by Jeffrey Spencer | Jul 4, 2023 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for June 25
Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost – June 25, 2023
Matthew 10:24-39
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
What are some things you are afraid of? According to surveys, some of the most common things people are afraid of include spiders and snakes. People are also commonly afraid of heights and of needles. Some people are afraid of thunder and lightning, or enclosed spaces. These are all pretty common, everyday fears. Many of these are instinctual or primal. They help us survive as a species.
Other fears go deeper. There is the fear of rejection, the fear of not having enough money to get by, the fear of the safety or health of a loved one, the fear of being alone. These kinds of fears keep people’s minds racing and their hearts aching.
Another common fear, of course, is the fear of death. I was visiting with someone this week who was asking about the differences between a cremation and a casket burial. I gently inquired as to whether this person preferred one over the other. She furrowed her brow and said, “Actually, I’m not thrilled about either one of them.”
In our gospel reading for today we pick up right where we left off last week. Last week we heard how Jesus sent the disciples out to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He sent them out to share the good news that the kingdom of heaven has come near. As he sent them, Jesus warned them that not everyone would welcome them. He warned them that they would face hostility and rejection and persecution. He warned them that he was sending them out as sheep into the midst of wolves. He warned them that they would face hostility even from family members.
This had to have stirred up no small amount of anxiety among them. How could it not? As we pick up where we left off last week, Jesus addresses these fears. Jesus acknowledges the things that cause them to be afraid, and he alleviates those fears with perspective and with promises.
One of those fears is the fear of being maligned. To be maligned is to be thought of as evil. It is to be slandered. It is to be called derogatory names. It is, to use a modern phenomenon, to be cancelled. This is what people were doing to Jesus. Some called him “Beelzebul.” This term literally means, “Lord of the flies.” It was a derogatory term the Jewish people used for the false gods of their pagan neighbors. This term was being used by some to describe Jesus! Jesus was the farthest thing from a false foreign god, but this term was being used to malign and belittle him. And the disciples, Jesus says, can expect to be called even worse! “If they call the master of the house ‘Beelzebul,’ how much more will they malign those of his household!”
The Latin root of “malign” literally means to align with something bad. This isn’t unlike our own unfortunate modern phenomenon of aligning people with whom we disagree about some political issue with Nazis or fascists or racists or commies. Those terms are thrown around awfully loosely these days. It is a quick and easy way to end debate and malign someone you disagree with. And it is very effective in shutting people up! A recent survey revealed that more than half of respondents were afraid to share an opinion or perspective on something because they were afraid of the potential backlash. They were afraid of being maligned in this way. That’s what they tried to do to Jesus, and that’s what they were going to try to do to his followers too.
But Jesus told his disciples to not be afraid. He addressed their fears with perspective and with a promise. “Have no fear of them,” Jesus said, “for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known.” In other words, what they were proclaiming about Jesus would be shown to be true in good time. The truth of God they were sharing would be vindicated in the end. And so didn’t need to be afraid! They could be brave! They could be bold! They could shout it from the rooftops, without fear!
What if one of these maligners got a hold of them? What if they became violent? What if they were killed for their faith? I’m sure the disciples weren’t thrilled about this possibility any more than any of us would be! It was a legitimate fear.
But here again Jesus addresses this fear with perspective and a promise. First comes the perspective: “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul;” Jesus says, “rather, fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.”
Does this mean we should be cowering in fear of God instead? No! Remember, Jesus is trying to encourage his disciples here. He is infusing them with courage, not fear. This is a matter of perspective. Jesus is pointing out that God is infinitely more powerful than any adversary we face. God is capable of inflicting the deeper death of eternal separation from God. Jesus isn’t giving us something different to be afraid of. Jesus has come to save us from this separation. His death and resurrection has saved us from it. As Paul writes in our second reading from Romans, “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” The point is not that we should be cowering before God, uncertain about our salvation. The point is to not be afraid at all! The point is that there are things worse than death. The point is to trust God and fear no one.
