Sermon: The One With All the Languages

  

First Presbyterian Church

May 24, 2026, Pentecost A

Numbers11:24-30; Acts 2:1-21

 

The One with All the Languages

 

 

One of the things that sometimes needs to be set straight about Pentecost is that no, this is not the first time the Holy Spirit is invoked in scripture. Today's first reading provides one such counterexample, as a stressed-out Moses pleads for help and God invokes that Spirit to be bestowed upon seventy elders of the people of Israel so that they might share some of the burden of leadership. That Spirit's appearance is made manifest in an outburst of frenetic prophesying, one that spills over to include two men back in the camp, not numbered among those seventy. Joshua (in a typical fit of church leadership) wants to have those two men silenced and that unexpected outburst of Holy Spirit squelched, but Moses (in a typical fit of pastoral weariness) stuffs that idea, crying out that he wished everyone could prophesy. It's not how we typically expect to see the Spirit play out, to be sure, especially since this prophetic outburst is only a one-time thing, but it still serves to remind us that the Holy Spirit is not a new thing as the disciples show up for this Pentecost morning.

While the Holy Spirit isn't new in this case, there are certainly some distinctive features of this particular Spirit-event that are worth noting on this one day of the liturgical year when the Spirit comes to the forefront. The Ascension of Jesus got all of four words in the ancient creeds ("he ascended into heaven"), and in one case the Holy Spirit doesn't do a lot better. The Apostles' Creed, one of the oldest statements of faith in Christendom, has this to say on the subject:

 

I believe in the Holy Ghost...

 

That's it. Thankfully the Nicene Creed does a bit better, giving a whole paragraph to the subject. The church has some history of not really paying attention to this particular member of the Trinity, perhaps to its own harm; it is the Spirit most of all that is the most direct participant in the day-to-day life of the follower of Christ, and it is this Pentecost in-breaking of the Spirit that marks the ongoing truth of this presence and participation.

Since we last heard from this group, we know that they have indeed remained inJerusalem as they were instructed. Acts also mentions in an interesting aside that they elected one of their number to replace Judas, the traitor against Jesus whose grisly death is reported in an aside. And they have waited, probably wondering what exactly they were waiting for (as noted last week). Now they're about to find out.

The description itself lingers: "a sound like the rush of a violent wind"; "divided tongues, as of fire"; and then, the sound of all the languages.

Let's be clear; this group of followers is speaking languages they don't know, but that other peoples outside of Judea or Palestine do speak. Ecstatic utterances in tongues that require interpretation (what we commonly call "speaking in tongues") come later in Acts; this event is one of miraculous speech and hearing.

Those tongues matter because just outside their windows there is a crowd of folks gathered in Jerusalem for the festival of the harvest that was Pentecost in the Jewish tradition, a group ripe to hear something good each in their own language.

Have you had that experience of being in a crowd with people speaking any language but your own? The particular challenge of this was pressed home for me many years ago when I was in Quebec City for a conference back in my academic days. The conference itself was held in English but going out for dinner or frankly anything else meant being among French speakers. While some also spoke English well enough to understand me, that wasn't always the case. I'm horrible with languages, and French is one of my worst. At least in this case the worst that came of it was that I declined the sugar I very much wanted for my coffee.

These people were Jews from, as a Judean would have seen it, all over the world. The list of locations provided here literally denotes a whole range of nationalities from the east, north, west, and south of Jerusalem, a way of evoking that which we sometimes metaphorically call "the four corners" of the world. Before these followers of Jesus get sent out into the world, the world has come to them. And because of this outburst of the Holy Spirit, the world at the windows is able to hear good news, each in their own language.

This is not always a thing the church or the world has taken to heart. The Western world in particular has a particular imperial history of forcing their own languages upon those peoples whom they encounter, or frequently whom they conquer. On the North American frontier, those seeking to drive out or subjugate the Native peoples made a very specific and fixed point of pushing to eradicate the languages those so-called "savages" spoke. An Indian, in the vernacular of the time, could only be tolerated if every trace of "Indian-ness" was driven out of them, and it was presumed that one of the surest ways to do so was to take away their language, especially in the "Indian" schools that appeared on those frontiers. (I first learned of these schools while down in Lawrence, KS, where one such school was eventually changed into the current Haskell Indian Nations University, there were two such schools in Illinois in the late 19th century). The students at such schools were forbidden to speak their own language, being forced to speak English, or possibly French in Canadian schools. This, of course, was in addition to numerous other oppressions visited upon them, quite literally as a means of separating them from their families and their peoples for good.

