“Pentecost”

Sermon preached by Pastor Rick Alpers

American Lutheran Church of Sun City

I remember when I was a grade school child and learning science at the Pachappa Elementary School in Riverside, CA and also had some of the same subjects in Central Junior High. Somehow the universe seemed a lot more simple; the solar system was a lot more simple. There wasn’t all this controversy of whether Pluto was a planet or a planetoid or something else. Nowadays when we look at the solar system, we’ve got the Van Allen Belt; we’ve got the Kupler Zone; all these different parts of the solar system. The moon now is considered the result of some explosion that happened when some mysterious planet ran into the earth maybe 4 1/2 billion years ago. The rest of the universe – we look at our galaxy. I have an astronomer friend whose doctorate was in mapping various parts of the galactic arms; that is the ends of the galaxy. He was doing something called Redshift Spectroscopy to understand how stars in the remote parts of our galaxy were moving. This led other astronomers to realize that there has to be much more to the galaxy than what we know and the concept of dark matter. There is this matter that is out there that actually constitutes most of the universe but we don’t know what this matter is because we have no way of detecting it. They have also speculated that there is energy in the universe, vast sums of energy that are called dark energy because we don’t know what it is. It doesn’t seem to be radiation. It’s not like light or heat or gamma rays or something we can measure. We are very confused by it. We know now that in the center of almost every galaxy there is this black hole. Our own galaxy has a black hole to the equivalent of many thousands of suns. The universe is complicated. Life is complicated as well.

I was in a monastery in Admon, Austria about 20 years ago. I remember going into a room and there was something like 100,000 species of butterflies.

Machines are also complicated. I remember 20 years ago I was driving a 20 year old Plymouth Duster. I was a new pastor. I had not a great salary. I couldn’t afford a new car so I went to a mechanic and I said, “I want to put everything new in this car that I possibly can. I want a new distributor, a new radiator, a new exhaust system, etc.” So there were a few things that I did but most of the things the mechanic did. I put about $2,000 in the car and I remember that, at one point, I looked at the mechanic and said, “so is the car fixed now; will it be reliable?” I don’t want to have to worry about it on the road.” He said, “This car shouldn’t have any more problems in the next 50,000 miles. After all, we’ve replaced everything that possibly could need replacing.” The car broke down a month later in Tucson. (laughter) So I remember I couldn’t figure out what the problem was so I called the mechanic to come in. Do you know what it was? It was the starter relay – this little $5 part that disabled the whole car.

Relationships too are certainly complicated. Everything is complicated. So it is amazing that, when we look at the Holy Spirit, we have this idea that somehow the working of the Holy Spirit should be simple. The working of the Holy Spirit should be comprehensible. We should be able to nail down God and always understand what God is doing. But, God the Creator is certainly going to be more complicated than the creation that he made. When we look at the 3 texts today, we have 3 different views of the Holy Spirit and the way the Holy Spirit works (There are probably many more).

We look at the Book of Acts and here we have the actual Pentecost event. The Jewish celebration of Pentecost was a harvest celebration. It was also the celebrating of the giving of the Law at Sinai so there was a sense of the renewal of the Covenant. So God chose this day to renew his covenant with human beings through the giving of the Holy Spirit. But it was done in a very powerful and dramatic way. You can picture what is going on. The disciples are there. They are in the upper room and all of a sudden there is this tremendous sound. When they talk about a mighty wind, I’ve read accounts of people who have experienced tornadoes and what it is like to be inside a house with a tornado going through the house. Frequently, the account is like a hundred rushing locomotives. That’s probably what the sound was like. Then there are the tongues of fire that rested on each one of the disciples. There is the mystery of speaking in these strange languages. The speech was loud. It was so loud that all the people outside could hear what was going on and each one could distinguish it in his or her own native language. They wondered what was going on. Peter addressed the crowd. He said, “These men are not drunk but it is the prophesy of Joel being fulfilled. “I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.” You could not have a more dynamic, dramatic presentation of the Spirit. Sometimes the Spirit works that way.

Then you look at the Gospel of John. Quiet, intimate, exclusive, private! Jesus has just come back from the dead. He is conversing with his disciples. He gives them his peace and then he breathes on them. enefusaseh is the Greek. He breathes on them and says, “receive the Holy Spirit.” It is almost a whisper! Well, that kind of fits some of our different denominational expectations. You’ve got, for example, the Pentecostal denomination where they thrive on the dramatic things. They like to talk about the gifts of the Spirit in speaking in tongues and all that and so the Acts scripture is something they would appreciate. If you’re Foursquare, if you’re Assembly of God. On the other hand, if you’re mainline, if you’re Presbyterian or Lutheran, you’d appreciate the John text where things are done more in a quiet or orderly fashion.

Then you’ve got the Corinthian text. Paul is addressing the Corinthians. He says that “Now there are varieties of gifts but the same spirit. There are varieties of service but the same Lord. There are varieties of activities but is is the same God who activates them in everyone.” So the Spirit, once again, doesn’t work the same way always. The Spirit has a variety of manifestations. A variety of ways. But the text is very clear to point out that, as Christians, we are all gifted. We all have some sort of manifestation, some sort of expression, of the Holy Spirit in us. We are gifted although sometimes we are not aware of it. Sometimes we are even ashamed of what we are because we have a tendency to compare ourselves with other people.