And with the perspective comes a promise: “Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?” Jesus asks them. “Yet not one of them will fall to the ground unperceived by your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
Sparrows were the food of the poor in Jesus’ time. They were netted and plucked and put on skewers and roasted. Think of Wingstop, but without all the delicious dipping sauces. As strange as it might sound to us to eat songbirds, they were plentiful, and so they were cheap. Two for a penny, Jesus says! This was a main source of protein for the poor. There were skewered sparrows roasting on grills all over the ancient near east, and yet, Jesus says, not one of them fell to the ground without the Father knowing about it. God has that intimate knowledge about all the living things in his creation.
In the same way, Jesus says, he knows about you. Even the hairs on your head are all counted by God the Father! He cares about you enough to know these most intimate details, to actually count each hair! So do not be afraid. You are of more value than many sparrows. You, as a human being, have more value than many sparrows. You are made in the image of God. When the Word became flesh, it didn’t come as a tweety bird but as a human being, as one of us! God loves the birds, yes, but we are of more value to God, Jesus says, than many sparrows! And so we do not need to be afraid.
Perhaps the deepest fear plaguing the disciples is one we touched on last week: “What are my parents going to think?” To go off and follow Jesus posed a grave threat to family relationships. We hear how James and John left their father to follow Jesus. Poor Zebedee was left to run the family fishing business without his sons. We don’t know how he felt about that, but it isn’t hard to imagine some strained relationships developing. When Martin Luther decided to quit law school to serve God as a monk, his father was furious!
Jesus tells his disciples they can expect this to happen. He tells them he has come not to bring peace, but a sword. This is absolutely not an invitation to take up arms in the name of Jesus. When Peter drew his sword on the night of Jesus’ arrest, Jesus promptly told him to put it away. This is a symbolic sword. What Jesus is saying is that he will bring divisions, even amongst family members.
As mentioned last week, this is not something God wants to see happen. The fourth commandment upholds the divine order of fathers and mothers being at the heart of family life and worthy of honor. But at the same time, Jesus knows that the call to follow him will sometimes result in divisions even between these most cherished relationships. The disciples aren’t to be afraid of this either. They are to put him first.
Some of the fears we have are helpful. They are supposed to be there. Being afraid of spiders or snakes or heights or lightning helps to keep us from harm. But there are other fears which are not helpful. There are fears which paralyze us. There are fears which prevent us from following Jesus. There are fears which keep our mouths shut, preventing his gospel from being shared.
Like the disciples, we fear being maligned. We want so badly to be liked by everyone. We fear rejection. We fear what harm might come to us if we are public about our faith in Christ. In our time and place we are not likely to be killed over it, thanks be to God, but it could mean other significant sacrifices for us, sacrifices that seem scary. Some might even fear what will come of their relationships with non-Christian family members if they get too serious about their faith. There is a fear that following Jesus too closely or fervently might mean alienating loved ones.
Speaking to these fears, Jesus gives us perspective and promises. For perspective, Jesus reminds us that all the truths we confess about God which are currently only accessible by faith will one day be shown to be true. He reminds us that God is more powerful than any adversary or challenge we face, and so we should trust God and fear no one and nothing. He reminds us that God alone is worthy of our deepest love and loyalty.
Jesus not only gives us perspective; he gives us a promise: We are more valuable to him than many, many sparrows. He has the hairs on our heads all counted! He loves us enough to keep that close of an eye on us! Not one of us will fall without our Father knowing about it. We are loved and we are his. And so we have nothing to fear.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Jun 20, 2023 | Sermons
Sermon for the Third Sunday after Pentecost – June 18, 2023
Matthew 9:35-10:23
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Last summer we had a drive-in movie here in our church parking lot. We watched the movie “Overcomer.” As some of you will recall, “Overcomer” is about a girl named Hannah who, though she is asthmatic, runs cross country for her high school. Hannah makes it to the big state championship race. Her father, who is hospitalized, can’t be there to cheer her on, but he records an audio track for her to listen to through her earbuds as she runs. You see, Hannah’s father used to run cross country himself. He looked at the map of the course, anticipating the challenges and obstacles she would face. He timed everything just so, and told her to push play when the starting gun went off. As she runs, in her earbuds she hears her father’s voice telling her about the challenges she should watch for. She hears her father’s voice coaching her through the steep hills. She hears her father’s voice telling her he loves her and to not to give up.
