First Presbyterian Church
Spirit of Inspiration
Sermon for June 4, 2006
by Pastor Susan Barnes

We'll read Psalm 104:24-35 in unison. Please turn to page 555 .

24 O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.

25 Yonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there, living things both small and great.

26 There go the ships, and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it.

27 These all look to you to give them their food in due season;

28 when you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.

29 When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.

30 When you send forth your spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the ground.

31 May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works --

32 who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke.

33 I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being.

34 May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the LORD.

35 Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless the LORD, O my soul. Praise the LORD!

This ends our reading from the psalms.

The gospel of John recounts the history of Jesus. The gospel is more interested in interpreting Jesus' teachings and addressing concerns of the current church than in recounting the history of Jesus with ruthless accuracy. The Christians were a beleaguered minority by then, persecuted by some of the Jewish leaders. The gospel of John tells us that people were expelled from the synagogues. It is easier for us to see this anti-Jewish bias now that we are not a persecuted community.

Our reading addresses the question ‘What happens when Jesus is gone?' Is God's revelation in Jesus over now that he has been crucified, resurrected and has ascended to heaven? Or does God's revelation in Jesus have a future? 1 Listen for the word of God as it is found in John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15.

26 "When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. 27 You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.

…"I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. 5 But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts.

7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

8 And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 about sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; 11 about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.

12 "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, it will guide you into all the truth; for it will not speak on it's own, but will speak whatever it hears, and it will declare to you the things that are to come.

14 It will glorify me, because it will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that it will take what is mine and declare it to you.

This ends our reading of the gospel.

Like John, the book of Acts was written not just to record history, but to help believers make sense of what happened to Jesus, and what was happening to the church. But Acts was written in different circumstances. Some Christians wanted to erase the Jewish roots of the church's identity. So even though the book of Acts is also about the significance of what happened to Jesus, the author locates Christianity's beginnings in the Jewish community. Their roots weren't to be ignored, but remembered and appreciated. Listen for the word of God as it is found in Acts 2:1-21.

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.

Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs -- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power."

All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?"

But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine."

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem , let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days it will be,' God declares, “that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day.' Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'”

This ends our reading of God's word.

Let us respond to the scripture reading by singing hymn # 128, “On Pentecost they Gathered.”

Hymn

So we have these two texts, both about the holy spirit, but one describing it as related to Jesus, and the other following the old testament traditions.

Acts tells us that converting to Jesus means calling him Lord and confessing he is the promised Savior, who will rescue us from our enemies and forgive our sins and so liberate us from eternal death. The book of Acts demonstrates that salvation also involves healing the sick, illuminating the ignorant, rescuing the vulnerable from political threat, poverty and hunger, and guarding against demonic powers.

Repentance is a change of mind and heart; it means welcoming rather than opposing the reign of God. Those who repent are told to listen; believe; be baptized; turn to God, request instruction, and show hospitality to strangers. 2 All this salvation and repentance fulfills the Jewish scriptures; it is not contrary to them.

I know Jews today would disagree with me. I do not have the answer to the theological divides between Christians and Jews. I do know that we are supposed to respect and care for one another. I do know that using the Bible to condone trying to evangelize Jews is a misuse of scripture.

Our study catechism (51-52) provides some answers to these complicated questions. It says “God has made salvation available to all human beings through Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. How God will deal with those who do not know or follow Christ, but who follow another tradition, we cannot finally say. We can say, however that God is gracious and merciful, and that God will not deal with people in any other way than we see in Jesus Christ, who came as the Savior of the world.”

And so when we ask “How should I treat non-Christians and people of other religions?” the response is “As much as I can, I should meet friendship with friendship, hostility with kindness, generosity with gratitude, persecution with forbearance, truth with agreement, and error with truth. I should express my faith with humility and devotion as the occasion requires, whether silently or openly, boldly or meekly, by word or by deed. I should avoid compromising the truth on the one hand and being narrow-minded on the other. In short, I should always welcome and accept these others in a way that honors and reflects the Lord's welcome and acceptance of me.”

Jesus does not tell the disciples everything they need to know for the rest of their lives. He doesn't give them specific words of wisdom to see them through the trials of persecution and the problems of church organization. Rather, he tells them that the advocate, or comforter, or holy spirit or spirit of truth will be with them, helping them hear his words anew so they will have what they need to continue to follow him and do God's will. He encourages the disciples not to despair when he is crucified, but to have confidence that God's purposes are working out. In John's gospel, that speech encourages the early church to know that Jesus' words are still available to them through the holy spirit.

Hope and salvation in Jesus aren't limited to the people who had physical contact with him. The advocate Jesus promised isn't limited by time and space; the spirit will move when and where it will.

New testament ideas of the holy spirit come out of the traditions of the spirit of God in the old testament, the Hebrew Bible. Different new testament authors speak of the work of the holy spirit differently. They call it the paraclete in Greek, the comforter, or advocate in English.

What happened at Pentecost was a new experience of the spirit. It was not limited to prophets and teachers, but available for every believer who was there.

We can tell it was the work of the spirit, because everyone understood; when people of different nationalities and ethnicities can understand one another, we know something divine has to be at work. Differences make things difficult, and cause divisions, even when people are well intentioned.

One Episcopal priest, meditating on this text, was reminded of a fishing vacation.

“On the first day of my vacation, I went fly fishing on the Yellowstone River in Montana and caught nothing but a couple of branches. That might have been because I didn't have a clue as to what I was doing. I didn't know whether to use flies that float or flies that sink. I didn't know how I should work them in the water; should I just let them drift with the current or use a fast or slow retrieve? I didn't know which areas of the river would be most productive in terms of holding actively feeding fish. Did I mention that it had been 20 years since the last time I was fly fishing?

The next day that all changed when a good friend took me fishing. He had a boat, so we could cover a lot more water. He showed me what flies to use and how to present them. He showed me exactly where to cast. And guess what? I caught several very nice trout, including a couple that were over 20 inches long and weighed several pounds.

I could not have caught those fish without the help of my friend. I needed a boat, the proper flies and the necessary knowledge of how and where to fish this particular river. My friend had all these things, and in sharing them freely, he made it possible for me to do something I could not do on my own.” 3

I appreciate the idea that the Holy Spirit helps us do what we can't on our own. We can open ourselves to the work of the Spirit. We can show up in places that can use our presence. We can join other believers who hold fast to the promises of God, who know that salvation is not just about heaven, but about earth too.

I long for the spirit to guide my hands, to show me what to do where and when. But in the absence of that physical contact, I can rely on the spiritual guidance I find in the scriptures, especially when we interpret them together.

One of the things we do together in church is learn how to think theologically; to learn how to read the Bible. There is not one Bible verse that satisfies all needs. There is not one prayer that that serves all purposes. We have plenty of prayers in the Bible; the whole book of psalms is a book of prayers. Prayers to praise God, to gripe about evil, to ask for help, to demand justice, to confess sin, to complain about the unfairness of life.

A question in the study catechism is “How do we receive the holy spirit? By receiving the word of God. As the midwife of the new creation, the spirit arrives with the word, brings us to rebirth, and assures us of eternal life. The spirit nurtures, corrects, and strengthens us with the pure spiritual milk of the word.” God's word allows the spirit to work in us, as we follow Jesus and serve God.

Our final hymn comes from our reading from John, when the disciples were apprehensive that Jesus was going away. This is a hymn of comfort and hope. Please rise as you are able for hymn 317.

1New Interpreter's Bible, X, p. 775.

2New Interpreter's Bible, X, p. 21-22.

3 Merola, Rob, “Living by the Word,” Christian Century, May 30, 2006, p. 22.