Today, we are going to study Psalm 19. So, I think that it would be appropriate to begin with a prayer taken from the very last lines of that psalm. Let us pray together, Dear Lord, “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer.” Amen
“The heavens declare the glory of God, and sky proclaims its maker’s handiwork.” The opening line says that God’s creation declares God’s glory. The apostle Paul in Romans says this: “what can be known about God is plain because even since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made.” How does creation declare God’s glory to you?
What do you see in God’s creation that astounds you? I’m reminded of a commercial I saw many years ago where a father and his daughter were sitting and watching a sunset. As the dark reddish orange sun went under the horizon he whispered to her, “Going . . . going . . . gone!” and the sun disappeared. Then she said, “Do it again daddy!” Not only are the colors and the hues of a sunset gorgeous and a credit to God’s great artistry in creation, but the performance of sunrise and sunset, day after day, is just as astounding. It is such a normal part of our lives, something that we have grown so accustomed to, that we may only grasp the awesomeness of it a few times in our life.
In his book The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker maintains that most people, in order to defend ourselves from the sheer terror of the natural world, build up psychological defenses against it. We must escape reality somehow and someway, or else we would live in fear constantly. In fact, those who are most aware and hypersensitive to this reality are often considered to have psychological problems, such as the man who shuts himself off from the world because there are billions and billions of little germs just waiting to infest his body and kill him off. When you think about it, he is exactly right and that is terrifying. Most of us have to get past this reality by forgetting about these little organisms or pretending that we are invincible to them in order to step out of our own doors and go to work every day. We don’t have the courage to ponder these wondrous microorganisms any more than we have to. God’s glory can be scary.
The writer of Psalm 19 connects God’s handiwork, the work of God in creation, to God’s law. God has not only revealed himself in creation with all its glory and terror, but he reveals himself in his teachings, his commandments and his judgments. In fact, creation and the law are very much related. Throughout the Bible, God binds himself to his creation in order to point out that just like you can trust how he orders the rising and setting of the sun, you can trust how he orders the ways of the family or of the church or of society. The order of creation is often called God’s natural law in relation to his revealed law in scripture, but they both point to the same God, the same Lord and the same creator. And just like creation, God’s law can be both glorious and terrifying.
Psalm 19: “The teaching of the Lord is perfect and revives the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure and gives wisdom to the simple. The statutes of the Lord are just and rejoice the heart; the commandment of the Lord is clear and gives light to the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean and endures forever; the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” Do you give glory to God both for his creation and for his Law? If you give glory to God for the fact that your heart beats day in and day out, then you can also glorify the God who commands, “You shall not kill.” If you stand in awe of the birds that migrate to exactly the same spot on the Earth without ever looking at a map, then please stand in awe of your God that teaches you to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. If you clean your chimney regularly because of your fear of chimney fires, please do not neglect to clean your heart and mind before God whose wrath is like a consuming fire. This is the same God and he cares as much, if not more, about the trash filling your life as he does about the trash filling up our landfills. I’m not setting up discipleship in opposition to environmentalism, but while you’ll hear about living green every day in the newspapers, on the radio and on the TV, you will probably only hear the need for your repentance before God here at church or written on the pages of your Bibles.
Psalm 19 describes God’s law three ways: as a teaching or testimony, as a statute or commandment, and then finally as fear or judgment. These three manifestations of the law are connected in our lives as well. For instance, with my children, I try to teach them many things. Sometimes, in order to help them understand I’ll use testimonies from my own life in order to help them when they deal with similar situations. When my children ride their bikes, their mother and I teach them to wear a helmet, I testify to them that when I was in elementary school, I got a bad head injury (a slight concussion) in a bike accident because I wasn’t wearing a helmet.
However, this teaching doesn’t always work and so we must move to the next phase of the law: creating a commandment or a statute, what we might call in our house: a rule. Because my children do not always see the importance of my teachings, I must command them to never ride their bikes without a helmet. Whether inside or outside, training wheels or not, you must always wear a helmet. And if they break this commandment, the third phase of the law comes in: fear and judgment, what we might call consequences and punishments.
I hope that my children wear their helmets because they have been taught how important it is; however, if they don’t wear them because of that reason, they had better wear them because they are afraid of me and their mom (both because they would disappoint us and because we might get mad). Also, if we catch them disobeying our commands, they may lose bikeriding privileges for a little while and, most terrifying of all, if they disobey us and get away with it, they might feel the judgment and consequence of getting into a bike accident and sustaining an awful head injury. The law has teachings, commandments and judgments. And all are worthy of our praise.
God’s laws are beautiful. The psalm calls them perfect, sure, just, clear, clean and true. God tries to teach us and then testifies through stories about those who have benefited from following God’s law and those who have been hurt by not doing so. When people think of God’s laws, they often think of the ten commandments, but they forget about all the teaching that happens in the Old Testament stories and letters in the New Testament. God doesn’t just command: Do not commit adultery, but he tells the story of King David and Bathsheeba who have an affair that destroys their lives in many ways. God testifies to the truth, he commands us to obey and then, if we go against his rules, there are consequences. God promises that even if we do not see those consequences in our own lives, our actions affect others, and there will be a final judgment where we will have to account for all of our deeds, both good and bad, before God—the judge.
In John’s first letter he writes, “Whoever says, “I have come to know God,” but does not obey his commandments, is a liar, and in such a person the truth does not exist.” It is so important to know God’s law not only to help you take care of yourself and others in this world, but also because it makes you aware of how much you need forgiveness. That you couldn’t make it without God’s rule and that you need to be cleansed, forgiven and freed.
