Recognizing the Spirit’s Whispers

Acts 2:1-21; John 15:26-27; 16:4b -15

May 24, 2015

© 2015

The Day of Pentecost
Mark Hewitt

This is my last sermon as I conclude my interim ministry with Highlands Christian Church in Dallas. I hope to have another interim pastorate, but as yet do not have one in place. Thus, this will be the last sermon script posted here until I am serving another congregation. I will post notice of that on Facebook and Twitter when the time comes. Thanks to all who have read and encouraged my ministry.

In Jesus’ farewell message to his disciples he warned them they would be hated (John 15:18-26) but promised them the coming of the Holy Spirit in John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15. For me this brought together Pentecost Sunday with my last Sunday as your interim pastor. Listen to Jesus’ farewell message to his disciples to recognize and follow the Holy Spirit’s whispers.

“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. ²⁷You 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. ⁵But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ ⁶But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. ⁷Nevertheless 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. ⁸And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: ⁹about sin, because they do not believe in me; ¹⁰about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; ¹¹about 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. ¹³When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. ¹⁴He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. ¹⁵All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

To whom are you listening when the Spirit whispers?

Jesus called the Spirit “the Advocate” in 15:26; 16:7. The Greek word is Paraclete which means defense attorney or legal counsel. Jesus envisioned a courtroom in which accusations would be hurled against his followers, and the Holy Spirit stands by them to defend them.

The Holy Spirit is the opposite of the prosecuting attorney called hasatan in Job 1:6-2:7 and Zechariah 3:1-2, from which the New Testament gets the name Satan, whom Revelation 12:10 calls the accuser.

Jesus also called the Holy Spirit the Spirit of truth in 15:26; 16:13. The Spirit is the one who gives true testimony on behalf of Jesus and us when we are accused.

For what are you listening when the Spirit whispers?

Jesus said the Spirit will prove the world wrong about sin, righteousness and judgment (16:8-11). When the accusations seem too much to bear, the Spirit becomes judge of the ruler of this world, handling the condemnation of our accuser. The Spirit whispers truth freeing us from shame.

The Spirit testifies on behalf (15:26) of and glorifies (16:14) Jesus, so when affirming Jesus wells up in you, recognize as the Spirit’s whisper and let it out knowing the Spirit speaks in and through you.

Jesus said that all the Father has is his, and the Spirit declares all that belongs to Jesus to us. (16:14-15) Thus the Spirit whispers that you have complete and free access to all of the spiritual resources of the Father in Jesus.

So, in the cacophony of not just a noisy world but an often noisy church, how do you discern the Spirit’s whispers?

Scripture is the starting place, not just informational knowledge but absorbing it into your whole being as your body absorbs nutrition from food. To change the image, keep filling the reservoir of your heart with Scripture so the Spirit can bring relevant truth to the surface at the exact moment you know your resources are inadequate.

Though Jesus said the Spirit “speaks,” I have intentionally said the Spirit whispers. Noisy, cluttered minds tend to drown out the Spirit’s whispers. Even our prayers can be chatter. We don’t let God get a word in edgewise. One thing to pray for is to recognize the Spirit’s whispers and then be quiet long enough to listen for them.

The Pentecost story in Acts 2 says that they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, not each one. Yes, we each have the Spirit indwelling us, but it is together as we listen to each other that we recognize the voice of the Spirit in someone else’s words. When the Spirit speaks to and through the church, all sense a confirmation of having heard from God. I know the Search and Call Committee experienced that when they discerned God called Jonathan as the next pastor for Highlands Christian Church.

Though his disciples couldn’t grasp it at the time, Jesus assured them that it was to their advantage for him to go away so that the Holy Spirit could come. I am certainly not Jesus, nor is Jonathan the Holy Spirit, but it is definitely to your advantage for me to go away and Jonathan to come to you.

As the Lone Ranger said to Tonto at the end of every episode, and Mary Poppins said when she left the Banks family, “My work here is done now.” Between what you have accomplished on this interim journey and with Jonathan starting on as your pastor this week, mixing in some Star Trek, you are poised to follow the Holy Spirit into a mission frontier to explore new ways to bring the Gospel of Jesus to new people, to boldly go where Highlands Christian Church has never gone before.