In our gospel reading for today, Jesus isn’t sending his disciples out to run a cross country race, but he is sending them out to run a challenging course with many obstacles.
Jesus saw the crowds and had compassion for them. He saw so many people who were harassed and helpless. They were like sheep without a shepherd. They were set upon by predatory and destructive forces. Sometimes they were their own worst enemy. They were threatened and bewildered, hurting and afraid, wandering and lost.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Jesus saw these masses of people wandering aimlessly, limping and lost, as an opportunity. These are the people he had come for. This was the reason he came. It was time to gather them in. It was time for the harvest!
And so, in order to multiply his work of proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, Jesus commissioned his disciples to go out into this harvest, gathering people into his kingdom. Jesus gave his disciples authority to do ministry in his name. He gave them power to act in his stead, bringing his healing, his forgiveness, bringing new life in his name.
But this wouldn’t be flatland farming. This would be more like farming in the Palouse, with all its hills. Knowing there would be many hills to climb and much difficult terrain, knowing there would be many obstacles in their way, many challenges to overcome, Jesus gave them instructions. He coached them. Jesus knew it would be a difficult path. He knew it would be painful at times. Jesus anticipated exactly what would happen to them and he talked them through it all so that they would endure.
But this isn’t just a historical record of what Jesus said a long time ago. We confess that the scriptures are God’s living word for us today.
Like the disciples, we too are sent out into the world to proclaim good news to those who are like sheep without a shepherd: those who are lost, those who are wandering, those who are vulnerable to malevolent forces, those who are stubbornly going their own way. We as the church today are commissioned and empowered to gather in the harvest, to bring people into the kingdom, to do ministry in Christ’s name, so that they will know the healing and hope and new life he brings, so that they will know the truth that sets them free, so that they won’t be without a shepherd anymore.
Like the disciples, there are many hills to climb as we run this race. There are many obstacles in our way, many challenges to overcome. But through this living word we have our Lord’s voice in our ears coaching us, instructing us, guiding us, encouraging us. Our Heavenly Father continues to anticipate the hills and valleys we will face. He already knows the trials and troubles we will go through, and through his word, from the page to our ears, he talks us through it all! Let’s listen to this voice coaching us today:
“Go nowhere among the Gentiles,” Jesus says, “and enter no town of the Samaritans, but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Jesus told his first disciples to go to their own people, at least at first. This might have been like starting your kid out with training wheels, because later, after the resurrection, at the Great Commission at the end of the gospel of Matthew, Jesus commands them to make disciples of ALL nations, all ethnicities, every tribe and tongue. He tells them they will be his witnesses not only in Jerusalem and Judea, but in Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
But perhaps there is something for us in this instruction too. Opportunities for proclaiming the gospel are often close at hand. We don’t need to go looking far afield to bring in the harvest. There are people very close to us who don’t know or don’t trust in Jesus, people who are lost, who are like sheep without a shepherd. We can start there!
Jesus goes on to give instructions about traveling light, which is always good advice when you’re running a race. This is about trusting in God to provide what we need. It is about humbling ourselves to receive the hospitality of others as we carry out this ministry.
And then comes our first steep hill, our first big challenge: Some people will not welcome us or listen to our words, Jesus says. They will not receive the peace of Christ we proclaim. This is disappointing, to be sure. But we aren’t to be discouraged. We aren’t to let that rejection cling to us and weigh us down. “When that happens, shake the dust off your feet,” Jesus says, “move along.” Neither are we to get angry or judgmental over their rejection. We leave all of that to God.
