Thursday, June 30, 2011

Introductory Youth Meeting

06/29/11 Intro. Meeting GUMC Youth
As we start this journey called youth ministry together, I wanted to take a few minutes this evening and tell you a bit about who I am so we can get to know each other, a bit about what our weekly youth group meetings will look like, and a few words about the feedback sheet I've got for you.
My name is Travis Stevick and I have been appointed as the associate pastor of Grace United Methodist Church here in Spencer. I just graduated from seminary and am here, in part, to help lead the youth program here at Grace. I think that just about the best way to begin is to share with you a bit about myself and how I ended up here at this time and place.
You need to know right away that I did not grow up in the church. Both of my parents were raised Catholic and left the church as soon as they got a chance. They did not have my older brother or myself baptized, which must have given my grandparents fits, and we never went to church when I was growing up. There are some people who become pastors who have been in church every Sunday of their lives and have never known what it is like to live outside of the church to be someone who is not a Christian. You should know that this is not the case for me, and, just so you know, is not the case for Chuck, the senior pastor here.
I started being involved with the church when I was in eighth grade, when a friend invited me to his youth group. I started going every week and even began to call myself a Christian, but, though God was already at work in my life, looking back I don't think I could really say that I was a Christian then. Eventually, through that same friend, I got involved in an after-school Bible study where I met a whole bunch of Christians, who eventually invited me to church. Even though I had been going to youth group for a few years, it was not until the Spring of my Sophomore year of high school that I really began to take my faith seriously, to make Jesus more than just something I said that I believed in, but to live as though he really is the living God, the Lord of the universe who changes lives.
I want to make sure you know that about my life because you need to know that I understand, firsthand, what it is like to have a youth group that isn't only a place to go and have fun, but to be a place where you can come to meet with God himself, to come to know Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. You need to know that, if it were not for my friends who took the risk to invite me to church, I would not know God, I certainly wouldn't be a pastor, and I wouldn't be here now to meet you and to help you to know the God who has transformed my life. If it were not for a youth group filled with friends and leaders that cared for me, sometimes more than I cared for myself, I don't know where I would be today. I desperately want to do what I can to help you be open to the transforming power of Christ as others have done for me.
In case you were wondering, no, I did not always know that I was going to be a pastor. I went to UNI on a math scholarship and I was certain that I was going to be a math teacher. It was only during the summer of my Freshman year of college that I knew that God was calling me to be a pastor, so I changed my major from math education to pure math and, after I graduated, went off to seminary in Dubuque. I spent four years in seminary, serving as a part-time pastor of a small church during that time, reading tens of thousands of pages worth of books, writing hundreds of pages worth of papers, all so I can be better equipped to help people like you to know God and to make sense of what God is doing in your life.
I am willing to answer any more questions about my life and my background; if there is something you want to know, just ask. Now I want to turn to talk a bit about what you can expect from our weekly youth group meetings. However, before we get into the details, I want to stress as hard as I can that we are going to have a lot of fun together. As of today, we have got at least three special events planned. We are going to have a lock-in on Monday, July 18th, which is only about two and a half weeks away, so you need to get ready and tell your friends about it, because it's going to be a great time. In August, we are planning to go to a Casting Crowns concert at the State Fair and it is only going to cost you the price of admission to the fair and any food you want to eat. Also, we are starting to try to get some planning done to go to the Life Light music festival in Sioux Falls over Labor Day weekend. What I need from you is to sign up for those as soon as possible, so we can know who is planning on coming to those events. If you are willing to be part of a team that helps to plan special events like these, make sure to say so on the survey sheet.
As far as Wednesday nights are concerned, we are hoping to have food like we had tonight every week. It might not work out to have it every week, but we are going to have some kind of food at least sometimes. Next, we are going to spend some time every week with music and singing, a bit like we did tonight, though I'm hoping to get a youth band together so it isn't just me and my guitar. If you would be interested in being in a youth band, make sure you say so on the survey sheet.
Every week, there will be a time of teaching. As you have probably noticed already, when I preach or teach, I use a manuscript, but you need to know that this is a good thing. If I go without one, I will go off on a million different bunny trails and you would spend a lot of time listening to me and I wouldn't be saying much. Using a manuscript lets me keep the messages shorter and clearer, which is a good thing. Also, if you like a message, since I use a manuscript, I can easily post it online for you to look at later.
