michael Bloomberg, heartbroken that his country would renege on the millions promised to the UN to fight climate change, pledged to pay it himself.

And that’s just in the last week. The Spirit of Pentecost is still moving among us, in the church, and far beyond these walls. The Spirit of Pentecost is speaking in tongues and times that are unexpected and always new. The Spirit of Pentecost is urging us to use our gifts to further the work of the Kingdom, to pursue the common God, and always give to God the glory.

Wisdom, knowledge, healing, prophecy, discernment, tongues and the interpreting of tongues, all gifts, all present in our fellowship and among those who seek the common good. IMHO (in my humble opinion) it is the task of the church to identify and celebrate the places where the Spirit of Pentecost is at work, to align ourselves with the people and the work they do, and to never stop praising God for the gifts of the Spirit, Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 6:07 AM