During these last 9 months, I’d like to think God has conveyed some wisdom, experience, insight and stability to you through Candy and me. To boldly go where God is leading you, it is to your advantage for God to send you energy and imagination through Jonathan.

I have mentioned before how impressed Candy and I have been with the spiritual tenor of this congregation. Just as the Holy Spirit came to propel the early church into their mission, recognizing and following the whispers of the Holy Spirit is essential for you to boldly go into the mission frontier God is opening ahead of you. It doesn’t happen magically with the right pastor or the right programs, it happens when you listen to the Spirit’s whispers together. If what you think you are hearing is really from the Spirit others will confirm it. And if the Spirit is leading you into unfamiliar territory, the Spirit will also equip you with all the know-how, energy, ideas, resources, courage and people you need.

Power Blessing

1 John 5:9-13; Luke 24:44-53

May 17, 2015

© 2015

 

Ascension, miniature depicted in the Syriac Evangeliary of Rabbula (Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, Italy)

Art commentary by Heidi J. Hornik and Mikeal C. Parsons

The image of the ascension in the illustrated Rabbula Syriac Gospels is one of the earliest depictions of the scene on parchment (586 CE) and sets the iconography for centuries to come. The figure of Christ is positioned in a mandorla (almond-shaped frame) with his right hand in a blessing gesture and his left holding a scroll. Flanked by angels, he is bearded and wears a golden nimbus. There is a clear distinction between this heavenly realm and those figures who remain on earth. Center stage in the earthly realm belongs to Mary, who stands directly beneath the mandorla of Christ. Her hands are open in exaltation and direct the viewer to the angels standing beside her. While Mary is not explicitly mentioned by Luke as being present at the ascension, she is introduced immediately thereafter (Acts 1:14). Her growing importance in the theological tradition had been signaled by her designation as Theotokos, “Mother of God,” at the Synod of Ephesus in 431, and she becomes more prominent in both literary and visual presentations.

[Many Protestant scholars affirm the title Theotokos for Mary but prefer to translate it “God Bearer.”]

He Was Received Up Into Heaven, by Hanna Varghese

Art commentary Richard A. Kauffman

Hanna Varghese is a Malaysian artist who often works in batik, as she does with this image of the ascension. Varghese was born to Christian parents, and she remembers her mother taking her to a different worship service every week: “My parents encouraged me to attend different churches so that my siblings and I would appreciate the liturgy and traditions of the Christian believers of different denominations. Christians are a minority in Malaysia so we continue to struggle for our identity in a Muslim society.” The ascension reminds Christians everywhere of the coming of God’s Spirit and that the reign of God is a universal one not bounded by nation states.

When we lived in Daybreak, the Roman Catholic community for mentally handicapped adults in Ontario, on Thursdays Candy and I handled some of the supper, evening and bedtime routines with core members to give house assistants a break. I helped Michael Arnett brush his teeth, get pajamas on, set out morning clothes and get to bed. I knelt alongside Michael as said his lengthy evening prayers for people all around the world but never for himself. In one community worship, we laid hands on one of the young woman assistant members to commission her to go to the community in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. As 30 or so folk gathered around her and prayed, Michael raised his hand in the air. I thought he was having his typical muscle coordination problem finding a place to connect with his hand. When all of the prayers subsided, Michael said loudly with his halting voice, “Go for God to Antigonish!” Michael’s apostolic blessing signaled the group that the prayers were finished and they returned to their seats. Michael could not have explained an apostolic blessing, but he knew how to give one, and the whole community recognized it was his spiritual gift that he regularly gave them.

The whole Bible is replete with blessings that are anything but polite well-wishing. A blessing invokes and confers on someone God’s goodness and favor with confidence and authority.

