The News and Faith: Texas Senate Wants Ten Commandments Displayed in Every Classroom.

How do we, as people of faith, consider something like this? From a point of view where we thinking about our God, our nation, the culture in which we live.

First, what I do not know. I do not know what rules, if any, mandate what must be displayed in Texas School classrooms. I would think the Declaration of Independence or the US Constitution? Perhaps the Bill of Rights. What about the Texas Constitution? As I started reading the Texas Constitution, I found it included a powerful State Bill of Rights that would be ideal to display.

When it comes to the Ten Commandments and display in a space of public trust, it is the US Bill of Rights that speaks to me with the prohibition of Congress establishing a religion. I suppose the argument is being made that the Ten Commandments are a legal thing, not a religious thing. That strikes me as funny, an argument being made that "religion" is somehow not in the Bible.

But the Texas Bill of Rights, opening their Constitution, it spoke even more eloquently to me about this. Section 2: “All political power is inherent in the people…”. To me, this reads that the desire to introduce a religious aspect to what is in our classrooms needs to come from the people if it is going to come at all. Section 3a: “Equality under the law shall not be denied…”. The Ten Commandments do NOT provide for equality. Section 4: “No religious test shall be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust…”. If the Ten Commandments are going to be displayed, it must be for the edification and the education of the pupils in the classroom, something we check and monitor with the testing process. Seems to me there is no greater public trust than the education of our children.

But then we come to Section 6:  "FREEDOM OF WORSHIP. All men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences. No man shall be compelled to attend, erect or support any place of worship, or to maintain any ministry against his consent. No human authority ought, in any case whatever, to control or interfere with the rights of conscience in matters of religion, and no preference shall ever be given by law to any religious society or mode of worship. But it shall be the duty of the Legislature to pass such laws as may be necessary to protect equally every religious denomination in the peaceable enjoyment of its own mode of public worship." This speaks for itself on this question. Still, that last piece says to me that the Legislature should be passing laws against the display of the Ten Commandments in areas of public trust.

The Supreme Court has declared that money is free speech. So..."Section 7: APPROPRIATIONS FOR SECTARIAN PURPOSES. No money shall be appropriated, or drawn from the Treasury for the benefit of any sect, or religious society, theological or religious seminary; nor shall property belonging to the State be appropriated for any such purposes."

As a sidebar, I must praise Section 6a, offering wide latitude of protection of religious organizations.

So that is why, from the political side of things, I object to the public display of the Ten Commandments in the public classroom. But my bigger problem with this is not political or cultural. It is theological.

For the purposes of this discussion, I am going to work within the boundaries of this argument. As I understand it, the display of the Ten Commandments is defended because they serve as a foundational legal and religious statement for the creation of the United States as a Christian nation.

There is a HUGE problem here. Because if we are going to come to our Bible, if we are going to think about religion and laws in the context of our Christian faith for our Christian nation, then we got something more foundational than the Ten Commandments.

We have Jesus.

First, to establish Jesus as a religio-legal authority beyond the reality that He is...well...God, Matthew 5:17. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.”

A little later, Jesus is asked the question, "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" It reads like a "top 10" question. Jesus replies in Matthew 22:37-40: “He said..., “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets,”

Including the Ten Commandments.

I do not know what is mandated to be displayed on the walls of classrooms in the great state of Texas. But if the argument is going to be made that there is a precedent for a Christian-based, Biblically sanctioned legal declaration to be made in the public sphere, then who better to speak to us than Jesus?

Peace,

Pastor Peter

Jesus and The Holy Spirit: Is God Here Theological Confusion or Divine Clarity?

So Jesus casts a prophetic arc for the first part of Acts. He says in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The Holy Spirit is coming with deliberate steps. The first step of the Spirit’s coming is recognized as Pentecost. There were the disciples, speaking in other languages, literally on fire for the Lord. It was so shocking, the people gathered accused them of being drunk because they could not explain it otherwise.

