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Hespeler 5 June, 2022 © Scott McAndless – Pentecost, Communion
Genesis 11:1-9, Psalm 104:24-34, 35b, Acts 2:1-21, John 14:8-27 (click to read)

I want you to do something for me. I want you, for the next couple of minutes, not to look at the reading that we had from the Book of Acts a few minutes ago. Do not look at it on your bulletin or in your Bible. I mean, we only just heard it read and I’m sure that many of you also read along, so it should be fresh in your minds anyways. But I’m also aware that, now that I’ve told you that you can’t do something, you also probably feel this irresistible temptation to do it anyways. That is human. But resist that temptation.

I don’t want you to look because I want to share with you an experience that I had a couple of weeks ago. I was attending the Festival of Homiletics – a gathering that allows church leaders to hear some of the best and most creative preachers in this hemisphere as they preach and talk about preaching. It was a great experience. And I was listening to a conversation between two preachers.

One of them was Nadia Bolz-Weber, a rather amazing Lutheran preacher, and she was talking about how we can sometimes skip over verses. And she pulled out, for example, the passage we read this morning – the passage that is traditionally read every year in churches on this day, the Day of Pentecost.

A Throwaway Verse

And she was remarking that she had been reading and preaching on this passage for years and had found it to be very powerful. But if you had asked her, over those many years, if there was one verse that she could have dropped, that was completely incidental and you didn’t need to bother thinking about, it would have to be the first verse of the chapter.

That verse didn’t matter one bit and it wouldn’t matter if it wasn’t there in the Bible. But then, last year, she took out this chapter and she just couldn’t get past the first verse. All of a sudden that one verse that she would have been ready to just throw right out of the Bible for years meant the world to her.

Now, at this point, I was feeling pretty much like I’m sure you’re feeling right now. Because I didn’t have a Bible with me. I didn’t have a bulletin with the text in front of me. I was asking myself what on earth the first verse of the chapter said. I’m pretty sure every preacher listening was wondering. Certainly, the other preacher up on the stage was wondering because she asked. Then Nadia Bolz-Weber read us the verse. Chapter two of the Book of Acts starts like this: “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.”

Caught Off Guard

And as I heard those words, I felt the tears come to my eyes. I knew exactly what she meant. Whoo, talk about a powerful book, eh? Talk about a tricky book! I mean, it is almost as if God, through some process of inspiration, planted that verse right there so many centuries ago. And it just sat there, unassuming, a completely benign verse that everybody just read over and forgot and then, all of a sudden, in 2022, boom! It hits us over the head. It suddenly means the world.

Because yes, we took it for granted that being able to gather together and worship and pray in one place was something that we could do at any time. Granted, we didn’t always do it. There were other things that got in the way or that seemed more important at the time. I have long said that one of the marks of any Christian in our society is that they are, at the very least, aware of which church they don’t go to on Sunday. But we at least knew that the possibility was there.

But then, suddenly, the possibility wasn’t there. And we did find ways to meet virtually and that was good and it taught us many things. There were some definite pluses to it, as a matter of fact. But that did not change the sense of loss that we felt and still feel. And because God understands how we feel, I truly believe that God has sent us a message this morning. God wrote it for us more than 1900 years ago. It has been delivered to us this morning. And that message is, “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.”

What its Telling us

So, let us think today about what that verse means in the story of Pentecost. Pentecost is, in the minds of many Christians, the birthday of the Christian church. Yes, the story of salvation centres around Easter Sunday. The resurrection of Jesus brings us the hope of life beyond death and of victory beyond the defeats of this world. But the creation of the church would have to wait fifty days until, with the gift of the Holy Spirit, Christ would bring it into being.

But this verse is a reminder that, before the rushing of the wind and before the descending flames of fire, there was something else that made Pentecost possible – the simple fact that they were all together in one place. And we believe that it was God who made the wind rush. And it was God who made the flames come down. These things were signs of the presence of God’s Holy Spirit, a gift that made the church a possibility. But could God have given that gift if the people of the church had not gathered together in one place?