The backbone of all the teaching is going to be the Bible. We are going to spend a lot of time actually looking at passages in the Bible and thinking about what they mean for us today. If you pay attention, you will come to know more of the Bible better than you ever did before. Over time, we are going to cover big chunks of scripture, which is really important to understand just what the Bible is really saying.
However, we aren't only going to read the Bible with a magnifying glass; we are also going to have weeks where we take a step back and look at the really big picture. We will ask questions like, "If God loved us so much that he gave us his only Son to die for us, what does that mean for me today?" If you have a theological question that you aren't sure about, let me know and don't be surprised if it ends up being the topic for discussion one day.
There is a third thing that we will do sometimes for the message. There is a long tradition in youth ministry where you have what are sometimes called "fishbowl nights," where everybody writes questions down on pieces of paper and puts them in a fishbowl or a hat and the leader takes them out, one by one, and answers them. The only problem is that this sometimes turns into "stump the leader," or, trying to make the most of the time, the leader tries to answer a dozen or so questions in a short period of time.
The problem with this is that, when we rush through questions, we don't take the time to take them seriously. If you ask, "Which is true, Creationism or Evolution," and I simply say, "Creationism, next question," it doesn't really help, does it? Even if there is a "right" answer to those kinds of questions, it completely ignores the fact that lots of people are deeply troubled by them and they need to be taken seriously. The fact of the matter is that your questions, yes your questions, are important enough to be taken very seriously. There are some pastors and church leaders who think that, because they went to seminary, they are the only ones who can ask the real questions. I have found over and over again that it is the people who haven't been to seminary who can usually ask the better questions. So, I want to encourage you to ask difficult questions, the questions that you never felt you could ask before, the questions that you might even be afraid to ask. Ignoring those tough issues does not make them go away. If they trouble you now, they will only trouble you more later if we don't talk them out and deal with them now. We will take them, and probably only do one in a night, but that is because your questions are worth asking, they are worth thinking about, and they are worth taking seriously.
It is true that I am the associate pastor of this church and I have other responsibilities, but I want to make it as clear as I can that I am your pastor, your theologian, your resource. I am here to help you think through those tough questions, to show you that I am not afraid of your questions and, what is more important, that God is not afraid of your questions.
There will be times that I will not be here on Wednesday nights for one reason or another, but that doesn't mean that there won't be youth group. On those weeks, I am hoping to get other adults from the church to share their testimony with you, to tell you what God has done in their lives and how he has changed them. You don't have to be a Bible scholar to share what God has done in your life. There are many people who have great stories to share and I am excited that we can have a chance to hear some of them.
I'm not going to beat around the bush; there are going to be times when the teaching and discussion will get pretty heavy, some times when you are going to be stretched and asked to try harder than you might be used to in order to understand and participate in the youth ministry. However, the only reason why things will get a bit difficult sometimes is because you are fully capable of thinking hard, of wrestling with the important issues, of taking full ownership of your faith. I plan to treat you as adults, as people who can think, as people who don't need to be spoon fed, but are able to rise to the challenge. I have faith that you can do more than you can even imagine; let's grow together.
The last thing I want to say tonight in an official capacity is about the need for feedback from you. There is a sheet that I am asking you to fill out. You need to know that these sheets will absolutely be for my eyes only. Nobody else will see them. Your parents won't see them, your friends won't see them, the other adults who help out won't see them, Pastor Chuck won't see them. Only I will see them. Because of that, I want to ask you to be absolutely as open and as honest as you can possibly be. If you don't give me your feedback and tell me what you are thinking, then I have to guess at what is best and I think we all would rather things weren't just left to my guesswork. I can't promise that absolutely everything that everyone wants will be done, but this is the best way for your voice to be heard. If you don't fill one out, I won't know what you hope your youth group will be.
I don't know about you, but I am pretty excited. I am excited about what God has already been doing here and what he might do in the future. I am excited that you are here and that we can move into this new season together, that we can grow together, that we can stick together in the midst of good times and hard times, and that we can become friends who love the Lord. It is a good day and God is at work, so there is more good ahead. Let us pray.