But there’s an even steeper hill up around the corner: not only will there be apathy and unbelief, Jesus says, there will be wolves! “See, I am sending you out as sheep into the midst of wolves.” There are those who will snarl and snap at the Christian message, those who despise the Christian church. It isn’t hard to see these wolves among us today as our society continues its long slide into paganism and hostility towards Christianity. Those who prefer to be their own gods don’t much like hearing about a God above them. For those who are convinced of their own righteousness, the proclamation of forgiveness and the need for a savior is considered offensive. Those who kneel before the pantheon of self-defined truths do not like to be challenged by the One who called himself the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Hedonism, a philosophy which holds the pursuit of pleasure as the highest good, is increasingly becoming the prevailing philosophy of the day once again, as it was in the Roman Empire, and anything that challenges this unbridled pursuit or asks for any restraint or responsibility is viciously attacked.
It’s getting scary out there, to be sure, but before we get too anxious about it, Jesus coaches us through it. His word is put into our ears, telling us he already knew it was going to be like this. He tells us to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. That is to say, we are to be realistic about the fallenness of human nature and shrewd in dealing with it while maintaining an innocent, dove-like heart. Or, conversely, we are to maintain an innocent, dove-like heart without being naive or foolish.
“Do not worry about what you will say when you are under attack” Jesus goes on to say. “The words will be given to you at that time. The Spirit of your Father will speak through you.” It is not ultimately clever rhetoric or human reason or the perfect social media post even a carefully polished sermon which will ultimately matter in this struggle, but the simple words of proclamation that our Father gives us to say as we proclaim the good news of Jesus: “The kingdom of heaven has come near!” The words he puts in our ears will be delivered to our tongue, and that will be enough.
Then comes the hardest hill of all. Even families will be divided over the gospel. It is important to know that this isn’t something God wants. The last words of the Old Testament from the prophet Malachi proclaim that in the coming kingdom God will turn the hearts of fathers to their children, and the hearts of children to their fathers. This is what God wants!
The New Testament is filled with instructions and exhortations for encouraging strong, healthy, loving marriages and strong, healthy, loving relationships between parents and children, brothers and sisters. The Christian family is a microcosm of the Christian church, and so very important. It is a cell both in the body of Christ and the body politic, and it is so important that it be healthy and strong.
Jesus is simply acknowledging that faith in him will sometimes, for some people, bring divisions in family relationships. We know this is true, right? Sadly, we still see this today. I have people in my office on a regular basis trying to navigate relationships with loved ones who have rejected Christianity. It’s so hard, so painful.
An acquaintance of mine used to teach at a Lutheran university in Irvine, California. He had a Muslim student who converted to Christianity while she was there. When word got back to her family, she was completely cut off, financially and emotionally. She was dead to them. I’m not sure what they were thinking, sending her to a Christian college, but that’s how extreme it can still get today in some cultures.
But again, we hear our Lord’s voice in our ears, coaching us through it: “The one who endures to the end will be saved.”
This is NOT to say that our salvation is up to us. That would contradict everything else the Bible says about how we are saved by the grace of Christ through faith in Christ. That would contradict what Paul says in our second reading about how it was while we were still weak that Christ died for the ungodly. It is Christ’s work for us that saves us, not our own strength – full stop.
What Jesus is doing here is coaching us. He is encouraging us. He is saying that even when everybody hates you because of his name, DON’T GIVE UP. Endure in the faith. Hold on to him. Keep your eye on the finish line of his salvation. That’s what matters most.
Dear friends, hear the voice of your Heavenly Father in your ears today. First hear him telling you he loves you. Hear him telling you all is forgiven for the sake of his Son. Hear him telling you that he proves his love for you in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Hear him telling you that in him, the kingdom of heaven has come near to you.