Gathering in Person Matters

On one hand, the answer to that question is yes, of course. God can do whatever God wants. But, on the other hand, there seems to be no question that there was something essential about the church gathering on that day. There is something about feeling the warmth of other human bodies around you. There is something about hearing and feeling one another’s breaths and being able to greet one another with the clasp of a hand or what the early church called a holy kiss. And when we do things together in one another’s presence, when we pray or when we sing, there is always, always a sense that when you put us all together the whole is inexplicably greater than just the sum of the parts. Pentecost can’t just be about the Spirit. It also has to be about these bodies gathered together.

Back to Babel

And yet, at the same time, the gathering alone is not enough. People have long noticed that there is a connection between the story of Pentecost in the Book of Acts and the story of the tower of Babel in the Book of Genesis. The author of the Book of Acts clearly chose to write his story as a kind of parallel to the story in Genesis. The languages get confused in Genesis and then they get unconfused in Acts. And it is important to note that the story in Genesis also begins with people coming together. “Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.”

So there, too, we have bodies coming together in a certain place at a certain time. And as a result of that gathering, they too feel the impulse and the ability to reach for something that is greater than just the sum of the parts. They even see in their uniting a possibility to reach a higher spiritual plane, which is represented by this idea of building a tower to heaven.

But, of course, in Genesis that impulse is a negative thing. The story illustrates that the simple fact of us coming together does not always lead to positive outcomes. Sometimes we just come together because we each think that we can build our own tower, our own way to heaven. But when that is all we are doing, it is only going to break down in fighting with each other and starting to speak our own languages because we’re only focused on our own needs. That just ends in division, just like happened on that plain in Shinar.

Pentecost Repairs Babel

But when we pair that coming together in body with an openness to the power of God’s Spirit, we are able to open ourselves to embrace something bigger than just our own ambition. We can learn to put aside our own agendas so that we can embrace the possibility of what God would like to do among us and through us.

I realize that the world has changed in some very important ways over the past two and a half years. I understand that we have learned new ways of interacting with one another without necessarily being together in the same space. Some of those lessons have been very good. I understand that the world is not going to just go back to the way it was, nor do I think that it ought to. But let us not be afraid to take some time to grieve what we have lost. And let us make the effort, starting today, to retake what we can.

Every one of us needs to judge for ourselves. Only you know all of the various issues of safety and protection of others that is necessary in your case. Only you can decide what will maintain the proper balance in your life, but I would challenge you to find some places in your life where you embrace the power that is present in that simple act of being together in one place. I would encourage you to make it a priority to gather with believers in one place, ideally in this place. I would encourage you to find ways to pray in the presence of others and to enter into some experience of worship. There is power in being able to do that.

Open to the Spirit

Yet, at the same time, since it is Pentecost and we are celebrating the gift of the Holy Spirit to the church, a gift that brought the church into being, let me also encourage us all to do this with an openness to the presence of God’s Holy Spirit. Let us not make the mistake that was made on the plain of Shinar and become so obsessed with our own agendas and accomplishing our selfcentred goals. The true power of being able to come together comes to us when we are able to set aside all of that and to embrace the possibility that God is calling us, in unity, to create something bigger than any one of us as individuals.

But let us find ways to come together as God’s people. Do it online, sure, there will be times when we get a lot of meaning out of doing that. But let us also not forsake joining together because, when we do, we have a God who can do some pretty amazing and surprising things. We have a God so amazing that God hid a message for us today in a text written centuries upon centuries ago.

For families this week.

Join us for a time of coffee/tea, conversation and maybe even a short devotion.

Join us for a time of coffee/tea, conversation and maybe even a short devotion.

https://youtu.be/6ljImpizdHM

Hespeler, 29 May 2022 © Scott McAndless
Acts 16:16-34, Psalm 97, Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21, John 17:20-26

If there is one word that, above all others, people are disagreeing over and fighting over in our days, that word has got to be freedom. We are just hearing a whole lot about freedom. It was the cry on the lips of the people who forced their way into the United States capital on January 6^th over a year ago. It was the resounding cry of trucker convoy protesters who occupied the heart of Ottawa earlier this year. It continues to be heard all over the place in protests against pandemic mandates that are mostly no longer in place.