AMEN

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Trinity Sunday 2011

06/19/11                          Trinity Sunday 2011                  Hudson UMC
What is the church?  It might seem that such a question is an odd one to begin a sermon for Trinity Sunday, but actually, since we are United Methodists, it makes perfect sense.  When we look at Christian history, or even when we ask Christians we know, we find that most people, when trying to find a place in the Bible that serves as a kind of definition of what the church is, turn to Matthew 18:19-20 which reads, "Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven.  For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them."

I would imagine that this statement is somewhat familiar to most people in the room, as would be expected.  After all, it is the single most popular passage appealed to in the Bible to speak of the church.  However, when we take just a step backwards and examine the context in which it is found, we are puzzled.  The entire chapter of Matthew 18 is about conflict within the community and how to deal with it; that is to say, it is about church discipline.  The two or three people who are
agreeing on something in this passage are agreeing about whether or not a person who has sinned has been willing to be reconciled or not and whether or not the church should change their relationship with them from one of intimate Christian fellowship to one of discipline and
correction.

There is another interesting tendency within the history of the church, particularly Protestant history, that is interesting to consider before we continue on.  The classical Protestant definition of the church is a gathering where the pure word of God is proclaimed and the sacraments are rightly administered.  This is, of course, an extremely political definition, and we must ask who gets to decide whether what is preached is the pure word of God and whether the sacraments are rightly administered.  Consequently, there have been times when more than one denomination has held the same definition of the church on paper but have absolutely rejected the legitimacy of the other body in practice.

This raises the question for us United Methodists, "How did John Wesley think of the church?"  Wesley thought of the church in a very different way than these other two views and the difference is telling.  Wesley used our passage for this morning, out of Paul's letter to the Ephesians.  He has this to say.  "Here, then, is a clear unexceptionable answer to that question, 'What is the Church? The catholic or universal Church is, all the persons in the universe whom God hath so called out of the world as to entitle them to the preceding character; as to be 'one body,' united by 'one spirit;' having 'one faith, one hope, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in them
all.'"

When Wesley defines the church, he does so in Trinitarian and participatory terms.  We are not constituted a church because we have good preachers or because we do Communion and Baptism the right way.  We must not think that we are God's people because of anything we do, even if it is doing preaching and the sacraments.  Instead, we are constituted the church of God because of who we are, or, more precisely, because of the one with whom we are in relationship.  We are a church because we are one body who is bound together by one Spirit, the Holy Spirit.  We are people who share in one hope of our calling; we have one Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ.  We have all participated in one baptism, the baptism with which Christ was baptized on our behalf and in our place.  And we all share one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in us all.

This is a much better way, and more Biblical way of understanding the church.  If the church is defined and constituted by pure preaching, it is a frightening thing, for how can you be sure that you have always had preachers who preached nothing but the pure word of God?   As much as I try to root every sermon in the word of God, to say that there has never been a time when the sermon could be described as less than pure would be the height of presumption and arrogance.  According to the traditional Protestant definition, if there were ever a Sunday when myself or any other preacher in this congregation's history had a sermon preached that was anything less than the pure word of God, on that Sunday, this congregation was not a church.  If we see things the way Wesley did, we realize that our status as a church is not dependent on what we do, but on what God has done; not on who we are, but on who God is.

And who is this God in whom we have faith?  For some, such a question would seem silly, but it is very serious indeed.  Drawing from the same Wesley sermon on the church, we read these reflections on the nature of our faith.  "This is not barely the faith of a Heathen; Namely, a belief that 'there is a God,' and that he is gracious and just, and, consequently, 'a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.' Neither is it barely the faith of a devil; though this goes much farther than the former.  For the devil believes, and cannot but believe, all that is written both in the Old and New Testament to be true. But it is the faith of St. Thomas, teaching him to say with holy boldness, 'My Lord, and my God!' It is the faith which enables every true Christian believer to testify with St. Paul, 'The life which I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.'"

Indeed, we believe in and are bound to, a God who is not the ultimate individual, utterly detached from others, but one who is Triune in God's very being.  We see that, for the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, there is both "me" and "you" in God and yet, though  this one is three in one sense, these three are also one in another, very real, sense.  We see in God that we cannot ask, "which is more basic, the individual or the community?"  In God, the individual and the community are equally basic.  There is not one without the other.  I am not a Christian unless I am with you and you are not a Christian unless you are with me.  The Bible seldom speaks of salvation and the Christian life in individualist terms. We are in this together, or else we are not in it at all.