Passing the Peace is rooted in the holy kiss of the New Testament (Romans 16:16; 1 Corinthians 16:20; 2 Corinthians 13:12; 1 Thessalonians  5:26; 1 Peter 5:14) and was firmly established in the Church’s worship before the 4^th century. It has been questioned in our day as wasting time and making guests uncomfortable. When it is only an exchange of greetings, I agree, but when it is a real blessing in which we confer Christ’s peace on each other, it can be powerful. Similarly, the benediction is not a signal the service has ended but sends us into the challenges of a new week with God’s empowering blessing. Even casual “bless you” can be a real blessing.

To the extent that we are aware of God’s presence in us, we are all authorized to confer God’s blessing on each other. Those of us with spiritual leadership have special opportunities to bless those we lead. As Jesus blessed his disciples at his Ascension, I affirm God’s blessing on you as I conclude my interim pastorate with you.

Though the New Testament alludes to Jesus’ Ascension a few times, only Luke reports the actual event in Acts 1:6-11 and Luke 24:44-53. In the Gospel account, Luke emphasizes three powerful blessings.

Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” ⁴⁵Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, ⁴⁶and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, ⁴⁷and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. ⁴⁸You are witnesses of these things. ⁴⁹And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” ⁵⁰Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. ⁵¹While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. ⁵²And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; ⁵³and they were continually in the temple blessing God.

When Jesus says that “repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed to all nations” (v. 47), his echo of Genesis 12:2, that this was the fulfillment of God’s blessing on Abraham, so he could be a blessing, by which all the families of the earth would be blessed. On that basis, 1 John 5:13 says we may know that we have eternal life, not arrogance but as a blessing received from God.

By blessing his disciples at his Ascension, Jesus closed what was left open in Luke 1:22 when Zechariah could not pronounce the priestly blessing after the Angel Gabriel told him his wife would have a baby, John the Baptist who would prepared the way for the Messiah. Jesus likely gave the Aaronic benediction from Numbers 6:24-26, with which I will end worship today.

After Jesus blessed them, the disciples returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the Temple blessing God. They transformed the place where the religious leaders opposed Jesus into blessing God.

Jesus’ Ascension turns his farewell into a love story. Some have suggested that by naming Bethany, Luke hints that Jesus may have included his dear friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus with the disciples when he ascended. Acts 1:14 also hints that his mother Mary may have been there as well. As Jesus blessed his disciples at his Ascension, I affirm God’s blessing on you as I conclude my interim pastorate with you.

The parallel is obvious between Jesus’ Ascension and sending the Holy Spirit to the disciples and Elijah being carried to heaven in 2 Kings 2:9-12 and his mantle signaling that Elisha had inherited Elijah’s spirit.

Jews of Jesus’ time were hazy about resurrection, which his disciples were working through when the risen Jesus met them. His Ascension was a clear demonstration that he did not descend to Sheol but to the abode of God, where he had promised they would join him.

In a Christian Century article (May 17, 2003), author Lawrence Wood wrote of his friend Carl whose wife Ruth died during Holy Week, and his daughter meant to console him by saying, “It’s especially hard to lose her this time of year.” To which Carl responded, “Are you kidding? This is the best time for my Ruthie. She’s with God now. That’s what this week is all about.”

As Jesus blessed his disciples at his Ascension, I affirm God’s blessing on you as I conclude my interim pastorate with you. So I give you these three blessings.

You are blessed to know that you have eternal life, not only affirmed in 1 John 5:13 but the purpose of John’s Gospel, so you may believe you have life in Jesus’ name.

You are blessed to know God is really among you as the Israelites did when Aaron blessed them in Leviticus 9:22-24. Paul wrote even outsiders would recognize God is really among us in 1 Corinthians 14:25.

You are blessed that God is sending you Jonathan Brink as your new pastor to lead you spiritual vigor, rigorous discipleship and fresh mission engagement.

From Child to Friend

1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17

May 10, 2015

© 2015

Our family enjoyed Wonder Years on TV. Brian Stoffregen, a Lutheran Pastor in California remembers one episode in which some of Kevin’s friends complained to him, and he passed on to the PE teacher, how much it hurt to be chosen last for a team in gym. The teacher made Kevin a captain, and he chose his friends rather than the best players. They lost miserably but had fun together. Even though they were the worst athletes, they were pleased to be chosen as Kevin’s friends.