And then hear him sending you out into the harvest, out to combine the hills of the Palouse. We have a mission to carry out. We have a race to run as we bring the good news to those who are lost and wandering, those who are harassed and helpless, those who are like sheep without a shepherd. There are parts of this race that will be difficult, painful even, but our Lord has already anticipated every hill and hardship, and he continues to put his voice in our ears, coaching us so that we will endure.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | Jun 12, 2023 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for June 11
Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost –Sermon for the Second Sunday after Pentecost – June 11, 2023
Matthew 9:9-13, 18-26
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
I have a route that I run a few days a week for exercise. It’s always the same route, and usually at the same time of day. Along this route there’s a guy I see just about every time I run. I think he’s walking to work or to catch a bus or something. We always cross paths in the same block, and when we do, he first gives me a polite nod, but then, as I pass him, he quickly turns his head away. I’m pretty sure he’s holding his breath as I go by. This has gone on for literally years now. For a long time I thought it was a COVID thing. Maybe he thinks he’s going to catch the virus from me as I run by. But now the pandemic is over and we know so much more about how people get coronavirus (It’s just about impossible to get it outside). Now it has mutated to become something much milder for most people. But in spite of all this, he’s still doing it! Maybe it’s a residual habit, but lately I’ve been wondering if it is COVID-related at all. I’ve been wondering if maybe he’s turning his head and holding his breath as I run by because I stink! It is towards the end of my three-mile run, so I guess it is possible!
Anyway, it bothers me when he turns away. It makes me doubt the sincerity of his friendly nod. It makes me want to stop and ask him what his problem is, what it is that makes me so off-putting to him. Every time he turns away it makes me feel contagious and gross and…unclean.
Unclean. In the Bible, to be unclean is to be potentially contagious. It is to be thought of as gross. It is an off-putting condition to be in. People would turn away from you – and this was not only to avoid catching something, whether that something was a virus or a whiff of body odor. People turned away because getting too close to someone who was unclean made you unclean too. To be unclean not only made you unfit for relationships with others; you were also thought to be unfit for a relationship with God.
We have a cluster of stories in our gospel reading for today. Three of them. And the strand that runs through all three of them is how Jesus interacts with those who are unclean.
First up we have Matthew. Matthew was a tax collector. As a tax collector, Matthew was despised by most of his fellow Jews. Think of how you feel whenever you get something in the mail from the IRS. Unless you’re expecting a refund, it makes you at least a little nervous. Perhaps some suspicion or resentment is stirred up. “What is this about? What are they coming after now?” Well, that’s what people felt whenever they saw someone like Matthew. He was someone who had the authority to get all up in your business and take away your hard-earned money. Even worse, he did so on behalf of the Romans, who had invaded and pillaged and occupied Israel, their Promised Land. And so, tax collectors were thought of as traitors to their own people. Furthermore, as employees of the Roman Empire these Jews handled Roman currency, which had imprints on them proclaiming Caesar to be Lord – a blasphemous statement. All of this together made tax collectors profoundly unclean. They were considered unfit for relationship with most other Jews. They were considered unfit for a relationship with God. When Pharisees or other pious Jews walked past, they turned their heads and held their breath in disgust.
But not Jesus. Jesus went right up to Matthew’s tax booth, with its neat piles of blasphemous coinage, and said to him, “Follow me.” Matthew got up and followed Jesus, leaving his old life behind.
Later, Jesus sat down and ate dinner with him. There were other tax collectors and sinners in attendance too. We need to understand that rabbis didn’t just sit down with unclean people and share dinner with them, dipping their bread into the common bowls and rubbing elbows with them.
But Jesus did, and when the Pharisees saw it, they couldn’t believe their eyes. They asked some of the disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus, overhearing them, explained, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”
With this statement, Jesus acknowledged that these guys he was eating with were not well. They were indeed unclean. Jesus doesn’t make light of their sin. He doesn’t excuse it. He certainly doesn’t encourage it. Instead, he is there to heal them of it. He is there, eating and drinking with them, so that he might clean them and cure them as the physician he is. He doesn’t turn away and hold his breath. Instead he gets in close to them, sharing their germs, inhaling their odors, taking their uncleanliness upon himself, in order to make them well.
Next up we have a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. Talk about unclean! In the ancient world a woman’s regular cycle rendered her unclean for a limited time each month. This uncleanliness was not a moral issue, as it was with the tax collectors and sinners. This was a natural process related to fertility – a good thing. This, rather, was a hygienic matter. Any time there was blood outside of the body, it was a major concern. You were expected to stay away from others. You were expected to stay home from synagogue. And this woman had been dealing with these hemorrhages non-stop for twelve years! This meant twelve years of social and religious isolation. This meant she wasn’t eligible for marriage, and if she was already married, it made her eligible to be divorced. This meant constantly having people turn away from her as if she was gross.
