Two Valleys, Running Side by Side

                 There are two valleys that run side by side.  It is hard to see them coming till you are right on top of them, two entrances side by side.  The difference is where the valleys end up.  Head down the one and you reconnect with the journey of your life.  Head down the other, and it will come to an End.

          How do you know that you are in the valley where you can survive?  It is always dark in that valley.  The shadows are deep and permanent.  When you are in that valley, you know you are in it.  Because in the gloom and doubt, you know somewhere in your heart where that shadow is coming from.  It is not so easy to wrap your head around this knowledge, because it seems impossible.  What overshadows the one valley is the other. 

          It will seem impossible.  There are no mountains, no hills beyond those that cast shadows as the light of day makes its progression.  No, in this case, the shadow is omnipresent.  Always there, never diminishing.  Even in the night, you know it is there. 

What is hard to see in the all-pervasive shadow is that there are trails that come into this valley from the other.  It is even harder to see those trails in the other valley.  In fact, if it weren’t for the Guide over there, people miss the opportunity to cross from one to the other.

The question then, why would someone want to cross from that valley into a valley deep in shadow?  Because of the nature of that Valley casting the shadow.  Because there is Evil there.  Evil unrestrained, uncontained, evil to be feared because it will take everything, even your life.  Because that is the Valley of Death.

Once you head down that Valley, it leads, unmitigated, to the End.  And not in some quiet, dignified manner, but in one that carries the burden of an eternity of Horror.  When you start down that Valley, your only hope is in the Guide.  The Guide is in the Valley of Death.  The Guide has been, is the only one, to have gone down to the End, to the Death, and come back. 

And it sounds weird, but the Guide is the one seeking to turn you into the Shadows.  Because in that other Valley, the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the Guide reigns supreme.  There is no evil to be feared in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.  Even if the end is coming, death itself is rising up, in the shadowed valley, it is along a comforted path, and not to the End of Death unlimited, but to the doorway of death into life eternal.

So how do we meet the Guide?  Its kind of interesting.  You call out for the Guide and He will be there.  He is unfailing in His love for all of us.  The interesting part is that once we have called out for Him, once He has come into our lives, we come to realize He was always there.  It was we who were unable to see Him.

So when we find ourselves in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, we have nothing to fear.  For Jesus is there with us.  Jesus knows the way.  Jesus has been down the Valley of Death and taken up the burden that lays there.  He took it upon Himself so that we do not have to.  Then our God took the burden off His shoulders and sent Him back to us.  As a gift.  Believe in Him and receive that gift, never know the burden of Death.  At the end of this life, we will know a doorway instead that leads to Eternity.

Peace,

Pastor Peter

From the Lecture Hall: Flames, Babble, and the Faithful’s Dystopia

        There is a line between useful “background material” and “nerd bits to leave on the desk” when it comes to preaching. Have you heard of the division of information that is used when it comes to running military-type operations? There is ‘need to know’, ‘good to know’, ‘want to know’, and ‘wish I knew’ (approximately, I work for Jesus, not the CIA). To this, I would add ‘more to know' about God’s Word.

        So, “from the Lecture Hall and not the pulpit”, some details to lift up about Pentecost. First, the apostles were lit! And not in the older meaning of the word, although there were some there who accused them of it. But Peter was clear, they were not drinking. It was 9am! To paraphrase a modern philosopher, I guess it is always 9am somewhere. In Christian art, I believe we are talking about the origins of the halo. If you are not much into Christian art, I invite you to remember the scene in History of the World Part 1, when Leonardo Di Vinci stepped out of time to paint Jesus and his disciples at the Last Supper. Mel Brooks, as Comicus, holds the serving tray behind the head of Jesus. Halo for the Age of Satire. These are tongues, as of fire, as Acts tells us.

        No, the apostles were lit because of the Holy Spirit. But, according to this more modern, informal definition, “very good, impressive, or exciting” (Oxford Languages).

