John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15, May 23, 2021, Sermon

“Celebrating the Spirit”

Pastor Randy Butler

Pentecost is often referred to as the birthday of the Church. Pentecost itself of course was a Jewish celebration, but it was during that Pentecost celebration that the Holy Spirit promised by Jesus descended in wind and fire upon the disciples of Jesus gathered in Jerusalem, sometime around 33 A.D. So we celebrate Pentecost and birth of the church. But this morning we also celebrate the Holy Spirit as well. The book of Acts where this is all described is called the Acts of the Apostles, but it could just as well be called the Acts of the Holy Spirit, because the Spirit is the driving force behind all the Apostles’ activity.

Now even with all the Spirit’s energy in the Book of Acts, the Holy Spirit is often referred to as the shy member of the Trinity. There is a mystery about the Spirit. We sometimes have trouble relating to the Spirit, in some traditions still called the Holy Ghost. Jesus on the other hand was a living breathing person. We read about him and connect with him. The Spirit is harder to get a hold of.

But it’s the Spirit’s day. Though when we celebrate the Spirit we also celebrate the Father and the Son – they are never not together, today we highlight the Holy Spirit in our lives in the world and in the church.

In our text from John, Jesus is telling his disciples that he will be soon leaving them. This saddens them. But then he points out that it is to their advantage that he departs because then he will send the Spirit. If he stays, no Spirit yet. If he goes, then the Spirit comes. It’s like he is saying, “The best thing that could ever happen to you is for me to go away. That clears the deck for the coming of the Spirit.” Jesus the man, after all, was limited by time and space. He could only be in one place at a time. But His Spirit is everywhere in all places and at all times. The Spirit expands the presence of Jesus, makes his presence available to us today. We could say that the Spirit prolongs or extends the presence of Jesus, because the Spirit’s action is entirely related to the activity of Jesus.

We recently lost Anne’s father, who passed away in March 2020. But he was near us in Spokane when he died, and there are still reminders of him in our house. Pictures, of course, and some of his clothing. I often wear one of his sweaters. There are some batteries from his hearing aids sitting in a bag in the garage. I have been using a set of his unused razors for shaving. The jacket he wore is hung in our closest, still with a hint of his favorite cologne. Even though he is gone, his presence lingers. And it is like he is still with us – these delightful reminders of his presence in our home. They are like little relics serving to remind us of him.

Not surprisingly we have always placed an importance on the relics of Jesus. Throughout the centuries people have claimed to have a piece of the cross on which Jesus was crucified, or a torn piece of his robe from the day of his crucifixion. The famous Shroud of Turin was thought to be Jesus’ burial shroud. That way his presence lingers. But Jesus is talking about more than all this, more than sentimental reminders of our loved ones.

When we have the Holy Spirit we have nothing less than the full presence of Jesus. Jesus says, “The Spirit will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and proclaim it to you.” And he adds, “All that the Father has is mine.” So all that the Father has belongs to Jesus and all that Jesus has is the Spirit’s. The Spirit is not making anything up that the Spirit has not gotten from the Father through the Son. In fact Martin Luther said humorously, “The poor Holy Spirit doesn’t know any other subject (than Christ).” So when we have the Holy Spirit we have Christ. We don’t need to wait for anything else or anyone else. And though we do look forward to that time when Christ returns, he has in some sense already returned in the form of the Spirit. Everything that God wants for us in Jesus Christ is available right now. And nothing is lost in his ascension to heaven. In the Holy Spirit we have nothing less than the complete spiritual presence of Jesus. So when he says in the gospel of Matthew, “Remember I am with you always to the end of the age,” he really is completely with us in the form of the Holy Spirit.

Now the Spirit also has a role to play in the world. It is a convincing and convicting role. It falls to the Holy Spirit to present an alternative view of the world, a completely different reality than what the world is based upon. It is the Spirit’s task to show how wrong the world is about fundamental issues, to call into question the very foundation upon which we build our lives. John says that the Spirit will reveal how the world is wrong about what is most wrong, wrong about what is most right, and wrong about who wins in the struggle between good and evil.

Jesus says the Spirit will show how wrong the world is about sin – about what is most wrong. Now there is a lot wrong with the world. We can draw up a long list – war, poverty, social injustice, world hunger, racism, sexism, etc. But Jesus boils it all down to what is most wrong – that the world does not believe in him. We ask, “Really is that what is most wrong with the world? Is disbelief about Jesus the fundamental problem with the world?” We are not so sure about that, but for the gospel of John that is the big problem. And if we trust what John says about Jesus, that he is the full expression of God in human form, and that this is true, well then to disbelieve it would seem to have major consequences. If we are wrong about what Dale Bruner calls God’s Great Personal Visitor to the earth, well, then that would be a big thing to get wrong.