We are the people of God the Father only to the degree that we are, all together, the body of Christ, and we are only that to the degree that we are indwelled, both as individuals and as a community, by the Holy Spirit.  This might seem like three separate things that have been jammed together, but it is not the case.  Rather, they are three facets of the same reality.  Let me illustrate this with a passage from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.  "Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons."

Paul goes on to list nine gifts of the Spirit, wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, speaking in tongues, and interpreting tongues.  However, because of how he introduced them, we cannot think of them as only gifts of the Spirit, but also as the various ministries of our Lord Jesus Christ and the effects of God in our lives.  It is striking to consider, that if we take the life of Christ as born witness in the Gospels and hold it up next to Paul's list of the gifts of the Spirit, we see all of them except the speaking in tongues and the interpreting of tongues, which we would not expect to see, being gifts used in private.  We see that to be people who are marked by the gifts of the Spirit is to be united to the high priestly ministry of Christ, that is, if we are people led by the Spirit, we are simultaneously the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood, and this manifests itself in our daily lives by conforming us to the image of Christ, in his obedience to God his Father.

We are the church, not because we are better than other people, nor because we are worse than other people, nor because of anything we do, but because we have been bound to God through Christ and in the Holy Spirit.  What this means is that, if you are bound to God through Christ and in the Holy Spirit and I am bound to God through Christ and in the Holy Spirit, then we are equally bound to each other and we are each bound to everyone else who is bound to God through Christ and in the Holy Spirit.  What is more, since our relationship with one another is primarily defined by our relationship with the Triune God and the inter-Trinitarian relationships, then we are stuck together, regardless of whether we want to be or not.  Tomorrow, movers will be coming to the parsonage and piling all of our belongings into a truck to move it across the state.  We will no longer be neighbors in the sense that we live near each other, but we will always be bound together in Christ.  It does not matter if someone moves, it does not matter if someone is from a radically different culture or country, in Christ, we are bound to one another just as closely, if not even closer, than we are to ourselves.

Something that deserves special notice is that we are bound to one another because we belong to Christ and through Christ to the Father.  God did not give us a theology exam before we could belong to him, we did not have to prove ourselves to him before he died for us.  This means that we are utterly bound to every other Christian, even if we radically disagree with them.  Even if someone disagrees with you on the temperature of hell or the furniture of heaven, with what exactly it means to live as a Christian, with your position on predestination versus free will, or with a multitude of other things, we must never forget that they are also a person for whom Christ died, that Christ died for them, like he did for us, while they were yet a sinner.  We are bound together by the blood of Christ, against which not even the gates of hell will prevail.  So, whether this is something that excites you or fills you with concern, for it challenges all of us, we had better get used to the idea.

In spite of the fact that this reality continually challenges me and makes me stretch my understanding of God and my neighbors, it fills me with joy, especially at this time in my life.  In about twenty-four hours, my family and I will be moving several hours away, away from those who have supported us through these last five years, away from family, away from friends.  We are going to a region where we know only a handful of people, and we don't even know them all that well.  It is something of a scary proposition.  But this is what I know.  I know that the same God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is just as active there as here and just as active here as there.  I know that there is a sense in which we are not really leaving, as we will ever be bound to one another.  I know that those we are going to meet are not really strangers, but long lost brothers and sisters, not only of us, but of you.   I know that we are the church, not because we always agree (though we share a common faith), nor because we do certain things, but because we are people who have been claimed by God and will never be separated from him and, thus, from each other.

This observation that, in Christ, we are fundamentally who we are, not only because of who we are in ourselves, but because of those with whom we are in relationship, has something to say about today being Father's Day, but I want to start with the Fatherhood of God first, and only afterward speak of human fathers.  When we call God "Father," we are naming God according to a relationship that is inherent in the being of God.  When we use the term "Father" to refer to God, we are silently also speaking of Christ, for when we say that God is Father, we are already speaking of the one to whom God is Father.  To speak of Christ is already to speak of the Father, for Christ is the Son of God.  To say "Spirit" is to speak of the Spirit of the Father and the Spirit of the Son.  We cannot name one of the Persons of the Trinity without referring, at least in a way, to the others.