You have broken God’s law through your sins. But today, I declare to you the glory of God: in the name of Jesus Christ, your sins are forgiven. The God of creation, the God of the sun, moon and stars, the God that has commanded you to love your neighbor as yourself, is the same God who redeems you from the judgment of his law. There is no law that can separate you from Jesus Christ. There is no judgment that can condemn you forever. To those who believe in Jesus, he has given the power to be called children of God and bestowed on them the riches of his glory. This is your inheritance: eternal life forever and ever.
Before Jesus ascended into heaven, he gave this command to his disciples, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit AND (yes there is a second part!) AND teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. That joy of forgiveness, that joy of having Jesus as your Redeemer is only joy if you know the law—if you have heard this teaching and the commandments—if you understand the judgment. Because once you have learned all that God has freed you from, saved your from and redeemed you from, only then can you see how perfect, how sure, how clear, how clean and how true God’s law is both for you and for those around you. Then God’s law and God’s creation can truly be gifts for you. Then you are free to praise God no just for his creation but even for his commandments. Amen.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Sermon for January 17th
According to today’s Second Reading, the Corinthian church had been arguing about spiritual gifts. Paul writes that because we have only one God and his Holy Spirit gives all spiritual gifts, therefore, no one gift is any better than any other. In many religions, especially pagan religions, there are many gods. And each god gives different things. For instance, a rain god would give fertility, so if you wanted to get pregnant you would pray to that god for gifts. Another god would be a god of public speaking, I guess, so if you wanted to give a great motivational speech, you would pray to that god. However, for Christians, Paul maintains that every gift, no matter how little or big, comes from the same Spirit, the same Lord and the same God. There is no pantheon of gods to ask for various gifts from. There is only one God who gives all good gifts.
Today’s Christian churches have their own problems understanding spiritual gifts even though they usually are not exactly the same problems as the Corinthian church had. While we are aware that there is only one God who gives gifts, we don’t realize that God blesses every person with gifts, not just a few religious leaders. Notice some of the words Paul uses when talking about spiritual gifts: everyone, to each, to another, to another, to another, to each one individually. My point is that in many churches, including this one, we often act like some spiritual gifts are better than others or, worse, that only some in the church have been blessed with the proper spiritual gifts. In some churches, people get so confused that they start looking to their pastors or priests as the giver of gifts, rather than to God alone.
For example, I, as your pastor, am not the only one blessed with gifts. I have them, this is true, but only because God promises to bless all who believe in him with these gifts. I didn’t receive them at seminary, I didn’t receive them at my ordination, I received my spiritual gifts at my baptism. What does this mean? That each and every one of you have them as well. And you don’t have to go to seminary to find them. And you certainly don’t have to be ordained to receive them. You received them at your baptism. Do you believe it?
Well, if you believe it, then what are your spiritual gifts and what are you doing to use them? Suffice it to say, while we may SAY that we have spiritual gifts, for all intents and purposes many Christians, just like many of you, ACT like they don’t have them. But before we go any further, let me make sure that you understand the difference between a natural gift and a spiritual gift. They both come from God, but they are different.
I went to college to become a double bassist in a symphony. I was a good musician and believe that, in many ways, I still am. When I was asked whether or not I had thought about going to seminary, to become a pastor, I didn’t think that I had a call (even though God was using these people to call me there). Furthermore, I didn’t think that I would be very good at it, especially if I’d have to visit people who were sick. I didn’t want to do that.
While being a musician is certainly a gift, I wasn’t using my music to serve others, only to serve myself mostly. Music can be a spiritual gift, but I wasn’t using it as such by practicing 6-8 hours a day just in order to get a job that I wanted. When God finally got through to me and called me to seminary to start training to become a pastor, I began working on my spiritual gifts and discovered that they were much different than what I thought they would be. Remember that I said that I didn’t think I would be a good pastor because I didn’t want to sit with sick people; however, when I started visiting the sick as a chaplain in a hospital during seminary, I actually found that I loved doing it and even started realizing that it was a gift. It didn’t come naturally maybe, but it was a spiritual gift. When I was focused on serving others, on listening to their needs, on caring for their suffering, it became one of my favorite things to do—we might call this a gift of counseling.
Of the short list of spiritual gifts mentioned in the passage today, the one that I’ve noticed the most in my life is the gift of healing. Now, I don’t believe that I have ever seen a dramatic physical healing in anyone I have prayed for . . . yet . . . but I believe every time I pray that it could happen. However, people have sometimes told me that when I pray for them, they experience a healing of their spirit, knowing that God really does forgive them or that they experience inner healing. You see, as Paul says, “there are a variety of gifts” they don’t all have to look the same. Just because you have the gift of healing, doesn’t mean that it will look the way you think it should look, or how it looks on the movies. You may have it to a lesser or greater degree than someone else. Not everyone will become a famous televangelist, but you may still have the gift of evangelism. If you never try to use your spiritual gifts, how will you ever know? The gift of healing seems like a great spiritual gift to have, but it is by no means the greatest or the worst.
I believe that for many of you there are two obstacles to using your spiritual gifts. The first is that you don’t know what a spiritual gift is, or you don’t know what gifts you might have. This obstacle is mostly about a lack of familiarity with scripture or the failure of spiritual leaders, like myself, to do a good job teaching you about them. The second obstacle is one of faith. This means that even if you know what your spiritual gifts are, that knowledge stays up in your head and never moves to your heart.
