Sermons

“Why Does the Holy Spirit Matter?”

Genesis 11:1-9; Acts 2:1-21 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – May 20, 2018

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words that we might welcome the gifts of your Holy Spirit and your church might be made new. In the name of Jesus we pray, Amen.

What more auspicious day to launch a new thing than on Pentecost? We are embarking on a six-week sermon series today that I’m calling “Faith Matters”. That second word is going to be both a noun and a verb, depending on the moment. But it’s not just a sermon series that is beginning today; the sermons are only part of a larger journey. We are entering into a new season, a season of commitment, a season of passion, a season of coming together as a congregation to respond faithfully to God’s call to follow Jesus and be the church here on this corner. Each week, we’ll be talking about a particular aspect of the Christian faith and why it’s important – how it makes a difference to us as Christians. Think of it as a drawn-out, six-week revival, and start praying now about how you’re going to respond. Because this is a season of “All In”: everybody, every family, all you’ve got to offer, even those “gifts that you are slow to find” as the song goes, that is, the things you don’t yet know you can do.

We begin today with the Holy Spirit, of course, since she’s blowing around the room already. Why does the Holy Spirit matter? Because without her, none of the dots could be connected. The Holy Spirit is the part of God that connects us to God and to one another; it’s that third thing that grows in between us when we cultivate a relationship. It’s the thing that fills in the gaps and smoothes the rough edges and multiplies the gifts we bring together into the gracious plenty required for a miracle.

The Holy Spirit is wind, something we can see the effects of better than we can see the thing itself. The Holy Spirit is fire, something both necessary and dangerous. The Holy Spirit is a dove, a sign of peace and hope in the aftermath of destruction. The Holy Spirit is an Advocate, a Comforter, an Instigator, an Empowering Force. The question is whether we recognize her when she’s in our midst.

Did you hear the stark contrast between the two stories we heard from scripture today? They both touched on the amazing miracle of language. But they took very different views of the diversity of human culture. In the story of the tower of Babel, the idea that humanity might be scattered across the whole earth and speak many different languages was a scary one. It was seen as something God did to us to keep us in our place.

But in the story of Pentecost, God is acting very differently with regard to the diversity of human language. The Spirit comes, and suddenly people who had been living in the same city, despite their different tongues, were all hearing about God’s deeds of power in their own native languages. The disciples were empowered by the Holy Spirit to stretch beyond their normal abilities so they could reach a broader audience. Rather than separating us by creating different languages, God is now helping humanity overcome those language barriers. And God does this not by hitting a re-set button and reverting humanity back to one language, but by filling the church with the capacity to meet people where they were. The Holy Spirit, in this story, makes the difference when it comes to difference. It’s not that it happened for the sake of diversity alone, but rather that the diversity is part of how God works now. Creating unity in the midst of diversity is one of the mighty deeds of God that got added that very day to the stories we tell in all the languages we speak.

And that story is being told again and again, every time we gather. We just finished a season of being a teaching church, having welcomed RJ into our midst as a seminary intern. And I know some of you found it hard to connect with RJ at first because of his undeniable passion for big words. Not all of us speak the language of big words fluently. But it turned out that big words weren’t the only language RJ spoke. The beautiful work of art that blossomed on our parking lot wall over these past few weeks is a sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit, empowering us to connect in ways some of us didn’t know were possible. I believe it will continue to act as a conduit for the Holy Spirit, to connect more and more people to this congregation in new and unexpected ways. Art, with its ambiguity and creative force, is one of the Holy Spirit’s favorite ways to touch our hearts.

I was thinking about the Holy Spirit the other day when I was driving home from work. We’ve been hearing a lot of distressing stories lately about white folks calling the cops when black folks are doing totally normal things, just going about their lives like people do. I don’t understand where that spirit of fear comes from. I know it’s not a holy spirit, because I know what the Holy Spirit feels like. It’s what fills me with joy when I drive through El Cajon and see so many different people sharing a community. Immigrants from Iraq, refugees from Congo, East County natives in pick-up trucks, children with backpacks and women with head scarves, homeless people and neighbors who look out for them – all these different kinds of folks are living in harmony in my neighborhood, and it fills my heart with joy. I’m not afraid, and why should I be? My neighbors are all children of God, and the richness of our diverse humanity is a sight to behold. I think about the small town where I grew up, in central Illinois, and how different it was to live surrounded by people who look and talk and eat like I did. It’s a lovely place, and God is alive there too; but how amazing to get to live in a place that reminds me on a daily basis just how amazing God’s human creatures are! The Holy Spirit is what makes it possible for us to navigate our differences in ways that give life and create hope and magnify love. Like the wind, we may not see it, but we see the effects it has on our world.