What happens in today's scripture is the complete and total opposite of that act of emotional violence. Those seekers who came to Jerusalem, thanks to the working of the Holy Spirit, were welcomed in their own languages. They weren't stripped of who they were, weren't denied their own humanity and worth, in order to hear the gospel. One could even say that this Holy Spirit outbreak was for these listeners, the ones who heard the commotion of that sound like a violent wind and wondered what was going on, as much as it was for these followers of Jesus, or maybe even more so.

We don't really know how it worked from here forward, as the believers (including possibly those who became believers on this day) were scattered from Jerusalem into, well, all the world. There were certainly going to be language barriers to be faced as these followers of Christ spread further and further out from Judea. But these followers knew from experience that the Holy Spirit would find a way for them to communicate with those waiting to hear the gospel.

Do we actually believe that? It can be a scary thing to find ourselves in a world where, more and more, it seems like most folks out there aren't speaking our "language," whether literally or more figuratively. While Pentecost can mean an awful lot of different things in the life of the church, sometimes it can be hard to remember that the Holy Spirit has experience with helping Christ's followers find the right language to speak, if we will listen and submit to that work. It might be disruptive, and it might take us out of our comfort zones, but it has been done, and it can be done.

At the same time, the Holy Spirit also has that experience of preparing those who listen, those who seek to hear, those who call upon the name of the Lord, to be able to hear that word in their own language and to be ready to respond.

For all the languages, and the Spirit's ability to speak them, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #289, On Pentecost They Gathered; #291, Spirit, Spirit of Gentleness; #280, Come, O Spirit, Dwell Among Us

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sermon: The Spirit Poured Out

First Presbyterian Church

June 8, 2025, Pentecost C

Acts 2:1-21

 

The Spirit Poured Out

 

 

Here we are again, at one of those passages of scripture that we may not hear very often, but we do hear it at least once every year. It's the kind of scripture reading that we recognize almost immediately upon hearing, but that, if we're honest with ourselves, we don't really know all that well.

We know the basic beats of the story:

ü All of Jesus's followers, gathered in a room, waiting for...who knows?

ü The sound of a great wind, "divided tongues as of fire", suddenly speaking languages they'd never learned or known before;

ü The great crowd, in Jerusalem but from everywhere (a detailed list follows, representing the entire known world); that crowd hearing all the commotion and wondering what was going on up there;

ü Some terminally clever oaf in the crowd cracking wise about their being drunk;

ü Peter responding that it's only nine o'clock in the morning, and that nobody's drunk, but here's what's happening; and then quoting some spooky stuff from the prophet Joel, launching into a sermon from there (that we only get part of in today's reading).

Sometimes those familiar phrases, though, can get a little bit dull from repetition, so familiar that we don't really hear them. We might just slip into the thought, "oh, yeah, the Pentecost story" and go on autopilot, not really hearing.

For example: what does it suggest when Peter, following Joel 2:28-32 pretty directly, quotes God as saying "I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh"? Does that strike up any particular image in your mind? Or has it become so familiar that it doesn't really strike up anything? 

Sometimes when I find myself in this rut I turn to the Cotton Patch Gospel, the work of biblical scholar Clarence Jordan, who not only translated much of the New Testament but created a version set in the Georgia of his day, namely the late 1950s. Jerusalem became Atlanta, the baby Jesus was born in Gainesville (Georgia, not Florida), and so forth. Being born and raised in Georgia, this naturally got my attention. Jordan's colorful and evocative language can be at times illuminating. It's not a substitute for a more straightforward translation, but it can be an interesting supplement at times.

And for this passage, Clarence Jordan offers "I will share my spirit with all mankind." OK, there's the dated language "mankind," as if women weren't included, but the main verb is "share." It's an effective enough verb, to be sure, and it's definitely accurate enough in this context, but for those who respond to imagery and vividness of language, it perhaps doesn't offer as much help. 