        Then, to fill out the "Rave" that is Pentecost, there is an audio component to the audio-visual spectacular. The Holy Spirit granted the gift of tongues. Now, saying it that way can be confusing, because it can refer to one of two ‘gifts of tongues’ in the New Testament. In this case, the ‘gift of tongues’ is the gift of languages. Each of the apostles was given the ability to share the message of the gospel in the first languages of the various communities of Jews visiting from across the Roman Empire and beyond. 

        It is the command of the church going forward. Wherever people are, whatever language they speak, the Spirit leads the church to reach out with the gospel in their own language. It is not an ‘imperial’ thing where ‘those’ people need to learn ‘our’ language (like English) in order to come into the gift of Jesus. We are called as Jesus was, as servants to the world in need. The apostles got a jumpstart. But to consider just how multilingual the church is today, according to the website “Christian Lingua”, portions of the bible have been translated into over 3300 of the more than 7000 languages currently active in the world. 

       If we are going to distinguish things, the gift of speaking in other languages might be better translated as ‘the gift of utterances’. Which would allow us to use this term to define the other ‘gift of tongues’. Paul speaks of it a lot.

        It is ‘angel-speak’ or ‘heaven-speak’, words spoken in a language that is not of the people of the earth. In fact, it is paired with the gift of interpretation, one person speaks in this unknown way, another then translates and interprets for the congregation.  The purpose it serves is for the personal uplift of those who speak, as Paul describes it and limits its practice in times of gathered worship (1 Corinthians 14). It is also a portion of worshipful practice that I have not experienced in my church experience (to my loss I fear).

        Finally, at Pentecost, we have the Faithful’s Dystopia. What? Peter quotes the prophet Joel on what the End Times are going to look like. From Peter’s words:

17 “In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
   and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
   and your old men shall dream dreams.
18 Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
   in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
     and they shall prophesy.
19 And I will show portents in the heaven above
   and signs on the earth below,
     blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
20 The sun shall be turned to darkness
   and the moon to blood,
     before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
21 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Why do I call this End Times prophecy the Faithful’s Dystopia? Because it is what we believe is going to happen in the end times. What we may not understand is that Peter’s use of this quote was to usher in the End Times, back on Pentecost (so we have been living in approximately two thousand years of "end times" now). This is before things come to an end, this is the Dystopia of the Faithful. At that point, we pray and hope that our faith is not in vain, that, with the End, will come God’s Utopia. That it will come the renewal of the world.

Okay, back on the Pulpit

        The hard part about End Times dominant thinking is that we Christians can use that as an excuse to fall down on the job of being God’s Stewards of this world. Think about Adam and Eve. The role assigned to them was to tend God’s Garden. And they were cast out. There seems to be this strain of theology, this way of thinking about God, that tells us that, maybe because Adam and Eve were tossed out, this world does not matter because of, well, the End Times. Sun to darkness, moon to blood. Why fight it? In fact, why not try to encourage it, get things done-in Ultimate terms. Except we are still God’s stewards for the world.

        We should be leading the fight against global warming instead of demonizing the science and the scientists trying to save our lives.

        What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin against the earth in order that grace may abound? Shall we destroy the earth by our sinful negligence and exploitation because God is going to save it despite our sinful, greedy intentions?? By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? 

Peace-May We Work To Attain It

Pastor Peter

PS-that last bit is from Romans 6.

What’s Okay To Pray? More to the Point, What is NOT Okay to Pray?

             Pastor says, “Everything is okay to pray.” Not only that, but Pastor says it is the Holy Spirit that leads us to prayer. There are threads coming together here. First, we just came off Pentecost Sunday, the celebration of the coming of the Holy Spirit. Next, this concludes our look to the book of the Acts of the Apostles, which has been our focus in May. Our focus is through the lens of the Holy Spirit’s integration into the early church. Thirdly, the implication is that the integration of the Holy Spirit into the early church was not a “one-off”, but ongoing, that the Holy Spirit’s work has, is, and will work in the church till Jesus comes back. The final thread is understanding what the Holy Spirit is for us in our God. 

            The Holy Spirit is Jesus with us. So Jesus promised in John 14, the Holy Spirit is our Advocate, our Counselor. At His ascension, Jesus commanded the disciples to go hang in Jerusalem to await something Wonderful (Spoiler: the Holy Spirit).