Christian Schwarz, the director of Natural Church Development, has written a book about spiritual gifts. In this book, I believe that he has compiled a good list of possible gifts that Christians might have. You each received this list in your bulletins this morning. This list is taken from scripture, but there is no doubt that you could argue about the titles he gives some of them. The point of this exercise is to simply give you some ideas about what possible spiritual gifts you might have. Remember that the gift of healing isn’t always going to mean that people with cancer are suddenly cured . . . though it might. And the gift of counseling doesn’t mean that you are a great psychologist, but that perhaps people feel refreshed and joyful after talking to you. There are a variety of gifts and a variety of how those gifts are manifested. I encourage you to read this list when you are at home this week and pray about how God might use you at Saint Peters and everywhere you go.
These gifts came through your baptism, not through some secondary education. But what about that second obstacle: your faith.
Why is it, do you think, that you have not used your spiritual gifts? I’m sure that some of you have realized, before today, that you have had at least some ability in some of these areas. I know that you have served others. But in the life of this church, many of you either leave your gift under the Christmas tree unopened or leave your gifts at home and never use them. Why?
When Martin Luther talked about how faith is given through the Holy Spirit, he wrote, “I believe that I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel.” I believe that these words are an excellent witness to the words of scripture. It is not our work to find God, but God’s work to find us. In fact, we tend to run from God—we are bound and determined to make it as hard on Him to find us, to love us, to empower us and to save us as possible.
Thankfully, being the creator of heaven and earth, he knows what he needs to do to get through to us, and it is not by motivating us to great acts of spiritual power. Scripture says he kills us in order to make us truly alive. He brings us down to raise us up. He condemns us and then he forgives us. So that we might know who exactly gets the glory. He says that we have sinned because we have not used our spiritual gifts. This is simply the truth. People have suffered, churches have suffered, even we ourselves have suffered because of this. We have left the work of the ministry in the hands of others. We have not served others with our gifts but have used them only to increase our own selfish interests. God has given us gifts—the most amazing spiritual gifts!—and we have squandered them. We are not acting like the people God created us to be, the people God saved us to be, the people God empowers us to be.
So, since you and I are unwilling to use our spiritual gifts, God does something new. He forgives. He forgives you. He gives you and I a clean slate today. Those months and years of not being involved in the life of the church, God has set them aside and now looks at you as a new creation. No longer shall you be termed Potential, but now you shall be called Useful. No longer shall you be called Uninformed, but you are called God’s delight. For God has placed in your hands the most wondrous gifts in all creation—gifts to serve others for the sake of the kingdom of God. Your forgiveness is free. The gifts are yours. What might happen when take them out for a spin? Amen.
Today’s Christian churches have their own problems understanding spiritual gifts even though they usually are not exactly the same problems as the Corinthian church had. While we are aware that there is only one God who gives gifts, we don’t realize that God blesses every person with gifts, not just a few religious leaders. Notice some of the words Paul uses when talking about spiritual gifts: everyone, to each, to another, to another, to another, to each one individually. My point is that in many churches, including this one, we often act like some spiritual gifts are better than others or, worse, that only some in the church have been blessed with the proper spiritual gifts. In some churches, people get so confused that they start looking to their pastors or priests as the giver of gifts, rather than to God alone.
For example, I, as your pastor, am not the only one blessed with gifts. I have them, this is true, but only because God promises to bless all who believe in him with these gifts. I didn’t receive them at seminary, I didn’t receive them at my ordination, I received my spiritual gifts at my baptism. What does this mean? That each and every one of you have them as well. And you don’t have to go to seminary to find them. And you certainly don’t have to be ordained to receive them. You received them at your baptism. Do you believe it?
Well, if you believe it, then what are your spiritual gifts and what are you doing to use them? Suffice it to say, while we may SAY that we have spiritual gifts, for all intents and purposes many Christians, just like many of you, ACT like they don’t have them. But before we go any further, let me make sure that you understand the difference between a natural gift and a spiritual gift. They both come from God, but they are different.
I went to college to become a double bassist in a symphony. I was a good musician and believe that, in many ways, I still am. When I was asked whether or not I had thought about going to seminary, to become a pastor, I didn’t think that I had a call (even though God was using these people to call me there). Furthermore, I didn’t think that I would be very good at it, especially if I’d have to visit people who were sick. I didn’t want to do that.
While being a musician is certainly a gift, I wasn’t using my music to serve others, only to serve myself mostly. Music can be a spiritual gift, but I wasn’t using it as such by practicing 6-8 hours a day just in order to get a job that I wanted. When God finally got through to me and called me to seminary to start training to become a pastor, I began working on my spiritual gifts and discovered that they were much different than what I thought they would be. Remember that I said that I didn’t think I would be a good pastor because I didn’t want to sit with sick people; however, when I started visiting the sick as a chaplain in a hospital during seminary, I actually found that I loved doing it and even started realizing that it was a gift. It didn’t come naturally maybe, but it was a spiritual gift. When I was focused on serving others, on listening to their needs, on caring for their suffering, it became one of my favorite things to do—we might call this a gift of counseling.
Of the short list of spiritual gifts mentioned in the passage today, the one that I’ve noticed the most in my life is the gift of healing. Now, I don’t believe that I have ever seen a dramatic physical healing in anyone I have prayed for . . . yet . . . but I believe every time I pray that it could happen. However, people have sometimes told me that when I pray for them, they experience a healing of their spirit, knowing that God really does forgive them or that they experience inner healing. You see, as Paul says, “there are a variety of gifts” they don’t all have to look the same. Just because you have the gift of healing, doesn’t mean that it will look the way you think it should look, or how it looks on the movies. You may have it to a lesser or greater degree than someone else. Not everyone will become a famous televangelist, but you may still have the gift of evangelism. If you never try to use your spiritual gifts, how will you ever know? The gift of healing seems like a great spiritual gift to have, but it is by no means the greatest or the worst.