Another, much more recent reading of the scriptures in a different cultural context is First Nations Version: An Indigenous Translation of the New Testament, published only four years ago. This work, produced by a council of Native religious leaders and teachers and scholars, sought to perform a task not unlike Jordan's Cotton Patch Gospel, but not exactly the same; the setting is not changed, but the names of places and persons are given in a Native idiom and the style of the account is rendered as much as possible in the style of a storyteller in the oral tradition of the many nations and tribes of North America. 

In this reading, after the "sound of a great windstorm" and "flames of fire" have come and the crowd is hearing in their many languages, Peter's reading of Joel is rendered as "'In the last days,' says Creator, 'I will rain down my Spirit upon all human beings...'."

Now there's something. 

The thing about something being poured out is that if you're not directly under whatever is being poured from, you might well miss it. Rain, on the other hand, is not so easy to escape. If you're outside when it starts to rain, you get wet. There's no sidestepping the rain or jumping out of the way of it. You get wet. 

Maybe this helps drive home the fact of the Spirit being poured out on everyone. No one is left out. Everyone gets wet. 

This doesn't go down well for a lot of people. It's been true in every age and it's most definitely true now; too much of the church wants this pouring out of the Spirit to be for just us, or maybe more specifically not them. We're the "special" ones, they insist; we're God's chosen, God's favorites. Not those people who don't look like us, who don't sound like us, who don't flatter us or cozy up to us or make us feel important. Not them. The Spirit doesn't pour down on them. That's how an awful lot of people want it to be.

But when we think of the Spirit raining down? As the old verse says, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. It doesn't miss anybody. There's no getting left out, there's no Great Replacement anything, there's no "for me but not for thee," none of that. The Spirit rains down on everyone, whether we like it or not. Everybody gets wet.

Does everybody respond to the Spirit the same way? No, they don't. Think again about the rain; your first impulse is to seek shelter, yes? Or perhaps pull out an umbrella? For some people, the Spirit is a disruption, maybe even a threat. You never know what's going to happen when the Holy Spirit gets loose. Life might get uncomfortable. We might be led places we're not comfortable going. Best get out of the rain before you get too wet. But then there are those lovely souls who, when the rain comes down, will take it all in and maybe skip about and kick around a few puddles when they form. The Spirit truly soaks them with all that it is.

This is one rainstorm from which we don't need to take shelter. The Holy Spirit, raining down on all humanity? In the dried-up wilderness that is increasingly the world in which we live, that raining down is nothing less than life itself. The church, big or small, local or global, dare not try to shelter against this rain, not if we want to live up to the label "Christian," or (even better) terms like "Christlike," or "follower of Christ." 

One more thing: the Holy Spirit didn't go away after Pentecost. It keeps raining all through the book of Acts (we've taken in a couple of such passages back in the month of May). Even more, that same Spirit is still raining down on all human beings. The Holy Spirit - third person of the Trinity, remember; in other words, God - continues to rain down upon humanity, seeking to wash us and renew us and fill us with what we need to do Christlike things in a decidedly non-Christlike world.

This is one rain from which you don't want to seek shelter or pop up an umbrella.

It's time to let it rain. 

It's time to get wet.

For the raining down of the Holy Spirit, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #289, On Pentecost They Gathered; #286, Breathe on Me, Breath of God; #285, Like the Murmur of the Dove's Song

 

 

References:

 

Clarence Jordan's Cotton Patch Gospel, the Complete Collection. Macon: Smith & Helwys Publishing, 2012.

 

First Nations Version: An Indigenous Translation of the New Testament. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2021. 

Sermon: Macedonia

 First Presbyterian Church

May 25, 2025, Easter 6C

Acts 16:6-15

 

Macedonia

 

“Macedonia” is the name applied generally to a region of southeastern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. That more general region includes two current political entities with the same name: a region in northern Greece, and an independent nation once a part of Yugoslavia. Historically, Macedonia was perhaps most famous as the home and kingdom of Alexander the Great, from whence he set out to conquer the world. In later years the region was a significant province in the Roman Empire.

