The Holy Spirit Has Been Set Loose on the World, a sermon based on Acts 2: 1-21, preached on May 19, 2024

According to the Wycliffe Global Alliance, as of last September, the entire Bible has been translated into 736 languages. The New Testament has been translated into an additional 1,658 languages, and smaller portions of Scripture have been translated into another 1,264 languages in addition to that, bringing the grand total of languages that some portion of the Bible has been translated into to 3,658. Since that day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit gave the disciples the ability to speak in languages that those pilgrims in Jerusalem could understand, the Holy Spirit has been set loose on the world. There is no need to learn Latin, nor Hebrew or Greek, to hear the Good News. In their own mother tongues, the people who speak any of those 3,658 languages can hear of God’s great deeds of power without an interpreter. The Holy Spirit has been set loose on the world. Today is the day when we celebrate this reality. The fire started on this day so long ago when the disciples, who had been huddled in their one room, not knowing what to do with themselves since Jesus had ascended into heaven, were pushed out to address the crowd. Before the Spirit came, they busied themselves voting on stuff. They sound like a group of Presbyterians. “What should we do?” one asked. “Maybe we should form a committee.” Yet the Spirit burst into their meeting. They were like a valley of dry bones that were suddenly given flesh and blood. Their agenda was tossed out the window by the holy wind that swept the room. These disciples were then given a power they didn’t understand. They faced the crowd outside and began speaking in languages as the Spirit gave them ability. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, so that Parthians, Meades, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belong to Cyrene all heard them speaking, not in any language they had to learn in school, but in the very language their mothers had cooed into their ears since the day they first rested on their mothers’ chests. When the disciples spoke, the crowd of people didn’t have to think, “What do these words mean?” They knew instinctively. They heard the Gospel preached directly to them. They could hear God speaking in a language that they could understand. Do you know how wonderful that is? The fire of Pentecost is still spreading today. The Scriptures are being translated more and more, yet there have always been people who wanted to put out the fire of Pentecost. You all know that there was a time when God’s people had to learn Latin to understand Scripture. When John Wycliffe, the namesake of the Wycliffe Bible Alliance, whose objective is translating the Bible into every language on earth, first translated the Gospels into English, he was declared a heretic, his translations were burned, and his remains were burned as well, then thrown into the River Swift by order of Pope Martin V. Why? For just as it was true in the time of John Wycliffe, so it was true on that day of Pentecost so long ago: Not everyone rejoiced at the sound of hearing God’s word spoken in the mother tongues of the nations. Some there on that day of Pentecost so long ago assumed that the disciples were drunk. “Drunk? No,” the Disciple Peter said, “It’s much too early for that.” I love that line. Think with me, though, about what the crowd thought. Some in the crowd thought that the disciples were drunk. Some in the time of John Wycliffe thought it was reckless to translate the Bible into the language of the people. Then, when Martin Luther translated the Bible into German about 100 years later, he was called a heretic as well, but this time it didn’t matter because by the time of Martin Luther, the printing press had been invented, so his works couldn’t be burned. They were all so mass produced that they spread throughout Western Europe, as though the Holy Spirit had been set loose on the world once again. Looking back on the COVID-19 pandemic, all that comes to mind. I think about the disciples and how the crowd thought they were drunk. I think of how Wycliffe and Luther were declared heretics. I remember how the internet was streaming our service out into the world in 2020, but so many were anxious for things to go back to the way they had been before. Do you remember? There’s an article that appeared in The New York Times that made me so mad that I’m dedicating my doctoral dissertation to proving the author wrong. The article is titled, “Why Churches Should Drop Their Online Services.” It was written in January of 2022, and the author makes some great points about how much better it is to be here, worshiping God together in this one room, how community is strengthened by the physical presence of other human beings. The author is right about all of that. Just think about how much easier it is to sing when there are other people around you singing. Think about how good it feels to pass the peace and have a hand to shake. Yet, also think about how, before 2020, we weren’t thinking too much about the men and women in the Cobb County Jail. Before 2020, members of the choir weren’t going out into the community, singing at retirement homes. Before 