I believe that for many of you there are two obstacles to using your spiritual gifts. The first is that you don’t know what a spiritual gift is, or you don’t know what gifts you might have. This obstacle is mostly about a lack of familiarity with scripture or the failure of spiritual leaders, like myself, to do a good job teaching you about them. The second obstacle is one of faith. This means that even if you know what your spiritual gifts are, that knowledge stays up in your head and never moves to your heart.
Christian Schwarz, the director of Natural Church Development, has written a book about spiritual gifts. In this book, I believe that he has compiled a good list of possible gifts that Christians might have. You each received this list in your bulletins this morning. This list is taken from scripture, but there is no doubt that you could argue about the titles he gives some of them. The point of this exercise is to simply give you some ideas about what possible spiritual gifts you might have. Remember that the gift of healing isn’t always going to mean that people with cancer are suddenly cured . . . though it might. And the gift of counseling doesn’t mean that you are a great psychologist, but that perhaps people feel refreshed and joyful after talking to you. There are a variety of gifts and a variety of how those gifts are manifested. I encourage you to read this list when you are at home this week and pray about how God might use you at Saint Peters and everywhere you go.
These gifts came through your baptism, not through some secondary education. But what about that second obstacle: your faith.
Why is it, do you think, that you have not used your spiritual gifts? I’m sure that some of you have realized, before today, that you have had at least some ability in some of these areas. I know that you have served others. But in the life of this church, many of you either leave your gift under the Christmas tree unopened or leave your gifts at home and never use them. Why?
When Martin Luther talked about how faith is given through the Holy Spirit, he wrote, “I believe that I cannot believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but the Holy Spirit has called me through the gospel.” I believe that these words are an excellent witness to the words of scripture. It is not our work to find God, but God’s work to find us. In fact, we tend to run from God—we are bound and determined to make it as hard on Him to find us, to love us, to empower us and to save us as possible.
Thankfully, being the creator of heaven and earth, he knows what he needs to do to get through to us, and it is not by motivating us to great acts of spiritual power. Scripture says he kills us in order to make us truly alive. He brings us down to raise us up. He condemns us and then he forgives us. So that we might know who exactly gets the glory. He says that we have sinned because we have not used our spiritual gifts. This is simply the truth. People have suffered, churches have suffered, even we ourselves have suffered because of this. We have left the work of the ministry in the hands of others. We have not served others with our gifts but have used them only to increase our own selfish interests. God has given us gifts—the most amazing spiritual gifts!—and we have squandered them. We are not acting like the people God created us to be, the people God saved us to be, the people God empowers us to be.
So, since you and I are unwilling to use our spiritual gifts, God does something new. He forgives. He forgives you. He gives you and I a clean slate today. Those months and years of not being involved in the life of the church, God has set them aside and now looks at you as a new creation. No longer shall you be termed Potential, but now you shall be called Useful. No longer shall you be called Uninformed, but you are called God’s delight. For God has placed in your hands the most wondrous gifts in all creation—gifts to serve others for the sake of the kingdom of God. Your forgiveness is free. The gifts are yours. What might happen when take them out for a spin? Amen.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Sermon for January 10th
Have you got the Spirit? Is one baptism enough? Have you been baptized in the Spirit? As human beings, we always want more. More glory. More power. More gifts. More assurances. Sometimes we just KNOW that we must be missing something. As Christians, we wonder—maybe God is holding out on us—with all the suffering in the world, maybe there is something more that he could give us that would make life a lot more glorious.
The part of the Trinity that always seems to get co-opted into our schemes for glory is the Holy Spirit. God the Father always seems too in accessible. Jesus the Son is just a little too much like us, so the Holy Spirit seems like a good possibility. According to scripture, the spirit is the one who hands out the gifts such as healing or miracles, speaking in tongues and prophesy. But how do you get them? How can you find the Spirit? What must you do to become “spiritual” or “sanctified”? Or is it simply beyond your control?
In the second reading today from Acts, two apostles, Peter and John, visit some newly baptized Samaritans, but, once they arrive, they find out something strange, “as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of these Samaritans; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus” the text says. So, Peter and John lay their hands on them, and they receive the Holy Spirit. You see, a baptism without the Holy Spirit is really no baptism at all, is it? Two out of three ain’t bad, as the pop star Meatloaf famously put it, but when it comes to your salvation, it seems pretty important to have all of the Trinity working on your side. The question that always comes up after reading this text from Acts is: why wasn’t that one baptism enough? Is there something else needed? Some Christian groups have maintained that, yes, something else is needed. They say that if you’ve only been baptized with water, in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, then you may have been forgiven your sins, you are still missing something.
According to R.A. Torrey, second president of the Moody Bible Institute, “The Baptism with the Holy Spirit is an experience connected with and primarily for the purpose of service . . . It is not primarily intended to make believers happy or holy, but to make them useful. It has no direct reference to cleansing from sin. It has to do with gifts for service rather than graces of character.” According to Francis MacNutt, “John the Baptist’s prophecy about the coming of Jesus indicates the primary purpose and significance of Jesus’ time on Earth: to baptize us in the Holy Spirit.”
Scripture talks about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but not all Christians have even heard of it. Why might that be? Perhaps it is because we don’t really believe anymore in miracles, or healing, or prophecy or speaking in tongues and all those things come through the power of the Holy Spirit. In the early church, these activities were commonplace. Both Peter and Paul even raised people from the dead in the name of Jesus. But now, we figure those times are past.
Being baptized in the Holy Spirit is for the purpose of God showing his power through you. If we stop talking about the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and stop expecting that powerful event to take place, we forget about the power that God has to work in our lives, we stop praying because we stop believing our prayers could ever be answered. To put it simply, we lose our faith in the power of God and in God’s promise to use us as His witnesses.