One of the important cities in that Roman district was Philippi. First founded by one of Alexander’s successors, the city was re-established during the Roman Empire. It was the site of the climactic battle of Marc Anthony and Octavian, successors of Julius Caesar, against his assassins Cassius and Brutus. Under Octavian (later known as Augustus) Philippi became a city for retired soldiers and was slightly modified by the addition of a Roman-style forum and the division of land among the soldier-colonists, becoming in effect a “miniature Rome.”

It was into this territory and this city that Paul and his fellow travelers were more or less forced by the Holy Spirit in today’s reading, an event which marked the first known foray of early Christian proclaimers of the Gospel into what we now define as “Europe” – a fact much more interesting to us today than to Paul and his co-workers. For us, a church like most Presbyterian churches made up of mostly white European stock, it’s an origin story. To them it was all Roman Empire, but Philippi, due to its unique origins, might have been just a little more Roman than other places on their journey.

To say that Paul and his company (which now included Silas and also Timothy, who had joined the group earlier in this chapter) were “forced” into Macedonia isn’t really a stretch. When the party had sought to move towards Asia (not the continent we know today, but another Roman province occupying what we would call western Turkey), Paul had been “forbidden by the Holy Spirit” from proclaiming the Gospel there. They tried to go to another region “but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.” 

What does that even mean? Luke doesn’t give us any details here, but don’t you wish he had?? Whatever form these divine roadblocks took, Paul and Silas and the whole traveling group were stuck in a place called Troas, wondering what to do next. 

Think about this. They were prevented from moving forward. They were “forbidden,” they were “not allowed” to go. Those are very strong words. We modern Christians have this perhaps overly catchy phrase about how “when God closes a door, God opens a window” – maybe you’ve heard it? We tend to forget about the door-closing part of that phrase in our eagerness to get to the open window, but we do need to pay attention. If Paul and Silas – the great missionary team of the book of Acts, and most prolific proclaimers of the good news – had doors divinely slammed in their faces, we need not think we can just make up our minds and charge off in whatever direction looks good to us. Whatever path this church or any church seeks to discern for itself and for its future, that particular church needs to be ready for some doors being shut in our faces. (Apropos of nothing, this can also apply to pastors seeking a call.)

At this point comes the dream, or if you prefer, the open window. A “man of Macedonia” (you know how in a dream you just know who someone is, even if you have no reason to?) appears calling the group to come to that region and “help us.” It’s a fairly meager dream as Luke describes it, but given all the preventing and forbidding that has been going on so far it sounds like a great positive, and Paul and his party undertake the voyage. This was no short journey. The trip involved several ports of call and a couple of days’ sailing, before a short overland journey to Philippi, that leading Roman city and old soldiers’ home.

And once they got there … “we remained in the city some days.”

Again with the delay. Really, one might be excused for wondering if God is really with these folks or just messing with them.

Up to this point Paul’s usual practice had been to seek out a synagogue when arriving in a town to speak first to the members of that synagogue. Frequently many would be receptive to their word, but others would reject it, and sometimes violently. In Philippi, though, it doesn’t appear that Paul and Silas and company found one, hence they “remained in the city” for those several days. Finally, somehow, they got wind of a gathering, outside of the city gate and down by a river, that might be what they were looking for.

Well, sort of. What they found was a group of women led by Lydia, a wealthy woman (a dealer of purple cloth was inevitably wealthy) described as a “worshipper of God,” a term sometimes used to describe persons who were not part of the synagogue of the time but took an interest and directed their worship towards the God represented in the synagogue (similar to the centurion Cornelius from last Sunday's reading). So where was the man of Macedonia from the vision? Anyway, Lydia received the gospel with her whole household, and then pretty much took over, prevailing upon Paul and Silas and the whole party to stay in her home for the duration of their stay in Philippi. You know the folks who can do that kind of thing? They won’t take any of that nonsense about you staying in a hotel, we’re going to put you right up in the guest rooms and let’s make sure you’ve got everything you need while we’re at it? That was Lydia. Real Presbyterian Women energy.

So Paul and his party intended to go into Asia, perhaps cover some familiar territory with the familiar territory of the synagogue in doing the work of the gospel. Instead, they ended up in an entirely new place, much more in the heart of the Roman Empire, working without their usual safety net, and in the care of an independent woman of means. So much for best-laid plans. 

And yet, if we truly want to seek God’s vision for the church – this individual church or the church universal – we’d better be ready for something similar to happen. 