We make relative most religious claims and truth today, we consider believing in Jesus a matter of personal taste or opinion. But the New Testament makes it the most important of all decisions. So the Holy Spirit convicts the world of what is most wrong. And what is most right. We might think that certain virtues and actions are what is most important. But again for the gospel of John it is Jesus who is most right in and for the world. His life, his death, his resurrection. He is simply what is most right about reality. No one, nothing is more righteous, more right. So the Spirit is to show the world how it is wrong about what is wrong, and wrong about what is right, and wrong about who wins in the end. Jesus says the ruler of this world has been condemned. And we can be assured then that the victory belongs to Jesus. It may not look like it at times, but ultimately God’s ways of love, mercy and justice will prevail. The world may see with despair, but we can hope, because we know the outcome.

Now this task belongs to the Spirit. The Spirit does the heavy lifting, thankfully. But we are still agents of the Spirit and we have our part. So the Spirit equips us too, guiding us into truth, giving us the words to speak, declaring to us the things of Jesus. The Spirit is still teaching us. It is the Spirit’s part to help us continually interpret and apply the words and actions of Jesus for our time. The Spirit helps the Bible remain a living breathing Word from God that is never set in stone but needs to constantly re-interpreted.

In the 18th and 19th centuries some supported the institution of slavery from Scripture. But we have changed. Nobody really uses the Scripture to argue for slavery anymore. We have changed how we understand the role of women in the church and in society. We understand the Bible differently than we did even just decades ago. The same thing is true for our understanding of human sexuality. Just as the Holy Spirit inspired these ancient writings, that same Holy Spirit now interprets and applies and gives us new understandings of these same writings. The writings haven’t changed but we have and the Spirit lives with us as we are today. This doesn’t mean that we are always modernizing the scripture to fit our views. It simply means that the Bible lives and helps us to grow as we evolve.

So we celebrate the Holy Spirit today, the One who is the very presence of Jesus with us, the One who convicts the world and the One who teaches us.

Acts 8:26-40, May 2, 2021, Sermon

“What Prevents Us?”

Pastor Randy Butler

The Bible is full of memorable and meaningful one-liners. At Jesus’ resurrection the angels say, “Do not be afraid.” Writer Richard Rohr calls that the greatest one liner in the Bible. Jesus says things like, “Abide in me.” “Go and do likewise.” The Apostle Paul in Romans: “You have been saved through faith.” The letter of 1 John: “God is love.” James: “Faith without works is dead.” These are pithy meaningful one liners meant to take a place in our hearts. Well, this morning we have two more to add. They both come from our text: The first is a command: “Get up and go.” The second is a question: “What prevents us?” “Get up and go, what prevents us.”

It doesn’t take much to see that we have, as preacher Andrew Connors puts it, “a get up and go” kind of God. Get up and go are perhaps some of the most important words in all of the Bible. From the very beginning God is telling people to go. To Abraham he says, “Go to the land that I will show you.” Abraham gets up and goes, and the rest is history. Moses is told to go back to his people in Egypt. He has all kinds of excuses not to go – but he does. Samuel is told by God to go and anoint a new king. Samuel goes and anoints David, even though Saul is still King. The prophet Jonah is told to get up and go to the people of Nineveh, whom Jonah despises. Yet after being thrown into the sea and swallowed by a big fish Jonah finally obeys God. The prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah are commissioned and told to go and speak hard things to Israel. Even Mary and Joseph, the parents of Jesus, are commanded to go to Egypt during a dangerous time for them in Israel. God is constantly telling God’s people to go, to leave what is comfortable and go to others who need to know the love and grace of God, this get up and go God.

This is especially true in the Book of Acts. The actual title is the Acts of the Apostles, and it tells the story of the spread of the gospel after Jesus ascends to heaven. Jesus tells them “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” He describes the mission field in concentric circles: Jerusalem, all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. “Get up and go.”

And so we pick up the story as the Spirit is directing Philip. We are told that an angel of the Lord, also simply called the Spirit or the Spirit of the Lord in this text, said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south, to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” The text adds that this is a wilderness road.