But not Jesus. When this woman reached out for Jesus’ cloak as he passed by, when she reached out in faith and touched him, Jesus didn’t turn away and hold his breath. He turned towards her! Jesus didn’t find her off-putting or gross. Instead he said, “Take heart, daughter, your faith has made you well.” Did you hear that? He called her daughter. Is there a more loving way he could have addressed her? And rather than rebuking her for daring to touch him with her unclean hand, which made him unclean in the process, instead he praised her for her faith in him. “Your faith has made you well,” he said.
Finally, we have the most difficult story of the three. A leader of the synagogue came up to Jesus, begging for his help. His daughter had just died. He asked Jesus to come lay hands on her, so that she would live. Jesus went to the house where the girl was. There was already a crowd of mourners there. There were already flute-players playing a funeral dirge. When Jesus told the crowd to go away, that she was not dead but sleeping, they all laughed at him. Jesus went into the house where this precious daughter laid still in her bed.
Blood was bad enough when it came to uncleanliness, but a dead body was a whole new level of unclean. The Jewish Mishnah describes a human corpse as “the father of the father of all uncleanliness.” It was considered the ultimate impurity. We know how hard it is to look upon someone who is deceased. It is off-putting, to say the least. Unless it is someone you dearly love, you can’t help but want to turn away. You certainly don’t want to touch them. According to Jewish law, touching the dead made you unclean for seven days, and then there was an even more complex rite of purification you had to go through to be made clean again. And so nobody wanted to be near the dead. Aside from perhaps her parents, everyone turned away. Everyone went outside. But not Jesus. Jesus went right up to her. Jesus took her by the hand, and she got up.
Sin. Blood. Death. Instead of turning away and holding his breath in disgust, Jesus turned towards them, bringing healing and new life. Sinners were made holy by his gracious presence. A flow of blood was stopped and a woman was healed. A corpse came back to life and a young girl, a beloved daughter, got out of bed.
These three stories, in one way or another, reflect our own stories, our own lives. Sin continues to mess up our relationships with others and our relationship with God. Many have experienced how debilitating and isolating it is when we are sick or when our bodies don’t work the way they are supposed to. We know well the somber notes of the funeral liturgy.
And instead of turning away and holding his breath, our Lord Jesus has turned towards us. He is not repulsed by all the things that make us unclean or off-putting. He is not afraid of viruses or body odor. He does not turn away because of sin, or blood, or death.
Jesus Christ has turned towards us through his Word, forgiving us for our sin and calling us to follow him. He calls us away from our old lives and into new life with him. Jesus Christ continues to eat and drink with sinners, rubbing elbows with us, taking all that is unclean in us upon himself and giving us his holiness in return.
Jesus Christ comes to us through these means of grace that we might take hold of him, that we might reach out to him in faith and touch his cloak, and in so doing be made whole again, restored to fellowship with one another and fellowship with God.
Jesus Christ has come to show us that he has power even over death, and so when the final uncleanliness comes, he will not turn away. He will instead take us by the hand and raise us up to eternal life.
Many may turn away from us in our times of uncleanliness. But not Jesus. He turns towards us, not away, making us clean, and holy, and alive.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | May 28, 2023 | Sermons
CLICK HERE for a worship video for May 28
Sermon for Pentecost Sunday – May 28, 2023
Acts 2:1-21, John 20:19-23
Dear friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.
I want to begin by leading you through a breathing exercise. First, put your hands on your chest. Press lightly but firmly onto your rib cage. Now slowly breathe in as deeply as you can. Feel your chest cavity expanding, filling up with air. Keep inhaling until you can’t fit any more air in your lungs. Hold in your breath for four seconds. Now, slowly let it out. Exhale. Feel your lungs deflate as they push out the air.
Some of you might be thinking, “Oh great. Pastor’s gone New Age on us.” But no! Today is Pentecost. Today we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit. And the biblical word for Spirit in both Hebrew and Greek, in the Old Testament and the New, means not only Spirit, but also wind and….breath.