Friendship in our time tends to be casual until a crisis comes. Ancient Greeks took friendship more seriously. Pythagoras called it the epitome of all virtues. Socrates viewed friendship as the most precious of all possessions.

Scripture calls Abraham God’s friend in Isaiah 41:8; 2 Chronicles 20:7 and James 2:23. Exodus 33:11 says, “The Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.” Not just high honor for Abraham and Moses, this says something extraordinary about God.

Public response to the violence between Muslim peoples and against non-Muslims obscures the deepest theological divide between Islam and biblical faith. In Islam, God is understood as so completely other and distant he could not possibly have a Son or friends. People might serve God to avoid punishment or obtain a reward, but not out of mutual love. In John 15:9-17, we listen in on Jesus talking with his disciples as he walked with them from the Last Supper to the Garden of Gethsemane.

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. ¹⁰If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. ¹¹I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. ¹²“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ¹³No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command you.¹⁵I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.¹⁶You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. ¹⁷I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

 Did you hear Jesus? He has chosen you to be his close friend to joyfully pass his love to his other friends.

To be the servant or employee of a prominent person may bring valued prestige, but you are still working at the behest of someone else. Especially on Mothers’ Day we realize how wonderful being someone’s loved child is, and we read in 1 John about being God’s children. But Jesus went far deeper when he called his disciples and us his friends. He brings us into full partnership in God’s redemptive mission for humanity, promising us all of the Father’s resources to bear abiding fruit.

Jesus continued the theme of abiding from the vine and branches metaphor to tell us that our purpose is to bear enduring fruit and share in his joy.

In his Gospel, John referred to himself as “the one Jesus loves.” By calling us his friends, Jesus loves each of us too. Catholic priest, Brennan Manning tells of an Irish priest seeing an old peasant kneeling by the side of the road. The priest said, “You must be very close to God.” The old man answered, “Yes, He’s very fond of me.”

Not only has Jesus chosen you to be his close friend to joyfully pass his love to his other friends, he has instructed and empowered you for this love.

As faithful Jews, Jesus’ disciples knew all about commandments, so Jesus built on that with a whole new way of understanding commandments. 1 John 5:3 says his commandments are not burdensome. Jesus said keeping his commandments would completely fill us with his joy. But he did not command a moral code or religious rituals. His commandment is to love all of his other friends the way he loves us.

Knowing his crucifixion was coming the next day, Jesus said the greatest love was to lay down one’s life for one’s friends, which was exactly what he was about to do. This is the quality of love he wants between all his friends.

We celebrate the extraordinary heroism of soldiers, police, medical and humanitarian servants who put their lives at risk for others, whom they often don’t even know. Those are glimpses of the quality of love Jesus empowers between his friends who keep his commandments.

Jesus has chosen you to be his close friend to joyfully pass his love to his other friends. Presbyterian minister Frederick Buechner observed that friends are people you make part of your life just because you feel like it. They know your family, how you vote, your achievements and blunders, your religious convictions or lack of them, which are beside the point. Jesus commands us to love his other friends, even when we learn how they vote, their achievements and blunders, their religious convictions or lack of them, all of which may trouble us.

Such love grows out of seeing ourselves as the one who Jesus loves, with all of the ways we know we are unlike him. How differently would you view yourself if you adopted as your primary identity one whom Jesus loves?

When we shift our mentality from someone who disappoints Jesus to someone whom Jesus loves with joy, his commandment to pass his love on to his other friends is both more understandable and more possible. The word for believe in 1 John 5:1,5 is not about holding something to be true but about having faith that Jesus, the Son of God, has entered your life as your close friend.

When we function as Jesus’ loved, close friends, our mission – evangelism if you will – is not about convincing people the Bible is true or to agree with our theology or conform to our moral code. Our mission is to introduce our friends to our closest friend, Jesus, so they have the opportunity for him to become their friend too.

Pastor as Pruning Shear

1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8

May 3, 2015

© 2015

We are familiar with Jesus’ metaphor of the vine and the branches. From him we learn to focus on becoming his disciples who reside in him so he can produce fruit in us.