There are many terms that we use to describe people.  Speaking for myself, you could call me a husband; but the moment you do so, you are already talking about Alli.  You could call me a father; but the moment you do so, you are already talking about Peter.  You could call me a son; but the moment you do so, you are already talking about my parents.  Even if you call me "Travis," you can't get around the fact that I cannot be considered in complete isolation from the relationships that make up, in a very real sense, who I am.  The same is true for you, for you are all engaged in relationships, without which, you would not be who you are.

So, Fathers, we who are children are bound to you, regardless of whether we disagree with you or whether we are always as appreciative as we ought to be.  We are bound to you because of a relationship that was established without our consent, before we could make any decisions at all.  We understand that, regardless of what may come, we are bound to you and you are bound to us.  We would not be who we are today if it were not for you and to relate to us is to relate to someone who has been shaped by your time, by your love, and by your personality.  If it were not for you, we would truly be different people.  Our relationship with you is one that goes to the roots of who we are, and we are grateful.

As this is the last opportunity I will have to speak to you as your pastor, it is fitting that it should take place on a Sunday that stresses so strongly on the interrelatedness that is inherent in all of Christian faith and indeed of all things, as even the very being of God includes a profound interrelatedness between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  This church has played a tremendous role in my personal and professional life and, wherever I go, I will bear the imprint of this congregation and all that you have taught me.  Speaking for my family, you have truly become part of who we are and nothing can ever change that.

The scripture calls the length of a human life "a hand's breadth."  Surely the time that we have spent together has been shorter yet, but you have had plenty of time to shape the life and ministry of this pastor and his family.  I can only hope and pray that, in whatever small way, we have had a chance to play a role in the shaping of your lives and ministry.  And now that we have reached the end of the last sermon I will ever preach in this pulpit, there is nothing better to do than to pray. 
Let us pray.
            AMEN