Breathing involves both inhaling and exhaling. We take breath in and we push it out. Do you know what happens when you only do one or the other? You die! Both of our great Pentecost stories from the Bible today feature the breathing of the Spirit, and there is clearly both inhaling and exhaling.
In our gospel reading we heard how on the night of the resurrection Jesus gave the disciples the Holy Spirit. The risen Jesus appeared to them. He showed them his wounds, assuring them that it was really him. He said, “Peace be with you.” And then he said it again so that peace would sink in. Then Jesus breathed on them, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” The disciples took in these words. They breathed in Jesus’ breath. They inhaled deeply of the Holy Spirit.
But there was a big exhale too. Jesus also said to them, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Jesus told them to breathe out the Spirit, saying, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” The peace they breathed in was to be breathed out in words spoken to people. The breath of Jesus they breathed in was to be breathed out in words, proclaiming forgiveness in his name.
The Spirit was poured out again fifty days later at Pentecost, a Jewish festival which itself took place fifty days after Passover (which is where we get the word “Pentecost” – pente means fifty). We heard this story in our reading from Acts. Lots of people were in Jerusalem for the festival. There were lots of Jews who now lived outside of Israel who came back to celebrate. Many of these Jews spoke the languages of their homelands outside of Israel. For many of them, these other languages had become their native language. So you had all these people who spoke different languages together in one place for the festival. If you’ve ever been to the tulip festival in the Skagit Valley when the buses are down from Canada, you hear all kinds of different languages. You hear a lot of Chinese. You hear a lot of Hindi. You hear Canadian English, where they say “Soory” and “Aboot” and “Pretty flowers, eh?” You hear Spanish being spoken by the workers. You hear all these different languages. Well, there was a similar vibe at Pentecost.
And then the Spirit came blowing in like a rush of violent wind. And again, the apostles breathed in this wind, this breath. “They were filled with the Holy Spirit,” it says. There’s the inhalation. The Spirit filled their chests with the presence of God.
But then they exhaled. They didn’t hold their breath. They didn’t keep the Spirit in. They breathed out the Spirit on all those people gathered there for the festival. They breathed out the Spirit in the form of words, speaking of “God’s deeds of power.” They spoke of Christ’s atoning sacrifice. They spoke of his glorious resurrection. They spoke of the forgiveness and new life that was available to all through him. And then, in a great sign to show that this Good News was indeed for all the peoples of the earth, God opened their ears to hear the message, each in their own native language.
Like the Spirit brooding over the waters in the beginning, breathing words that brought creation into being, this breath was being put into the ears and the lungs and the hearts of the apostles, so that it could be breathed out in the form of words that created a new reality – the new reality of the forgiveness of sins and peace with God and the promise of eternal life.
The church today needs to understand that the Spirit’s breathing in and through us involves both inhaling and exhaling. We are taught when we go on airplanes that if the oxygen mask falls, to secure your own first and then help others with theirs. That’s good advice. You can’t help others if you don’t have that oxygen supply yourself. But in the church today, and especially in the Lutheran church, we tend to just put our own mask on, breathing in the gospel for ourselves, and then we never help anyone else hear it.
There is a slogan that has become popular in church circles today which says, “Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.” The quote is attributed to St. Francis, but nobody can actually find where he said it. It reminds me of the meme that says, “The problem with internet quotes is that you can’t always depend on their accuracy,” with the quote being attributed to Abraham Lincoln. Not only is it a sketchily sourced quote, but it isn’t at all biblical. St. Paul says that faith comes by hearing. The mission Jesus gives to the church is to proclaim. Using words is always necessary to preach the gospel! That isn’t to say you shouldn’t strive to embody the gospel in the way you live, in the way you treat your neighbor. We should! But nobody will come to faith in Jesus solely because someone was nice to them. That might be the thing that earns you the trust needed to speak to someone, but it won’t by itself deliver the goods of the gospel. It will not, by itself, lead anyone to faith in Jesus. Words are necessary for that.