However, there is also a great danger that Christians have created in their explanations of this baptism in the Holy Spirit. By emphasizing the importance of this event it is very easy to set it up in opposition to a baptism with water. Then, rather than expecting the Holy Spirit to fill a child or an adult with spiritual gifts to be used throughout their life, we start wondering if they might be missing something. We end up trying to separate the Holy Spirit from Jesus Christ.
Have you got the Spirit? Have you been baptized in the Spirit? Saint Paul says, “Yes, you have.” In his first letter to the Corinthian church he points out that all believers in Jesus Christ have been baptized in the Spirit for spiritual gifts don't come naturally, but come only through the Holy Spirit. Paul writes, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” You don’t need to be re-baptized in order to use your spiritual gifts, God has already empowered you to use them.
As R.A. Torrey puts its, while baptism with water is a onetime deal, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, being filled with the Holy Spirit, can happen numerous times, as many times as God has need for “each new emergency of Christian service.” In the book of Acts, the apostle Peter was filled with the Spirit three times. Baptism in the Holy Spirit is not a sacrament, it is just a description about how God works in our lives so that he might serve the needs of others through us.
In today’s reading from the gospel of Luke, the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus in bodily form like a dove. Does that mean that the Holy Spirit wasn’t truly a part of Jesus before this moment? Of course not! Not if we truly believe that Jesus was born God in the flesh. God cannot be separated into divisible parts or else he is no longer one God. The Holy Spirit can never be separate from Jesus Christ just as the Holy Spirit can never be separate from God.
So what does it mean then when the text today says, “they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.”? Did God suddenly separate himself so that, for these people, the first baptism didn’t take? Could the same thing have happened at your baptism? This text tends to create doubt in all of us about our baptisms. But the most important words in this little section come at the beginning of verse 17, “for as yet the Spirit had not come.” Instead of saying that the Holy Spirit DID NOT COME when they were baptized, the text says that the Holy Spirit DID NOT YET COME—in other words, it was expected to come. Why? Because where Jesus goes there goes the Holy Spirit.
The biblical scholar Andrew Das explains that, in the book of Acts, baptism with water and being baptized in the Holy Spirit, are always connected. The baptism of the Spirit usually takes place at the same time as the baptism with water as the apostle Peter points out in Acts 2:38, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” However, there are two times in Acts when the Holy Spirit surprises us.
The first is in our text today when the Samaritans have, as yet, not received the Holy Spirit after being baptized. The second is in chapter 10 when the Gentiles receive the Holy Spirit first and then are baptized. Jesus promised his disciples that they would be His witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria , and to the ends of the earth. The book of Acts explains how the Holy Spirit accomplishes God’s missionary activity.
In each case where the Holy Spirit either is delayed or presumes water baptism, the spirit ends up bringing two separate groups together who were once hostile toward one another. In the first instance, the spirit reunites two separate bodies, orthodox Jews and Samaritans, and brings them together into one new Christian community. In the second instance, the Holy Spirit overcomes the human prejudice of Jews against Gentiles by having some Gentiles speak in tongues before they were ever baptized. As Peter says, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.” Why? Because baptism in the Holy Spirit and water baptism are expected to be connected.
Have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit? Yes. It happened when you were named and claimed by God himself in the waters of baptism. In those same waters you were forgiven for your sins, even though you hear the forgiveness again each week in the absolution. So, also, you were filled with the Holy Spirit even though you can expect to be filled again with that same Spirit whenever you have need to use your spiritual gifts. You are not “missing” anything for God has given you all that He has, withholding nothing. What does this mean for you? You received the Holy Spirit once at your baptism and God has promised to fill you with that same Spirit again and again as you live out your vocations in service to others. You are free to go forth today in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The part of the Trinity that always seems to get co-opted into our schemes for glory is the Holy Spirit. God the Father always seems too in accessible. Jesus the Son is just a little too much like us, so the Holy Spirit seems like a good possibility. According to scripture, the spirit is the one who hands out the gifts such as healing or miracles, speaking in tongues and prophesy. But how do you get them? How can you find the Spirit? What must you do to become “spiritual” or “sanctified”? Or is it simply beyond your control?
In the second reading today from Acts, two apostles, Peter and John, visit some newly baptized Samaritans, but, once they arrive, they find out something strange, “as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of these Samaritans; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus” the text says. So, Peter and John lay their hands on them, and they receive the Holy Spirit. You see, a baptism without the Holy Spirit is really no baptism at all, is it? Two out of three ain’t bad, as the pop star Meatloaf famously put it, but when it comes to your salvation, it seems pretty important to have all of the Trinity working on your side. The question that always comes up after reading this text from Acts is: why wasn’t that one baptism enough? Is there something else needed? Some Christian groups have maintained that, yes, something else is needed. They say that if you’ve only been baptized with water, in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, then you may have been forgiven your sins, you are still missing something.
According to R.A. Torrey, second president of the Moody Bible Institute, “The Baptism with the Holy Spirit is an experience connected with and primarily for the purpose of service . . . It is not primarily intended to make believers happy or holy, but to make them useful. It has no direct reference to cleansing from sin. It has to do with gifts for service rather than graces of character.” According to Francis MacNutt, “John the Baptist’s prophecy about the coming of Jesus indicates the primary purpose and significance of Jesus’ time on Earth: to baptize us in the Holy Spirit.”
Scripture talks about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but not all Christians have even heard of it. Why might that be? Perhaps it is because we don’t really believe anymore in miracles, or healing, or prophecy or speaking in tongues and all those things come through the power of the Holy Spirit. In the early church, these activities were commonplace. Both Peter and Paul even raised people from the dead in the name of Jesus. But now, we figure those times are past.
