Pentecost 2024

Acts 2:1-21, Ezekiel 37:1-14, John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

“I Must Leave You”  How sad they must have been. And yet had Jesus remained with us physically we would always be looking for him to show up, be looking to buy front row tickets, be following him on FB. Instead, we always have his presence everywhere we are. We have the Holy Spirit of God. The very same Holy Spirit that led Jesus throughout his life. The very same Holy Spirit that made the man Jesus, the Christ!

Today is the celebration of the Holy Spirit! We don’t speak often of her and maybe we should. She is the interface between the God that creates and sustains all creation and all that is.

Let me first get the whole pronoun thing out of the way. In Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic (the language Jesus spoke) the word translated as Spirit is feminine. Jesus would have then used the feminine pronoun for the Spirit. For me, she is the Mother Hen that gathers her chicks under her wing, so often referenced in scripture.

So enough of that. Let’s talk about the Holy Spirit and leave the pronouns to be blown in the wind. 

The word we translate as Spirit actually has three meanings. I would imagine you have heard this before. Ruach (Hebrew), or pneuma (Greek), or rucha (Aramaic) mean breath, wind, or any movement of air. It can also be translated as spirit. 

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the breath of God moved over the waters.

Jesus tells the woman at the well God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit.  Yes, the same word. God is breath and you must worship God with your breath, the very life force of your being. 

Jesus promises that the Spirit, the Advocate, the Helper, will speak to us the word of God. And of course we know that no word can be spoken without breath. 

Jesus tells Nicodemus regarding the Spirit that the wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with the spirit.

Maybe this is why we don’t talk about the Holy Spirit much. She is nearly impossible to pin down. We have the written words about who Jesus was and what he did. We have words that are written in black and white for us to analyze and contemplate. But the Spirit…well she is like the wind. How can one preach on something that simply keeps moving  where it will?

Ezekiel’s story of the dry bones remains one of the best pictures of the Holy Spirit ever in my opinion. Dry bones lay in the valley. There are so many bones it is probably a battle ground. The world has seemingly beaten this army. These bones are defeated and without life. They have been slain.

God speaks and they begin to take shape again. But it is only the covering for the bones. They look better and perhaps closer to life than they did. But they are not alive. They have no breath. No spirit. No wind force to move them.

God commands again: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live. 

Does this remind you of Genesis 2: Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being?

The Spirit of God, the Breath of God, the Winds of God, the Holy Spirit is our life force. Without her we are dry bones on the desert floor, even though we may be covered and looking alive.

We may have all the paramants, all the hymns, all the instruments, all the liturgy and even all the good works, but those are only the coverings for the dry bones. Without the Spirit, the breath of God, we are dead. Or at least not alive.

Perhaps the disciples felt that way on the day of Pentecost. Perhaps as they waited for the promise of God’s Spirit, they felt not quite alive.

 Luke tells us that on the day of Pentecost they were all together in one place. If you look up the Greek you find that this is more than just everybody piled into the same space. This is more the coming together in one mind. Perhaps in prayer or worship, as in Spirit and Truth.

 In his book The Pursuit of God, AW Tozer writes:  “So one hundred worshipers meeting together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become 'unity' conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.”

The disciples rarely agreed on much. But with their eyes looking for their Lord, for the Spirit, they were truly together in one place. And the Holy Spirit came.

I fear that all too often we forget one very basic need of a life like Jesus’. We are busy with the right liturgy, the right amount in the bank account, the right music, and the right good works. But every time we breathe out we must breathe in. Sometimes, in fact, we must stop and catch our breath. We must catch God’s breath. We need to take time for the Spirit.

Paul writes: If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. (1 Cor 13). 

God is love. The breath of God is the breath of Love. The Holy Spirit is the breath of love. We can talk about love, we can have great theology about love, but if we have not stopped to receive, to breathe in, to be made alive by God’s love, God’s breath, Love’s Holy Spirit, we are but dry bones in the valley. 

Please church, I beg of you. Do nothing else, say nothing else until you have come together and breathed in the breath of God. Jesus told the disciples to wait until they have received the Holy Spirit. Let us learn to wait to receive that Spirit anew every day. You already have front row seats. Don’t waste them.