The hymn we will sing in a few moments, “Be Thou My Vision,” is rather dangerous if you actually pay attention to it. You know how it starts, right?

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;

Naught be all else to me, save that thou art...

 

 "Naught," (that is, nothing else) matters but God. If we’re truly going to give ourselves, our prayers, our time, our gifts, our energies, our very being to God’s vision, we run the risk of ending up in unfamiliar places, among people who are unfamiliar and perhaps uncomfortable for us, doing a work we could not possibly have expected. If we’re truly going to be about God’s vision, we have no idea where we will end up. And really, that’s as it has to be. We follow Christ, after all. Christ doesn’t follow us.

This week's lesson really is a lot like last week's account of Peter and Cornelius, but more so; Peter was after all still on that far end of the Mediterranean Sea, close to home, even if he was sent to receive Gentiles. Paul, in today's story, is being not-so-gently prodded to go to an explicitly Roman city, a place he never imagined going, with no safety net, and his group's well-being ended up in the hands of this group of previously unknown women. 

The Spirit gives us absolutely no assurance that our church in five or fifteen or fifty years will look anything like it did five or fifteen or fifty years ago. That’s not the point. The point is to be faithful, and to follow. The church doesn’t get to “go back to” anything. Our call is to be faithful and to follow, even if we end up in places we couldn’t have possibly imagined. We end up at tables with God’s children we’ve never met or never imagined, not necessarily comfortable for us but absolutely who God calls us to serve and love.

Heart of my own heart, whatever befall, 

Still be my vision, O Lord of us all.

 

For the vision that drives us forward, even when we have no idea where we are going, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal) #375, Shall We Gather at the River; #450, Be Thou My Vision; #757, Today We All Are Called to Be Disciples

 

Sermon: Just As the Spirit Chooses

First Presbyterian Church

January 19, 2025, Epiphany 2C

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

 

Just As the Spirit Chooses

 

 A few years ago the internet humor site Unvirtuous Abbey posted a cartoon image that suggested the Apostle Paul at work writing one of his letters to the various churches under his care. The captioning of this image, however, took a creative slant: the imagined text of the letter under construction began thus:

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, to the churches of the United States of America – grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ: I don’t even really know where to begin with you guys…

 

It’s a funny line, and easily evocative of just how far much of the church in this country have strayed from being Christlike in any discernible way. The truth is, though, this isn’t that far from how the actual Paul began some of his letters, and how he was compelled to speak to the churches in other letters even when he was able to keep his opening more cordial. For example, in the letter to Galatians Paul barely manages to get through a fairly doxological opening statement before turning to chastisement in verse 6: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel…”. Things were evidently that bad.

As for the letter we are reading today and in the forthcoming weeks, Paul actually manages to get though not only the formal greeting, but a nice blessing as well, before turning to the matter at hand at the beginning of this letter: “Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you should be in agreement and that there should be no divisions among you, but that you should be united in the same mind and in the same purpose.” Paul elaborates that the Corinthians have apparently devolved into factions around one leader or another in the larger church – Paul, Cephas (or Peter), Apollos (the evangelist introduced in Acts 18), or even – in a super-self-righteous move – Christ. Paul quickly admonishes the Corinthians for this, but the correction of this division will go much deeper and in fact constitute the bulk of this letter. There are many things going wrong among the Corinthians, and Paul is setting out to address them.

Paul’s work in his travels was frequently made more challenging by the difficulties of churches made up of diverse groups of people and the disputes, disagreements, or contests that too often arose between those groups. For example, by the time Paul is making his travels, the congregations to whom he preaches and writes are usually composed of both Jewish and Gentile converts to Christianity. At times the Jewish party would contend that the Gentiles needed to take up practices associated with Judaism (most notably the act of circumcision for males) before they could be fully accepted into the fledgling group of Christ’s followers. To put it more briefly, they felt that Gentiles should become Jews in order to become Christians. Paul, despite his own thoroughly Jewish heritage, argued against that claim, agreeing with those who called that an unnecessary burden.