We need to inhale the gospel ourselves, to be sure. We never stop needing to breathe in the peace of God. We never stop needing to breathe in the presence of Christ Jesus in Word and Sacrament. We never stop needing to breathe in the good news that we are forgiven. But the breathing of the Spirit involves a breathing out as well. Jesus commissions all of us to speak to others of God’s deeds of power. Jesus sends all of us to speak to others of the forgiveness Jesus has won for us. “If you forgive the sins of any,” Jesus says, “they are forgiven them. If you retain them, they are retained.” There’s a lot more we could say about this, but let it at least be said that if you don’t share the gospel with someone who is living apart from God, you are effectively retaining their sin, leaving them stuck there. We are not called to only be filled with the Spirit ourselves, but to breathe it out through words that share the gospel of Jesus Christ and create faith in him. We need to both inhale and exhale.
Now, there are some important caveats. We can share the gospel in ways that are cringey and counterproductive. We shouldn’t do that, of course. We are not called to get in people’s faces with bullhorns. We are not to be arrogant or pretend we have all the answers about everything. There are some contexts where it isn’t appropriate or helpful to talk about our faith, and it can be hard to know when or how we can or should. It is increasingly counterculture to be Christian in the first place, let alone speak to others about it. I get that. I’m not suggesting this is easy or obvious in how we go about it.
I also hasten to add that the Spirit alone creates faith when and where the Spirit wishes. The Spirit uses us as instruments, as mouthpieces, but it is the Spirit that actually moves a heart to faith, not us.
But for the Spirit to breathe through the church it takes both inhaling and exhaling. We used to know this. We used to know this as Lutheran Christians. Do you know what the first document was to be translated into a Native American language? Luther’s Small Catechism. In the 1640s, Swedish Lutheran pastor Johann Campanius breathed in the gospel himself, and then exhaled it into the Algonquin language. This was a continuation of Pentecost! There are Lutheran church bodies today in Africa, some of which are significantly larger than our own, because decades ago Lutheran missionaries breathed in the gospel themselves, and then breathed it out into other languages. Today, we struggle to even do it in English. Today, some Christian parents don’t even teach the gospel to their own children. You know what happens to a church that only inhales and never exhales? It dies.
Our sister in Christ Mary Wonner has been receiving treatment for pancreatic cancer. I’ve been going to see her when she’s up for it. She has a neighbor who has been pretty outspoken in her unbelief. Both Bill and Mary, in a careful, respectful, loving way, have been looking for ways to share the gospel with her. Mary even said she hoped that what she was going through with her cancer would be used to open up opportunities to bear witness to her faith in Jesus to this neighbor. Here is a woman who is fighting for her life, and in the midst of that fight she is thinking about how she can share the gospel! She breathes in the word through Bible study with Bill and online worship and our communion visits, and then she breathes it out in gentle ways to others around her. This neighbor recently admitted that she was praying for Mary. Maybe it was just a polite thing to say. Or maybe, just maybe, the Spirit is working through Mary’s words.
This is the pattern our Pentecost readings lay out for all of us for living life in the Spirit of God. Christ breathes on us. We breathe in his presence. We are filled with the Holy Spirit. We breathe in God, and then we exhale. We are sent to speak of God’s great deeds of power, using the very necessary words God gives us to proclaim Christ’s forgiveness.
Breathe in with me once more. Slowly breathe in all the great deeds of power God has done and is doing for you. Breathe in Jesus’ words, “Peace be with you.” Let them sink in. Breathe in the forgiveness Christ has won for you. He forgives you all your sin, even your silence, your neglect of your calling to bear witness, your fear in sharing the gospel. Let the grace of Christ fill your lungs with new life in him. Let it calm your fears. You can hold that breath in, but not for too long. Then exhale slowly. And go forth from here today to breathe the Spirit out into the lives of others, so that they would know his grace too.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev. Jeffrey R. Spencer
Oak Harbor Lutheran Church
by Jeffrey Spencer | May 26, 2023 | News & Events
Join us in celebrating Pentecost with a bonfire and s’mores! All ages welcome! Sunday, May 28th, 6:00-7:30PM
