Pentecost, The Day of Pentecost
Notes
Transcript
Let er’ rip
Let er’ rip
Teaching Jack to Potty train this week- we’ve had his little stool follow us around all week. Kitchen, bedroom, living room, etc. It’s there. On Monday morning, Jack had his very first moment where he sat on the potty and there was this sort of blank moment of anticipation. We were trying to talk him through it when Paul just was eating at the table. Didn’t look up from his breakfast and said “let er’ rip”.
Here we are some 2000 years after the date of the resurrection and Pentecost and I sometimes wonder if we’re stuck in training mode. It’s time to let er rip.
Greater Works
Greater Works
Put yourself in the shoes of the disciples. They were with Jesus from the beginning and yet on the day of Pentecost they were back in their old ways. Hanging in Jerusalem for a feast day. They’re supposed to go to the ends of the earth! Pentecost was a spring Harvest festival:
Something more was expected of them. =
“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.
Can you imagine being told this? My own mind would say ‘What could possibly be greater than you O Jesus?’
His response would be “My Glory going forth and binding us to each other”
The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
The point of Pentecost is that we become one. Radically unified and harmonized- pouring out into creation with redemption.
The Point of Pentecost
The Point of Pentecost
In most of life we’re told we need more in order to fulfill our purpose and receive joy.
More channels, 18 Kinds of toothpaste at the store.
Walgreens removed 5k items from our shelves. Increased our average reciept. Addition creates the illusion that you can always find a cure for whatever ailment you have.
Recently there has been a trend towards Minimalism.
Own less stuff is the mantra. (Steve Jobs 1982 at home)
“All you needed was a cup of tea, a light and your stereo, you know, and that’s what I had.”
$8200 Stereo and a tiffany lamp!
Minimalism presents a false choice. If you are unhappy that you removed an item then it must be the fault of the item, not the decision maker. It ends up being addition by refinement rather than elimination.
What we need, what we are built for is Wholeness. Union. One-Ness. Kibbutzing.
In the Old Testament there is this word - kibbutz - it means gathering or assembling. If you’ve been to Israel you probably know this term of agrarian communities that live together.
This word ends up being a pretty important promise.
If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will take you.
Look at what unfolds in Pentecost:
Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.”
And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
The story of Salvation is about radical oneness. Radical wholeness.
We’ll cover this more next week but briefly let’s look at God’s own self disclosure in unity.
The Union With God
The Union With God
“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.
On the day of Pentecost we are all of a sudden assumed into God’s own self revelation. We travel back to the beginning of the story of life itself. We start over. In Christ, we are a new creation, set to reveal the glory of God to the world.
I own two signed books a book by Krista Tippett, the host of popular radio and podcast called On Being. The book is titled “Becoming wise, and inquiry into the mystery and art of living.
The other book I own that is signed is “Last Night in twisted river” by John Irving - you probably know him from the world according to Garp or The Cider House Rules.
When we think of our faith and the scriptures that reveal our God to us we must consider our text. The primary text of our revelation is of course… the bible.
We are inclined to think of Jesus as the signature of God. Pentecost should push us to think that we are the signed edition of God. God’s continual unfolding and unifying of the world.
We are the ones who are responsible to bring people into their next chapter of life.
Point to book of life - do you know how edifying it is for people to know that their loved ones are with Christ? We just use this as a prop. It’s not the actual book. The actual book of life is out there - you! You carry hope and salvation in your hearts.
Friends - God has set His seal upon you that you might bear witness to and invite others into the fullness of life.
When we think about books it is good to think of genre.
Too often we think of living our faith like an old Chilton’s Auto Manual. Detailed orders, how to do things
Roughly 1/3 of the bible is in poetry. About 40% is history.
I want concrete plans, spreadsheets, variables for ministry removed. It cannot be done.
All the answers should be laid out.
This is always how it’s been. The church in Jerusalem upon receiving the Holy Spirit asked this age old Lutheran question:
And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”
What it meant is that they were all of a sudden charged to be the glory of God to the world. There was no manual for how to proceed. Yet God carried them through, our sitting here today is evidence of that.
Like the disciples, you have all the skills, all the aptitudes, all the community already - it’s all been bestowed upon you in your baptism, in communion, in this church. All free gifts of Christ.
What will you do with God’s Spirit, what will God’s Spirit do with you? As we emerge from Covid slowly we have two options. Try and find our way back to what we know and have a manual for- or we can receive the radical union with the church that God has set before us.
Do not be afraid. God is with you.
Let er rip.