Peter’s defense always tickles me. He says, “We are not drunk as you presume. It’s only nine o’clock in the morning…” 

I have always presumed the drunken accusations were based on their enthusiastic behavior. I still do, but it might also be a way of trying to explain exactly how we are supposed to be thinking of God in this moment. Because we have God the Father, always have, First Person of the Trinity, behind all that is happening. God is up in heaven, Creator of the Universe and All, "Holy of Holies" perhaps being the closest language we have in the human understanding.

Yet God sent God's only begotten Son, our Lord Jesus, to live among us, teach us, heal us, love us, prepare us, train us up, finally die and rise again for us. Jesus, the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Messiah, the Christ...I have a poster in my office filled with names by which we know Jesus. When thinking about God and Jesus, He is the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity.

And now we have the Holy Spirit, first step at Pentecost. The Father is always there...up there. Jesus came, Jesus went, the Spirit came. So Jesus is as the Father, at the Father's Right Hand. But now also the Spirit, sent in place of our Lord Jesus.

Anyway, Pentecost was the Spirit coming down in Jerusalem. There will now be steps forward, where the Spirit is identified as coming down on believers in Judea, then in Samaria. Then, finally, the Spirit comes down in a manner recognized and endorsed by the believers present upon Cornelius and his family. There are Jews in Jerusalem. There are Jews in Judea. There are Jews in Samaria. Move beyond them, to the ends of the earth, and that earth is full of Gentiles. So here is the Spirit, fulfilling the prophetic arc. In Cornelius, the Spirit begins the fulfillment of Jesus’ words that will take it to the ends of the earth.

Meanwhile, God the Father and Jesus are in heaven, overseeing I suppose.

But maybe if we step away from trying to define God and where God is and dare to reverse our point of view. Dare to take a peek from heaven.

Where did it all start? God walking with us in the Garden of Eden. And we messed that up. Fine, technically Adam and Eve did. But since then, every one of us continued life in sin and God has not walked with any of us. But from the moment we were cast from the Garden, God began the Plan in which God would walk with us again.

That came to us with Jesus. Fully human, fully God, Jesus did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped, but came down to us in the form of a human. So Jesus was among us for about thirty years and then the Holy Spirit descended upon Him. For us, that was the transitional moment when Jesus stepping into the role of Messiah and Christ for us all. That is when He began to walk among us the way God did back in the Garden.

But there was something else. The first time, in the Garden, God stopped walking with us when we were punished and cast out. The second time, with Jesus, punishment fell upon Him and it looked like God stopped walking with us once more when Jesus ascended into heaven.

Between God walking with us and God walking with us again is the arc of the Old Testament. In that time, God laid down all the pieces that point to the coming of Jesus. The prophecies of the Messiah, the law of sacrificing a lamb for the forgiveness of sins, Isaiah's Suffering Servant, again and again God points us to Jesus. God walked with us once, God will walk with us again.

In Jesus, God walks with us again. Then Jesus ascended into heaven and God came down in the person of the Holy Spirit. Now consider this. If the Old Testament provided the arc pointing to God as Jesus coming among us, the Gospel story of Jesus points to the Holy Spirit coming upon us.

It begins with the Holy Spirit coming upon Jesus as Jesus' baptism, fulfilled in the Holy Spirit coming down upon the church at Pentecost. All that Jesus did, all the temptations, all the miracles, all the healing, the casting out of evil, all the teaching, every time he spoke against power and privilege, even to the very sacrifice of His life, points to what the Holy Spirit would then do among the people of the church.

From the divine point of view, as the Holy Spirit, God now walks with us, each of us, indwelling us to do so. Not as one entity among many, but as The One among the many. We are the many. Take that in hand with the Great Commission and we become those who carry the promise of God to walk with the rest of humanity. We are sent out as witnesses to do this.

God, Jesus, Holy Spirit...God in Three Persons. Blessed Trinity, blessed confusion as well? Or is it simply the journey that God has taken so that our Lord will walk with all of us once again?

Peace,     Pastor Peter

 

Those Totally Different, Totally Unexpected People Suddenly Called The Church

Our passage on Sunday was a very long one. It was inclusive of all of Acts 10 and half of Acts 11. To provide some perspective, it was considerably longer than the Prayers of the People also printed in the Sunday bulletin. As a pastor, I understand the dangers of dozing during the sermon. I must admit, as I weighed just how much of this passage to include, I was aware of the real danger of adding biblical Ambien to the service. But this passage is one story.

