Link to the audio file and manuscript for my sermon from Sunday, May 23rd

Here's the link to the audio file for my sermon from Sunday, May 23rd.  I inadvertantly left my recorder at the office and then went out of town, so it's a bit tardy this week.  Sometimes, that's the way things are.  This week was Pentecost, and I could blame the Holy Spirit for loosing the recorder--but I won't. 

If you'd like to hear the recording from the sermon I preached on May 23rd [Pentecost], click and download the windows media file at the following link: 

http://www.box.net/shared/sj9oypkxd0



The manuscript I worked from follows below: 





The Day of Pentecost; May 23, 2010
Park Avenue Presbyterian Church; Des Moines, Iowa
Texts: Genesis 11: 1-9 *
Psalm 104: 24-34, 35b
Acts 2: 1-21
John 14: 8-17, 25-27

“Otherwise We Shall Be Scattered Abroad Upon the Face of the Whole Earth”

--} The most familiar Bible reading for Pentecost is our reading from Acts—where the Holy Spirit, seemingly in an attempt to strike some unity among believers, distinguishes Christ-followers by wind, flames, and the gift of languages. By contrast, our reading from Genesis seems quite “un-Pentecost-y.” While the Spirit strikes a common chord through the use of many languages in the early church’s story, back in Genesis, God seemingly strikes human beings with many languages as a common deterrent. But context is everything; and we shouldn’t be deterred from seeing God’s love at work!

Genesis is the story of how the world began—God’s loving embrace of creation and human beings. Even though today’s story describes people turning away from God’s desires, there is still something instructive for us. Context is everything! And by noticing that the immediately previous story to Babel is about God’s deliverance of both creation AND human beings from wickedness, we see God “resetting” creation by means of the flood. And having “delivered” creation and human beings through Noah’s journey, again we hear the divine command echoing from day six of creation: “be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” And just like that, the Tower of Babel takes us back to where God’s vision is still a possibility!

Clearly, God’s aim is to fill the earth; but notice too, what seems to be God’s invitation to human beings. If human beings only worried about “abounding on the earth and multiplying in it,” then it seems God is promising we’ll always get a fair shake. It can’t be just like the carefree life the Garden represented, but just imagine what kind of life God is inviting human beings into? Perhaps it is like that famous first question from the shorter catechism: “What is the chief end of human beings? To glorify God and enjoy God forever.” Shall we keep God’s commands, and let God take care of the rest of life for us?

But in chapter 11, human beings decide on a different plan. Afraid of being “scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth”—like being lost, human beings used God’s gift of a common language and worked together. While God intended “dominion” as the result of living all over the earth, the people came together in one place, ignoring the whole world, to construct bricks; they had bitumen to put them together and they began constructing a city and a tower—intending to reach all the way up to heaven and “make a name for themselves.” So rather than “being fruitful and multiplying” and having the whole earth, human beings sought to get up to heaven to presumably hold God in check. They abandoned God’s vision replacing it with their own.

But God does what God always does and comes down to take a look at what human beings are doing. God sees their city and buildings, God sees the tower, God sees the abilities of human beings and declares matter-of-factly, “this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.” God knows and seemingly allows human initiative and ingenuity. This isn’t bad. But it is detrimental to God having God’s way. Far from a condemnation of human initiative, God still sees the need to straighten things out; and notice what God does.

Not an act of punishment, God declares another gift for human beings—one that will keep the possibility open that God’s will and ways might prevail. God chooses… to gift human beings with various languages—in order to turn our attention toward relationships with one another and with God. God confuses human language so that the people are spread across the whole of the earth—fulfilling God’s intention. And the very thing human beings are trying to prevent, can be the very thing God makes available to us by “giving” to us again.

By contrast, the Acts story makes clear for us that despite human fears, human diversity is clearly within God’s realm to handle. The ability of the disciples to speak in every language shows the depth of God’s commitment that everything will be all right—just as God promised and intended. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the whole earth, and no matter the differences that result from many cultures and languages—God can still hold us together.

When I think about God’s gift of the Holy Spirit, it seems instructive to me that it’s the same eternal promises of God being rung true for us, too. Context is everything. As human beings, WE don’t always get it the way God wants it, either. We think “dominion” means we can do whatever we want—and maybe that’s why oil continues to leak into the Gulf of Mexico, promising the worst environmental impact in history; and why wars and violence continue to rage across the globe. I don’t know if the Spirit residing with us can simply put all that back or another way, but I do know the presence of the Holy Spirit promises God’s abiding care of us, no matter what we turn upside down or inside out! Or, as Jesus says, the Spirit continually reminds us of everything Jesus said and taught and did, so that we can be taught Jesus’ ways and make them OUR ways too.

“What would Jesus do?” is not the only question for us. God acting in the way God acts in Genesis shows us God’s commitment to human beings and the creation. It’s more than just our living happily ever after as we see fit—like the American Dream; it’s the promise that God is willing to abide with us no matter what we’ve tried to do. The promise is that God can bring us home—that GOD, can bring us home and restore, renew, re-invent, re-engage, retain, re-develop… no matter who we are or what we’ve done—or where we’ve gone or what we’ve built.

It’s Pentecost.

Are you ready to be re-invigorated by God’s love?

Are you ready to stop building and start loving? Are you ready to taste the fruit of God’s kingdom and to share that fruit with those you love and others beyond them?

Then this is the day.

It’s Pentecost.

And we can’t help but go out and tell God’s story.

--+ The Holy Spirit has come! It is an opportunity to say goodbye to an old way of life, and to live into a radically new way of being a Christian—indeed! AMEN.

As always, thanks for checking it out!