The conflict Paul addresses here in today’s reading is a different one, not necessarily based on Jewish-Gentile dividing lines, but one that caused tremendous strain in the church at Corinth no less. In this case, this local church was struggling with the effects of spiritual pride and even a kind of competitiveness, in which some claimed that their specific and distinctive spiritual gifts made them spiritually superior to others. This kind of spiritual elitism never ends well, and Corinth was no exception.

After much chiding and critique earlier in the book on this and other matters, Paul now turns with chapter 12 to address “matters pertaining to the Spirit.” “Spiritual gifts,” the term you see in verse 1, is certainly part of the matter, but not the full extent of what Paul wants to address. 

First, Paul is compelled to remind his readers – a great many of whom in Corinth were Gentile converts to The Way – that all of them had been equal in ignorance before following Christ. The lot of them had been, as Paul describes, duped worshipers of powerless, speechless idols. Even as followers of Christ now, Paul challenges them to understand that they have much to learn, particularly about the Holy Spirit.

For example: no one who is speaking under the influence of the Holy Spirit could ever utter the phrase “Let Jesus be cursed!” You can’t do it. To be sure, there are times when even we followers of Christ speak decidedly not under the influence of the Spirit! But that’s a different story. Similarly, but not quite the same way, one cannot make the claim that “Jesus is Lord” except by the power of the Holy Spirit. Even being able to make the confession “Jesus is Lord” is evidence of the work of the Spirit. 

Understand what it means: anyone who confesses “Jesus is Lord” is doing so by a gift of the Spirit. There is no one who confesses Christ is Lord that is not gifted by the Spirit. If that’s the case, no one has any business claiming that any other believer has no spiritual gift. We all do. That’s how we can even be followers of Christ at all, by the gift of the Spirit. You didn’t think you earned your salvation, did you?

With that understanding, Paul turns to the issue of differences in spiritual gifts and other workings of the Spirit. One of the common threads of what Paul has to say is that difference or variety or diversity is inevitable and indeed is “baked into” the way that the Spirit “gifts” the followers of Christ. Each of us receives different abilities or talents or gifts, and that itself is a very intentional work of the Spirit. 

Paul sketches out only a few of these possible gifts or abilities in verses 7-10. By no means is this a complete list, but Paul mentions the speaking both of wisdom and of knowledge; faith; healing; miracles; prophecy; discernment; and the speaking and interpreting of tongues. And as Paul notes, the Spirit allots these gifts to the children of God quite according to the Spirit’s own choosing, and nothing other – “just as the Spirit chooses,” as verse 11 puts it.

Paul here is urging the Corinthians to understand that this dispersal of the gifts of the Spirit was absolutely no cause for pride. There is no basis for any claim that having any one spiritual gift made you in any way superior to or more important than any of your sisters or brothers in Christ. 

I have been called as the interim pastor of this church for a little more than a year and a half, after eight+ years at my previous call. I believe I do have some gift for the speaking of wisdom or knowledge, perhaps a way of describing preaching. Hopefully those three years I spent in seminary helped develop that gift to some degree. But if I were ever tempted to think that this specific gift was somehow “more special” or more important than other gifts, … well, let’s just say that many weeks or even months in this vocation have really caused me to wish I had a gift for healing or miracles instead. 

What Paul needs the Corinthians (and us) to understand is that we need all the gifts. This church can’t survive on preaching alone. Nor can it survive on any one of the gifts the Spirit might bestow. We need them all, both our own church here and the greater church around the world. And when we turn inward, when we start failing to welcome others into our church, or when we start drawing lines to keep some out and include only certain people, “folks like us,” then we are cutting ourselves off from some of the very gifts or manifestations of the Spirit that we absolutely need to survive, for the common good.

And it’s not even about our surviving, in the end. Our church, local or universal, is not put here on earth to serve ourselves. These flourishings of the Spirit that are made manifest in us are here to show God’s glory to those all around us. We are here to bear witness to the gospel, to be the vessel by which that good news is given to all the world around us. And those gifts of the Spirit are scattered out among us for that very end; giving glory to God that the world might see.

Beyond the matter of not indulging in pride over one’s spiritual gifts, there is also the matter of not dismissing what one contributes to the body as somehow being unimportant or not really mattering. If everybody in a congregation is determined that because their gift isn’t for preaching or prophecy it isn’t important, the church misses out on those less flashy gifts like faith or discernment and suffers for it. All the gifts are needed. 