I see the Holy Spirit working in even broader arenas as well. The news from Gaza this week has been so heart-breaking: 60 Palestinian protestors killed in one day, adding to the dozens shot over the past weeks of this painful commemoration of the 70^th anniversary of the Nakba, the catastrophe, when so many Palestinians were forced from their homes in 1948. It seems as though hope is lost. In all the visits we had during my trip in January, almost everyone told us that the only solution is a two-state solution, but that a two-state solution is now impossible. And yet, these weeks of brutally punished non-violent protest have made a difference. Something is cracking open. Not to show off, but I have over 1,500 friends on Facebook. And in the past week, I’ve seen more of them posting about Gaza than I’d ever imagined I would. It used to be just handful, those who’ve made the journey to meet the present-day residents of Palestine and learn about the brutality of the occupation first-hand, and my friends who are Palestinians themselves. Now it’s so many I lost track – Christians, Jews, Muslims, humanists, all calling for things to change. Something is cracking open. I’m beginning to believe that American conventional wisdom about the “Israeli/Palestinian conflict” could change.

And it’s not just that. We re-started our cycle of grieving again on Friday when there was yet another school shooting, this time in Santa Fe, Texas. The carnage is continuing unabated. And yet, for the first time in years, we are daring to hope that things might be changing. We’re hearing the voices of our young people telling us in no uncertain terms that things are going to change, and we’re starting to believe them. These issues that seem intractable, they’re not. These situations that seem hopeless, they’re not. Remember how quickly – yes, after decades – but really, how quickly the Berlin Wall fell, once things started shifting. Think about the fact that apartheid ended in South Africa. The Spirit is alive in this world, connecting us despite our sinful tendency to build separation walls. The Holy Spirit is a fire, cleansing us of all that separates us from God and divides us from one another.

Again, it’s important to remember that the Holy Spirit did what she did on Pentecost so that a broader audience could hear the disciples “speaking about God’s deeds of power.” There are a lot of people who need that good news. Many of them are out there somewhere. Some of them are right here in this room. The question for each of us is whether we have “eyes to see” and “ears to hear” like Jesus is always asking us, or whether we’re more like those people that accused the disciples of being drunk. There’s a thing I hear around here sometimes that reminds me of those folks who sneered. Sometimes the Spirit is breaking out right in front of our eyes and we don’t even see it because we’re too entrenched in our own negativity. Occasionally, I hear people complaining that it’s always the same people who do everything around here. Sometimes the one complaining is me. Well, last night, while our Worship Committee Chair was in the ER being treated for bronchitis, a team of 8 people gave an hour of their evenings to take down the Easter finery that was all around this sanctuary and put up the amazing Pentecost décor you see now. Two of them were under age 14, and all of them are people who’ve become part of this faith community in the last five years or less. It’s the Holy Spirit that takes 8 people who are still learning each other’s names and turns them into a team that willingly and joyfully does the work that helps usher in the season for the rest of us. And if we can’t see God’s hand doing these things in our midst, it’s because we don’t want to. It’s time for us to open our hearts to the work of the Holy Spirit here at Vista La Mesa Christian Church, to welcome it, to expect it, to do whatever we can to make space for it, and to show up for it.

Why does the Holy Spirit matter? Because it’s what makes everything possible! It’s what inspires us to invite someone new to participate. It’s what helps us dare say yes when invited. It’s how God connects us to people we thought we had nothing in common with. It’s how God knocks down the stuff that is dividing us. The Holy Spirit is the invisible thing moving in our midst that gives us hope in the face of desperate circumstances. It’s the illogical peace we feel in the midst of a storm. It’s the courage that fills us when someone takes our hand and says “We’ll do this together!” Let us give thanks and rejoice this day for the abundance of gifts the Holy Spirit is bringing into this community even now. Let us open our hearts to receive them, and ask God’s blessing that we might use them faithfully. Alleluia and Amen!