Being baptized in the Holy Spirit is for the purpose of God showing his power through you. If we stop talking about the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and stop expecting that powerful event to take place, we forget about the power that God has to work in our lives, we stop praying because we stop believing our prayers could ever be answered. To put it simply, we lose our faith in the power of God and in God’s promise to use us as His witnesses.
However, there is also a great danger that Christians have created in their explanations of this baptism in the Holy Spirit. By emphasizing the importance of this event it is very easy to set it up in opposition to a baptism with water. Then, rather than expecting the Holy Spirit to fill a child or an adult with spiritual gifts to be used throughout their life, we start wondering if they might be missing something. We end up trying to separate the Holy Spirit from Jesus Christ.
Have you got the Spirit? Have you been baptized in the Spirit? Saint Paul says, “Yes, you have.” In his first letter to the Corinthian church he points out that all believers in Jesus Christ have been baptized in the Spirit for spiritual gifts don't come naturally, but come only through the Holy Spirit. Paul writes, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” You don’t need to be re-baptized in order to use your spiritual gifts, God has already empowered you to use them.
As R.A. Torrey puts its, while baptism with water is a onetime deal, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, being filled with the Holy Spirit, can happen numerous times, as many times as God has need for “each new emergency of Christian service.” In the book of Acts, the apostle Peter was filled with the Spirit three times. Baptism in the Holy Spirit is not a sacrament, it is just a description about how God works in our lives so that he might serve the needs of others through us.
In today’s reading from the gospel of Luke, the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus in bodily form like a dove. Does that mean that the Holy Spirit wasn’t truly a part of Jesus before this moment? Of course not! Not if we truly believe that Jesus was born God in the flesh. God cannot be separated into divisible parts or else he is no longer one God. The Holy Spirit can never be separate from Jesus Christ just as the Holy Spirit can never be separate from God.
So what does it mean then when the text today says, “they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.”? Did God suddenly separate himself so that, for these people, the first baptism didn’t take? Could the same thing have happened at your baptism? This text tends to create doubt in all of us about our baptisms. But the most important words in this little section come at the beginning of verse 17, “for as yet the Spirit had not come.” Instead of saying that the Holy Spirit DID NOT COME when they were baptized, the text says that the Holy Spirit DID NOT YET COME—in other words, it was expected to come. Why? Because where Jesus goes there goes the Holy Spirit.
The biblical scholar Andrew Das explains that, in the book of Acts, baptism with water and being baptized in the Holy Spirit, are always connected. The baptism of the Spirit usually takes place at the same time as the baptism with water as the apostle Peter points out in Acts 2:38, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” However, there are two times in Acts when the Holy Spirit surprises us.
The first is in our text today when the Samaritans have, as yet, not received the Holy Spirit after being baptized. The second is in chapter 10 when the Gentiles receive the Holy Spirit first and then are baptized. Jesus promised his disciples that they would be His witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria , and to the ends of the earth. The book of Acts explains how the Holy Spirit accomplishes God’s missionary activity.
In each case where the Holy Spirit either is delayed or presumes water baptism, the spirit ends up bringing two separate groups together who were once hostile toward one another. In the first instance, the spirit reunites two separate bodies, orthodox Jews and Samaritans, and brings them together into one new Christian community. In the second instance, the Holy Spirit overcomes the human prejudice of Jews against Gentiles by having some Gentiles speak in tongues before they were ever baptized. As Peter says, “Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.” Why? Because baptism in the Holy Spirit and water baptism are expected to be connected.
Have you been baptized with the Holy Spirit? Yes. It happened when you were named and claimed by God himself in the waters of baptism. In those same waters you were forgiven for your sins, even though you hear the forgiveness again each week in the absolution. So, also, you were filled with the Holy Spirit even though you can expect to be filled again with that same Spirit whenever you have need to use your spiritual gifts. You are not “missing” anything for God has given you all that He has, withholding nothing. What does this mean for you? You received the Holy Spirit once at your baptism and God has promised to fill you with that same Spirit again and again as you live out your vocations in service to others. You are free to go forth today in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Sermon for January 3rd
My family just got back from vacation yesterday morning, at 5:00am, after driving all day and through the night from our New Year’s Eve stay in a hotel in the Midwest. The only thing that amazes me more than the fact that we made it back here at that insane hour is that we made it to Nebraska at all. We drove all night long twice in two weeks and, honestly, that’s enough! But there are TWO ways to talk about our journey. Two stories.
Let’s begin with the first story. This one begins last year, the week before Christmas, where we began our search for, dare I say it, our DESTINY! We’ll title this adventure, ” Mission Impossible”—dun, dun, da-dun-dun dun . . . . Our mission: to drive twenty-four hours in a car with two children, a tired pastor and his pregnant wife across the United States into the heart of the Midwest which had just experienced one of the worst blizzards in recent memory. And all we had to work with was a Subaru (comes standard with All Wheel Drive), a bag chock full of snacks, lots and lots of coloring books and 24-hour Christmas music stations scattered across the nation.
The opening hours of the trip were uneventful, and after hearing Jingle Bell Rock for the fourth or fifth time riding across the long stretches of Pennsylvania and Ohio, the decision was made—there would be no hotel for us this night! The snow was covering the interstate, the wind was whistling across the plains of Indiana and Illinois but echoing through our ears came the wise words of Robert Goulet “There’s no place like home for the holidays” and, in fact, the traffic WAS terrific—at 1:00am on Christmas Night, no one was driving and it seemed good for us to keep going. I was man enough to keep going. I was bold enough AND I was stupid enough. Grrrr. After five grueling hours driving the graveyard shift, with my eyeballs twitching from the intensity of the effort, the Mama-bear took over and drove us across the unplowed stretches of Iowa and Nebraska without hardly breaking a sweat. (Perhaps because she was always turning down the heat) A mere twenty five hours later, we were at our destination. The Christmas cookies were waiting for us like so many adoring fans ready to give their lives in appreciation for our amazing driving skills. Our waiting family stood in adoration of us: the Broers Quartet! Victorious over rain, sleet and snow! We had found our destiny! Mission Impossible? No! Midwest! Possible!