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Pentecost 2011

06/12/11 Pentecost 2011 Hudson UMC
In spite of the fact that it is an emotional experience to stand up in front of the congregation that has supported my journey through seminary and my first five years in pastoral ministry and deliver my second-to-last sermon to you, I must admit that I am glad that, since it has to end, it can end in this season. Today is Pentecost where we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the church, where we human beings have more fully than ever before been grafted into the ministry of God in our world of space and time. Next week, in addition to being Father's Day, it is Trinity Sunday, and, as you may or may not know, I am very interested in the Trinity and how the Trinity has deep implications, not only for academic theology, but also for our regular Christian lives.
So, since today is Pentecost, we must ask, what is the Holy Spirit? Actually, I must apologize for asking the question this way. After all, in spite of the fact that we usually seem to speak of the Spirit as a what, it really isn't the case. The Spirit is a who. The problem is that, when we talk about people that are whos and not whats, we only have two options in English, "he" and "she." However, we cannot imagine that the Spirit is really biologically male or female. But the word "It" doesn't really help, because, once we go back to calling the Spirit "It," we have gone right back into the old problem of thinking of the Spirit as a what and not a who.
This might be a frustrating thing to us, because, as hard as it is to understand Jesus and as incredibly difficult as it is to get a clear grasp on God the Father, it is next to impossible to get some kind of image in our minds of who the Spirit is. Every time we think that we get a grip on who the Spirit is and figure the Spirit out, we realize that it doesn't quite work. The Spirit continually eludes us and leaves us asking questions, never really answering them. We might regret this, but I can't help but believe that this is not a coincidence. After all, the second of the Ten Commandments was a prohibition against the making of images. Lest we think that, because God has revealed himself definitively in Jesus Christ, we can put God in a little box and keep him contained, so that he can never surprise us, the Spirit reminds us that God is always greater. Though it is indeed true that God has really make himself known to us in Jesus Christ, we must never get deceived into believing that we have gotten God all figured out.
In fact, it is precisely because God has revealed himself to us in Jesus Christ and that the Holy Spirit is indeed of the same being as Christ that I think we tend to misunderstand the Spirit and miss the real significance of the Spirit's work in our lives. There are two ways that I want to highlight the connection between the Spirit and Christ, which is so strong that we can truly speak of the Holy Spirit, as the Bible does, as "The Spirit of Christ."
The first of these is the mutual mediation of Christ and the Spirit. What this means is that our knowledge of Christ and our knowledge of the Spirit are absolutely bound to one another, whether we realize it or not. After all, how did we receive the Spirit for the very first time? If we simply read the Pentecost narrative, we might get the impression that the Spirit was a gift to humanity that is largely independent of what Christ has done among us. If that were the case, we could ask the question, "Why did God wait so long to sent that Spirit? Why could the Spirit not have been given long before?" However, when we remember what Jesus said to his disciples, we realize that this is not the way to think about it. What did he say? "Nevertheless 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." Jesus ties the gift of the Spirit with everything that he was doing among them. If Jesus had not come, lived, died, been raised and ascended to the Father, the Spirit simply could not have come. Our ability to receive the Spirit is utterly connected to what Christ has done among us.
So, it becomes clear that we can only receive the Spirit in and through Christ, but that is not the end of it. As it turns out, we can only receive Christ in and through the Spirit. There are some who might think this is odd. After all, are there not several people who seem to receive Christ without any reference to the Spirit at all? Surely we can point to several instances in the New Testament where people have something that certainly seems like faith in Christ before the Spirit was given. If that is the case, how can we possibly say that we do not receive Christ except in and through the Spirit, who was not sent until Pentecost?
And yet, we need to look, not just at what seems to be the case at any given time, but at the whole story. There is probably no greater example than Judas. Now, we come to the Gospel already knowing what happens to Jesus, that Judas betrays him. And yet, we need to always remember that absolutely nobody expected Judas to do what he did. If we remember the story of the Last Supper, we realize that, when Jesus said that he would be betrayed by one of his followers, the people did not say, "Oh, I'll bet its Judas. He's always been pretty shifty." Rather, they responded by wondering who it could possibly be. Judas was so well liked, so well trusted by the disciples and those who knew them, that they made him the treasurer of the group. The fact that Judas was anything less than the very most faithful of all people would have been utterly unthinkable.
Only slightly less clear of an example is Peter. He was a disciple who, if possible, seemed even more dedicated to his master. He not only did not betray Christ, he declared his undying faithfulness, that, if necessary, he would die rather than leave his side. He seemed to prove this because, when the police came for Jesus, he pulled out his sword and struck at one of the mob who was there to take him away.
And yet, Peter, this faithful one, did not follow through, did he? Rather, he joined the others and scattered. When he was directly asked about his relation to Jesus, he denied it three times. Even after Christ was raised from the dead, Peter was the one who led the others back to the fishing boat, to a lifestyle that goes back to a time before Jesus entered into their lives. Whatever faith Peter seemed to have, he only became the rock that Jesus said he would be at Pentecost. He was not already that rock; in fact, he seemed to be pretty wishy-washy. It was only when the Spirit entered into his life that he really knew Christ and followed him.
This is a challenging thing for us today. We live in a culture that judges outward actions, but condemns any attempt to judge inner intentions. Because of this, it is so easy to equate Christian faith with outward behavior. We see that a person is a good person, therefore, we assume, they must love God and have a vibrant faith. And yet, if the New Testament teaches us anything, it is that appearances can be deceiving. It has been said that the last great hiding place from God is the church, where people are so concerned about the fact that they do not really know God that they hide behind church activity and moral behavior. To drive it even closer to home, one might say that the last great hiding place to hide from God in the church is the seminary. There are many who go to seminary to train for pastoral ministry, only to find that they had never yet known Christ in faith.