The center of the passage was the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the centurion Cornelius and his household. The Spirit descended upon them and then Peter made the point that, in light of this Godly witness, the waters of baptism could not be withheld. With Peter were a half dozen circumcised ‘brothers’ who could attest to everything that was going on. 

That is the center of the passage. Before, God appears to Peter in a vision about all that is ceremonially unclean according to the law of Moses is now made clean by God, who gave the law. The passage opens with an angel of the Lord appearing to Cornelius, a man of faith, to go and get Peter to come share a message of hope. The close of the passage is practically a trial conducted in regards to Peter’s conduct in going to Cornelius at all, much less offering him baptism. He needed to walk them step by step through the vision sent by God.

All because Cornelius was a Gentile. Yes, he was also an officer in the foreign army of occupation dominating the Jews, but he was also a man of faith who gave much to the support of the people of Israel. The “gentile” bit was the hardest to overcome, by the very tenets of God's law given to Moses. That may sound ludicrous to us because the vast majority of people in the faith, including the tiny slice who have found their way to reading this, are also Gentiles.

However, the Jewish law was very clear in regards to the absolute division between Jews and Gentiles in matters of personal interactions, including eating meals together or visiting each other’s homes. God has just blown the doors off how church is ‘supposed’ to be done. I do not know if we can wrap our minds around just how revolutionary this was. To this point, the "Jesus" movement is called 'the Way' in Acts and is still very much within the Jewish faith. According to Acts, it is not until the later part of Acts 11 when they are called “Christian” for the first time.

What this means is that the call of Jesus is now realizing the promise to be universal ("to the ends of the earth"). There is nobody unworthy of the grace we have received through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is especially true in OUR generation for anyone we might deem 'unclean'. Yes, Christians, as a body, acknowledge the universality of sin, but as sinners, there are in every generation, including ours, those singled out as "especially" sinful. "Especially" unblessed. "Particularly" unclean in God’s eyes. 

That was us, 'especially' sinful, 'especially' unblessed, 'particularly' unclean, until God made things clear. Then God came to Cornelius and EVERYONE was called. We are called to be Christ's ambassadors to EVERYONE. So, if we are going to judge someone else, even if we think our understanding of God’s rules are crystal clear that 'those' people are particularly sinful, we have to be SO careful. Is this God's rejection? Or is this MY rejection? Am I hiding behind God in my own biases?

A rule of thumb might be that if my fellow people of faith are there, reaching out to 'them', do they have revelation I do not? Am I confusing a sin and the sinner? Is what I call "sin" repugnant to me for other reasons? Cultural reasons? Political reasons? 

I do not know if we can fully comprehend just how HUGE it was that the church opened to the Gentiles. So much is made of the people working to keep the church closed to those people. They were wrong, the Holy Spirit made that abundantly clear to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear.

So when we call for the church doors to be closed to somebody, anybody, how careful we better be. It could be very clearly demonstrated by the Holy Spirit that 'those' people should be welcomed, but we have dared to close our eyes and ears to the Savior. Remember, we are still sinners, still leading a lifetime journey of opening our eyes to the wonder of our Lord and Savior. There is no moment this side of heaven where the Holy Spirit cannot surprise us.

Peace,

Pastor Peter

Sunday, May 14, 2023 Scripture Lesson and Sermon

 Scripture Lesson for May 14, 2023 Acts 10:1-11:18

In Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian Cohort, as it was called. 2He was a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God. 3One afternoon at about three o’clock he had a vision in which he clearly saw an angel of God coming in and saying to him, ‘Cornelius.’ 4He stared at him in terror and said, ‘What is it, Lord?’ He answered, ‘Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. 5Now send men to Joppa for a certain Simon who is called Peter; 6he is lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the seaside.’ 7When the angel who spoke to him had left, he called two of his slaves and a devout soldier from the ranks of those who served him, 8and after telling them everything, he sent them to Joppa.

