Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Heaven Dwelling Within Us



Brad Sullivan
St. Mark’s, Bay City
May 15, 2016
Pentecost, Year C
Acts 2:1-21
Romans 8:14-17
John 14:8-17 (25-27)
Heaven Dwelling Within Us

Pentecost of known as the birth of the church.  It is the day in which the Holy Spirit took Jesus’ 12 chief disciples, 12 followers of Jesus, and gave them power and authority to be 12 leaders of Jesus’ church.  Now Jesus had more than 12 disciples, and his church already numbered in the hundreds at this point.  A few days before the day of Pentecost, there were 120 followers of Jesus gathered together to fill the leadership void left when Judas betrayed Jesus.  Matthias was chosen and became one of the 12 apostles, one who had been with Jesus from early on and had witnessed Jesus resurrected during the 40 days after his resurrection before he ascended into heaven. 

So Matthias filled Judas spot, the 12 apostles were gathered together devoting themselves for prayer and were waiting, as per Jesus’ instructions, for the Holy Spirit.  The rest of Jesus’ disciples?  We don’t really know, but they were likely waiting too, wondering what was to come of them and what was to come of this new Jesus movement.  Then on the day of Pentecost, 10 days after Jesus’ ascension,  Jesus’ group of followers, waiting and kind of directionless became Jesus’ church with a mission to continue Jesus’ work of healing, reconciliation, and love.  a fledgling band of Jesus’ disciples were transformed by the Holy Spirit into a world altering force.  That’s the kind of thing the Holy Spirit does, transform, give power and authority, and unite disparate people into one.

On that morning when the Holy Spirit came among the disciples, tongues of fire rested upon them, and they began to speak in other languages so that all who heard them speak, heard them in their own native tongue.  This was a reversal of the confusion of languages that had happened all the way back in the book of Genesis with the tower of Babel.  In that story, the peoples of the earth all had one language, and they united together to build a great tower, reaching up into heaven.  There was no great and lofty purpose for this, they simply wanted to “make a name for themselves.”  They weren’t seeking each others’ good; they simply wanted to marvel at their own accomplishment.  Then the LORD said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another's speech." 

In the story of Babel, God confused our speech to limit us so that we wouldn’t be able to accomplish as much mighty acts and feats as we wanted.  It’s not difficult to see why.  Many of our mighty accomplishments come with great human suffering.  The pyramids of Egypt, one of the seven wonders of the world, were built by slaves.  Men and women, beloved of God, were used up and discarded, their lives valueless to their Egyptian masters, all so that a few pompous Egyptian kings could have really pretty places to place their corpses.  To this day, we still marvel at the pyramids, I marvel at the pyramids, and in our marveling, we forget what matters most, what matters to God, the human cost of building such marvels.

So, knowing our propensity for marveling at our own magnificence while ignoring and totally devaluing other human beings, God chose to confuse our language, making it more difficult for humanity to work together to accomplish great marvels.

That is, until the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus’ apostles and transformed them into the church.  For the first time, a religion was no longer the religion of only one people.  People throughout the world could unite under Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit.  The power and unity that the Holy Spirit gave had a purpose, and that purpose was not for marvelous wonders so people could make names for themselves.  The power and unity of the Holy Spirit united people of all nations and languages so that they could care for each other and value each other, the least and the great alike, and continue the work of reconciliation and love which Jesus gave in his Gospel.. 

God entrusted to the apostles and through them to the whole church, what God had not entrusted to people since the earliest days of human civilization:  the unity to accomplish great things.  The Holy Spirit united the church and gave power and authority so that Jesus’ disciples could do great things, but not marvelous wonders.  They could do the same kinds of great things that Jesus did, caring for people.  If that ain’t good news, I don’t know what is.  The well being of people is the one purpose for which God entrusts us with the power and authority of his own spirit to accomplish great things:  only for the well-being of people.

The greatest things the church accomplishes are, of course, the very things that often go unnoticed by others.  Grand structures, buildings, institutions, those are things people notice, but that’s not why God gave the Holy Spirit. 
-          During times of plague, and the sick and dying had no one to care for them but a few strangers who happened to be disciples of Jesus, that is why God gave the Holy Spirit. 
-          Helping children who have difficult home lives and less than stellar role models, providing good role models for them and loving them, that is why God gave the Holy Spirit.
-          Allowing black South Africans, who suffered decades of apartheid, to forgive their abusers and embrace them as brothers and sisters, that is why God gave the Holy Spirit.
-          Choosing unity over division, love over being right, personal sacrifice for the sake of another, that is why God gave the Holy Spirit.

That is the Jesus movement.  Continuing the Jesus movement is why God gave the Holy Spirit.  God gave the Holy Spirit so his mission of reconciliation and love could be lived out within his church.  The Holy Spirit can do what even Jesus could not do, dwell and move and work among multitudes of people all at the same time.  Jesus left the disciples so that the Spirit could come.  The Spirit comes to us, where we are, God’s light inhabiting our bodies so that the love and reconciliation of Jesus can be lived out in us.  Poet Mary Oliver wrote:

The spirit likes to dress up like this:  ten fingers, ten toes,
shoulders, and all the rest at night in the black branches, in the morning
                        in the blue branches of the world.
                        It could float, of course, but would rather plumb rough matter.
                        Airy and shapeless thing, it needs the metaphor of the body, lime and appetite,
the oceanic fluids; it needs the body's world, instinct and imagination
                        and the dark hug of time, sweetness and tangibility,

                        to be understood, to be more than pure light that burns where no one is--
                        so it enters us--in the morning shines from brute comfort
like a stitch of lightning;
                        and at night lights up the deep and wondrous drownings of the body like a star.

God took no pleasure in our trying to ascend to heaven by some mighty act of building a great tower.  God took no pleasure in our trying to be great, but not because God does not take pleasure in dwelling with us.  Rather than have us harm each other and enslave each other to build some great tower to reach into the heavens, God sends the light of his Holy Spirit so that heaven may dwell within us.  We need not make a name for ourselves because God has already given us a name, and that name is beloved.  So to continue Jesus’ work of reconciliation and love, to continue the Jesus movement, God has given us his spirit and united us as one church so that Heaven will dwell within us and through us.  Amen.

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