            SIDEBAR-You know how at Christmas, we have the list of titles for Jesus from Isaiah, “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Couple of those cross over between Jesus and God the Father. "Wonderful Counselor" crosses over between Jesus and God the Holy Spirit. 

So, what I am claiming as Pastor is that we can pray ANYTHING to Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit/Jesus. Now, when anyone, including-maybe especially-a Pastor makes a sweeping statement about the faith, there are words from John's first letter to lean into, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out."

How do we ‘test the spirits to see whether they are from God’? What does the Bible say? Like, what does the Bible have to say about prayer? Or, more to the point, how are prayers prayed in the Bible? They are all over the place, but there is one book in which they are concentrated. Concentrated and, from what we best understand, meant to be prayed with music. I speak of the Book of Psalms. 

The Book of Psalms is a Kingly book and a kingly book. Upper case “K” stands for God. Lower case “k” stands for king David. He is credited with writing 73 of the 150 psalms gathered in this book of prayer and music.  

So our preaching in June will be from the book of Psalms. The working ‘title’ for the month is “Feelings of Summer”. This will be our lens for the book of Psalms. When wondering what is okay to pray, what emotions are okay? To answer that, we will ask from what emotional points of view are these psalms, these prayers, being expressed? To further focus, we will use "the" Psalm writer, on King David.  

Anger, vengeance, joy, grief, despair, these are just some the feelings from which David wrote. For the Sunday’s in June, we will draw out Psalms that are express these feelings. What did David pray? How do his prayers speak to us? How do they illumine how to speak to God?

This will only begin to address the implications of Pastor's universal comment about prayer. The focus is on one man's intimate relationship with the Almighty. We will look to his voice as an example of what is okay to pray.

Peace,               Pastor Peter

 

Receiving the Holy Spirit: Acts 2 The Scripture and Sermon for May 28, 2023 Pentecost Sunday

 Acts 2:1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

5Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” 12All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

14But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 16No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 17‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 18Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. 19And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. 20The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. 21Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ 22“You that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know— 23this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. 24But God raised him up, having freed him from death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power. 25For David says concerning him, ‘I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand so that I will not be shaken; 26therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; moreover my flesh will live in hope. 27For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One experience corruption. 28You have made known to me the ways of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’ 29“Fellow Israelites, I may say to you confidently of our ancestor David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30Since he was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would put one of his descendants on his throne. 31Foreseeing this, David spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, saying, ‘He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh experience corruption.’ 32This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses. 33Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you both see and hear. 34For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, 35until I make your enemies your footstool.”’ 36Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

37Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” 38Peter said to them, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him.” 40And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” 41So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added.

42They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. 44All who believed were together and had all things in common; 45they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, 47praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Sermon for Sunday, May 28, 2023  "Receiving the Holy Spirit"

For the last few weeks, we have been looking at the integration of the Holy Spirit into the early church. We have seen the Spirit directing the work of the Apostles-as with Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, we have seen the Spirit going to whole new populations-as upon Cornelius and family, and we have seen the Holy Spirit at work among God’s people in time of contention-at the Council of Jerusalem.

In trying to understand God the Holy Spirit, we considered the image of God walking with us. First as God the Creator when God walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day in the garden of Eden. Jesus then is God made flesh, God incarnate, who did indeed walk among us. Yes, Jesus is God, but the hymn “What A Friend We Have In Jesus” helps us to understand where God exists with us in our Lord Jesus Christ. Yes, still God. Yes, Jesus is our King. But more our friend.

And today we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit, the presence of God within us, God walking metaphorically, literally, and spiritually, in our shoes. In years gone by, it has been my challenge to wrap my head, my intellect, around God the Holy Spirit. How do we understand this presence of God as descended upon the apostles, continuing to descend upon us? As Presbyterians, our consideration of faith does lean into the intellectual. Seeking to understand our theology, our ways of thinking about God and what God has done. Experiencing the Holy Spirit, we can presume that follows. We do not go out of our way to seek the more wholistic potential of the Spirit.

