What Is The Gift?
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· 5 viewsGod blesses our diversity.
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One of my favorite preachers is Dr. Thomas Long. I have heard him preach several times and he makes it seem so easy. I love reading his sermons when they are published. I would like to borrow an opening illustration from a Pentecost sermon he preached.
I don't know if you've ever had the slightly embarrassing experience of having someone give you a gift, only to find out when you opened it, you did not have the foggiest idea what it was or what it was for. I mean, there you are: you're at the company Christmas party, or at a wedding shower, or at your birthday party, and someone hands you a gaily wrapped package. As you pull off the ribbon and the wrapping paper, all the eyes in the circle are on you. You open the box and there it is....
But is it a pencil sharpener or a coffee grinder?
...a scarf or a bread napkin?
... earrings or fishing lures?
Of course, the person who gave you the gift is looking at you with eager anticipation, as if to say, "Well, do you like it?" And finally, out of courtesy, you have to say something, so you say, "Oh, how could you have known? Thank you so much. I can really use a tire pressure gauge." Only to have a wounded voice say, "Tire gauge?! That's a meat thermometer!"[i]
Today is Pentecost Sunday, the third major festival of the church along with Easter and Christmas. However, it is probably the most overlooked of the three.
Pentecost is called the “birthday of the church” when the church received the gift of the Holy Spirit and embarked on its mission of spreading God’s good news to the world. God had handed us a beautifully wrapped gift, wrapped in the sound of wind and the light and heat of a flaming torch. We marvel at its beauty and wonder and are curious as to what is inside. We open it and discover this power, this energy, this mysterious presence, and we think, “awesome! but what is it?
It is indeed, many things. It is power. It is the spirit of Jesus himself. It is the comforter, the convicter, the advocate. It manifests itself in a myriad of ways. To try to explain all of it would take longer than the time you have allotted me.
However, I think that one of the gifts that the Holy Spirit brings us is one that is needed in our current global, national, and local climate.
The world young men and women are stepping into now is quite different from the world that I graduated in. In the 70’s we lived under the "cold war." No one ever thought of terrorism. We didn’t have cell phones, VCR’s or DVD’s. Instead of the Internet we contacted our friends with a rotary telephone. Gas cost about less than a dollar a gallon and it wasn’t difficult to find a job. Even paying for a college education in those days was relatively easy. But, that has all changed.
This is a different world. The job market is tight. The world is much smaller, and we can communicate anywhere in the world instantaneously. It is very challenging to venture out on your own, since things like utilities, rent and health insurance are very expensive. The world travels in the fast lane and the majority of us are doing whatever necessary to survive, even if it means stepping on people along the way.
Our culture has changed too. Our society is much more diverse. For example, your doctor will most likely be from another country. It is very possible that your next-door neighbor might be from Japan or Mexico or Vietnam. The company that you work for may be owned by someone overseas. It is a very different world.
In the past 50-60 years our world has change more drastically than at any time in history. Change is inevitable. Yet change is not welcomed easily. Change disturbs the homeostasis, the status quo, the expected and anticipated. change is scary and rapid change can be disorienting. When that happens, we seek out the comfortable, the secure, the familiar. We tend to gravitate toward that which is like us.
This past couple of years have been filled with clashes between the differences between us. Racial discord, violence, mass shooting, global uncertainty, and general fear and anxiety within our culture and our world.
So, Pentecost, and the coming of the Holy Spirit is important for the church today. Our text speaks, I believe, clearly and powerfully to our current context.
We know the story. Jesus has ascended into heaven to sit at the right hand of the father. The disciples have gathered together, possibly out of fear that the authorities would come after them next. They have elected one to fill the vacancy of Judas, the betrayer. Now, all they know to do is sit, pray, and seek to find a path forward.
Then, a loud noise fills the house where they have gathered. Luke, in describing a divine manifestation in human terms, speaks of flames dancing over the heads of all those in the house. And they began speaking in the native languages of the known world at that time.
The text has often been referred to as the reversal of the story of the Tower of Babel. There, everyone spoke one language, and because of their rebellious nature, God confused their languages, and scattered them.
If this story is about reversal, we would expect that the Holy Spirit would bring about a unified language. But that was not the case. God, through the Holy Spirit, enabled the people to hear the good news in their own native language.
God blessed their diversity. God spoke to them in their own language. If you still have your bibles opened I want you to look at a couple of things. In verses nine through eleven, the list of nations designates a circle around Jerusalem. This list of regions moves generally from east to west and north to south.[ii]
Also, look at the quotation from the Prophet Joel in verses seventeen and eighteen
“In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy. [iii]
God sends the Holy Spirit upon the whole of humanity: men and women, young and old. All peoples will be filled with the Holy Spirit. Diversity is not something to be feared or rejected, or denied, but embraced.
In the book of Acts the Holy Spirit is experienced by the Ethiopian Eunuch, the lady who sells purple cloth, the Roman Jailer, and the intellectuals and philosophers of Athens. The Holy Spirit, God, does not make distinctions. Dividing ourselves into groups according likeness is sinful and rejects the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Diversity is God’s blessing. The Gift of the Holy Spirit enables us to embrace our differences and find our unity not in sameness, but in Christ.
One of my mother-in-law’s favorite pass times was putting together Jigsaw puzzles. The beautiful thing about jigsaw puzzles is that the more diverse the patterns and colors are the easier they are to complete.
One year, I came across a jigsaw puzzle that I wanted to get her for Christmas, but Molly would not let me. It would have been cruel and impossible to complete without going insane. Picture this, a puzzle that was nothing but one large carton of eggs, with no diversity at all. just a white puzzle with the outlines of the eggs to differentiate one egg from the other.
God did make us to all be alike, look alike, or speak the same language. He made each of us different, so that the jigsaw puzzle which is our world would be more beautiful to behold. The gift is the unity through our diversity in the body of Christ.
In this table, our Lord and savior invites us to come, not because we are the same, but because in our diversity we are united in Christ. This table is for all who believe and call upon the name of Christ. To God be the glory.
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[i] Thomas Long, What's the Gift? May 27, 2012
[ii] John D. Barry et al., Faithlife Study Bible (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012, 2016), Ac 2:9–10.
[iii] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1989), Ac 2:17–18