2020, if you were traveling with your kids’ sports team, you were missing church. If you lived out of state and missed your home church here in Marietta, tough luck. If you were in the hospital or couldn’t drive here, we’d say a prayer for you during the service, but you couldn’t hear it in the hospital. Worship had to happen here in this place. The Spirit was confined to these four walls, yet since 2020, this worship service has been set loose on the world. I drove up to Nashville, Tennessee a couple weeks ago to marry a couple who worships with us online. This summer we’ll be welcoming a new member to our church who lives in London. Not London, Arkansas. London, London. I bet she’s worshiping with us right now, as she does every Sunday, because the Holy Spirit has been set loose on this world of ours, pushing Christ’s disciples out into the world in ways that we’ve never dreamed of and in ways that some people in the crowd think are crazy at best and heretical at worst. It’s different is what it is. It’s not heretical. We’re not drunk. It’s just different. And not everyone likes different. The author of this article in The New York Times just a couple years ago that called on churches to discontinue their virtual worship services wanted churches to turn off the livestream, assuming that if we stopped livestreaming, people would come back into the church building. The point of the article was that if we stopped doing this new thing, people would return to the old thing, yet I can’t believe that we are wise to ever be quick in rejecting what is new and different, for new and different may be the work of God. If people accuse you of being drunk or heretical, it may mean that you’re on the right path. Now, that’s not always the case, of course. If new and different is vegetarian lobster or tofurkey at Thanksgiving, I’m against it. But hear me on this: On Pentecost, nearly 2,000 years ago, God made something happen, and crowds of people explained it away, saying, “They must be drunk because they sure are acting crazy,” for when human beings see something they can’t explain simply, they explain it away. Don’t be quick to reject what is new and different. What if different is the work of God? What if God wasn’t satisfied with what we were doing before? Remember with me what the disciples were doing in that room before the Holy Spirit showed up. Do you remember what they were doing? They were voting. I’m all for voting. Here in the United States of America, we are blessed to live in a functioning democracy where we have the right and the privilege to elect our leaders, yet voting is not the same thing as doing, and the Church, sometimes, gets stuck in voting. We vote, and then we vote again. It’s happened to the Presbyterian Church. It’s happened to the Methodist Church. We vote on who can do what and when and how, as though once we get all the voting out of the way, we’ll finally be the perfect church that Christ has called us to be, while the Spirit pushed the disciples out of their voting booth and into the world. That’s what the Spirit did on Pentecost so long ago. The disciples had been in their nice, little room taking care of business, yet the work Jesus the Christ calls us to cannot be confined to these four walls. The Spirit pushes us out into the world that we might make known the love we have received in Him. Get out there, the Spirit says. Get out in the world, for once this hour of worship comes to an end, the service begins. That’s Pentecost. That’s what it’s about. New things. Radical things. The kind of new and radical things that might make all of us good Presbyterians a little nervous because if we go out into the world doing the things that the Spirit moves us to do, someone might start whispering about us. Maybe they’ll say: “I thought he was a pastor. Should he really be serving beer at Two Birds Taphouse?” Outside a church in a small town in Tennessee, Jack and Frank were standing around talking, when a stranger walked up disgusted. “Is this one of those churches that welcomes everyone?” he asked. Not knowing what to say besides the truth, Jack or Frank said, “It sure is. Why don’t you come on in?” The man didn’t like that answer, so he kept walking. Sometimes that’s how it goes. You can’t please everyone, but can we please the Holy Spirit? Can we be moved by the Spirit to do the will of God? My friends, in our Sanctuary, a room that has been standing in Marietta, Georgia for nearly 200 years, there is a black box sitting atop the pulpit. About 100 years ago, the pastor at the time, Dr. Patton, had a telephone installed in that pulpit that he would take off the receiver so that any on the party line could listen in to the worship service. From that pulpit, the Gospel went out into the world. From this Great Hall, may the Gospel go out into the world through you. Go from here out there, led by the Spirit to let our world better understand the radical love of God for all people. Regardless of the languages that they speak, may they hear the Good News in their mother tongues. Regardless of who they are, may they know that they are loved, unconditionally. Regardless of what the world says about us, may we be bold in our proclamation. May the Holy Spirit be set loose on the world. Amen.

