Sermons

“All Flesh Shall Live in Hope”

Romans 8:14-17; Acts 2:1-21 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – May 15, 2016

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words, that our hearts and our lives might be opened to the transformative, expansive power of your Holy Spirit. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

As we begin, I want to thank all of you who participated in our Call to Worship today. We are blessed to have so many different languages represented within our congregation, and also to have people willing to speak languages that are not their own. It probably seems like we do things like that a lot. Later on, I’m going to encourage you to sing a song in Spanish. There is a reason why we use other languages in worship fairly often. Actually, there are a few reasons.

The first reason is that we have made a commitment, as a congregation, to be a Global Missions Church. That means that we give special care to our relationships with the global Body of Christ, primarily through participation, support and attention to our denomination’s international ministry unit, Global Ministries. When a missionary comes to the San Diego area, they are likely to come here. When we want to plan Vacation Bible School, we will look for a curriculum inspired by the experiences of our international partners.

But there is another reason behind this reason why we so often indulge in multi-lingual worship activities. And that reason is today – Pentecost. Did you hear all the different places that those people in Jerusalem were from? That was a lot of different languages the disciples were suddenly speaking. Today, we only heard seven languages besides English. Probably most of them, if not all of them, you didn’t understand. At least one of them was a language that no one here knows or speaks. Why do we do this? I know that many of you probably find it uncomfortable or even annoying. Believe it or not, I understand that. I may talk a good game, when I’m here at church, when we’re doing something I’ve put together. I’ve got a pretty good ear, so if I practice, I can say almost anything in almost any language. I’ve also developed a spiritual appreciation for hearing words of worship in languages I don’t understand and being moved simply because I know they are expressing a shared faith. But if you plop me down in a country where I don’t speak the language, I am not nearly so calm. I hate not understanding what’s going on. It makes me tense. And I hate being misunderstood even more. So please know that I do understand if our use of multiple languages in worship makes you a bit ill at ease. But again, there is a really good reason for this. The reason is Pentecost.

The story we just read from Acts 2 is really the opening act to the whole book of, well, Acts. The breadth of geography covered by that list of all the places the bystanders in Jerusalem were from is foreshadowing of what this whole book is about, namely, as is stated in chapter 1, verse 8, the disciples spreading the gospel, “in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” This is the beginning of the way of Jesus opening up to all the rest of us who weren’t first century Jews living in Galilee or Jerusalem. We don’t quite get to the mission to the Gentiles until a few chapters later, but this is the beginning. And there are some important things to notice about how this thing gets started. It’s not just the languages. Or even the fire or the wind, though all of that makes for solid liturgical artistry.

What is most striking about this story is the radically inclusive nature of what Peter is proclaiming. He’s quoting from the prophet Joel when he talks about how “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Everyone is going to be prophesying – not just your typical prophets with bald heads and beards, but slaves and daughters and young men. Peter is quoting from Joel, not because of what is going to happen, but in order to explain what the Holy Spirit has already started making happen. The Spirit has been poured out “upon all flesh.” The barriers of language or nationality or class or gender or age simply do not matter anymore. God’s love is for all people. King David’s words, which Peter will start quoting just a few verses later, are now for all people. Everyone’s hearts may be glad, and everyone’s tongue may rejoice, because all flesh shall live in hope.

Pentecost is why. Because the Holy Spirit is now poured out upon all flesh, that’s why we get to be here at all. That’s how we’re now part of the body of Christ. That’s how it is that we manage to live in hope and love, in the face of a world that’s selling cynicism and snark. This is a big deal. But it’s also not the end of the story. All flesh shall live in hope. That’s what the story is telling us. Yes, us, but not just us, not only us. All flesh. The ones from Phrygia and Pamphylia, and the ones who speak Ilocano and Sambal and Russian. The ones from Crete and Cappadocia and Libya, and the ones who speak Spanish and Lingala, one of the primary languages from the Democratic Republic of Congo. All flesh shall live in hope. That includes us. But by virtue of being included in that hope, we inherit an obligation to that hope. Did you hear the words from Romans earlier? We are called to live, not in fear, but rather, as family. This is a hope we share. With brothers and sisters, all of whom are the children of God.

The difficulty is that we’re so prone to getting caught up in our own lives. Our own lives are challenging enough – bills to pay and schedules to work out and medications to manage and relationships to tend to. Staying focused on hope in our own lives is often the best we can do. And yet, as Christians – as followers of Jesus, made part of the family of God by the power of the Holy Spirit – we are called to more. We are called to tend to hope, not just for ourselves, but for our brothers and sisters in Congo, and Syria, and Chile, and the Philippines, and Turkey, and Burundi. And so, lest we forget about them, occasionally when we gather for worship, we make a space for them, proclaiming the gospel in their native tongues, rather than ours, not because someone who speaks Lingala or Arabic is going to show up here. But because we need to remember our sisters and brothers whose lives do not seem as hopeful as ours. We need to remember that their hope is our hope, and our hope is theirs. We need to remember that we are obliged, by that same Spirit that adopted us into the family of God, to extend the hope we live in to the farthest corners of the earth.

This may seem like an unwelcome burden. But if we embrace it, I believe we will find something different. This is fire country, so I know you know what happens after a forest fire. The thing about a fire – and Holy Spirit fire is no different – is that it makes way for new growth. We may look at the state of world and feel anything but hopeful. But if we consider the state of the world in partnership with our global brothers and sisters, I honestly believe it will seem less hopeless.

First of all, we will care more, because these places where such violence is happening are the places where our brothers and sisters live, and simply because we care about them, we will have to hold onto hope a little harder. But also, because if we can open our hearts to the realities of their lives, not just the big picture of political dysfunction and violent unrest, but the everyday, this-is-how-God-gets-us-through-the-day perspective, we will learn about a whole new level of living in hope. From our faraway perspective, it may seem as though there is no excuse to smile in Nigeria. And yet, if we connect as brothers and sisters, we will see that people in Nigeria smile. We may find it impossible that anyone in Syria could sing. And yet, when we connect as sisters and brothers, we will begin to learn the songs of hope arising even now from the people of God in the midst of that conflict.

New life is what emerges once the fire of the Holy Spirit has blown through. The end of the Pentecost story has three thousand people getting baptized. When we open our hearts and our faith to the true breadth of this family we’ve been adopted into, our faith will grow in similar ways. When we commit ourselves to cultivating hope, not just for ourselves, but for all God’s people, our faith starts to grow to meet the challenge, for that is a mission empowered by the Holy Spirit. May we embrace the invitation!