From Strangers To Neighbours - A Sermon for Pentecost Sunday May 28 2023
GOSPEL: John 20:19-23
The holy gospel according to John.
Glory to you, O Lord.
The risen Jesus appears to his disciples, offering them a benediction, a commission, and the gift of the Holy Spirit.
19When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. 21Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 22When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
The gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, O Christ.
It was a Pentecost moment.
By Pentecost, I don’t mean the Jewish festival of Weeks,
but Pentecost in the sense of the Spirit showing up
in and among a diverse people.
I attended the Mayor’s Calgary Interfaith Breakfast
earlier this month.
It was not unlike the gathering of Parthians, Medes, Elamites
and many others at Pentecost.
Those in leadership from the Calgary Interfaith Council
and those in participation
included Jews, Sikhs, Indigenous,
Catholic, Lutheran, United, Evangelical,
Buddhists, Muslims, Baha’i
Hindus, Zoroastrians,
and maybe even some agnostics and atheists.
God’s Spirit showed up amidst celebrating diversity,
and celebrating our unity.
“This is Calgary”
was the Spirited refrain from Rabbi Mark Glickman,
as he named some of the ways
our diverse faith communities live their faith,
enriching our community.
“We are one under Creator”
taught Dr. Elder Grandmother Doreen Spence.
“The Earth is our shared inheritance”
taught Rev. Tony Snow
who preached for us a couple summers ago.
It was almost like speaking in tongues.
Faithful tangent:
Christians tend to be curious about speaking in tongues,
especially in traditions like the Lutheran Church
because we don’t emphasize this particular gift
of speaking in tongues.
From 1 Corinthians 12:
There are a variety of gifts…
Jew or Gentile, slave or free,
we are all made to drink of the same Spirit,
God has appointed in the church first apostles,
second prophets,
third teachers,
then deeds of power,
then gifts of healing,
forms of assistance,
forms of leadership
and last,
various kinds of tongues.
“Strive for the greater gifts,
and I will show you a still more excellent way”
There are two kinds of tongues.
The main kind that is used today is Glossalalia.
This refers to the practice of uttering sounds
that might not have any known meaning.
It might be the case that the believer is given
this tongue by God,
and is then spoken in praise to God.
Unfortunately this practice can also just be
a made-up praise language
because it’s expected in certain faith traditions
that if you have faith,
you can speak a tongue.
Xenoglossy or xenolalia is the other kind of tongue,
which refers to what happens in the book of Acts:
being given the ability to speak a language
that you shouldn’t be able to speak,
and the gospel proclaimed in that language
is then understood by the other.
This kind of tongue is very rare.
I’ve known people who speak in a Glossalalia tongue,
but have yet to meet anyone with any experience
of the xenolalia kind of tongue.
To sum up the faithful tangent,
any expectation that the believer must speak in a tongue
is not reasonable.
It’s out there, speaking in tongues is a thing,
but it’s pretty low in rank.
If God gives you a tongue - great!
If God doesn’t give you a tongue - great!
Trust that God has given you some other kind of,
dare I say - more important - gift of the Spirit.
Back to the Interfaith breakfast,
its was not unlike the xenolalia kind of tongue:
Even amidst differing languages
and differing faith traditions,
we could really hear and understand each other.
Our Mayor shared a prayer in Punjabi
from the Japji Sahib,
one of the Sikh Prayers done each morning.
It sounds so much like Jesus;
“When the hands and the feet and the body are dirty,
water can wash away the dirt.
When the clothes are soiled and stained (…),
soap can wash them clean.
But when the intellect is stained and polluted by sin,
it can only be cleansed by the love of the Name.
Virtue and vice do not come by mere words;
actions repeated, over and over again,
are engraved on the soul.
You shall harvest what you plant.”
I admit that we appreciated the translation in English,
but as our Mayor prayed in Punjabi,
I noticed the eyes of those at my table,
and we could hear her heart
for God,
for neighbours,
for strangers,
to live our faith
to build up the common good.
Her heart was our heart.
We were united by our love for God,
love for our neighbours,
love for strangers,
love for our city.
Whether you support or voted for our Mayor or not,
hearing her pray,
sitting at the feet of Dr. Elder Grandmother Doreen Spence,
hearing Rev. Tony Snow,
I heard Jesus.
I felt the breath of God.
It was a Pentecost moment.
From strangers to neighbours was the theme.
Love God,
love creation,
love neighbours,
love strangers,
work for the common good.
That is the Holy Spirit at work.
Unfortunately an event like this does not receive unanimous support.
Still many are convinced that their faith tradition
is the only correct faith tradition.
Some are taught that you can’t pray
with someone of a different faith.
Some focus on conversion
rather than conversation.
Conversion or conviction to faith is the Spirit’s job.
“No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit”
Conversion isn’t our job.
God’s Spirit is the One
who breathes new life into us,
who calls, gathers, enlightens and makes holy
the believer and Christ’s Church.