As Philip travels along he sees a man in a chariot. He is obviously someone with wealth and privilege – he is in fact an Ethiopian, from south of Egypt, and he is the treasurer of the Queen of Ethiopia. Now Ethiopia in that day was thought of as the edge of the world, an exotic destination up the River Nile. So this is not the person Philip expects to see. But the Ethiopian is here because he has been in Jerusalem to worship in the temple. It is not likely that he is a Jew, but rather someone with a spiritual hunger and interest in God as the Jews understood God. We are also told that the Ethiopian is a eunuch. It was not uncommon for court officials to be castrated, and be eunuchs. This way they avoided distracting court intrigues and passions. Yet as a eunuch this Ethiopian is set apart, different, his sexuality not clearly defined. He is likely quite lonely, and as he travels this man is reading a scroll of Isaiah. This is the one Philip meets when he is commanded to get up and go.

And so we ask, “What does it mean for us, First Pres. Baker, to get up and go? To whom are we sent? Where is our wilderness road? Where does it lead us? What about the Baker gay community? Many struggle today with roles and definitions and sexual identities. And more than ever before in America there is open discussion about these issues. LGBTQ communities are growing as more and more people reject traditional sexual definitions and question sexual identities. This may be difficult for some to accept, but it is a reality. The gay community in Baker City continues to grow, and times have certainly changed.

Where is God sending us? To whom is our gracious God asking us to open up our doors and be welcoming? Perhaps our get up and go God wants to send us to the Powder River Correctional Facility. Maybe there is a prison ministry for us. Or maybe God sends us to the children of our community, as God surely has. We continue to provide over 250 backpacks every week for children and families in need. Maybe we are sent to children and their families playing on the sports and recreation fields, or in their choirs and music programs. To whom is God sending us, telling us to get up and go? How might we continue to put to use our significant financial resources in the community? Might we begin our own foundation that funds children or prisoners or whomever?

Get up and go. That is a good one-liner. The next is a question. What prevents us? As Philip joins him the Ethiopian has many questions and Philip is glad to answer as best he can. And as they ride along talking, they come to a body of water, perhaps a creek, and the Ethiopian asks, “What is to prevent me from being baptized?” I have simplified it to apply to us as well. What prevents us? What prevents us from being baptized or baptizing or sharing the good news? What prevents us from getting up and going? What hinders us, inhibits us, prevents us?

Sometimes our interpretation of the Bible prevents us. The book of Deuteronomy says very clearly, No one who is a eunuch shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord. It says the same thing about foreigners and other outsiders. But the Bible is often in conversation with itself, and when we read the prophets, Isaiah says this: “Do not let the foreigner joined to the Lord say, ‘The Lord will surely separate me from his people”; To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than my sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.” So you see the prophet Isaiah wrestling, taking issue with his own scripture in the Torah the book of Deuteronomy.

The Ethiopian happens to be reading too from Isaiah and he asks about this description of a suffering servant there: Like a sheep led to slaughter, silent before its shearer…in humiliation justice denied, his life taken away from the earth. He doesn’t even open his mouth. Who is the prophet talking about? And of course Philip connects the description in Isaiah with Jesus, who suffered for us, was crucified for us, who loves us enough to die an unjust death on our behalf. Jesus, who knows and understands the eunuch’s own suffering and alienation. He loves the eunuch.

So we read the Bible through the lens of Jesus who loved us died for us, was raised for us. And we understand the scripture through the interpretive touchstone of Jesus Christ and his love for us. Everything else in scripture is subject to Christ. And we place troublesome, sometimes archaic passages alongside the life death and resurrection of Jesus.

Sometimes the desire for church order prevents us from getting up and going. The eunuch didn’t display a great grasp of the Bible or theology. Should Philip have waited to baptize him until he had been through Christian education classes? Should he have waited to baptize the eunuch in church, not out here in some creek away from the community? These proper church obstacles prevent us from carrying on the ministry of Jesus Christ where and as we find it, not as we might like it to be.

And our erecting of boundaries prevents us too. The tribalism of our day prevents and hinders the testimony of the love of God. Division within the church, division in our culture. Our own certainty about who is right and who is wrong gets in the way of reaching others with good news for their lives.

So all these things can prevent us, but really what prevents us other than our own selves and our fear? What do we wait for? What prevents us? As we move into a new season of life and ministry these are important things to consider. Let us live freely and boldly in the years ahead in the name of Jesus Christ in our community. We are a gifted community of Jesus followers with much to offer the Baker Valley. What prevents us? Let’s get up and go.