Yet we don’t often think about the implications of Jesus telling this to his disciples as they walked from the Last Supper across the Kidron Valley to the Garden of Gethsemane where he prayed and was arrested. Walking in the dark they would have had a direct view of the Golden Vine sculpture on the façade of the Temple, probably lit up with giant torches for the Passover Festival. When Jesus spoke in John 15:1-8 he may have pointed to that grand symbol of Israel as he spoke.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. ²He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. ³You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. ⁴Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. ⁵I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. ⁷If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.”

The image of Israel as a grapevine in deeply rooted in Hebrew Scripture. Isaiah 5:1-7 is especially vivid.

Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill. He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes. … He expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!

I hope you are thinking, “That sounds a lot like one of Jesus’ parables.” He had built several teachings on it, so it was familiar to his disciples, only now he has incorporated them as the major characters of the parable.

From Jesus’ metaphor of the vine and the branches we learn to focus on becoming his disciples who reside in him so he can produce fruit in us. Our first question is: what does it mean to abide in Jesus and how do we do that?

I chose to use “reside” for “abide” to point us in the right direction. Just as Candy and I reside on Flowerdale Lane, as Jesus’ disciples, we live all of our lives in his presence with him as our constant companion. Jesus said he already abides in us, even before we abide in him. Jesus resides in us and with us, whether we notice him or not.

In what ways can we pay attention to Jesus, our constant companion? I’ve mentioned a couple of time the advice his mother gave Fr. Thomas Hopko when he was Dean of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary in New York. “If you want to grow as a Christian read your Bible, say your prayers and go to church.”

When we are faithfully in the Bible, prayer and worship with other Christians, our hearts will overflow with fruit. In Luke 6:45 Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Henri Nouwen once said to me, “If you want to know what is in your heart, listen to what you say when you speak before you think.” I’d add, “Or when you catch yourself before speaking.”

From Jesus’ metaphor of the vine and the branches we learn to focus on becoming his disciples who reside in him so he can produce fruit in us. Our second question is: what does it mean to bear fruit? Sometimes fruit is presented as evangelistic success, but Scripture points in a different direction.

Wine is a symbol of joy in the Hebrew Scriptures, so when Isaiah 5:7 says God looked for justice and righteousness in His vineyard, he described the fruit of joy. In Hebrew, Greek and Latin derived languages, justice and righteousness are cognate words, sometimes interchangeable. Personal piety and social justice are inseparable. They are the same single spiritual fruit.

Paul made this crystal clear in Galatians 5:22-23 when he used the singular – the fruit of the Spirit – with these qualities:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

From Jesus’ metaphor of the vine and the branches we learn to focus on becoming his disciples who reside in him so he can produce fruit in us. Our third question is: pruning sounds painful, is it necessary or productive?

We had a purple plum tree in the backyard of the house where I grew up in California. It grew rapidly to shade a large area which hurt the growth of other things. So every three or four years my Dad would prune it back to about a third size. The year before pruning the plums were at best 1½ - 2 inches, dry and fibrous. The year after pruning the plums were 4 inches or more and so juicy you bent over to eat them. Total yield for eating and jelly was double the years after pruning than the years before.

 While Jesus did warn of the consequences of not abiding in him, I think his main point was positive encouragement that by residing in him, we would do all sorts of things we know we can’t do on our own. When his words abide in us, we can ask for anything and it will be done. (v. 7) Why? Because when we are saturated with his words from Scripture, especially the Gospels, our hearts will overflow, even in our prayers, with his desire that our Father be glorified as we become Jesus’ disciples. The verb indicates we are always in the process of becoming Jesus’ disciples, not that we have somehow arrived.

The transition to a new pastor is pruning season. We started a little during the interim months I have been with you. It is a time of pruning out things that no matter how wonderful and cherished they may have been no longer contribute to the new mission opening before you. In some ways, the storm damage last fall was a kind of enforced pruning – going through storage to dispose of things no longer useful, which opened up more space. When Jonathan Brink leads you into this new era of mission, he will also lead you in discerning what to let go of so you can embrace God’s new future for you.