What this means is that if we realize that we need to understand and listen to the Spirit, we cannot do so unless we devote ourselves to understanding and listening to Christ, for it is only through Christ that we can understand what the Spirit is doing. It also means that, if we want people to come to Christ, to give themselves to Jesus and to understand the life-changing power of God, it means that we must pray for the Spirit to move, for it is only through the Spirit that we can know Christ and his good news.
The other major point that we need to grasp about the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, is also exemplified in Jesus' words from John. "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When 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. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you."
This is really just about the most astonishing thing that Jesus says to his disciples. What he is saying is that, because of the weakness of human beings, there are many things that he wished that he could tell his disciples but they simply could not bear them at the time. The first thing is how astonishing it is that God would, in any way, be limited by our inability to receive. However, before we start despairing because, if God's work in our lives can be limited or frustrated because of our inabilities, we are surely lost, we must listen to what else Jesus is saying, for it is even more incredible yet.
Jesus is saying that his disciples cannot bear what he has to say to them. This is not surprising to us who know the rest of the story because the disciples all scatter when he is arrested. Clearly they aren't capable of really understanding what Jesus has to say. But that is not the final word. Jesus does not simply say, "Well, you can't handle it, so I guess you'll never know the truth." Instead he says that, after he goes away, the Spirit of truth will come and take the things of Christ and reveal them to his disciples. But this Spirit is not going to bring a strange message that bears no relation to what Jesus himself has said and done. Rather, Jesus points out that this Spirit will not speak on his own, but will speak what he hears, from Christ and the Father.
This radically intimate connection between Christ and the Holy Spirit is precisely why I have said before and will say again, that Pentecost is the most frightening and yet most encouraging of all Christian holidays. The reason why it is encouraging is that it is because of the giving of the Spirit of God to the church on Pentecost that we affirm that we, too, have been given the Spirit of Christ. By the power of this Spirit of Christ, we are utterly united to the ministry of Christ in this world of space and time. We as a church are commissioned by God to do the kinds of things that Jesus did, to teach the kinds of things that Jesus taught and be the kinds of people who Jesus was and, indeed, still is. And lest we think that this is impossible, this commission does not come merely to human beings, but to human beings who are indwelled by the very Spirit of God, who is of one and the same being as the Father and the Son, who not only takes up residence, but binds us to Christ in all things and in every way. It is the most encouraging of all days because we can take comfort that, when we set ourselves to be about God's business, it is not as though we are doing so in isolation from God, but are so connected to him that, in a very real sense, it is God doing God's business in and through us.
If that is why Pentecost is so encouraging, how could it possibly be frightening? It is frightening for exactly the same reasons that it is encouraging. It is frightening because, if it is really true that we are people who are not only people, but people intimately joined to God through Christ and in the Holy Spirit, then we are free for many things, but what we are not free to do is to live our lives as if the Holy Spirit had not been given and had not been received. It means that to live lives inconsistent with the life and work of Christ is not merely sinful and not merely inconsistent with our calling as the children of God, but it is utterly irrational. To behave as if the God revealed to us in Jesus Christ had not reached into our lives and transformed us and to live as though this God has nothing to say about how we treat one another, is foolish in the highest. To go about our lives in such a way that they are indistinguishable from the lives of those who either do not know God or actively hate him is to say either that God did not come among us, that he did not die for us, that he did not rise for us, and that he was not ascended for us, or that, at the end of the day, we simply do not believe it.
Pentecost, and the fact that the Spirit has been given to God's people without measure is frightening because many of us are not entirely sure if the kind of life that is demanded by the Spirit dwelling inside of us is something that we really want, or whether we would rather continue doing things the way things have always been, when things made sense, when we knew what was going on and we were the ones who were finally in charge of our lives. It is frightening, not because we do not know what the life of the Spirit means, but that we know all too well what it means.
But, brothers and sisters, consider this. In the blink of an eye, the disciples went from being the kind of people who scatter the moment anything difficult comes against them to being the kind of people who not only died for their faith, but were absolutely willing to do so. Not one of the apostles was put to death against their will. Imagine what it would be like if we as a community, and each of us as members within it, were so utterly characterized by the power of the Spirit that we were as bold as the apostles were all those long years ago? Why could the spirit that transformed that first generation of Christians not move afresh and join us to their radical, self-sacrificing example? It has happened many times throughout history, not least in the original Methodist revival under John Wesley. Why not here? Why not now? If the only difference between the Peter who denied Christ three times and the Peter who laid his life down for the gospel is the gift of the Spirit, why can we not also be joined to that same Spirit?
We have been called with a holy calling, a commission to join in Christ's ministry, in a life-changing movement, not because we are talented as the world counts talent, nor because we are wise, nor because we are strong, but simply and for no other reason than that we have been bound to Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Because of this, let us not trust in our talent, our wisdom, or our strength, but let us cling to Christ and to Christ alone, for he is the one who has redeemed us and has made us whole. Let us pray.

AMEN