Where Would We Be Without Her? a sermon based on Acts 1: 1-11, preached on May 12, 2024

Hal McClain told me last week that the night Martin Luther King, Jr. died, Hal was in Nashville, Tennessee. Because he’s Hal and because at that time, he was a young, carefree college student, he ignored the total curfew mandated by the National Guard, and with two friends, he was driving around the city, until he was pulled over by an armored personnel carrier. I tell you this story because I want you to think with me this morning about what happens when the great leaders leave. When Dr. King died, the nation erupted in riots, and the Civil Rights Movement slowed down. Some would say it never regained the momentum that it once had. Martin Luther King, Jr. who brought together leaders from the big six: the NAACP, the SCLC, the Congress On Racial Equality, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Brotherhood of Sleep Car Porters, and the National Urban League, left a leadership hole so large that no one else could fill it, so these organizations, several of which still exist and have gone on to do important things, have not been unified since the day he died, which reminds me of what happened after my mother-in-law’s aunts died. When Sara and I were first married more than 20 years ago, her favorite holiday was Thanksgiving. She couldn’t wait for Thanksgiving because the entire family on her mother’s side would drive to Knoxville, Tennessee to the street where the aunts lived. All four of these sisters had homes on the same street, so when the cousins came to town, they could run from yard to yard until the Thanksgiving meal was served in the oldest sister’s house. There was no wine because she was a teetotalling Methodist. The dessert was something they just called “yum-yum.” That’s how good it was. It was named after the sound you made while eating it. Surely your family has or had similar traditions, but such traditions sometimes require a leader to keep them going. What happens when the great-aunts die? Does the family still come together? In our case, no. Those aunts died, and no one calls the family together. Sara still loves Thanksgiving, but without the aunts, it’s not the same, for in this life, there are people who bring us together. They bring unity. They help us cooperate. They insist that everyone come to Knoxville for Thanksgiving, and no one drink wine, and today we can drink wine at Thanksgiving dinner, but there aren’t nearly as many seats at the table because the aunts who brought the extended family together are gone. On this Mother’s Day, I’m thinking about those people in our lives who have played such an important role that in their absence, things kind of fall apart. Where would we be without her? You may feel that way about your mother. Or maybe you’re thinking, had my mother been different, I would have saved a fortune on therapy. I don’t know what you think about Mother’s Day, but think with me about Jesus, who called Himself the mother hen. Before He was crucified, He looked over the city of Jerusalem and said in the Gospel of Matthew, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem… How often have I desired to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings…” In our second Scripture lesson, the Mother Hen lifts off, leaving a brood of disciples to figure out what to do without their great leader. He ascends into Heaven. There is no tomb containing His body, for Jesus ascended into Heaven, the book of Acts tells us. Now that He’s gone, what will happen with His disciples? What will happen with the great religion He started? What happens when the great leaders leave? I’m no great leader, but when we left Columbia, Tennessee to move here nearly seven years ago, I remember so well a phone call I received from our friend and real estate agent, John Hill. John sold us our home in Columbia when we moved there. A couple days after the announcement went out that we’d be leaving there to move here, John called me and said, “Joe, everyone has been so sad that ya’ll are leaving. It’s all I’ve heard about for two days, but now they all want to buy your house.” Sometimes, when someone leaves, it’s hard to see her go, but after a while, you’re thinking about how nice it would be to live in her house. Maybe when the leader leaves, his lieutenants jockey for position. If you look to the fourth verse of our second Scripture lesson, you’ll see that “he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father.” “The Holy Spirit is coming,” He told them. “Just wait here.” That’s no small order. “Just wait,” He said, but when you were a kid, did your mother ever give you that instruction? “I’ll be right back,” is the opening line of all the great stories that end in chaos, for maybe with her gone, we took the opportunity to gain some independence. To step out on our own. To do things our own way. Some are so anxious to take over once the great leader leaves that they abandon all the lessons of love that he taught, becoming ambitious and ruthless, yet when we jockey for position, are we honoring the ones who came not to be served, but to serve? I’ve just recently heard about a tradition shared among the members of the Habsburgs who ruled a massive European empire for 700 years. When a member of the family dies, still to this day, the body is taken to Vienna. After a requiem mass at St. Stephen’s Cathedral, the funeral party carries the deceased to the entrance of the crypt where the leader of the procession knocks on the door. Hearing the knock, a voice on the other side asks: “Who desires admission?” The leader of the funeral procession describes the titles the deceased held: “It is Otto of Austria, former Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, Prince Royal of Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia, of Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, and Galicia; Grand Duke of Tuscany and Cracow; Duke of Lorraine, and Salzburg; Grand Prince of Transylvania, Margrave of Moravia; Duke of Upper and Lower Silesia, Modena, and Zadar; Princely Count of Habsburg and Tyrol; Prince of Trento and Brixen; Margrave