And therein is the rub. I believe the Holy Spirit dwells within me. I do not know how I could attempt to write a coherent sermon without that presence that is simply more than I am on my own. But it seems to me that, while we read about Pentecost, while we can accept and assent to and attest to the presence of God within us, we have not gotten the full experience of what the Holy Spirit can do for us.

I mean, look at the story of Pentecost. There is a fireworks show, maybe not Disney brand fireworks, but tongues of flame upon the heads of the apostles? That translates into the ‘halo’ in Christian art. Like Jesus as King between his top apostles to my right behind us. It is like being backlit by a hundred plus watt bulb. 

Then there is the gift of language. How many apostles present? How many ways was the gospel shared?  It is truly impressive to look at a Bible map that lists all the places Acts lists as the places from which these Jews traveled to gather in Jerusalem. It is not like these Jews gathered in Jerusalem could not understand the Apostles. They held Aramaic and Hebrew in common as Jews, Greek as citizens of the empire. 

But this is the gift of first person, first language direct communication. It means nothing lost in translation. But there is so much more than that. Have you ever traveled in a foreign country or in a place where no one knows your language? Or had it happen right here in Perth Amboy? It is easy to feel cut off when not understood, but when you catch that one voice that speaks words you recognize, someone whose first language is English. How that Aloneness can melt away like snow in a rainstorm. How powerful must it have been for the people gathered in the streets of Jerusalem, witnessing something of such profound spiritual importance taking place and there are apostles, speaking the word of the Lord to them in their own tongue? 

Then the gift of the message itself. Peter, that rough fisherman from Galilee is quite the eloquent speaker. I found myself wondering as I was reading the passage this time around if Peter just had the full audience of the gathered Jews in one common language or if this was what each of the apostles was sharing in the varied languages of everyone gathered there? 

And the sum result of the work of the Spirit is something for the hopes and dreams for this congregation. Day by day, the Lord was adding to their number those who were being saved. 

So what is there in the story of Pentecost, the story of the Holy Spirit coming down upon the apostles, their inspiration to go out into the streets and share the Good News of Salvation that we have in Christ Jesus, that speaks to us, to who we are. 

I am not sure I am ready to put on a Pentecost red leisure suit and head us out into the Market Square to share the good news with the random passersby who might just be coming back from the grocery store down where the King High Garage used to be. 

But maybe our experience of the Holy Spirit is something else. Maybe it finds expression in the gift of relief and intimacy that came when the Spirit gave the apostles the gift of languages for their first outreach into the people around them. What do I mean by that?

Let's take last Sunday’s time of joys and concerns. For the last few weeks, we have been remembering especially a certain church member and her family.  We have measured the progress of the work of the Lord in her life. The first press of the Spirit is in our prayers for her and her family. We remember them publicly and privately. 

I would suggest that the inspiration, the request, the opportunity to pray for someone, to intercede on their behalf with our God, that is most often the first touchpoint of the Holy Spirit in the experience of our lives. Our growing awareness in the Spirit is to seek those moments, to be aware of them. It is not often that when you ask someone if you can pray for them that they will refuse. 

Naturally, there is an exception to prove this rule. When I was training to be a pastor, part of that work was “clinical pastoral education”, working as a hospital chaplain. There was a young man I had been speaking to, it was obvious that he was not a person of faith and not interested in a faith message from this chaplain. But he was appreciative that I was there to talk to him and there in a supporting role to listen to him (I had the impression the medical professionals were doing more talking “at” him than to him). It was a mandate of the program that we offer, key word offer, a prayer to conclude a visit. He did not so much accept the prayer I was offering as giving me permission to pray on my behalf, for him, since this was important to me. 

And honestly, prayer is one of those places where one does not have to honor the request of the person to be prayed for. I would respect the request not to pray on the spot, but would certainly make a special note to bring him to the Lord in my private prayers. 

To return to the work of the Holy Spirit, let us focus on the comfort that those visitors to Jerusalem felt in the ‘personal’ touch of the gospel in their own language. Our personal touch extends beyond our prayers to our dear sister. The opportunity to talk to her directly, either on the phone or with a visit to the hospital, some may declare that simply to be the ‘proper behavior of decent people’-which is true-but is so much more in the Holy Spirit. It is community building, the Holy Spirit at work in our midst, building faith upon faith, when we reach out to someone in need.  