This is part of the church “being an epiphany,” participating in showing Christ to the world. When we all pull together using each of our distinctive gifts for the work of the kingdom of God, we become a revelation of God to the world, through the working of the Spirit. We show Christ to the world. We show the world what it looks like when the Spirit is working among us. Or, when we start elevating some gifts and demeaning others, when we start indulging in pride about our own spiritual abilities, or when we cut ourselves off from the gifts we need in the church because we don’t like the people who have them? Or when we hold back the gifts God has given us for whatever reason? We fail to bear witness to God’s Spirit, and in fact do damage to that witness among the larger church.

Right now, this congregation is doing alright - better than many other congregations, believe it or not. It takes every spiritual gift that is present among the people of this or any congregation, and then some, to keep things afloat. We don’t have space for anybody to decide that their gifts or abilities don’t matter; we need them all. There is no one whose gifts or talents or abilities don’t matter. We need them all.

The abilities we bring to the body of Christ are not an accident. The Holy Spirit is working in us, each of us, all of us, so that we might bear witness to God and to the gospel of Christ to a world that desperately needs to be reminded of that story and to hear that witness. Being prideful about some gifts or dismissive of others is failure to show Christ to the world. We have no margin for error; we need all those manifestations of the Spirit to do our job in the world. 

For gifts of the Spirit, and the opportunity and obligation to use them together, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #292, As the Wind Song; #308, O God, in Whom All Life Begins; #733 We All Are One in Mission

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Sermon: What to Put Away, What to Keep

First Presbyterian Church

August 11, 2024, Pentecost 12B

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

 

What to Put Away, What to Keep

 

 

Do you renounce all evil, and powers in the world which defy God’s righteousness and love?

I renounce them.

 

Do you renounce the ways of sin that separate you from the love of God?

I renounce them.

 

Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Lord and Savior?

I do. 

 

Will you be Christ’s faithful disciple, obeying his Word and showing his love, to your life’s end?

I will, with God’s help.

 

 

These words are found in the Presbyterian Church (USA) Book of Common Worship as part of the recommended liturgy for a baptism, as part of the liturgy known as the “renunciations.” The questions are asked by the minister presiding at the baptism, and then answered either by the one being baptized or the parents or guardians of the one being brought for baptism. Presbyterians are hardly unique in this; some version of this is found in the baptismal rite of pretty much all the churches that have baptismal rites or liturgies. 

The very idea of renunciation of evil and sin is what is at the heart of today’s scripture reading, as the author of Ephesians continues with the practical instruction portion of this epistle. 

In all honesty there are portions of this passage that leave one wondering just what is going on in the churches to which this letter is addressed. The instruction about “putting away falsehood” is strong enough. The instruction about anger is actually useful (more about it later). The instructions about “unwholesome talk” (most translations say "evil talk"), getting rid of “bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice,” coming in a run-list like this, begins to raise the eyebrows and provoke wonder about a possible reality show about the church in question. 

But really: “Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer”??? Is theft a major problem in this congregation? Has “thou shalt not steal” not come up by this time? Or was that regarded as a regulation from the Jewish side of the Jewish-Gentile split in this congregation and therefore to be disregarded by the Gentile converts? Seriously, what is with this?

As curious as this insertion may seem, what is even more remarkable about it is how it is used as an instructional point. “Steal no longer,” not because it violates the Ten Commandments or because it’s against the law or because it’s not nice; instead, the correction is “but [they] must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they might have something to share with those in need.” “You need to stop stealing so that you can make money to give to the poor.” If you’re thinking that this sounds a little bit nuts, you’re not alone. It’s been a head scratcher for centuries. 

Perhaps it shouldn’t be, though. Maybe our definition of “stealing” is too narrow. I was reminded this week of an article I had first found a few years ago, a report produced by Heifer International on the worldwide coffee industry. (Yes, Heifer International's main work is to provide animals for families in need, but they do more than that.) By the calculations of this report, the coffee industry internationally is worth over 200 billion dollars. (I can’t even fit that number onto the calculator on my phone.) Those peoples around the world who grow the beans that make the whole idea of coffee possible see maybe 5% or (if they’re lucky) 7% of that. To put it another way, say you by a Grande Latte later today as a treat. You might spend around $3.65 (that’s a rough average for such a drink). Of that $3.65, the farmer who grew those beans might receive $0.02, maybe $0.03. To add insult to injury, the sleeve likely to be sheathed around your cup costs about $0.05. That piece of cardboard is valued more than the labor required to grow the beans that make your latte even possible.[1] And this is only one of dozens of possible examples of the exploitative nature of our economy.