of Upper and Lower Istria; Count of Sonnenburg; Lord of Trieste; Grand Voivod of the Voivodship of Serbia.” Those Habsburgs were impressive, but upon hearing the magnitude of the territory that the deceased ruled over, the voice on the other side of the door says: “We do not know him!” and so the leader of the funeral procession knocks again. The voice on the other side of the door asks: “Who desires admission?” The leader of the procession then announces the accomplishments of the deceased: “This is Dr. Otto von Habsburg; President and Honorary President of the Pan-European Union; Member and Father of the House of the European Parliament; Holder of honorary doctorates from countless universities and freeman of many communities in Central Europe; Member of numerous noble academies and institutes; Bearer of high and highest awards, decorations, and honors of church and state made to him in recognition of his decade-long struggle for the freedom of peoples, for right and justice.” Hearing that, the voice on the other side of the door says: “We do not know him!” and so the leader of the funeral procession knocks again. A voice on the other side of the door again asks: “Who desires admission?” For a third time, the leader of the procession answers, yet this time the answer is different: “It is Otto, a mortal, a sinful man!” Finally, the voice on the other side of the door declares: “Let him be admitted.” Last Sunday, I stood with the young men and women who, upon completion of their Confirmation Class, declared their faith as Christians, some for the first time publicly. One of them was my own daughter, and what I realized was that those young men and women who are raised in this church, they will go on to earn titles and to gain authority. They will go forth from this church to do great things, and yet the greatest title that they will ever hold they have already obtained, for there is no greater distinction than to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. This is the great title. To be baptized and claimed, forgiven, and redeemed, to confess Jesus as Lord, to be one of His disciples is the best that any of us will ever do, and yet the minute the Savior ascends into Heaven we, His disciples, continue our arguing over who will sit at His right hand because sometimes that’s just what people do. We want big titles. We want to do things our own way, and yet, will the titles, will the accomplishments, will the prestige, make us any more loved than we are already? Lately, every night at 8 o’clock, the Evans family sits in front of the TV in our sunroom to watch an episode of Young Sheldon. The main character in this TV show is a child genius. He’s tested into high school, and even though he’s 9 years old, Sheldon clearly knows more about calculus and chemistry than his teachers. He’s amazing, yet it’s his mother who is the true star of the show. Sheldon’s mother doesn’t seem to care how smart he is or how well he does on tests. She’s not most interested in what he’ll go on to do in the world. She loves him absolutely already. To her, he is precious. He is worthy, not because of what he’s done or what he will do, but because this is the way of love. My friends, how will we honor the love that we have received from God? Will we jockey for power? Will we work ourselves to death, attempting to gain approval and status? This morning, our first Scripture lesson came from that great disciple who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus and came to understand Him so clearly, so precisely. As the Apostle Paul pondered his own death, these were his words: I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe. When we recognize that in Him, we have already inherited everything, there is no need to strive for more. Remember the love of God and those who have embodied it to you and honor the Savior who ascended into Heaven by living as He did. We honor the One who will come again, not when we jockey for status or puff ourselves up; not when we give up on the movement or split into factions, but when we claim that same spirit of wisdom and revelation that He gave us. We honor Him when we remember that we are already more than conquerors, through Him who loved us. Thanks be to God. Amen.

You Are the Branches, a sermon based on John 15: 1-8, preached on April 28, 2024

You might remember Fran Dresher from the 90’s sitcom, The Nanny, or more recently, as she led actors’ and writers’ strikes. Last week, I heard her tell a joke on a show that I like to watch, Somebody Feed Phil, and since this joke is inspired by the book of Genesis, I thought I’d include it in my sermon this morning. God was talking with Adam about creating for him a wife, so God told him, “Here’s what I’m thinking. She’ll never complain, and she’ll always tell you that you’re right about everything.” Adam said to God, “She sounds great. What’s she going to cost me.” God said, “An arm and a leg.” Adam asked, “What will you give me for a rib?” Forgive me for telling a joke like that. It’s not an appropriate joke for the pulpit, but I tell it because while initially, a partner who never complains and tells me that I’m right about everything sounds wonderful, I don’t know where I would be if my wife agreed with me all the time. When we’re lost, Sara is the first to tell me. When I’m wrong, she lets me know. Rather than tell me I look perfect, she bought me nose hair trimmers and other gifts that have helped me when I look less than perfect. I could go on and on with the ways she has cared enough to help me in my imperfection. I used to ask her to read my sermons the day before I preached them, and she didn’t tell me they were perfect. She loved me too much for that. She took out a page at least, and because of that level of honesty, I trust her more than I trust anyone else. I trust her not because she always tells me that I’m right, but because she tells me when I’m wrong. Likewise, I value honest feedback from you, the congregation, and I expect it from our staff. With friends, I’m the same way. I trust friends who are honest with me, so when I think of that old hymn, “What a friend we have in