A Fourth Church Sermon by Judith L. Watt

Sunday, June 4, 2017 | 8:00 a.m.

Judith L. Watt
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 104:24–31
1 Corinthians 12:3–13
Acts 2:1–13

There was no explanation for it, except that they had dared to inhale on the day of Pentecost.

Barbara Brown Taylor

Today I could preach this sermon with one sentence, and maybe some of you would be excited if I did just that. But here it is: The concepts of nationalism, nation-states, isolationism are not biblical concepts.

I will be very honest. I am reacting to the recent decision to pull the United States out of the Paris Climate accord. Yes, that is a political subject. But I don’t plan to explore in this sermon the ins and outs of the Paris agreement or whether climate change is real. But my reaction to that decision is based on how I perceive the whole sweep of the biblical narrative beginning with the Old Testament and continuing through the teachings of Jesus and the writers of the epistles. My reaction is also based on how I interpret the most recent parts of our church calendar year, starting with Holy Week and ending with today’s celebration of Pentecost. I see no biblical support for nationalism or isolated nation states. And by nationalism, I don’t mean patriotism. I mean nationalism that leads any country to isolation.

The story of the Exodus is that of God leading a little band of Hebrews out of a system of oppression, out of Egypt, and away from slavery. Their exodus from oppression was a new beginning, a leaving of one thing and going toward something better. On their journey, they walked through foreign lands. In those foreign lands, there was a constant tension as they were exposed to different ways of living and different cultures. Who was God, and who was the God they would follow? On Mt. Sinai, Moses came face-to-face with that God, whose first words to the people, as reported by Moses, were “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; and you shall have no other gods before me.” So there is the tension again: how to be faithful to this God who is a saving god, this God who led these people from oppression to freedom, and how to juggle that freedom with a loyalty and devotion to their God.

Along the way, because of the struggle of this tension, different systems of government were created. First, a system of judges who would rule and make decisions and then, when that didn’t work out, a system of kings. And that didn’t work out either. The constant tension existed as to how to keep worship pure and how to live among different people and yet still be faithful to this one true God—more faithful to God than to any king or governor or government.

Along the way, there were various glimpses of blessing that came from breaking out of strict cultural, nationalistic, isolated ways of being, with stories such as that of Ruth, a woman from Moab, a foreigner, being cared for by Boaz and ending up, along with other questionable and marginalized people, in Jesus’ genealogy. The whole while, there was this age-long hope for a messiah. Most people were hoping for a powerful monarch who could make everything right in an instant.

Then enters Jesus. Jesus, who completely shattered the mold of what had been expected. Jesus, who interacted with the Samaritans and the children and the women as though they all had value. Jesus, who dealt with people of all kinds of cultures and national heritage, who even went out of his way to cross accepted boundary lines. Jesus, who, in his sermon on the mount, preached blessings for the poor. Jesus, a Jew, but it wasn’t only Jews who became his followers. Jesus the Christ, God’s anointed one, the Messiah, seemed to think way beyond nationalism and was anything but an isolationist.

Since Holy Week, we’ve been immersed with Jesus and his life as we read readings prescribed for this piece of time. With the disciples, we went through the story of the devastation of Jesus’ death and our own hopelessness on Good Friday. We pondered our own sinfulness and the ways in which we abandoned and keep abandoning Jesus. The world of the disciples was shattered on that day. Then there was the surprise of the resurrection and the mystery of it. It took those disciples a long time to recover and to figure out what had happened. Because they didn’t understand, Jesus appeared to them in a variety of ways, his resurrection appearances, and continued to offer them teaching and hope, so they would understand.

Now we are here, today, in the story of Pentecost—the great outpouring of the Holy Spirit on those disciples who had gathered to celebrate the Feast of Weeks, the celebration of the first spring harvest. Just before this powerful experience of the Holy Spirit, Jesus, in one of his last resurrection appearances to them, told them what would happen—that when the Holy Spirit would come upon them, they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem and Samaria but also to the very ends of the earth. You and I are the results of the power of the Holy Spirit on that day and on all the days since then. We are here because someone somewhere in our ancestry heard the witness of Jesus and said yes, regardless of class or race or gender or good works or ethnic heritage.

When I look at the broad sweep of the biblical narrative, I see a constant urging toward expansiveness and inclusiveness, a push toward reaching across usual boundaries. I do not see a push toward becoming unto ourselves, withdrawn from the world around us.