9 About noon the next day, as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. 10He became hungry and wanted something to eat; and while it was being prepared, he fell into a trance. 11He saw the heaven opened and something like a large sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. 12In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air. 13Then he heard a voice saying, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ 14But Peter said, ‘By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is profane or unclean.’ 15The voice said to him again, a second time, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ 16This happened three times, and the thing was suddenly taken up to heaven.

17 Now while Peter was greatly puzzled about what to make of the vision that he had seen, suddenly the men sent by Cornelius appeared. They were asking for Simon’s house and were standing by the gate. 18They called out to ask whether Simon, who was called Peter, was staying there. 19While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit said to him, ‘Look, three men are searching for you. 20Now get up, go down, and go with them without hesitation; for I have sent them.’ 21So Peter went down to the men and said, ‘I am the one you are looking for; what is the reason for your coming?’ 22They answered, ‘Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and God-fearing man, who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send for you to come to his house and to hear what you have to say.’ 23So Peter invited them in and gave them lodging.

The next day he got up and went with them, and some of the believers from Joppa accompanied him. 24The following day they came to Caesarea. Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. 25On Peter’s arrival Cornelius met him, and falling at his feet, worshipped him. 26But Peter made him get up, saying, ‘Stand up; I am only a mortal.’ 27And as he talked with him, he went in and found that many had assembled; 28and he said to them, ‘You yourselves know that it is unlawful for a Jew to associate with or to visit a Gentile; but God has shown me that I should not call anyone profane or unclean. 29So when I was sent for, I came without objection. Now may I ask why you sent for me?’

30 Cornelius replied, ‘Four days ago at this very hour, at three o’clock, I was praying in my house when suddenly a man in dazzling clothes stood before me. 31He said, “Cornelius, your prayer has been heard and your alms have been remembered before God. 32Send therefore to Joppa and ask for Simon, who is called Peter; he is staying in the home of Simon, a tanner, by the sea.” 33Therefore I sent for you immediately, and you have been kind enough to come. So now all of us are here in the presence of God to listen to all that the Lord has commanded you to say.’

34 Then Peter began to speak to them: ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, 35but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. 36You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. 37That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: 38how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. 39We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; 40but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, 41not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. 42He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. 43All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.’

44 While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. 45The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, 46for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, 47‘Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?’ 48So he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they invited him to stay for several days.

Chapter 11  Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. 2So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, 3saying, ‘Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?’ 4Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying, 5‘I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. 6As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air. 7I also heard a voice saying to me, “Get up, Peter; kill and eat.” 8But I replied, “By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.” 9But a second time the voice answered from heaven, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” 10This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven. 11At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. 12The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. 13He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, “Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; 14he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.” 15And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. 16And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, “John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” 17If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?’ 18When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, ‘Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.’

Sermon: “Who Gets the Holy Spirit?” Rev. Peter Hofstra

We are witnessing a huge ‘first’ in the church in this passage. The Acts of the Apostles is full of ‘firsts’ as it records the birth and development of the church. In this case, it is all about the Holy Spirit and the church spreading to the Gentiles. This is the fundamental shift of which we are beneficiaries today. In fact, we are in a time when the message of Jesus does take root in a Jewish population, we see that as something new and different.

But whereas we pretty much take it for granted, the Holy Spirit coming to ‘us’, for the people reading Luke’s sequel, this is a huge thing. It takes up a huge part of our passage. There is a vision sent to Peter, repeated three times, to lead him to understand that what was ‘unclean’ is made clean in our Lord Jesus. There is the angel, the man in bright white clothes, sent to Cornelius, a Roman army officer, to send for Peter. This officer might be seen by his colleagues as ‘going native’, given the descriptions of his service and support of the Jews of whom he is an occupier. The centerpiece of the story is the Holy Spirit coming upon Cornelius and his household, but then the bigger question for that time is taken up again. Jewish believers come at Peter for breaking the law of Moses. Peter, in turn, lays out the steps by which God has led the church to fulfill the promise given in the Holy Spirit, that it would spread from Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, and to ‘the ends of the earth’.