Let’s take two minutes of silence to catch the breath of God.

Make yourselves at home in my love. John 15 Sermon

John 15   The Message

9-10 “I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That’s what I’ve done—kept my Father’s commands and made myself at home in his love.

11-15 “I’ve told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don’t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything I’ve heard from the Father.

16 “You didn’t choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won’t spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you.

17 “But remember the root command: Love one another.

I love reading this passage. I love lingering in it and feeling it linger in me. To sense the love of God, the Love that created and continues to create the universe, wrapping itself around me and soaking into my being. 

Take a moment to close your eyes and hear these words again and let them soak into your being: “ I’ve loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love.”  “Make yourselves at home in my love.”

I brought my cat Sabastian home from the humane society in September.  He was and still is a skittish little thing. He was scared to death when I let him out of his carrier. He hid in the closet for a couple of days and then moved in under the bed. He still makes tracks under the bed when someone new comes around. 

I wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to stay with us. But I knew it was going to work out when he curled up with me in my chair. He was finally making himself at home with me and my love for him. It wasn’t perfect yet, he still had some issues, but we were on our way.

That is what I picture when I hear “Make yourselves at home in my love.” Curl up with me, with the words I have left for you, and feel safe and loved and at peace, even when things aren't quite perfect.

Perhaps you are more of a dog person. How do you know that your dog has made you his/her home? My little dachshund, Holly, would settle in on my lap, rest her head on my chest, or curl up under my blanket.  She was at home with my love.

Can you envision yourself resting in God’s love as Jesus must have been able to? Curling up in the peace, the approval of God in moments of rest?

Yes I love reading and experiencing these words. But how does one preach something that speaks so well for itself? I mean what more can I possibly add?

  

I suppose I can remind us that it is through us that God pours out his love to others so that they too might learn to make their home in his love. How else will someone who is afraid and discarded, like my Sabastian was, feel the touch of God’s love? How else will God’s love clothe and feed someone who is hungry and cold but through your love for them? How else can someone, maybe even you, experience forgiveness except through the forgiveness that comes through the love of another, maybe even you? How else can someone know the radical acceptance of God except through your acceptance of them?

Those things can be hard to do. But the longer Sebastian makes his home in my love, the more certain he becomes of himself and the more willing to love others. He even stopped hissing at our other cat. Maybe it works the same for us. The more we spend time in God's love for us the quicker we are to love others. And maybe we will stop hissing at each other!

How do we do that? Jesus says I kept my Father’s commands and made my home in his love. I promise you, Sebastian does not keep my commands very well, but he has made his home anyway. When I hear those words from Jesus I immediately think about the 10 commandments. I think about all the rules I am supposed to follow. There is a problem with that. We can follow all those rules without ever truly loving. Obedience often comes from fear.

I have come to understand keeping God’s commandments as simply loving. Jesus left us with 2 commandments. Love God and Love your neighbor as yourself. 

That is what I hear. Make your home in love. Love God. Love your neighbor. Love yourself. Sometimes you will break the rules but you will know, even then, the love of God. Because home is a place where love is. Love is the place where home is.

Jesus calls us friends. And yes, friends put their lives on the line for one another. But what does that mean? Well its more than taking a bullet for your friend. Hopefully that never happens. But instead let's talk about being open and vulnerable. About letting others touch our hearts even when it could mean ours will be hurt. Maybe even sharing with another about how you make your home in God’s love.  They might laugh at you, but they laughed at Jesus too. You’d be in good company. Laying down our lives is about being vulnerable. To each other, to God, to all of creation. Sebastian makes himself vulnerable when he falls asleep on my lap, or when he doesn’t run and hide.

Make your home in God’s love. Get up in the morning feeling sheltered. Come back after a rough day feeling safe and at peace. When it feels like the relationship with God is showing some neglect, take time to clean it up and make it comfortable and shareable. Just like you would your home.

Sebastian was discarded and caged. He was depressed and afraid. I chose him. This might be your story as well. Whatever your circumstance, God chooses you to take home to his love and be with him.

Take time to curl up with God’s Word and God’s presence and make yourself at home with them.

And remember the root command: Love one another.