“Perplexing” based on Acts 2:1-18 and John 20:19-23

June 4, 2017February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

Drew,
today’s confirmand, planned this worship service. He had a lot of
leeway. I was surprised at how little of it he used, and how
intentional he was in the decisions he did make. Drew likes worship
the way we usually do it, but there were some tweaks. Please
pay attention to the labeling of the music at the beginning and end
of worship 😉

Some
of the leeway Drew had was in picking the scriptures for today. He
asked what was traditionally read on this day and we read together
the Pentecost texts from the Revised Common Lectionary, year A.
After questions about the texts themselves, he decided that we should
read the two different versions of the Pentecost story from Acts and
John. When we discussed the sermon he suggested that I compare and
contrast the stories, and then pull out the meaning that is in both
of them for all of us.

I
like this young man’s idea of a sermon 😉

The
Christian liturgical calendar follows the Luke-Acts narrative about
Pentecost, placing it 50 days after Easter. The Greek ordinal number
for 50? Pentecosto. Pentecost was a part of the Jewish Celebration
of Booths (sometimes called Tabernacle), celebrated 50 days after the
Passover, and was a harvest festival. Luke’s placement of the coming
of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost is saturated with meaning. The
harvest festival becomes a harvest of new Jesus followers. The
harvest festival was celebration of the bounty as a sign of of God’s
care for the people, and Luke reimagines it as a celebration of God’s
care for the people through the sending of the Holy Spirit.

It
is on this basis that Christianity celebrates the Season of Easter
for 50 days, starting on Easter Sunday and culminating in Pentecost.
We do it because Luke and Acts tell us that the gift of the Spirit
came 50 days later.

John,
however, disagrees. Neither Matthew nor Mark present any version of
this story, so the debate is simply between Luke-Acts and John. (Ah,
I should explain my language. Luke and Acts are written by the same
person and meant to be parts 1 &2 of the same book, however the
order of the New Testament messes this up.) John’s gospel places the
gift of the Holy Spirit on Easter evening. We may sometimes gloss
over this story, because it gets used as an opening to the story
about Thomas, who wasn’t there when the Spirit was given. The story
is less often heard standing alone, and it didn’t get prime attention
in the creation of the Christian calendar, which prefers Luke’s
version.

The
stories are VERY different. Luke-Acts takes place in the morning, a
fact we are reminded of because Jesus’ followers are again being
accused of being drunk. John’s version takes place at night.
Luke-Acts’s version happens in public, others see the impact of the
Spirit, and they hear the preaching, and many are converted. John’s
version involves a large group of disciples as well, but without an
audience. There is more FUSS in Luke-Act’s version, more description
of the event, more of a miraculous feel. John’s version is
relatively quiet. It mostly focuses on Jesus speaking.

In
Luke-Acts, the crowd responds to the disciples speak. It says they
were amazed, bewildered, and perplexed. The movement of the Spirit
and its impact seemed startling, and not in particularly comfortable
ways. The Spirit is known to blow as she will, and that often makes
people uncomfortable.

(An
aside: the last time I read about the Spirit, the Bible translation
I read from referred to the Spirit with feminine pronouns. Afterward
I was asked about it, and had the chance to share the fact that the
Spirit’s pronouns in Hebrew are feminine, and some translators follow
the Hebrew, despite the fact that in Greek the Spirit is gender
neutral and in Latin the Spirit is masculine. Since the Creator most
often gets male pronouns in the Bible, I also tend to want to follow
the Hebrew pronouns for the sake of balance within our conceptions of
God.)

In
both texts the Spirit comes to the Body as a WHOLE. The Spirit is
NOT received by one person, but instead by many. In Luke-Acts, given
that the occurrence is during a Jewish pilgrimage festival, faithful
Jews had filled the city to be witnesses, but the people in the house
together all receive the gift together.