Yet we don’t limit the work of the Spirit to just the Church:
God’s Spirit is at work in the world,
both inside and outside the Church.
At the risk of being called a heretic,
and I’ve been called worse,
God’s Spirit is at work in the faithful in this city,
the faithful Baha’i,
the faithful Zoroastrian,
and all the faithful in between:
Indigenous and Jews,
Sikh’s and Christians,
Muslims and Buddhists.
God is moving us from strangers to neighbours.
That’s the work of the Spirit
in our city.
I attended two other gatherings this past week
in both of which the Spirit showed up.
One - a gathering to talk about our Lutheran seminary,
and the other, the Area gathering:
“What is the church (for)?”
We talked about hope,
Yet like exhaled smoke,
there loomed the cloud of
shared concern and fear:
of the future of the Church,
of our seminary,
of our synod,
of our congregations.
“We will never be the same again”
our bishop repeated.
Many are afraid of what church decline might bring.
It is not unlike the 11 disciples after Jesus’ resurrection,
gathered behind locked doors
in fear of the Judean authorities,
holding their collective breath.
The disciples had every reason to be afraid.
They thought they might be next to be killed.
And they were right;
most of them were martyred for their faith.
And, remember, they gathered in the evening,
in the darkness,
which should signal for us
that they had their doubts,
their unbelief.
It wasn’t until they saw Jesus’ wounds,
that they really saw the Lord,
and that’s when they rejoiced.
You could say that, in our own way,
the church is seeking shelter
behind our own locked doors in fear.
We might not fear for our lives like the disciples,
but amidst church decline,
the fear of the faithful is real and palpable,
hidden behind the locked doors of our hearts,
as we hold our collective breath.
Yet Jesus is the door,
Jesus is the gate for the sheep.
Locked doors cannot keep Jesus out.
Jesus is here!
Maybe we struggle to recognize;
maybe we struggle to believe.
Amidst their genuine fear,
Jesus breathed the Spirit into the 11.
Jesus has promised to be with them,
Jesus promised them (and us)
to be joined into even greater works.
Perhaps at Pentecost
that fear turned into purpose and clarity
as the Spirit fell,
as they received the gift of tongues
and birthed the church.
God showed up, and that was enough.
Amidst our own fears,
Jesus’ words echo;
“do not be afraid”
We know how the story ends - it is Church without end,
capital ‘C’ church, that is.
We are not promised that our small ‘c’ churches
will all continue to be viable.
the grass withers and the flowers fade,
but the Word of God stands forever.
The Church was birthed at Pentecost
because God showed up,
and the believers showed up,
and lived into their call.
Maybe it’s just that simple for us.
God’s going to show up.
If God doesn’t show up - that’s on God, not us.
We can’t force God’s hand.
but we can show up,
and be ourselves,
be our baptized selves,
devoted to love of God,
love of neighbour,
love of stranger,
seeking the common good.
At Pentecost, fear became purpose and clarity by the Spirit.
The remedy for our fear
is simply trusting that God will show up,
to expect Jesus to show up,
to expect the Spirit to show up,
and so we, also, simply show up.
I’ve heard it said that you can find your call at the intersection
of where your passions, skills, talents, abilities, your gifts
intersect with the needs of the world.
And for some reason we often try and do this alone.
Jesus doesn’t work alone,
the Spirit doesn’t work alone.
People are hungry.
Imagine if we could join Sikh community
and just feed the neighbourhood?
People are longing for connection with God
Imagine if we could join the Islamic community
in devotion to prayer?
People are longing for peace.
Imagine if we could join the Buddhist community
in remedy of suffering,
in kindness and compassion for self and others.
People long for justice
Imagine if we could join the Jewish community
in study of Torah
and join in repairing the world.
People long for connection with others.
Imagine if we could join the Indigenous community
in smudge,
in connection with our ancestors?
We can trust God to show up,
so we show up,
and we need not show up alone.
For Israel to live as a freed people,
they had to leave their slavery and fleshpots in Egypt behind.
For the disciples to follow Jesus,
the fishers had to leave their nets behind.
For Pentecost to take shape the way it did,
the believers had to leave the locked doors behind.
We too have something to leave behind,
to live into a new Pentecost, today.
It might be our expectations of our church,
Maybe it’s the certainty we hold
for how God will or will not act.
Maybe it’s our unwillingness to forgive.
Certainly, it is our fear that needs to be left behind.
Fear of the other,
fear of dying,
fear…
The remedy for fear
is to trust that God will show up,
to expect Jesus to show up,
to expect the Spirit to show up,
and so we, also, show up.
God’s Spirit is alive and at work in you, Advent.
In the words of Angela Parker;
“Jesus has given us a double portion of peace to breathe again.
Let us be Jesus followers that transform society
instead of being fearful disciples
who are holding our collective breath.”
May we trust that God is going to show up.
May the peace and presence of Jesus cast aside our fear.
May God’s Spirit move us in this city
from strangers to neighbours.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
