Sermon - 2013-05-19

Today on Pentecost, we celebrate the beginning of the church and the ministry that the church is called to do, share the gospel.  The Holy Spirit comes and allows these men to share the Gospel in languages that were not their own. People were gathered together in Jerusalem, people gathered who had been all over the nations and now were in Jerusalem.  Now it is not clear why all of these people were gathered in Jerusalem, however this is around the time the Jewish people would be celebrating Shavout.  A festival in which they honor the time in which the people were given the Ten Commandments.  

Pentecost and Shavout have so much in common then.  Here we have both the Law and the Gospel that are given to us each and everyday.  These are the very things that help us live out our lives and also be the church.  The Law is put in place so that we can know that we are in need of God. The Law helps us to understand who we are, what we should be doing and also helps us understand some of how we can do it. The Gospel helps us to understand that the Law is so great that we can not possibly fulfill it, though we work so hard we can not possibly do everything in the world or help everyone in need.  So God does the work for us. Our salvation is taken care of through Jesus Christ.  This allows us to know that God will take care of the big picture and enables us to care for the individuals, causes and situations within our community.

The season of Pentecost is truly a blessing to us. Here we are reminded that the Law and the Gospel are not given only to a certain people, but truly to all people.  For the Law and Gospel are not simply for the Jewish people, but for all that are claimed by God.  The people are claimed through Baptism. However, even that is a human event, one that we can return to and be reminded of.  Truly the claiming is done by God.  Is it clear as having tongues of fire upon us?  No.  Look around, can you tell who is Baptized and who is not?  No, what truly matters is how you act, how do you live out your faith demonstrates that God is with you in spirit, leading and guiding you to care for those around you.  

So what does this look like in real life?  Well there is no formula or set method that will work for you to fully understand or do this work. However, while thinking of this text it reminded me of a time within my life.  I traveled to China to learn about different religions and to study a different culture to understand our own better.  I was able to meet people from different kinds of churches, faiths and even people who had never seen a white person. I got to see churches of every size from small country churches and large mega churches in the cities. Now when I say small country church, it was a church that met in the school house and about a thousand people were there. The city church had a sanctuary that sat around three thousand on the floor with two thousand that could sit in the balcony.   

While I was there we met with some city officials, the city officials had to be atheists so that their allegiance would be to no other than the state, they were Communists.  As we talked, we talked about the public works, the hopes for the future and above all caring for the future generation, “leading and guiding the people to best care for their needs”.  (his words, not mine)  Now this really stuck with me because that is what we strive to do within our faith.  We care for one another through the good times and bad times, we share the faith of the community so it will help the next generation during their life.  I shared with the official that we are not so different, as part of the church we encourage people to help them realize how they can help within the community, within the world, and care for the people.  I found the common thing that was uniting us so that we could enter into conversation.   He seemed to be a little more at ease and willing to share some of the struggles that they were facing as well.  The need for better roads, a better education system but most important was care for the elderly.  No longer did it seem that we were opposites, but we were working together for the common goal though our reasons for doing so were different.The men who were filled with the spirit were able to do the same thing, they were able to communicate about similar language and share a story with one another.  Showing that we are not so different.

By sharing in that experience and realizing we are not that different, we could talk about other ways in which we could help one another.  We could share in the work of caring for those within the community, who shared resources, talents, and gifts.  Starting with where the person is and where we should always begin to care for a person. Even when people are different than we are, we still need to find what we have in common so we can help them or they can help us.  Even though we  are called to be Christ to others, we need to allow them to be Christ to us.