And how many candidates in the ongoing Ontario election have been dogged by protesters shouting about this very thing? Meanwhile, the people of Ukraine are fighting for their freedom while the Russian president proclaims that he ordered the invasion of Ukraine in order to bring those people freedom.

No one is Anti-Freedom

The word has never had more currency, it seems. But, of course, while we are doing all this fighting over freedom, there is nobody who will stand up and claim to be on the opposing side. No one is going to claim the title of being anti-freedom and indeed almost everyone claims to be fighting for it. So, it actually turns out that what we are fighting over is not freedom itself but actually the definition of freedom. That was why I was so interested when I first looked at our reading this morning from the Book of Acts. The word freedom doesn’t actually appear in the story – not even once – and yet this story is all about the meaning and practice of liberty.

An Enslaved Woman

The story opens with a woman who is the absolute opposite of free. She is identified as a female slave which means she has no freedom in this world. She is also possessed by a “spirit of divination,” which was understood to mean that she would lose control of her mind in ways that forced her to foretell the future.

Of course, we might be inclined to diagnose her, if we encountered her today, as having some sort of mental health issue while they spoke of her condition in purely spiritual terms but, however you understand it, she pretty clearly does not have conscious control over what she says and does. That is a particularly devastating kind of slavery.

The Enslaved Men

The next people we meet in the story – the actual main characters – are also not free. It is the female slave herself who points this out when she cries out for anyone to hear, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.” And I don’t think that it is an accident that these two men are described using the very same term that is used for the female slave. They also need to be understood as being not free. But, pretty clearly, their slavery seems to be a little different from hers.

These two slaves of the Most High God, Paul and Silas, do have an objection to what this female slave says about them. Paul becomes annoyed with her. This is not because what she is saying is untrue, but simply because he doesn’t like all of the attention that that is putting on him. And so, he sets her free from this condition that has enslaved her mind and spirit.

The Only Free People

It is at this point that we meet the only literally free people in the story. They are the people who own the female slave. And I would draw your attention to the fact that it is these people, the only free people, who are the ones who complain about the loss of their freedom. They are upset with Paul because they believe that he has infringed upon their freedom of commerce. They made lots of money by means of the oracles of this female slave, and their complaint is that Paul has now deprived them of their freedom to profit.

Two Imprisoned Slaves

As a result of this, Paul and Silas, these slaves of the Most High God, are deprived of their freedom. They are thrown into prison and their legs are locked into the stocks. And then what happens? God intervenes in the story to set Paul and Silas free. So, do you see what I mean when I say that this story is all about the meaning of freedom. And, as I look at this story, I really do think that it could help us a lot as we try and sort out the really big arguments we are having about freedom these days.

Of course, the freedom that is at stake in most of this story is not really something that we have direct experience of. We are very fortunate, of course, that none of us has experienced firsthand the scourge of slavery, either as slaves or as owners. Perhaps more of us have some experience with mental health issues, either our own or those of the people we care about, but I know of few who have had to deal with issues that resulted in the loss of the freedom of their minds. And, of course, most of us are fortunate not to have had any experience of either just or unjust incarceration.

Think of the Poor Owners!

So, what is the closest point of contact to the question of freedom that we have in this story? Well, I would say that the kind of freedom we hear most talked about these days is the freedom of the owners that gets disrupted. So let’s just focus in on that for a few minutes.

Indeed, let us just try to have a little bit of sympathy for these poor owners. First of all, let us note, that “owners” is plural. This female slave doesn’t just belong to one master. And it is is not just some mom and pop operation that purchased her either. No, she belongs to a corporation. A bunch of people formed a corporation in order to buy up slaves who had special skills like this young woman. They invested their money with the expectation that they would be able to exploit their property without limit. They’ve got stockholders to think about. Can’t somebody think about the poor stockholders?