Indeed, perhaps our definition of “stealing” is too narrow.

Anyway, while we have no idea how Robin Hood – the “steal from the rich, give to the poor” character of English lore – would respond to this bit of instruction, we can at least draw from it a lesson that applies across this instructional fragment. In this episode of “don’t do this, do that” across these passages, the “do that” responses have a very clear purpose. The hearers and readers of this letter are being taught what it looks like to live in Christ, just as much of the previous part of the book calls us to do. 

It ends up looking like this:

We put away falsehood; we speak truth.

We are angry, but we do not sin. 

We give up stealing, if that’s been a thing; we work to care for the needy.

We don’t talk evil; we use our words to build up and give grace.

We don’t “grieve the Holy Spirit of God,” we are brought together and marked for redemption by the Spirit.

We lay aside bitterness and wrath and anger and malice and all those things; we are kind and tenderhearted and forgiving with one another (the way God has, in Christ, forgiven us, in case we’ve forgotten).

Now as if these instructions weren’t provocative enough, not to mention plenty challenging, the first verses of chapter 5 drop this bombshell (we need to hear this one in the NRSV): “Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us…”. Once again, it all comes back around to love, in some way or other. And again, all of the instruction of this mini-lesson is at the last caught up into this main point. To live in love is not to talk evil or to engage in lies or to steal or to do the things that grieve the Spirit that is all about holding us together. To live in love is to speak truth (even when it’s not all that pleasant to do so); to live in love is to keep your anger (which will happen, and even should happen sometimes) from leading you into sin, and not to let that anger fester and divide us; to live in love is not to steal, but to do honest work so that you have something to share with those in need; to live in love is to lay aside speech and action that tears us apart, and to take up the words and deeds that hold us together. 

There is challenge here, in that (for example) sometimes it is really, destructively wrong not to be angry. To be indifferent to the injustice that runs rampant in the world around us (think of that example from the coffee industry, for instance), or even to seek to profit from that injustice or take comfort in it or otherwise to justify its existence, is literally damnable. It is the stuff of Hell. And yet we see an awful lot of “Christians” doing exactly that in the headlines every day, do we not?

And yet, we are charged here not to let that anger lead us into sin, nor to let it fester and wreck relationships within the body. 

Part of the answer is easy enough to figure out: fight against that injustice, resist the prejudice against race or gender or orientation or anything that dehumanizes and demeans any of God’s creation. But even then, there will be those within the body – or at least calling themselves “Christians” – who resist that resistance tooth and nail. Where, then, would our author direct us; to do God’s will and resist the injustice at hand, or to make peace? 

The tricky part about moral instruction, such as the author of Ephesians has undertaken, is that sometimes it leaves you in a quandary like this. At such a time we’re called to remember that Ephesians, or any such part of scripture, is not the whole of scripture; more than a few words of Jesus, for example, should answer this quandary for us without too much difficulty: fight the injustice, do unto “the least of these” as Jesus says in Matthew 25. 

Nonetheless, the basic theme of this lesson holds: put away those things that do harm, keep those things that build up. Leave behind the destructive; continue with the constructive. Lay aside what harms, take up what heals. 

Sometimes, I guess, the challenge is to know which is which.

And I still don’t know what Robin Hood would say about this.

For the guidance of the Spirit in learning these things, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #15, All Creatures of Our God and King; #409, Spirit Divine, Attend Our Prayers; #300, We Are One in the Spirit

Nobody asked this guy (or any other movie version of him)

 

 

 

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[1] Statistics from Cory Gilman, “Rooted in Racism: Dark Profits in the Coffee Industry,” https://www.heifer.org/blog/rooted-in-racism-dark-profits-in-the-coffee-industry.html?msource=SIBLH20FB0003&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=blog&utm_term=post&utm_content=SIBLH20FB0003, 3 August 2020  (accessed 5 August 2024).