Pentecost: Sermon Preview

Peter Lockhart

A sermon based on Acts 2:1-21

The Holy Spirit descends and breathes into the disciples, and those listening, an amazing ability.

They are given the ability to speak and listen and understand languages other than the one that they speak.

At its base level I believe that this description of the day of Pentecost is a reversal of the confusion set upon human beings at the tower Babel, a story found in the book of Genesis Chapter 11.

In summary the story of the tower of Babel goes like this.

“Up until this point in the Bible, the whole world had one language - one common speech for all people. The people of the earth became skilled in construction and decided to build a city with a tower that would reach to heaven. By building the tower they wanted to make a name for themselves and also prevent their city from being scattered.

God came to see their city and the tower they were building. He perceived their intentions, and in His infinite wisdom, He knew this "stairway to heaven" would only lead the people away from God. He noted the powerful force within their unity of purpose. As a result, God confused their language, causing them to speak different languages so they would not understand each other. By doing this, God thwarted their plans. He also scattered the people of the city all over the face of the earth.”

http://christianity.about.com/od/biblestorysummaries/p/towerofbabel.htm

In one sense then I see the Day of Pentecost as a reversal of this story. It is a sign that human beings are reconciled again to God. A reconciliation that is understood to occur by the disciples through what Jesus does. So whilst understanding comes through shared communication it is not the shared communication that draws human being back towards God and each other.

So, and this is a big so, whilst shared understanding is given as a sign of reconciliation with God, the reversal of the Tower of Babel, onlookers of the event fail to understand it, even though they can see and hear in their own language, “they must be filled with new wine!” In other words, “they are drunk!”

One of our greatest problems as humanity is our inability to understand one another, even when we speak the same language. You only have to observe politicians and the issues that humanity is confronting to understand this.

What I find particularly disturbing is our inability to hear those who may be speaking a word of prophecy amongst us. During the week I heard a report about the death threats being levelled at climate scientists in Australia.

These scientists are speaking the same language as those listening: but is the problem that people don’t want to listen? Is it because people cannot see beyond the meal on their table and the roof over their head?

The hopeful, yet naive, notion that J.F.K propounded in the 1960s was :

“Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.” http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/johnfkenn124671.html

When we as human beings fail to listen, to really listen, even when we are given a common language, how can we place so much faith in ourselves?

The Spirit was poured out to give an opportunity to witness to God’s reconciliation in Jesus Christ. The shared language on that day was a sign of what God was doing, but what is clear to me is that even with a common language we as human beings are still confused and more often than not even selfish bunch, we are all at sea.

The witness of the disciples was that it was because of God’s love expressed in Jesus Christ that we have become reconciled to God and one another and it is only when we find some unity in this proclamation that it can make any sense. It is this which becomes our hope, not the amazing gifts we may have to share with one another, but the God who through the Spirit and in Christ is present at work in and through us giving us hope even when we are misunderstood and sneered at as drunkards.

Pentecost: Living right to the end of life!

Peter Lockhart
The following was used as a devotional reflection in a retirement complex.

The pouring out of the Holy Spirit described in the book of Acts is an amazing thing: the sound of a rushing wind; tongues of fire; the ability to hear other languages and understand. So perplexing is the behaviour of those gathered that they are accused of as being drunk.

The Holy Spirit comes in power to give the disciples the strength and support to move forward in faith sharing the good news of Jesus with other people. This is a story of hope and purpose and direction in life.

And when we speak of the Holy Spirit we usually use words which describe life and movement.

The Holy Spirit is poured out, it is rushing wind, tongues of fire, bringer of gifts, giver of life, guide, comforter, inspirer and so on.

Tomorrow I am conducting a funeral and it has caused me to pause and think about how we understand this story of the coming of the Spirit and its place in our lives as we get older.

I suppose I can’t really speak from personal experience too deeply yet but I think one thing that maybe some think when they hear about the pouring out of the Holy Spirit is that it just sounds tiring.

The Holy Spirit comes to give life and movement but as you get older life and movement are just that little bit harder.

I imagine it’s far easier to speak of dance of the Holy Spirit if you don’t have arthritis or you don’t have a bung knee or a gammy leg.

I imagine it’s far easier to speak of the Holy Spirit as guide if you’re not stuck without a licence anymore or you’re not living in a retirement village or nursing home.

Yet it could also be far easier when we begin to think this way to write ourselves off as if there is nothing left to contribute and life has just become a waiting game, waiting for the only thing left, which we don’t really want to think about too much: death.

But when I read the story from the book of Acts I am always struck by the phrase “your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams”. Your old men shall dream dreams!

This is no less important than the young men who have visions. To take this point a little further, I would argue that the Spirit comes with different gifts for our age and stage in life. Your old men will dream dreams is an example contained within a prophecy.

I want to share a story I heard yesterday about a man who has terminal cancer. After being discharged from hospital he went home but when he got there he went straight to bed and was refusing to come out.

A young woman, a social worker, went and encouraged him step by step to reengage with life. To move out of waiting for death into living what he had left. The first step was simple to get up and to have a shower.

Step by step the man reengaged in living as best he could and gradually he became involved in supporting other people with cancer. He got involved so fully that last year he ran a Cancer Council Morning Tea in his home.