Of course, after braving the wild stretches of the interstate once, the return trip seemed laughable. Ha, ha, ha! Wanting to infuse a little life in the down economy, we did stay for a little while in a hotel on New Year’s Eve, but, just in case that might make us look a little weak to those unfamiliar with our reputations, we slept in, ate breakfast out and left later than we should have (ha!) and drove the perilous mountains of Pennsylvania in the wind and snow, just outracing another blizzard. And then, in the wee hours of the morning, we blazed a trail from Kent to Cornwall so that any early morning travelers might have a path to follow. And so the journey came to the end. Showing off our courage, our stamina, and our unshakeable faith in God and in ourselves! We had arrived at our final destination. We had found our destiny!
There are two stories of our Christmas trip. This first is what you might call “the story of glory”. We came from glory and return to glory. This is the story that some people hear when they read today’s text. Let me read part of it for you again this morning: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will.” You see, many of us read this passage like a glory story. We see ourselves as victorious warriors fighting against the battles life throws before us just waiting, with eager anticipation, to be crowned with garlands of glory, to sit with Jesus in heaven: that is our destiny—it says so in scripture! God destined us for glory! And we are only too happy to enjoy the limelight.
But, as I said before, there are two stories. There are two stories about my Christmas trip and two stories for your life as well. A story of glory and a story of the cross.
This second story begins last year as well, the week before Christmas, where we began our search for destiny except, and this is just our little secret alright, but we weren’t completely sure how it was all going to work out. We didn’t start from a position of glory. We’ll title this little adventure: “Livin on a prayer”. We decided at the last minute to go to the Midwest for Christmas after spending most of the fall deciding why we probably shouldn’t. But the week before Christmas, despite our best arguments and intentions, the call to go back home became clearly the right thing to do. The joy of seeing our family was, of course, a great motivation, but the twenty four hour car ride, coupled with a pregnant woman, in the middle of winter were definite drawbacks.
We were thankful for a good-working car and two children with great abilities to entertain themselves, but would God see us through bad weather with two tired parents? We prayed a lot. Because, even though we know we can drive in bad weather, there are many people who can’t. In fact, while we were back home and on our way to a family event, a car slid out of control and hit my wife’s entire family riding along in the car ahead of us. It knocked them into a ditch where they were then smashed into by another SUV. What does this little event tell you? The Broers Quartet didn’t drive home safely thanks to our great driving abilities, but thanks to a great God.
We certainly did keep driving through the night, even though we were both dead tired, but not because we were showing off how amazing we were, but because it seemed like the best of two bad choices: drive in bad weather alone or drive in bad weather with a lot of other people. The looks on our family’s faces were not adoration but relief: they weren’t admiring us, they were admiring God’s great work in getting us therein one piece.
We left a day early because we saw that the weather was going to be bad, we prayed our way through the snow and ice. You see, prayer doesn’t make snow and ice go away, but it reminds you to put your trust in someone other than yourself so that, at the end, you give glory not to yourself, but to God alone. I spent much of the trip just thanking God for the snowplows who seemed to always be spilling out salt before I came barreling through. Thankful that God had spared my family from any worse injuries in the collision. Thankful for sleeping children. Thankful for having a splendid partner to drive with and to trust to drive. We arrived at our final destination, but was this truly our great destiny?
In today’s reading, the apostle Paul says that our destiny was decided before our car trip and even before the foundation of the world! This, of course, ruins our first glory story and makes it seem quite silly to give ourselves the credit, but isn’t that how most of us live our lives? Don’t we all see what we do, with our jobs, our hobbies, our families, as stories of glory? I’m not saying that God is pulling strings in your life, like you were simply a puppet, whether that were true or not, you’d still pretty much do whatever you wanted anyway. But, when it comes to your salvation, God gets the glory for saving you—you aren’t the hero of this story, you are rescued by Jesus. God gets the glory.
Martin Luther once wrote that we know God’s love through suffering and the cross. In other words, it is very nice that God got my family through last week’s trip—it certainly shows us that God loves us. But God’s love is shown most fully in that he showed us our destiny before our car trip, he revealed his destiny to us, just as he is revealing your destiny to all of you right now before you drive home today. I pray that you all make it home safely, but God’s love for you is already known: In Jesus Christ, you are destined for God’s love. You are destined for a great inheritance: the forgiveness of your sins and a heavenly kingdom. Not because of your glory, but because of God’s glory. There are two stories to tell in your life: a story of glory and a story of the cross. The story of the cross, while not as exciting perhaps, is the story of God’s glory and not your own. Jesus is the hero of this story and he has found his destiny: His final destination is you. Amen.
Let’s begin with the first story. This one begins last year, the week before Christmas, where we began our search for, dare I say it, our DESTINY! We’ll title this adventure, ” Mission Impossible”—dun, dun, da-dun-dun dun . . . . Our mission: to drive twenty-four hours in a car with two children, a tired pastor and his pregnant wife across the United States into the heart of the Midwest which had just experienced one of the worst blizzards in recent memory. And all we had to work with was a Subaru (comes standard with All Wheel Drive), a bag chock full of snacks, lots and lots of coloring books and 24-hour Christmas music stations scattered across the nation.