The working of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost was a “divine disturbance.” Something significant happened on that day—something that everyone who was gathered there felt. The story says that there was something like a rushing wind and that everyone there had what looked like divided tongues of flame over their heads. In the ancient world, that symbol was also found on coins over the head of Caesar. It was meant to symbolize divinity. Everyone there, common people of all sorts, experienced the divine power of the Holy Spirit and then, in some mysterious way, they all were able to understand each other even though they were people from all sorts of places in the Greco-Roman world. People who spoke different languages. People from all kinds of cultures. In that moment, except for those who thought the people had had too much to drink, there was understanding and unity across national, cultural, ethnic lines. It was a gift, and it was the birth of the church. And it happened because people gathered together, even though they were different.

One of the writers of the 1954 version of the Interpreter’s Bible writes, “We live in a world in which the forces that divide us threaten to destroy us. Nations are divided by rival systems of politics and economics; groups within nations are divided by class consciousness and conflict; families are increasingly divided by divorce; and individuals are virtually split in two. Our only hope is to discover and develop stronger forces than these that can draw us together in some kind of a working, if not perfect harmony. Our hope is sometimes almost extinct.” The writer goes on to say that despite all of the hopelessness, Christians have the most reason to be hopeful, because the story of Pentecost is the story of forces that drew people together in a kind of unity that empowered them to resist the forces that were destroying them. To remember Pentecost is to revive our hope. He says that to reproduce Pentecost would fulfill that hope, and then he asks the question, “Is Pentecost reproducible?” What do you think?

In a sermon, Barbara Brown Taylor asked the same question in a different way. She said, “The question for me is whether we still believe in a God who acts like that. Do we still believe in a God who blows through closed doors and sets our heads on fire? Do we still believe in a God with the power to transform us (or our institutions) both as individuals and as a people, or have we come to an unspoken agreement that our God is pretty old and tired by now?”

After that Pentecost event, and after Peter’s sermon, 3,000 were added to their numbers—all those foreigners speaking different languages and coming from a variety of cultures. There was expansiveness rather than isolation.

Brian D. McLaren, author of The Great Spiritual Migration, which our Session is currently reading together, recently posted on his Facebook page his worries about this being a dangerous moment for Christianity. His worry is about the growing use of words of violence or hate and exclusivism he has heard recently in some Evangelical Christian circles or from some Evangelical Christian leaders. He would identify as an evangelical himself. He mentioned the victory of the Montana Republican in a special election—a win even after he assaulted a reporter and how the violence was made light of. The man and his family attend an Evangelical Bible church in Bozeman, Montana.

He mentions another fellow, Dave Daubenmire, an Evangelical Christian with a popular webcast, and he quotes what Daubenmire said: “The only thing that is going to save Western civilization is a more aggressive, more violent Christianity.” McLaren tells more of Daubenmire’s use of violent language and calls it a flagrant, blatant call to violent Christian extremism by a public figure. Then McLaren reminds us that Christians are constantly asking Muslims to reject “violent Islamic extremism.” He says, “It now remains to be seen how many Christians will speak out against this call to violent Christian extremism and exclusivism.

The Pentecost event is usually referred to as the birth of the church—a time when demoralized disciples found new life and were empowered to preach the good news to everyone. They sold their possessions and distributed the proceeds to all, as any had need. And they held all things in common.

I don’t see anything in the biblical narrative or in this particular story about the Pentecost event that supports drawing into our selves, becoming consumed with nationalism, encouraging isolationism. This earth we call home is something we hold in common with all people of the world. I don’t see biblical support for cutting ourselves off, as a nation or as a church or as individuals, from mingling with people of all languages and cultures. I do see biblical support for hoping beyond hope that a mighty wind will blow into our talks about this earth and its people and their well-being and safety. For hoping beyond hope that understanding will occur beyond all kinds of challenge of difference. Hoping beyond hope that the peoples of the world could understand and cherish one another.

May we believe again in the power of the Holy Spirit to keep us ever expanding, ever devoted to Jesus’ message of love and forgiveness, rather than violence and hate, and may we all ask God to transform whatever hate and distrust we carry within ourselves into abundant love and trust. May we as individuals, as the church, and as a nation be willing to inhale the Spirit. Amen.