Not only was he living but he was living for others.

The vision of the young woman to help the man rediscover life turned into a dream for the man, a dream which became fulfilling not only for him but for others.

The Holy Spirit brings new life, helps us discover new gifts and passions and within the context of community young and old, male and female, rich and poor God empowers us to witness to Jesus who promised to send the Spirit to help us live our lives and live them abundantly, right to the end. Amen.

Ascension Day: The importance of names

I was blest on the morning of Ascension Day to attend Morning Prayer and to hear the passage of the ascension read from Acts as a living word from God. It is not always that we hear the scriptures read in such a way but occasionally the words are said with such deliberate love that the simply live for us.

What struck me was the way in which our worship leader, Gerda, named the list of disciples. Each name given the dignity of presence as the reader paused after each one, a moment to savour these people to whom Jesus had appeared and who went away to devote themselves in prayer.

Peter, and John, and James,
and Andrew, Philip and Thomas,
Bartholomew and Matthew,
James son of Alphaeus,
and Simon the Zealot,
and Judas son of James.

It may be that we don’t know these people but the recording of their names and their careful articulation in love continues the witness to Jesus, with which they were entrusted.

As I revelled in their faith the livingness of the scriptures continued in my mind to include the names of those with whom I worshipped and who had inspired me in the faith.

Faithful people like the ones who shared in the Morning Worship: Gerda, Mano, Lynne, Alan & Merle, Jason, Yvonne, Stephen, Harley.

And faithful friends and mentors who have and who continue to witness to Jesus love for me: my Dad, Sandra, Terry, Bob & Grace, David, Gordon & Geoff, Don & Pam, Alan, John, Andrew, Murray & Wendi, Ray, Shirley, Michael.

And people of Faith through the ages whom my contact has been only through texts and stories handed down: Halik, Zizioulas, McGrath, Moltmann, Bonhoeffer & Barth, Calvin & Luther & Zwingli, Gregory of Nazianzus.

Maybe at times we fail to name the influences because we might miss someone out. Maybe we are afraid of the intimacy of declaring our need of others. Maybe we are afraid of pirvacy laws and confidentialites. And maybe at times we simply forget to name those, whose witness shapes and support us, and remind us of the Jesus who ascended in mystery and for whose promised return we wait together in anticipation.

The way Gerda read the names reminded me of how tied our identity is to our own names and how it is important for our names to be said. Yet not only that, but that in hearing each others names in the context of the bigger story of God's love and of Jesus Christ, our faith is affirmed and the witness with which we have been entrusted is shared.

Acts: All things in common

by Peter Lockhart

Late last year playing golf one of my playing partners discovered that I was minister and proceeded to criticise the church in general until finally declaring something along the lines, “All Christians are communists”.

My response was to suggest that in reality the Bible paints a far more radical vision of life.

Consider for a moment Luke’s words to Theophilus in the book of Acts:

“All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.”

I have always read these words as some of the most profoundly confronting in the New Testament. I once received a letter from a friend who had become a missionary in India who wrote to me something similar, obviously alluding to Jesus words in Matthew chapter 6, he said “sell everything you have, come and join me, and build up treasures for yourself in heaven.”

Such visions of the Christian life are positively Franciscan in orientation and certainly far beyond any concepts of socialism or communism as I understand them. The idea of “sharing all things in common” is about a new way of living and being human community which is far more confronting than communism.

However, when Luke writes these words to Theophilus it may be that what Luke is doing is idealising the situation of the early Christian community as a new beginning for humanity.

Luke would have come across a similar idea of people sharing all things in common in the Greco-Roman philosophical world. For example, in Plato’s Critias, Plato ‘pictures the early days of Athens as a time when “none of its members possessed any private property, but they regarded all they had as the common property of all.” Whilst in the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses the description of the Golden Age contains similar themes of community.

So when Luke describes the early Christian community in the way he does to Theophilus one of the things he appears to be doing is capturing these ancient visions of utopian communities and declaring a new beginning for humanity, a new way of civilization.

In actuality the early Christian community, inspired by the Holy Spirit, may have lived a far more communal life although it may not have been quite as radical as Luke suggests. Nonetheless, the vision was for a different way of living based on a new beginning.

The new beginning was of course the advent of Jesus Christ in the world who claims a unique union with the Father in heaven and invites us into the peace and joy of that unity. The Christian community sought to live together in koinonia with each other in that new relationship established by God with human beings in and through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit.

This concept of koinonia implies more than is often translated in the word ‘community’. I have often referred to our lives being intertwined in each other’s lives as we are drawn into God’s life in Jesus. My life in yours and your life in mine and ours in God: mutuality in existence.

As I suggested this implies far more than concepts of community and sometimes the word used to describe koinonia is communion, but that in itself can create some confusion as we also use the word communion in a variety of ways as well.

In the book of Acts by suggesting that the people held “all things in common” Luke is trying to help establish the understanding that Jesus Christ brings about a new way of human community and life. This way of life was clearly understand as a consequence of encountering God’s grace, a joyful response to what Jesus had done, as opposed to a way of earning God’s favour.

There can be no doubt it was counter cultural and a challenge to the accepted norms of life at the time – social, economic, religious and political.