The opening hours of the trip were uneventful, and after hearing Jingle Bell Rock for the fourth or fifth time riding across the long stretches of Pennsylvania and Ohio, the decision was made—there would be no hotel for us this night! The snow was covering the interstate, the wind was whistling across the plains of Indiana and Illinois but echoing through our ears came the wise words of Robert Goulet “There’s no place like home for the holidays” and, in fact, the traffic WAS terrific—at 1:00am on Christmas Night, no one was driving and it seemed good for us to keep going. I was man enough to keep going. I was bold enough AND I was stupid enough. Grrrr. After five grueling hours driving the graveyard shift, with my eyeballs twitching from the intensity of the effort, the Mama-bear took over and drove us across the unplowed stretches of Iowa and Nebraska without hardly breaking a sweat. (Perhaps because she was always turning down the heat) A mere twenty five hours later, we were at our destination. The Christmas cookies were waiting for us like so many adoring fans ready to give their lives in appreciation for our amazing driving skills. Our waiting family stood in adoration of us: the Broers Quartet! Victorious over rain, sleet and snow! We had found our destiny! Mission Impossible? No! Midwest! Possible!
Of course, after braving the wild stretches of the interstate once, the return trip seemed laughable. Ha, ha, ha! Wanting to infuse a little life in the down economy, we did stay for a little while in a hotel on New Year’s Eve, but, just in case that might make us look a little weak to those unfamiliar with our reputations, we slept in, ate breakfast out and left later than we should have (ha!) and drove the perilous mountains of Pennsylvania in the wind and snow, just outracing another blizzard. And then, in the wee hours of the morning, we blazed a trail from Kent to Cornwall so that any early morning travelers might have a path to follow. And so the journey came to the end. Showing off our courage, our stamina, and our unshakeable faith in God and in ourselves! We had arrived at our final destination. We had found our destiny!
There are two stories of our Christmas trip. This first is what you might call “the story of glory”. We came from glory and return to glory. This is the story that some people hear when they read today’s text. Let me read part of it for you again this morning: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will.” You see, many of us read this passage like a glory story. We see ourselves as victorious warriors fighting against the battles life throws before us just waiting, with eager anticipation, to be crowned with garlands of glory, to sit with Jesus in heaven: that is our destiny—it says so in scripture! God destined us for glory! And we are only too happy to enjoy the limelight.
But, as I said before, there are two stories. There are two stories about my Christmas trip and two stories for your life as well. A story of glory and a story of the cross.
This second story begins last year as well, the week before Christmas, where we began our search for destiny except, and this is just our little secret alright, but we weren’t completely sure how it was all going to work out. We didn’t start from a position of glory. We’ll title this little adventure: “Livin on a prayer”. We decided at the last minute to go to the Midwest for Christmas after spending most of the fall deciding why we probably shouldn’t. But the week before Christmas, despite our best arguments and intentions, the call to go back home became clearly the right thing to do. The joy of seeing our family was, of course, a great motivation, but the twenty four hour car ride, coupled with a pregnant woman, in the middle of winter were definite drawbacks.
We were thankful for a good-working car and two children with great abilities to entertain themselves, but would God see us through bad weather with two tired parents? We prayed a lot. Because, even though we know we can drive in bad weather, there are many people who can’t. In fact, while we were back home and on our way to a family event, a car slid out of control and hit my wife’s entire family riding along in the car ahead of us. It knocked them into a ditch where they were then smashed into by another SUV. What does this little event tell you? The Broers Quartet didn’t drive home safely thanks to our great driving abilities, but thanks to a great God.
We certainly did keep driving through the night, even though we were both dead tired, but not because we were showing off how amazing we were, but because it seemed like the best of two bad choices: drive in bad weather alone or drive in bad weather with a lot of other people. The looks on our family’s faces were not adoration but relief: they weren’t admiring us, they were admiring God’s great work in getting us therein one piece.
We left a day early because we saw that the weather was going to be bad, we prayed our way through the snow and ice. You see, prayer doesn’t make snow and ice go away, but it reminds you to put your trust in someone other than yourself so that, at the end, you give glory not to yourself, but to God alone. I spent much of the trip just thanking God for the snowplows who seemed to always be spilling out salt before I came barreling through. Thankful that God had spared my family from any worse injuries in the collision. Thankful for sleeping children. Thankful for having a splendid partner to drive with and to trust to drive. We arrived at our final destination, but was this truly our great destiny?
In today’s reading, the apostle Paul says that our destiny was decided before our car trip and even before the foundation of the world! This, of course, ruins our first glory story and makes it seem quite silly to give ourselves the credit, but isn’t that how most of us live our lives? Don’t we all see what we do, with our jobs, our hobbies, our families, as stories of glory? I’m not saying that God is pulling strings in your life, like you were simply a puppet, whether that were true or not, you’d still pretty much do whatever you wanted anyway. But, when it comes to your salvation, God gets the glory for saving you—you aren’t the hero of this story, you are rescued by Jesus. God gets the glory.
Martin Luther once wrote that we know God’s love through suffering and the cross. In other words, it is very nice that God got my family through last week’s trip—it certainly shows us that God loves us. But God’s love is shown most fully in that he showed us our destiny before our car trip, he revealed his destiny to us, just as he is revealing your destiny to all of you right now before you drive home today. I pray that you all make it home safely, but God’s love for you is already known: In Jesus Christ, you are destined for God’s love. You are destined for a great inheritance: the forgiveness of your sins and a heavenly kingdom. Not because of your glory, but because of God’s glory. There are two stories to tell in your life: a story of glory and a story of the cross. The story of the cross, while not as exciting perhaps, is the story of God’s glory and not your own. Jesus is the hero of this story and he has found his destiny: His final destination is you. Amen.
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