A book that I read maybe a year ago, which changed my thinking about a number of things, was a book that was written by a person who grew up who had autism. The book was entitled, “Thinking in Pictures.” by a woman named Temple Grandin. She talked about what it was like to grow up mildly autistic. So she realized that she didn’t function in social circles with other human beings real well. She was introverted and she was awkward at times and she didn’t understand people. Sometimes she couldn’t read people. She talked about how she had a real hard time at dates because she couldn’t read whether she was liked or not liked. She had a hard time in social settings because she couldn’t read whether a person was angry or not or wanted to be left alone or not. So she had these awkward moments and she began to feel very inferior. She knew that she thought differently. She realized that a lot of people think verbally and for her words were very difficult. She thought in pictures. But on the other hand, thinking in pictures was an advantage for her. She became an engineer because she realized she could think three-dimensionally very well. She could picture things in her mind even better than some other engineers. She gradually evolved into having a career where she designed things for animals, basically when farmers and ranchers needed to do “crowd-control” with animals and they had to have corrals and chutes and things that are animal-friendly. She realized that, with the special and unique way she thought, she could actually picture herself being an animal and she could think like they thought and so she could design these things that were animal friendly. Because of the success of some of her designs, she eventually became nationally-known because of what she could do in this field. So it was later on in her life that she realized – she actually got a PhD in all of this – that she was unique and at times she was a little awkward but her special way of thinking was a gift. It was something unique and something that was valuable.

In all of our giftedness, we need to understand this because we are always comparing ourselves with Mrs. Smith or Mr. Jones and sometimes we feel we come up short. It’s because we are not looking at our giftedness in God’s eyes. All of God’s creatures have a purpose. You have a purpose! In the Holy Spirit you are gifted! God will anoint you and, once you find that special place, once you find that special ministry, you’ll say, “so that’s what it’s all about.” Then you’ll appreciate how God in His wisdom created you to be the kind of person you are.

The Spirit is love. What is love? Well, a simple definition of love is the will – not the feeling or the emotion, but the will to act on another’s behalf. Many people have told me accounts that have reminded me of what love is. About a year or so ago, I was at a meeting with pastors and one of our older pastors entered the room and he was about 80 years old. He hobbled in. He didn’t spring in with the spring of a young man. He had seen a few years and he talked about how he and his wife were celebrating their anniversary and his wife was even worse off than he was. She needed a walker; she needed lots of help. He’d have to help her out of the car, help her into the car, have to fold up the walker and put it in the trunk and all these sorts of things. So he reminisced for us what his marriage was like. He talked about the young days when they were first in love and she was, of course, a ravishing beauty and all that. He talked about what it was like to raise children and some of those joys. He talked about the challenges of mid-life then when the children because teenagers and there were more professional things to worry about. He talked about now in this final stage where they were at and he was helping her. Not only could she not walk well but she was suffering a little bit of dementia. She could not think well so he was really a primary caregiver. He said, “you know, this morning as I was helping my wife get in and out of the car and I was embracing her as I was lifting her, it dawned on me that, for the first time in my life, I really understand what marriage is all about.” I realized, as I listened to this man, I was seeing love. I was seeing the manifestation of the Spirit.

There is a woman that I like to see from time to time. I consider her almost an aunt. She is a parishioner and a friend from a past congregation. She has been bedridden for the last 1 1/2 years. She is happy; she is content; she likes the care that she is receiving; she likes her room; she likes her view. She does a lot of reading and she looks at television. She keeps up on things. She is a delightful conversationalist. She has visitors. One of the visitors is a woman from a past parish who became a Stephen Minister and she goes and sees this bedridden woman. She has done so faithfully for the last year and a half. She never misses a Saturday morning to see her and the only times she has missed in the last year and a half is when she had a family trip or when she was sick. She is a very busy woman. She has two teenagers. She has a husband that likes to keep happy. She’s got a very full career and, of course, weekend time is very, very precious but she never misses seeing this bedridden woman and, again, this is a manifestation of love. It is an expression of the Spirit. It shows us how the spirit works.

The final story I am going to share is about a missionary hero of mine. This person and his wife were missionaries in the Sudan area of Africa for a decade or two. He once talked about the story that Sudan has been in civil war for quite a long time. He was kind of in a Christian area and there were some Muslim radicals who wanted, of course, to destroy the Christians and they invaded this village. He talked about what it was like to have them come in. He was able to get his wife and 3 children away before, but he was staying after to help some of his friends in the village. The soldiers came and arrested a number of people. He talked about what it was like then when the government was going to come and try to rescue them. There was one point where an enemy soldier stood him up and put a knife against his throat and was talking about how he was thinking about killing him right there on the spot so that he wouldn’t be able to escape and maybe cause trouble down the road. Then something happened. There was an explosion or something that startled this soldier, startled some other soldiers, so they ran and he was able to get to freedom. Then he talked about how, a month later, even though his house had been destroyed and much of the village had been destroyed and there was this terrible, terrifying moment, he and his wife and their 3 children went back to the same village! They rebuilt their house and they started their ministry all over again because they loved their flock. They loved the people that they served. This also is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. This shows us God’s powerful love.

Love is simple. It directs our lives. We recognize love and we know what to do when we are driven by love. The Holy Spirit is complicated and the expression of the Spirit has infinite varieties. We can’t put God in a box and we must not judge one another. But when the Holy Spirit taps us in our hearts and says, “I am calling you to love, “ we know what to do. Let us pray.

We come before you this day, Lord, and we acknowledge that there are many challenges in life and many challenges to understand your ways. But we know that love is there. Help us to submit to your will. Help us to discern the direction of your Holy Spirit. We ask these things in Jesus name.

Amen