The
writer in the New Interpreter’s Bible, has a fantastic comment on the
fact that the faithful Jews from around the diaspora took note that
the Galilean men were speaking to them in their languages. They
could still tell that the men were Galilean, including by their
speech. Robert Wall says, “The language of the Spirit is not
communicated with perfect or heavenly diction, free from the marks of
human identity; it is the language of particular human groups, spoken
in their idiom. God works in collaboration with real people –
people who are filled with the Spirit to work on God’s behalf in
their own world.”¹
I rather love that idea. The Spirit moved, and certainly in
unexpected ways, but still worked within the people as they were,
including with their existent accents!

Now,
likely because of the tradition doing so, I associate the story in
Acts as the normative Pentecost story, which means that I’m intrigued
by the version in John. As previously mentioned, it also involves
the Spirit coming to a group of Jesus followers, it was likely NOT
just the 12 because John doesn’t tend to think in terms of just the
12 and he didn’t designate them as such. A group of followers were
simply gathered, and they had an experience of the Risen Christ,
which IMMEDIATELY involved receiving the gift of the Spirit.

Jesus
speaks in five sentences, and two of them are saying “Peace be with
you.” This is a particularly apt greeting for the frightened
followers who had fearfully locked themselves into an upstairs room –
after hearing the women’s Easter story! The double naming of peace
both sounds like a traditional greeting imbued with God AND serves as
a reminder that fear need not define their lives. Those faithful
disciples were going to face significant persecution in coming days
and years, but Jesus, God, AND the Spirit were calling them to do so
in a different way, with the Peace of God within them.

In
this version the gift of the Spirit is the gift given so that the
followers of Jesus can continue his work, they become HIM and are
empowered to do as he had done. He was sent, so they are sent. He
breaths on them as God has breathed on the first humans in Genesis.
A new life is beginning, one that is defined by peace.

Now,
I have never much liked the LAST line of this passage, John 20:23,
which has Jesus saying, “If
you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain
the sins of any, they are retained.“ My objections aren’t
particularly deep. I j shy away from sin language, as I’ve too often
seen it lead to guilt and shame rather than to a free and abundant
life of peace and joy with God.

However,
Gail O’Day’s commentary on John (also in the New Interpreter’s Bible)
fixed a lot of problems for me, and made me rather glad that line was
included. She says that, “In John, sin
is a theological failing,
not a moral or behavioral transgression (in contrast to Matt. 18:18).
To have sin is to be blind to the revelation of God in Jesus.”²
Furthermore, given this understanding, “The forgiveness of sins
must be understood as a Spirit-empowered mission of continuing Jesus’
work in the world.”³
And, finally, this work is the work of the community, and never one
person alone.

So,
let me see if I can remake those words so they fit with O’Day’s
insights. But maybe first, you should
know that Gail O’Day is Dean
and Professor of New Testament and Preaching at Wake Forest
School of Divinity, and was previously professor of homeletics at
Candler school of Theology at Emory. She’s an amazing scholar, and
especially well respected as a scholar of the Gospel of John.
Following her insights, it would be as if Jesus said, “If you work
together to help people see God at work in the world, they will be
free from their fears and able to live in peace with you. If you
leave people in the fear they already know, there they will stay,
without the blessings that you now live with.”

In
O’Day’s reflections on this text, she continually turns back to John
14-17, which is called the Farewell Discourse. Within it are the
defining words, in John 15:12, “ ‘This
is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
O’Day reflects on the continuity between the passages, “By loving
one another as Jesus loves, the faith community reveals God to the
world”⁴
Thus, the seemingly problematic line that the institutional church
has often used to claim authority over people’s lives and access to
forgiveness is really
about
inviting the followers of Christ to share God’s love, and in doing so
to show other people the possibility of living life in peace, love,
joy, and freedom from fear.

Perhaps
it isn’t so perplexing after all. Perhaps the story of Pentecost is
the story we already know: God calls us to love one another and be
examples of the gracious and abundant love of God in the world. And
that can change everything, because it is the completion of the
Easter narrative – no matter when it happened ;). Thanks be to God
for the opportunity we have to extend love into the world. Amen

1Robert
W. Wall, New Interpreter’s Bible Volume X: Acts Leander E. Keck editorial board convener (Nashville: Abingdon Press,
2002) 58.

2Gail
O’Day, New Interpreter’s Bible Volume IX: John, Leander
E. Keck editorial board convener (Nashville: Abingdon Press,1995)
847.