Jesus,” I know what kind of a friend we have in Him. Is He the friend who always tells me that I’m right and they’re wrong, or is Jesus the kind of friend who holds up a mirror to me, saying, “You’re worth a rib, but not an arm and a leg.” We all have some work to do on ourselves, and so I tell you Jesus is the kind of friend who loves us as we are yet loves us too much to leave us as we are, so to help us get closer to being our best selves, God is at work in our lives, pruning our bad habits as a vine grower prunes dead limbs. That’s the Gospel lesson for today. He is the vine; we are the branches. God is the vine grower who prunes us, yet remember that getting pruned is not the same thing as being cut off from the vine. Plenty of people have struggled to understand the difference. People who misunderstand pruning don’t like being told that they’re wrong. They don’t like advice. They can’t take criticism. In struggle, they fall apart. When things don’t go their way, they throw up their hands, giving up and giving in, maybe because they think they’re perfect already or else because they’ve confused being pruned with being cut off from the vine. When I’m not my best self, that’s what I do. Last Sunday, Rev. Cassie Waits was giving the children’s sermon. She asked those kids if they thought I knew everyone in the church’s name, and they said “yes.” Well, this past week, I’ve proven those kids wrong more than once. I was tired on Friday afternoon, and I called two people by the wrong name. I didn’t say, “Hey, buddy,” or something like that. I said, “Good to see you, Sam,” and he said, “The name’s Alex.” Ten minutes later, I did the same thing again with another person I know and love. Because I was tired, these two mistakes sent me down a shame spiral. I started thinking not only did I fail to honor those two people I care about, but I also let all the kids in the church down. They had me up on a pedestal, and now I’ve fallen from it. Should I turn in my letter of resignation now and apologize to all the kids this coming Sunday? That’s probably an overreaction, and once I had a nap, I thought better of it. After a nap, I could see that it’s one thing to say, “I made a mistake,” and it’s another thing to say, “I am a mistake.” Humility is one thing, and being humiliated is another. Shame sends us down a spiral. Shame is the feeling that we are being cut off from the vine and thrown into the fire, and so I ask you to think about pruning this morning so that we all remember that being pruned and being cut off from the vine are not the same thing, for “you are the branches,” Jesus said. That’s not just a good thing: It is a miraculous thing. It is a miraculous thing to be a branch attached to the vine in the sense that when we hear criticism, when we are pushed, when we face trials, it may be God’s hand at work in our lives enabling us to do more and to be more. Being pruned is not the same thing as being cut off from the vine, for we are the branches. So many teachers help us remember that because they help us learn and grow without kicking us out of their classes. So many coaches do the same when they push us, making us better, without ever giving up on us as people. Today we are celebrating Stephen Ministers, and this is exactly what Stephen Ministers do. They stick with people after those major life prunings. They listen to people after they’ve been left or laid off. They’re there after the divorce to remind them that not everyone will leave. Not everyone will walk away. God will never leave you nor forsake you; however, this good news can be hard to believe for we live in a culture where people don’t get criticized, they get canceled. Years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. preached a sermon in which he mentioned science and technology and cautioned the congregation, saying, “there is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance… We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together.” In other words, we have the technology to have a conversation that involves millions of people on social media, but read through your Facebook feed and tell me if our moral maturity and our spiritual depth have caught up with our technology. These days, when one expresses an opinion, those who agree cheer and those who disagree cut you off. I’m tired of it. I’m so tired of the “you’re either with me or you’re against me” mentality. To think that you either agree with me or you’re wrong is a mentality that will not advance our society; this willingness to give up on each other is not good for the national conversation and it’s not good for our souls because if we were to lose all the friends we disagree with, we would be isolated and alone. Our Gospel lesson this morning is telling us that God is different. God chooses to stick with you even if you’ve put your foot in your mouth. God chooses not to reject His people but to prune them, refine them, help them to grow. And if that’s God, then how should we be? There’s a great joke about a man who was shipwrecked on a desert island. For two or three years, he lived there all alone, but one day a rescue boat pulled up to the shore. He’d been saved, but before he left the island, he wanted to give his rescuers a tour. On his island were three huts. He pointed to the first one and said, “That’s the home I built.” Then, he pointed to the second, “And that’s my church.” Wanting to know what the third hut was, the rescuers asked about it, and the man said, “That’s the church I used to go to. They made me mad and so I left.” My friends, we can’t storm out on each other. We can’t storm out on each other, not if we are modeling our lives on the God who never storms out on us. We can’t give up on others, and that starts with not giving up on ourselves. We are the branches. We are the branches. We are beloved. We are accepted. We will be changed, challenged, and pushed to grow, but that’s because we are loved, valued, and worthy to bear much fruit. May we all trust in this promise so that we endure the pruning, not with resistance, but with faith, knowing that God is not done with us yet. Halleluiah. Amen