What of the Freedom to Exploit?

So, it is these corporate owners who scream loudest about their freedom and who manage to get powerful people to act on their behalf. It seems to me that this is something that still happens. When it comes to the freedom of corporations to exploit their workers, to manipulate their markets or to protect their profits, such freedom seems to be near absolute still today.

But it goes much further than that because, not only are the owners a corporation, they are also part of a privileged class in that society. And people who are particularly privileged for any reason, often simply cannot see how their exercise of privilege might impinge upon the freedom of others. These owners simply cannot see how much damage they are doing as they profit off of the exploitation of a young woman who is deep, deep in bondage.

The Freedom of Paul and Silas

So, that is one ideal of freedom that we see in this passage and, I don’t know about you, but I don’t find it particularly inspiring. But there is another idea of freedom in the story. Paul and Silas do not have freedom as the world defines it. They are the slaves of the Most High God and then they are thrown in prison and clapped in stocks.

And yet then, when they are at their most unfree, they do not act like it, do they? They start singing hymns of praise to their master even in their confinement. And then the story takes a strange twist when their master, the Most High God, intervenes to grant them their freedom. There is an earthquake, and they suddenly are freed from their bonds while the doors of their prison are flung wide open.

What they do with their Freedom

But here is the really fascinating part of the story. They react to this new freedom of theirs in almost the exact opposite way of the slave owners. You see, they realize something that the masters clearly do not. They recognize that their exercise of freedom will negatively affect the freedom and safety of others. You see, it was common practice for guards who permitted a prisoner to escape to be severely punished and even put to death for their failure.

Yes, the guard who was over that prison was just as unfree as Paul and Silas were in many ways. When he sees the aftermath of the earthquake and concludes, without even needing to bother and check, that the prisoners must have all escaped, the guard is ready to fall upon his own sword to escape such punishment and dishonour. But Paul, though he has been granted freedom by God, has actually not chosen to use that freedom in a way that will impact the life of the guard. He and Silas, and indeed all of the prisoners, have not escaped and so Paul shouts out to the guard, “Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.”

The Reaction to Such Freedom

Do you realize that what Paul and Silas do in the story is precisely the thing that gets people labeled as sheep (which is a short form for accusing people of not being free) these days? People go around loudly proclaiming that, because they are free, they do not have to do things for the sake of the safety and well-being of others. They mock and criticize people who make the choice to curtail their own freedoms for the sake of vulnerable people or for the larger community. That is indeed a version of freedom, but I find it to be a lot more like the freedom of the slave owners than the freedom experienced by Paul and Silas.

A Desire to Experience More Freedom

Paul and Silas have been set free by God, but they make a choice to express that freedom by prioritizing something else. They choose instead to value the salvation of the guard. And I mean by that that they literally save him from death at his own hands or the hands of his masters. But then the guard, having been given a taste of true salvation is not satisfied. He needs more. “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” he cries out.

He immediately assumes that these people, who have chosen to value his salvation above their own freedom, can also save him in ways that go deeper and further. He is, of course, correct in this assumption. They answer him, “Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” They tell him that he will find, in this Jesus, salvation so powerful that it extends even to his entire household.

Lessons on Freedom

So, then, what does this story teach us about freedom in this moment when it is such a volatile concept? It certainly shows us that freedom is an incredibly valuable thing. We certainly ought to prize the freedoms that we have. We should not let them be eroded away and should do our very best to make sure that more people should have such precious freedom.

But I also think that this story is telling us that freedom is not an end in itself. Freedom that is used to exploit the minds and the bodies of others in the pursuit of our own goals is not an inspiring form of freedom and is not one that we should aspire to.

