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A New Name

6/11/2019

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Picture
​Gen. 11:1-9; Acts 2:1-21
Come Holy Spirit, come!
Come Holy Spirit, come!
Come Holy Spirit, fill our hearts with the Spirit of Jesus, open our hearts to Jesus, speaking the truth of Jesus, following the footsteps of Jesus, serving each other and our community with the love of Jesus – yes, come Spirit come!
     Our Pentecost story begins this morning in the most unusual manner:  with the passage about the Tower of Babel. What on earth does the Tower of Babel have to do with Pentecost?  Let us take a closer look.
We come to the Tower of Babel and find, unlike in earlier chapters of Genesis, the people are unified. One language. Same words. Settled in one place. They say – “come let us make bricks… let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens and let us make a name for ourselves, otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”
        For the first time in Genesis we read a story that seems to be positive. People coming together. Cooperating. No one is cursing. No killing. No jealousy. No one is blaming anyone else.   No one is boasting about murdering someone else.  No one’s getting drunk and naked. So why isn’t God happy for once?
        In the story of Babel, there is communication among the people. But there is not a single instance of communication between the people and God.  The people take action and God is not consulted. Now this is a first.
        In an act that is reminiscent of God’s creation of humanity from the dust of the earth, the people make bricks.   They build a city. And they build a great tower to reach the heavens that will be so grand that they plan to make a name for themselves.  These ancient towers were special shrines, supposedly homes to the gods. But the builders of Babel wanted more. They wanted to be remembered for this accomplishment. They will be called sons and daughters of the gods, as in the ways of old. They build a tower that created their own version of paradise. A different identity. We can do this without you God, thank you very much.
     When God creates and names, it is in order to bless and enhance life and for God to be connected to humanity. When the people use their God-given ability to create, it is to move away from God. Usurp God. This Tower of Babel is not to bless, but to seize control, create a separate destiny, to achieve distinction and power outside the purview of God. There is no sense of fruitfulness and goodness inherent in creation as God intended.
        So, in a scene reminiscent of Genesis 3, when God walked in the Garden after the disobedience of Adam and Eve.   God goes down and walk in the human-made paradise. God sees that the same language, the same words, gathering in the same place, is out of fear and rebellion. It is not true unity.  It is uniformity. A uniformity where everyone must sound the same and act the same. From God’s perspective, it is better to be scattered and forced to learn your name, your identity, your purpose and be a blessing, than to live in false security, fear, and speak and act like everyone else, in one great group-speak.
        So, in an act of judgment and mercy, God forces the people to scatter.  They are forced to leave their version of paradise. But God be praised, that is not the end of the story.  Like with every act of human defiance, God provides a new way forward, a way to God’s original blessing:  that we be fruitful and multiply – not just in numbers, but in acts of goodness, mercy, kindness and creativity.
        So what does the Tower of Babel have to do with Pentecost?
              Pentecost, you see, is the antithesis to the Tower of Babel. On the feast of Pentecost, the disciples are gathered as one, in accordance with Jesus’ instructions.  They were afraid but did not act on their fear. They were willing to pray together and wait until God acted.  They are filled with Holy Spirit, and this Holy Spirit, instead of keeping them cut off, a self-contained group – scatters them out-- sends them forth into the streets. The difference is the disciples through the power of the Holy Spirit understand all the different nationalities present; they speak and the peoples from all around the world could understand the disciple’s message. Dozens of different languages.   A New kind of unity was created, a unity only Holy Spirit could create, a unity characterized by the diversity of gifts, skin colors, social status, opinions, of the people of God. This is the Pentecost blessing. The building of a living community of various languages grounded in Holy Spirit power.
     On Pentecost, God created a different kind of tower. Not a vertical tower, like the tower of Babel, reaching up to the clouds alone -- but a living, tower which each person, each nationality, each language, is a needed brick –  a tower held together by the mortar of the Holy Spirit – building the kingdom of God – forged by deeds of holiness and compassion.  A living structure whose mandate is to cover the entire earth, to reach the heavens, not by our making, but by the very power of the Holy Spirit, - sent by God to abide with us and teach us everything that we need to learn, and remind us of all that Jesus taught us about salvation, right living and love of God and neighbor.
        In Pentecost - God indeed wants our name to be great – not great to lord it over someone else -- but great in the example of kindness, humility, patience, service.  You see, if we follow the story line, soon after the God scattered the people from the Tower of Babel, God called out to Abraham and Sarah, called them on a journey, and promised to make his name great, not by any means Abraham could do, but by God’s grace, in establishing a lineage that would lead to Jesus, at whose Name every knee shall bend, every tongue confess as Lord.  Pentecost is a reminder:  The Spirit of Jesus is with us and leads us out of the Babels of our lives to new community, where we love and are loved for who we are, not for whom the world tells us we should be.  Where we hear each other and speak to each other in honesty and in ways we can be heard.
         We have a choice:  will we spend our energies “making a name for ourselves” or will seek to bless the earth in the name of Jesus?  Will we seek unity via uniformity or unity in diversity of the body of Christ?   May the holy spirit we have received lead us to be a blessing and to share our abundant gifts where we are placed.  May this Pentecost see us forth, as one people, keeping the commandments of Jesus, sharing our dreams, sharing visions, to be a unified people, created for unity in diversity, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen
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Praising God at Midnight

6/5/2019

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Acts 16:16-34

 
        Harriet Tubman, the African-American abolitionist whose image will someday grace our $20 bills, was known for her prophetic visions.   While young she kept having a dream about a line that seemed to divide slavery from freedom. She did not know anything about the Mason-Dixon line, but that was what she was seeing. In the dream, she kept seeing people from the North calling her Moses and holding out their hands to her, beckoning her to cross the line. As a slave, she was brutally treated. Once her master threw a two-pound weight at her head for failing to help recapture an escaped slave.   This caused her a severe concussion and a lifetime of headaches and narcolepsy. She was 14 years old. 