For us, looking back, it should seem so obvious. This is the natural progression. The next organizational step in the church will be the assignment of Paul as a primarily Gentile missionary among the apostles. 

The centerpiece, as I said, seems to be the moment when the Holy Spirit comes down upon Cornelius and his household. This is a little different from what came before. Up to this moment, baptism in water appears to have preceded the coming of the Spirit. Up until now,

While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who heard the word. 45The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles, 46for they heard them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter said, 47‘Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?’

What we have in this moment appears to be an instant community of faith. We do not know exactly how many of the household of Cornelius was gathered. But they were blessed as a body by the coming of the Spirit. And while the Holy Spirit may not have come down in the appearance of flames upon their heads as at Pentecost, it was still evident. The circumcised believers were able to discern that the gift of the Holy Spirit is being poured out to all who are hearing Peter’s words.

The pivotal moment then seems to be the call for their baptism by water, the visible sign of their being ‘set apart’. Peter pushes on this issue. They have the Spirit, he says, can their baptism by water then be denied? Another way to look at it, Jesus has picked them. Are we going to argue with Jesus? Anyone? Anyone?

Somebody did. That is why the episode carries over into chapter 16. There were a bunch of Monday morning quarterbacks trying to critique Peter’s decision. Notice how he has to walk back through everything that happened. 

How does this whole episode speak to us today? On the one hand, it is obvious. This is the moment when the church blows the boundaries of the Promised Land and the Chosen People and the universal call of grace by the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is made real. But on the other, the whole argument among the early church over this spreading of the Spirit speaks to the very nature of the Holy Spirit.

In our understanding, the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. God’s self revelation as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. “In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” is practically rote in our minds for the number of times we hear it. But here these people are, fighting over it as a foundational condition of the church. Which for them it was, but how about for us? We might agree it SHOULD be, but is it? Is it really?

To understand the mission of the Holy Spirit, we need to understand that this was the promise Jesus made to the disciples for Pentecost. Hang out in Jerusalem until something happens. Something wonderful. Okay. It is something that creates a discernible difference in the lives of those who receive the Spirit. Okay. But how do we really understand what this abstract person-part of God truly is?

The short answer is “Jesus with us”, or Emmanuel if you like the Hebrew. It is not just hearing the message of faith that Peter was sharing, but internalizing it. Lots of people, including us, hear the promise of Jesus. It sounds great, it is a promise we can accept. But it takes the Holy Spirit to fundamentally shift something in our beings. 

So as we live in the world as people of faith, the Holy Spirit seems a pretty handy power boost. I have to admit, it seems a lot easier to see in other people, ‘blessed’ people, than I can  see it in myself. I am…me. Jesus loves me, this I know, but am I surrendering to the Spirit to direct where I go?

As we read about the Holy Spirit coming down upon Cornelius and his household, as we read about the Holy Spirit sending Philip to the Ethiopian Eunuch last week, as we see the progress of the Holy Spirit in Acts, there is another piece that is easy to overlook. It is the frame of mind and spirit of the recipients of the Good News of Jesus Christ. 

A lot of people hear the Word of God and do not react in a positive way. Back in Acts 6 and 7, there is a whole group of people who stone Stephen to death in the face of one of the most compelling testimonies in the entire book of Acts. 

Cornelius was already pursuing the faith as best he could, as a Gentile and the officer of a foreign army. He is described this way: He was a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God. In fact, this very phrase is repeated when the angel comes to him and answers why he is chosen. That’s what I meant by the observation earlier that his cohorts and colleagues may have seen him as ‘going native’, pursuing the life and beliefs of the people he is intended to keep in subjugation. It is a powerful testament to the power of Jesus that this man, this officer of the Italian cohort, is the one whom the Spirit will ‘turn’ to the power of Jesus. 

In addition to him, the Ethiopian eunuch was hungry for this faith. He was reading the prophet Isaiah in vain, trying to unravel the meaning of the worship he’d participated with in Jerusalem. Maybe that is where our difficulty lies in this day and age when it comes to the Holy Spirit. Maybe it is not a question of figuring out who or what the Spirit is exactly. Maybe its questioning how we develop a hunger for this Spirit, a hunger for the wonder and majesty of our Lord Jesus, a hunger to take this magnificent gift we have received and pass it forward.