Freedom we Choose not to Use

The freedom that is truly valuable is the freedom that we sometimes choose not to exercise because we care about others. And when we do that, when we choose to lay down our freedom because it may save somebody else, the promise seems to be that such salvation, so dearly bought, is so powerful that it may just spread far beyond our one little act of care and compassion for others. And that is how the good news and the message of hope will spread in this world.

When the Apostle Paul wrote to the church in Galatia, I cannot help but wonder if he was thinking of incidents like this one when he penned this: “For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become enslaved to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’” (Galatians 5:13 -14)

Paul was clearly someone who understood a few things about freedom that still seem to elude us today. But I’m hoping that maybe we might be able to learn something from him.

For families this week

The message from May 22, 2022

For families this week.

https://youtu.be/K5Wkx5yBozI

Hespeler, 15 May, 2022 © Scott McAndless
Acts 11:1-18, Psalm 148, Revelation 21:1-6, John 13:31-35

In 1985 there was a movie that swept the awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It won eight Oscars including best picture, best director, best actor and best writer. So, I am pretty sure that you have heard of this movie. And I wanted to remind you of it today because I think that it contains a perfect illustration of the scandal behind our reading this morning from the Book of Acts.

Beloved of God

In fact, the film zeroes in on the central dispute of our reading so perfectly that it is right there in the title. The movie was called, in case you haven’t guessed yet, Amadeus. Amadeus is a Latin word that means beloved of God. And the scandalous nature of the love of God is at the centre of the story. The titular character is, of course, none other than the great composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but the main character in the story is the Italian composer, Antonio Salieri. The plot centres around a kind of obsession.

Salieri is jealous of Mozart because of his musical genius. But it’s about more than jealousy. Salieri is angry at Mozart for being so talented, but he is actually even more angry at God. At one point he declares this, speaking directly to Jesus in the form of a crucifix on the wall: “From now on, we are enemies – you and I. Because you choose for your instrument a boastful, lustful, smutty, infantile boy and give me for reward only the ability to recognize the incarnation. Because you are unjust, unfair, unkind, I will block you, I swear it. I will hinder (and remember that word, hinder) I will hinder and harm your creature as far as I am able. I will ruin your incarnation.”

Salieri’s Complaint

He recognizes, and I believe he recognizes correctly, that there is divine inspiration behind what Mozart is able to produce. It is a gift of God. But he is scandalized that God should give such a gift to a person like Mozart. He doesn’t work hard to produce it because he doesn’t need to. But, even worse, he does not live a virtuous life as Salieri defines virtue. He is licentious, vulgar and silly. Meanwhile, Salieri has worked and works so hard and lives a life of extreme piety and virtue, and yet the only music that he can produce reeks of mediocrity.

Salieri finds the very idea that God could give such good things to a person so unworthy so objectionable that it drives him to do awful things. It drives him to theft, corruption, attempted murder and ultimately to madness. Now, I think I ought to say in defense of Salieri that the film, though based on historical characters, is mostly fictional. The two composers seem to have actually had a pretty good relationship. But at the same time, there is something that is fundamentally true about the story of the film. There really is something very objectionable about the love of God and the gifts that it gives, something that we need to come to terms with.

Peter Visits the Wrong People

In our reading this morning, the Apostle Peter gets into a lot of trouble with the leaders of the church over this very issue. He has just come back from a visit to the home of a man named Cornelius where he ate and drank with the household, preached the gospel to them and shared with them the gift of the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. When he returns, however, the people in the Church of Jerusalem are very upset with him. The thing that bothers them is not that he has been preaching the gospel or sharing the love of God or even the gift of the Spirit. This is exactly what the church has been doing ever since the beginning and Peter has done no differently.

No, the only thing that is wrong about what Peter has done is who he did it for. He did it for people who everyone in the Jerusalem church agrees are just the wrong kind of people. They eat the wrong kind of food. They don’t follow the right laws. They’re not even circumcised! They just don’t deserve hearing the good news and they certainly do not belong in the community of the church.