Eventually Tubman escaped to freedom.  Not satisfied with her own safety, she founded the Underground Railroad, returning to the South at least 19 times, helping over 300 slaves to freedom.  Despite the dangers and trials she face, Harriet Tubman remained true to her vision of freeing slaves, even when a bounty of $40,000 (now about one million dollars in today’s money) on her head.

Last week, we heard how Paul also had a vision of a man from Macedonia (now north-eastern Greece) pleading with him to come and help them.   It was Paul’s longed for vision to go into the west, to Gentiles, a seed planted at his conversion 14 years earlier. This vision came in the midst of change in the fledgling church and in the midst of disagreements and other setbacks. The vision came after Paul had traveled over 300 miles throughout the Province of Asia (Modern day Turkey), finding doors to spread the gospel closed repeatedly.  Yet Paul persevered and managed to get one household to convert – Lydia, a well to do Gentile businesswoman, as we heard in last week’s lesson.  Not a bad start, but not exactly what Paul expected.  Where were the regular, god-fearing male prospects that would lend credence to this new movement?

So, who was the next believer after Lydia?  Today we learn it is a slave girl possessed by a spirit of divination, whose talent made lots of money for her owners.  This slave girl follows Paul and Silas around for days, proclaiming, “These men are slaves of the Most High God, who proclaim to you a way of salvation.”  Instead of welcoming the free advertisement, Paul, in a fit of annoyance, rebukes the spirit and it leaves her.   Angry that their source of income has been destroyed, the slave owners have the mob incited against them claiming they are upsetting Roman customs and disturbing the city. Paul and Silas are stripped of their clothing and beaten with rods.  After a severe flogging they are thrown into jail, taken to the innermost, most secure cell, with their feet fastened in the stocks.  So much for Paul’s vision, right?

So beaten and bloody, bound with chains, in a windowless cell, their future uncertain, Paul and Silas find themselves in the middle of the night.  The hour of visions and dreams.  The hour of soul searching and self-appraisal.

        At an hour when one might be filled with doubt, or distress, even anger toward God,  Paul and Silas did none of that.  Instead they found another way to deal with their dilemma.  The midnight hour finds them praying and praising God.   And something happened as they prayed and praised God.  An earthquake occurred. The doors opened and the chains broke.  Paul and Silas had the opportunity to escape but they didn’t.  Instead they ministered to the terrified jail guard and told him to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and he and his household would be saved.   As a result, in the middle of the night the West received another native convert:  a hardened Roman prison guard.  The gospel seed had been planted in the West.  The world would never be the same again.  

          Now we know that the midnight hour does not always come at 12:00am.  It descends upon us whenever it feels as if the forces have turned against us.  When we have been misunderstood, lied about, manipulated, imprisoned or entrapped in some situation.    At that moment praising or thanking God, praying to God, feels furthest from our lips.

The real test of our faith, as Paul and Silas demonstrated, is praying and praising God when life doesn’t feel all that joyful and full of promise.   Ultimately, it’s about cultivating hope, faith and love --the foundation upon which visions from God are built to last.  Harriet Tubman knew this.  That’s why she was so successful and never lost one slave she brought to freedom.

Any individual, any church, that seeks to fulfill its vision must possess this gift.  Visions come and grow in the midst of change, uncertainty, challenges and setbacks.   Visions are sustained and grow in the soil of midnight praise, thanksgiving and prayer.
Whatever notions Paul and Silas had, God saw it fit that the first believers to come out of the western effort would be a gentile businesswoman named Lydia, a slave girl, and a Roman soldier. Not some pious male Jews.  You see, that is God’s vision – that we learn to embrace through trials and hardships. A vision so different from our own.  Paul kept praying and praising, through all his trials, imprisonments and challenges.  Harriet Tubman gave all credit to God:  “Twasn't me, 'twas the Lord! I always told Him, 'I trust to you. I don't know where to go or what to do, but I expect You to lead me,' an' He always did“ We can take a page from Tubman’s book.

         This church has a vision. This church has a calling to spread the gospel, to bring good news, in the community.  How will we discover what that vision is?  Like the early church in the midst of discernment, change that uproots old, hardened habits.  Like Paul who journeyed and journeyed never giving up even with the door slammed in his face, even when beaten down and thrown in prison.  The vision comes, in the songs and praise at midnight. Do we have a vision waiting for us?  Do we have a vision calling us?  Are we willing to change, to let go of old tired ways, ways that are safe, familiar?  Are we willing to let go?  Are we willing to praise God at midnight so we can align ourselves with God’s calling?  Are we willing to pray ceaselessly in our prisons for the sake of the vision of Jesus wants to pour out in our hearts? Are we willing to be freed from our prisons?
​
God has a vision for us. Like he did for abolitionist Harriet Tubman, like he did for the disciples Paul and Silas.  Let us heed Jesus’ words of the Great Commission – to go forth to all the nations with the gospel.  Surrounded by so many great examples, let us pray and praise God like them even when midnight closes in -- because no evil can withstand the vision of God, no prison walls can block the vision of God, no chains can hold down the vision of God, no defeat, no failure can keep the vision of God from filling the hearts of the people of God, as long as we pray and praise God at midnight and right here, right now. Let us pray and praise. Let us pray and praise. Let us pray and praise and let us pray for God’s vision to break through. amen

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p1535.html
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/harriet_tubman.html


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    Moirajo is a minister, social worker, wife, mother, writer and animal lover. That's just for starters. Join the story, there's so much we can share together! 

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