Is that the root of the doubts that take hold of us? Wondering if there is something we can do? Are we too small a group? Are we too…experienced…in the timing of life? Are we too tired? I have this personal debate going on, a two pronged debate. First, am I in a place where I am so busy overthinking that the Spirit is because I am just too fatigued at the prospect of what it means to fully embrace what the Spirit does? Second, if I had the hunger for the Holy Spirit that seems so obvious in the lives of those who are receiving it in the book of Acts, would I be hung up on over-thinking things? Or would the way forward be far clearer?

There is something that is ‘dad-joke’ funny in all this. It has been a running gag how we Presbyterians like to eat, in social gatherings, in meetings, wherever. Now, I am suggesting that we need to be pushing to be hungry for the Spirit?

For people raised in the faith, it is like we know so much of this stuff, on some level. It has been a lifetime of preaching, of singing, of worshiping, of praying, of being in community. I have no doubt the Spirit is at work and living in our congregation. Maybe we need to be praying for the kind of hunger that these people have in the Book of Acts to activate this Spirit once again in our lives.

One of the most heartfelt prayers in the Gospel comes from a man whose child was deathly ill. Jesus was his last shot. But he was there more out of desperation than he was out of faith. His prayer was one he cried out, ” Lord, help me in my unbelief!” I suggest we are coming from a place where the faith of Jesus is within us. Yet, maybe we can touch that desperation. “Lord, make me hungry to live this faith!”

As I consider Cornelius, I see an advantage he has as a newcomer to the faith and to the Spirit. He is receiving the Good News of salvation as given in Christ Jesus. Hallelujah!! Now take a minute and look at the reality around us, just how much there is ‘out there’ for people of faith to tackle in the name of Jesus. It is overwhelming. I suggest that lacking a hunger for the Holy Spirit is not a lack of Spirit, but being overwhelmed by the nature of the world that needs redemption from sin.

I can pray, “Lord, make me hungry to live this faith…” Then list what and where and how our faith needs to be brought to bear to change the world. It is overwhelming. That is why church revival literature talks about the vision statement, find that one thing that your congregation can hone in on. Which is great, but what if the prayer for a hunger, for a purpose in the faith, is drowned out by the needs of so much going on?

How do we talk to God, call out to God, pray to God to even get started? Have you heard the advice, I have probably preached it from up here, of coming quietly into the presence of the Lord and listening for God’s Word? So easy to say, so hard to do when we really open ourselves to what the power of God needs to fix in the world around us. 

There is one writer who speaks of the way to begin before the Lord is with the ‘Simple Prayer’. That name is so deceiving. The way he describes it makes me think it would be better described as the “dump truck prayer. Metaphorically, taking everything and anything that is piled on our minds and in our hearts, and our prayer being a rambling, disjointed,disconnected dumping out of everything regardless of priority, “appropriate” language, relative or actual importance, life-saving to trivial, tipping the dump truck of the stuff of our lives that keeps us worried, locked down, tired, overwhelmed, into the lap of the Lord.

I think the image of prayer being ‘coming into the throne room of the Lord’ may do us a disservice, because the image of Heaven’s throne room, who wants to mess that up? But until we do, I don’t know how we regain our hunger for the Spirit. How we sort through what overwhelms us, or rather, dump it on the Lord to sort out. How we even begin to rejoice in the efficacy of prayer in unleashing the Spirit because we do not pour out the full honest mess that is life in prayer.

For Cornelius and his household, it was their hunger for the Spirit that made it an undeniable reality for the circumcised believers to see that they, those people, the Gentiles, also received the Spirit. For us, it is about knowing that hunger and daring to embrace it. It is about dumping everything in our lives that has gotten in the way into a prayer that we can then lay before our God. It is about doing what it takes to that people looking in on this intrepid band of believers will be the witnesses that the Holy Spirit is alive and well among us. It begins with three words of power, “Let Us Pray…”