A Personal Question

And I know that we often think of this as a one-time, very special controversy in the life of the early church. It was this important question about whether Gentiles and people who did not follow the Jewish law could have a place in the church. But, as this particular story makes very clear, at the level where this actually touched and affected people’s lives, this was not a theological question. This was a very personal question. It was all about God’s love and grace being lavished on a group of people who simply did not deserve it because of who they were and how they lived their lives. The Jewish Christians in Jerusalem were upset with God for the very same reason that Salieri was upset concerning Mozart. God was just loving the wrong sort of people.

And, given that this is a controversy that arises again and again throughout the history of the church, I think it is worth taking a good look at how Simon Peter responds to the objections of the church in Jerusalem. He responds to them by telling the story. He tells the story that illustrates that God, despite their limited understanding of what God can do, has clearly decided to love these people anyways by giving to them one of God’s greatest gifts, the gift of the Spirit. And then he ends his story with a statement that I believe should be engraved upon the heart of every believer, should be posted as a sign upon every one of our churches. He says, “If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?”

Who is Peter?

Think of that. Here we have the man who is generally thought to be the first great leader of the church, the one that Jesus called The Rock and perhaps the man who knew Jesus best, and yet he is saying, “who am I to hinder God?” And, given the context, what he is especially saying is, “Who am I to hinder God giving God’s love, gifts or grace to anyone?” And yet I see all the time people who seem to believe that they are exactly the kind of people who can hinder God in that way. That’s why I think that we need to learn, with Peter, to ask ourselves that question: who am I to hinder?

How we Hinder

I do believe that that kind of hindering happens all the time in the church. You know, every time we look at somebody who comes into contact with the church and we decide that they don’t really belong and so don’t make them feel particularly welcome, we are hindering God doing God’s work in their life. If you decide that somebody isn’t dressed well enough and communicate that to them even in a subtle way, are you not hindering them from being recipients of the grace and gifts that God is giving through the church? And it’s the same if you decide that based on race, on class or wealth or age or orientation or gender identity or whatever other criterion you can come up with.

I’m not saying that we do it intentionally, because sometimes we’re often not aware of the subtle ways in which we make people feel like they do not belong. Sometimes it’s just a matter of not taking their ideas or opinions seriously. Sometimes it’s not even considering including them in our little circle of friends. But, make no mistake, we all do it sometimes. And we need to ask, who am I to hinder what God wants to do in their life through the church?

Other Ways of Excluding

But do not only think of this in terms of the kind of grace that usually comes to mind in the life of the church. This is something that we do in many other circumstances as well. How often do we write somebody off – do not consider them for a job, or we write off their thoughts and ideas or any potential contribution they could make – for reasons that simply do not matter? You just never know what God might have in mind to do for that person or through that person and yet because of some prejudgment on your part you can hinder that from happening.

Who Can be Saved?

This also applies to our talk and thought about salvation. Christians have a long history of having a very narrow understanding of who is worthy of being saved by God. We confess, of course, that salvation is by grace through faith, but we often have a very narrow understanding of what that faith has to look like.

In particular, we expect it to look like the faith that we have professed. So, if someone believes differently or puts more emphasis on how they live out their faith than on believing all the same things that we believe, we might easily come to the conclusion that they are not worthy of being saved. I don’t think we realize how, when we do that, what we are really doing is putting limits on the love of God. We are deciding that we are the ones who can hinder what God wants to do in people’s lives.

Who Does it Hurt?

When, in the movie at least, Salieri decides to hinder God’s decision to be gracious to someone that he did not think deserved it, he did not hurt God. The message of the movie, in the end, is that he really only hurt himself – ultimately driving himself to madness. And that is the true tragedy that comes when we seek to hinder the grace of God from being shown in somebody else’s life. We will not stop God from being gracious. Thank heavens that we do not have that power. We will only hurt ourselves. For know this above all, God loves those who love amadeus, who loves those who, however unworthy in our eyes, are beloved of God. And, what's more, I honestly believe that the more we embrace this truth, the more that we will understand for ourselves how truly beloved we are to God.

For families this week