3O’Day,
847

4New
Interpreter’s Bible, John, 848.

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

Pronouns: she/her/hers

http://fumcschenectady.org/
https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

Sermons

“All Messed Up” based on Acts 16:16-39

May 8, 2016February 15, 2020
by Sara Baron

This story is all messed up. To begin with, Paul is a very questionable hero. He doesn’t seem to act in order to benefit the slave girl. In fact, the text says explicitly that he was “very much ANNOYED” by her and that’s why he healed her. Annoyance – not compassion, love, or concern for her well-being, annoyance.

Truth be told, the story doesn’t really seem to care about the slave girl either. The slave girl is not named, the text does not indicate that Paul ever spoke to HER directly, and it does not tell us what happens to her after she was “healed.” She’s a narrative means to an end.

The spirit in her is used to tell us that the followers of Jesus’s way were in fact slaves of the Most High God. Her status as a slave may exist primarily as a narrative device, whereby the enslaved is able to name the slave-to-God status of others. While it is suggested that her owner’s were angered by losing the money she had been making them, the accusations they made against Paul and Silas don’t even have anything to do with that.

Of the girl herself we know very little. She was a slave. She had a spirit of divination. It made her owners a lot of money. She followed around Paul and his company, and her truth-telling about them got annoying after a few days, so Paul ordered the spirt of out of and it came out. Then she wasn’t worth as much money.

Those aren’t terribly human facts to know about someone. We know nothing of her motivation, although her motivation could reasonably be assumed within the confines of the story, to be the spirit and not her! We don’t know what happens next for her. Is she beaten because she is now worthless? What back-breaking labor does she land in? How old is she anyway? What other work may she be used for now? What she grateful? Was the spirit something that benefitted her life or harmed it (go with the story on this one, we can’t change the story, so we might as well accept its premises for a moment).

Not only do we know nothing about her, we also don’t know why Paul failed to SEE her or have any mercy on her. If he had the power to take away the spirit, then maybe he could have done so earlier. On the other hand, having the spirit made her more valuable, which may have improved her life. But he doesn’t seem to CARE and neither does the story.

At best, this part of the passage might just be a retelling of the parable of the Widow and the Unjust Judge.

[Jesus said,] ‘In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, “Grant me justice against my opponent.” For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, “Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.” (Luke 18:2-5)

Paul gets worn down by a spirit, and orders the spirit out of slave girl. Like the judge, he doesn’t act out of justice or obligation, he uses his power because he is ANNOYED.

Later, when he gets out of jail because of his inborn status as a Roman Citizen, he demands HIS rights as a Roman Citizen, and is upset that he was mistreated because HE deserves better because of his power in the world. Paul demands a public apology, but only for how he was treated. He doesn’t ask about her status, or indicate that she mattered.

In Acts, Peter is presented as “the new Jesus.” Paul isn’t. Thanks be to God. I don’t know what Peter would have done in this case, nor can I really speak to what Jesus would have done. Yet, I’d like to believe they would have SEEN the girl, and not just been annoyed by the spirit. I want to think they’d worry about her life too. Stories of Jesus seem to imply that lives matter, even the lives of people who have been beaten down by life.

In this story, Paul fails to do so.

And yet, he doesn’t. The second half of the story is different from the first half. The interaction with the jailer is amazing, beautiful, miraculous, and shows an INCREDIBLE amount of empathy for the very person who was oppressing them. Paul and Silas cared about the jailer, and the ways that they responded to the jailer saved his life and showed him a new way of being. The way that Paul responds to the jailer is exemplary. He SEES him and cares about him, without even knowing him. That feels like how Jesus would have handled it.

The story of the earthquake in jail, and the prisoners staying put is pretty darn weird. I suppose Paul knew that the authorities would figure things out sooner rather than later, so he wasn’t particularly concerned. Yet in most cases in human history, the cycle of oppression wins out. One person or group oppresses another, and if the oppressed ever get a chance to lead, they respond with oppression as well. Prisoners taking gentle care of their jailers breaks the cycle of oppression. That being said, as a GENERAL rule, I don’t think this is a model we have to follow. It is a good thing to keep in mind when you already know you are SAFE, but not necessarily a good choice every time.

