out there's a land

 that time don't command

A Pentecost Sermon:

On any given Sunday you come to here as if it’s the most ordinary thing in the world to do. You could just as well be doing anything else. But, here you are —acting as if you’re perfectly normal!

These days though, at least in our little corner of the world, fewer and fewer folks are knocking down the doors of the church. More and more people are looking just a little sideways at our gatherings. Questioning just how normal you must be to be here this morning…
Once again, we’re being confronted with the scandal of The Church. How strange our little assembly each week, truly is…

Take comfort! You are certainly not the first to be told how strange your Sunday morning activities are - with God’s grace we won’t be the last, either. 

The first Christians certainly had no illusions about their gatherings. They knew how strange their Sunday morning plans made them.

A theologian once quipped, Christians would do well to give atheists more credit. We carry on is if this faith is perfectly reasonable. That only the strangest of folks wouldn’t sign up…

At the origin of The Church, though… 

On The Pentecost. The auspicious beginning of the Christian congregation. The moment the Church first had life breathed into it, we are confronted with just how weird our little weekly gathering is. 

When the Church was just getting started, the first thing onlookers say isn’t, “how can I join.” 

No, they wondered just what in the heck was going on. Words are not minced when the verdict is rendered. “These folks are drunk on cheap wine,” scoff the onlookers!

From the very beginning, what we do week in and week out, sounds more like slurred speech than anything else to the objective observers. 

Yet here you are, carrying on is if you’re the normal one!

Today though, Pentecost, tells us just how odd of a thing it is to belong to The Church. To gather as a member of none other than the body of Christ. 

The truth is, our assembly, this gathering, is still just as much of a scandal today as it ever was. The years between that first great Pentecost and today’s, will not mitigate just how strange any of this is.

The faith, what you’ve been given, is not anything we could have come up with on its own. Our assembly is not something folks like us could have put together by ourselves. No. This is the work of none other than that audacious, Holy Spirit. 

Come, Holy Spirit. 

You know, it’s only a recent invention to downplay just how unusual Christians are.

The first Christians couldn’t hide how odd their assemblies were. Martin Luther too, was well aware of the scandal of faith. That’s what he was after when he explained the Third Article of the Creed.

Which, I am sure you good Lutherans have memorized…

No?!?
Well, let me refresh your memory. “I believe,” he begins. 

Nothing unexpected so far. But then, he goes on. Then things get strange.

“I believe that I cannot by my own strength or understanding believe in Jesus Christ…”
You caught that, right??? 

Luther’s confession isn’t what he believes; it’s what he can’t believe! Luther knew perfectly well that we cannot believe this, left to our own devices!

When Luther sets out to speak of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints, the Forgiveness of Sin, the Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting; he doesn’t talk about what we can make sense of. Instead, he talks about the scandal of faith! The miracle that the Holy Spirit intervenes, giving you the power to trust any of this!

In other words, Luther knew —and we should admit— who are the reasonable ones on any Pentecost. Because it isn’t us! No, it’s those who peer in, and shake their head. Saying, ‘look at these folks, drunk on a Sunday morning. Tsk, tsk’ 

Your presence here this morning, our faith, isn’t ordinary. Anyone with two-whits can discern that!

The crowds look in that first Pentecost morning. All the most open-minded of them can do, is scratch their head and wonder just what is going on.
The most reasonable among them, give their judgement and then get back to business.

We who imagine our plans today are as normal as the Times or Starbucks, would do well to heed the onlooker’s evaluation. 

When you think this, this assembly, your presence here is perfectly ordinary, you’re going to miss what’s really spectacular about that first Pentecost. 

Because it isn’t the wind and the languages. No, that’s little more than a cool party-trick, compared to what’s really incredible. 

What really has the crowd questioning the believer’s sobriety, is what they’re talking about; God’s deeds of power. It’s what those first Christians are saying that’s really incredible!

‘If they believe any of that, these folks must be three-sheets to the wind,’ insists the most sober-minded in the crowd. 

And there it is.
Honestly, every Sunday, is a Sunday just as strange, as incredible, as that first Pentecost. 

That the Lord of Life would get loose and come for those of us who are dead to rights in our sin; 

That The Creator would get to work again, creating a people where before there was nothing right here;
That none other than The Holy Spirit would come to us, to this church on the side of S. Central/Sunnyside in little ‘ol Burlington, is just plain crazy! 

And even more incredible than any of that, though; is that you believe it.

Sure, when someone says it aloud, it does sound strange. And yes, when the familiarity of it finally breeds contempt, you can see how odd it all looks. This Good News seems too good to be true. It rings like wishful thinking ramped up to eleven.
Here’s the thing, though, you can’t help but believe it though, can you?

Something has gotten to you. Something has made these words come alive to you. 

Well, that isn’t any whistling in the dark, sisters and brothers.
Sure, I know first-hand just how stubborn you all are, but this isn’t obstinate burying your head in the sand. And yes, I know you’re all liberal marxists at heart, but this belief isn’t any opiate, either.

This part of you that can’t help but believe Jesus is risen from the dead, that he comes to you; that’s the work of none other than that audacious, Holy Spirit!

Come, Holy Spirit. 

It’s Jesus let loose! Making faith! Adopting you into the family of God!

That first Sunday of the Church’s existence, and this one too; it’s what Peter preached. For as boneheaded as he could be, you have to give it to him. He hit the nail on the head with that first sermon. “This is what was spoken through the prophet, ‘in the last days it will be,’” preaches Peter.

Now is the last day. This is the final day of judgement breaking into the present. The one who will sit on the throne, comes and gives his verdict: I claim this one, they belong to me. 

To many it sounds like drunk-talk; sure. For you who have been claimed by Jesus, though, it sounds like the truest thing ever spoken. And it is.

And that, sisters and brothers, is the work of none other than that audacious Holy Spirit.
Come, Holy Spirit.