For me, the visitation and outreach that I do in the pastoral care of this community extends the prayers of intercession that I first offer. 

Within our church, we have a core of people here who have known each other for years. For the majority here, we have the common ministry of the Presbyterian Women that bound them and continues to bind them. And not just the women of the PW, but a shout out to the gents who has been a faithful member of the Men’s Auxiliary for as long as I have been here. And while the structured organization may be lessened, the fellowship and friendship certainly are not. From there, how many other lives, of caregivers and friends, have we been given opportunity to touch by the Holy Spirit?

There are many examples to be lifted from our community. We all have people in our lives where the love of Christ is needed. We all have lives we can touch. That’s the joy of the faith I have seen and continue to see in this congregation. The Holy Spirit finds expression in our care one for another. 

And what a consideration if we know the Holy Spirit as God’s presence, as the presence of Jesus walking with us? When we come alongside someone, in that moment, we have the heavenly opportunity to be as Jesus alongside of them. We are not coming to ‘save a soul’ or ‘score a point for heaven’. Instead, we are simply doing what Jesus did, sharing the power of love-love backed by the power of God-with someone else. 

And that can be huge. We have the evidence of that from the Pentecost reading we have in Acts. And that can be intimate. We who are here right now. We who know someone who could use a good word. We who let the Spirit inspire us to say something, to do something. We, who for the first time in a very long time, could take a step outside of ourselves and, looking in, come in prayer to the Lord to reveal the leading of the Spirit. 

We have spent our time in the book of Acts looking to the integration of the Holy Spirit into the church. The Holy Spirit, the promised one from Jesus who would take the gift of salvation that we have received through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to God’s plan from before creation and brings it to blossom in our lives. To give us reason to get up in the morning and look around for where the grace of Jesus is needed. And to bring it. May we embrace the Holy Spirit given at Pentecost once again. May it flood our lives with the power of Jesus and the desire to love God and neighbor. May it lead us ever onward in a joyous life in Christ Jesus.

Consider this for a moment. When Jesus was asked to summarize the whole law of God, the law that had governed God’s relationship with humanity from the time the people were called out of Egypt to that moment, remember how he did so? Two commandments. Love God with all we have. Love our neighbors as ourselves. 

The story of Jesus in the gospels is the flip side of that first commandment. Love God with all we have because God first loved us. It was in love that God send the only begotten Son. It was in love that He gave himself over to death, even death on the cross. It was in love that God brought Jesus back and, in Jesus, brings life back to every one of us for our sins. This is not a love that is earned because, through Jesus, we have received the free gift of salvation.

Which brings us to “Part 2”, as the Acts of the Apostles is, in fact, the direct sequel to the Gospel of Luke and the historic sequel to them all. The second commandment of the law is to love our neighbors as ourselves. Which is the premise of the book of Acts. They waited in Jerusalem till the coming of the Holy Spirit, then it was all about loving their neighbors as themselves, carrying to their neighbors, out to the Gentiles and beyond, what the apostles had themselves received, the gift of salvation, the gift of God’s love made manifest in Christ Jesus. 

For some churches, what this translates into is a call to work with people to believe the right thing, to profess the right thing, their acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Savior. But the work of the Holy Spirit is more fundamental than that. It is God’s presence in our lives that we may ever more powerfully love our neighbors. Please understand that I am NOT saying that someone coming to belief in Jesus as Lord and Savior isn’t to be celebrated. What I am saying is that the love of neighbor, our outreach to the world, our fulfillment of the Great Commission, our allowing the Holy Spirit to come out in our lives, is just so much more. 

What I am saying is that where there is the need of love, there the work of the Holy Spirit can be done in our lives. It might be one of our own, it might be someone we have never met before. Our neighbors are everyone. Our opportunities are everywhere. Our possibilities are like God’s love, endless. 

This is the day when we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the whole church. It is a natural day and opportunity for us to renew our commitment to the Holy Spirit in each of our lives. May we be so blessed. May we embrace this gift anew.

 

 Let us pray…