Paul’s actions in prison were very effective in proclaiming that the way of Jesus was different than the ways of the world. The jailer converted. Paul didn’t, however, call out the economic injustice, the inherent human dignity of the slave girl, or even the position of jailer in a system of oppression. Paul’s actions mostly left things the same, and didn’t lead people to fuss over them, other than worrying about if they’d get in trouble for misidentifying a Roman Citizen.

I think he could have done better. I think these stories are all messed up. That’s a relief! It indicates that sometimes the people of God mess up, and although we are doing our best, we fail to see the most loving way forward. Sometimes we don’t notice the calls for justice around us. Sometimes we’re just plain wrong! Often we don’t SEE.

Yet, God continues to work through Paul through the rest of Paul’s life. The writer of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles has told some pretty important stories for the history of human kind. That is, the failure of Paul and the story to get it right isn’t the final answer. (Not that this helps the slave girl one little bit. Nothing does.)

Yet, it doesn’t stop here. Paul kept developing, and learning more deeply how to love. He would eventually write the famous words to the Galatians, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:28-29) Paul would come to know that slaves have value and that women have value. Perhaps if he looked back on his life, he would have regretted how he acted on that one day, but it didn’t define his life.

We can make mistakes, and learn to do better later. It’s normal. It’s human. In fact, we can’t do otherwise! God is certainly capable of forgiving us, and that should lead us to believe that we can be capable of forgiving ourselves.

want to share God’s love and God’s light at General Conference, even with those with whom I disagree. I don’t want to compromise, and I WILL NOT compromise on the inherent dignity and worthiness of all of God’s people regardless of sexual preference or gender identity. (Obviously.) And yet, the people who stand in opposition to inclusion are not the enemy. They simply don’t know better – yet. Many of us in this room have struggled along the journey to get to inclusion. (Some of us who are younger, had open-minded parents, and attended great churches in our youth didn’t have to struggle, but that makes us much more lucky than wise.) If those of us in this room, who now so consistently act out of regard for the wholeness of your sisters and brothers who are LGBTQI, were once not so sure, then it is clear that God’s grace can win in the hearts of others as well.

No one’s mind will be changed by yelling though, nor by nastiness. As Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” Love is the only way forward, especially in the face of hatred and fear. As I get ready to leave, I’m pondering how to make space for God’s love to flow through me to drive out hate. I wonder how I can serve as a light.

Now, as previously discussed, I am convinced that the time has come for acts of disobedience and non-violent direct action that will disrupt the normal system. I believe that The United Methodist Church acts as an oppressor doing harm to beloved children of God, and I believe (as I have believed throughout my life) that I am to be part of changing that. The question is how to keep my heart and mind peaceful, steady, and focused on love while I do so. People are going to say terrible things, and things are at times going to go terribly wrong.

But the people who say terrible things are misguided, not evil. The things that will go terribly wrong are not permanent. God is love, God is creator, God is powerful beyond measure. God’s will win out in the end – either through The United Methodist Church or The United Methodist Church will die so that God’s love can live. Nothing else is the final answer. Nothing else can be. God’s love always wins. That is, the Love of God will win out in the end, no matter how much human beings at the church at large mess it up right now.

Two of my favorite prayer practices interrelate. I’ve mentioned them before, but it is worth a reminder today. One prayer practice is to breath in love and breath out stress, fear, and anything that holds you back from love/God. That one is wonderfully de-stressing. The other is to breath in the pain of the world, and allow God to transform it within you, so that you can breath out love.

It is my intention to pray that prayer over and over again. It is my intention to try to live that prayer through the next two weeks. When you are able, I invite you to join me. When the pain becomes too much to bear it may help. (If it doesn’t, return immediately to the other one and soak up love until you can go forward again!) We are, all of us, called to be God’s love and God’s light in the world. We are to participate in co-creating the world with God. We are to use our power to bring in the kin-dom. We are able to participate in changing hate into love.

Let us breathe. Amen

–

Rev. Sara E. Baron

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305

http://fumcschenectady.org/

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

May 8, 2016