Of Pentecost, Polls, And Power
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
The account of Pentecost in the book of Acts is filled with vivid imagery -- but though there are plenty of “special effects,” what’s really notable is that a multinational crowd is gathered together. When the Spirit descends on this veritable United Nations, the usual need for translators is rendered completely superfluous as “God’s deeds of power” are extolled -- and understood -- in a wide variety of languages. In this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Chris Keating points out that being able to share the Good News with such a diverse audience wasn’t only a necessity for those gathered on Pentecost; it’s also the challenge facing our churches today as we commemorate Pentecost Sunday. According to newly released research from the Pew Foundation, the share of the U.S. population who identify as Christian is sharply declining, while the number of those who call themselves “unaffiliated” is growing. With our “market share” rapidly decreasing, Chris asks us to consider how we ought to respond. How do we go about communicating the gospel to young people and the unchurched so that they “hear, each of [them], in [their] own native language”? All too often, the typical practice of the mainline church has been to complain about this state of affairs and to “blame the customers.” But as any firm can tell you, that’s not a successful long-term business model. Chris notes that an important way to let the Spirit breathe life into our churches is to speak in the cultural language of those we aim to reach.
Team member Dean Feldmeyer shares some additional thoughts on the Ezekiel text through the lens of a current valley of dry bones: namely California, which is dealing with historic levels of drought. Dean suggests that water is a precious resource that too many of us have long taken for granted -- and that its looming scarcity may make it “the new oil”: a valuable commodity that engenders conflict. While the predicament in California may not be anywhere near as catastrophic as that of Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones (not yet, anyway), those who fear for the state’s future must surely be asking themselves the same question: “Can these bones live?” And the answer, as with Ezekiel, is all about hope and trust in the Lord. Dean asks us who might take action to reverse our water problems and bring life back to our valley of dry bones.
Of Pentecost, Polls, and Power
by Chris Keating
Acts 2:1-21
Pentecost is coming, but the question to ponder is “Will anyone notice?”
It’s a serious question. This year, the church’s celebration of Pentecost is not competing with just the 37.5 million Americans who will be away from home. We’re up against a lot more than baseball, patriotic parades, and camping trips. Missing from church this Pentecost will be the ever-growing pool of Americans who have long since stopped attending.
We’ll be missing more than just Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia.
This isn’t news, of course, but the recently released Pew Religious Landscape Study documents just how quickly U.S. adults are leaving church. The survey indicates that there are about five million fewer Americans identifying as Christian than five years ago.
The impact is felt everywhere, and in every denomination. Those who identify as “nones” are still growing, as is the quite broad category of “nothing in particular.” The rapid decline is fueled in part by young adults (members of the “millennial” generation), but includes numbers from every age demographic. Like those gathered in Jerusalem who witnessed the Spirit’s descent on Pentecost, many are perplexed and confused. We’re saying to each other: “What does this mean?”
We can point fingers at kids who won’t come back, or argue about styles of music. We can panic and trade in our Geneva gowns for skinny hipster jeans. Or perhaps we can take a cue from Peter, who stood before a confused and chaotic crowd and raised his voice to say, “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.”
Pentecost is coming -- will anyone notice?
In the News
For some church leaders, declining affiliation is not a new story. For others, however, the news felt like a violent, rushing wind.
The Religious Landscape Study -- whose first hefty, 200-plus page paper can be downloaded from the Pew Forum’s website -- documents American Christianity’s freefall. The study’s reporting on the seismic shifts occurring in North American religion generated headlines in major newspapers, while also peppering conversations across social media. Among the most dire findings is the unsettling news that while the United States remains a staunchly Christian nation, the number of persons identifying as Christian dropped from 78.4% in 2007 to just 70.6% today. Millions have walked away from religion in just five years.
The report surveyed 35,000 American adults over age 18. It is considered to be one of the most comprehensive gauges of religious practices available because of its intensive profiling of American religious practices. Findings from the study will be published in a series of reports throughout the year.
Mainline Protestants showed the greatest decline in absolute numbers -- perhaps a loss as large as 7.3 million in five years. Historically African-American denominations were stable, while white evangelicals showed a modest increase.
Included in the survey were tallies of growth among certain segments. Yet even here the news isn’t so cheery. The fastest growing religious group? Once again, the “nones” have it. This expanding group of persons who are either agnostic, atheist, do not otherwise identify with any major stream of religion, or show no preference rose from slightly more than 15% of the population in 2007 to 22.8% in 2014. Ambivalence in religion is growing.
And that surprised some researchers, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “It’s truly stunning that the percentage of the Nones continues to rise,” said University of Notre Dame scholar David Campbell. “Those of us who watch this closely keep expecting to see that number to reach a ceiling; I’d have expected that line at some point to plateau and reverse.”
Not only are the “nones” growing, but they are getting younger, making it much harder for the church to live up to the prophetic hopes of Pentecost that young ones shall see visions.
For example, the median age of the religiously unaffiliated continues to drop, even as other groups are aging. The “nones” are a particularly youthful bunch, down to age 30 from 37 in 2007. Millenials are not coming back to church -- or even going to church in the first place. The median age of mainline Protestants, by contrast, is now 52. For Catholic adults it is 49.
Among young adults ages 18-24, 36% are unaffiliated. But it isn’t just young adults who are part of the nones. The number of religiously unaffiliated individuals rose across all age spans, according to Pew. In addition, the number of college graduates who identify as Christians has also shrunk since 2007.
Some -- including New York Times op-ed columnist Ross Douthat -- have scoured the findings for indications that the report may overstate the case for Christianity’s decline. Douthat, for example, notes that while there may be a shedding of those who consider themselves culturally Christian, the faithful core may be holding steady. Affiliation, says Douthat, may be in question, but not actual practice.
Others, like Steven Ramey from the University of Alabama, contend that the survey actually reveals very little about American religion “beyond changes in how people are willing to present themselves to anonymous surveyors.”
Yet the overall thrust of the report cannot be argued. As the study itself notes, even accounting for statistical margins of error “the results of the second Religious Landscape Study indicate that Christians probably have lost ground, not only in their relative share of the U.S. population, but also in absolute numbers.”
Despair in the face of these studies will not be helpful. Neither will it be helpful to assign blame to segments of the population. (“If they knew what was good for them, young people would just go to church!”) And, according to millennial writer Rachel Held Evans, making the church more hip by trying to lure young adults with great coffee, iPad giveaways, and hipster-styled preaching won’t cut it either.
Perhaps the best approach may be to contemplate what the Spirit is calling the church to become. Consider, for example, the sage reflections of Phyllis Tickler, author of The Great Emergence. For Tickle, the news may not be as grim as some would believe. In last week’s Presbyterian Outlook, Tickle noted how shifting landscapes have historically shaped Christianity:
We can know -- hopefully with some humor -- that had Roman Catholics been as obsessed with membership numbers in the 16th century as we are today, they would undoubtedly have fired the pope and shut down the Vatican. Declining congregant numbers have rarely declined more dramatically than they did for Rome in the 16th century. Why? The reason is so obvious it is almost pedestrian: There was nothing to make Protestants out of except Roman Catholics. It was that simple, just as it has been that simple in every one of our 500-year brouhahas and just as is happening now when both Protestantism and Roman Catholicism find their numbers dwindling as more and more former congregants move on to Emergence forms of faith and practice. (One could ask just here whether membership numbers are the best index of church vitality in the first place anyway, but that is a different, though related, issue.)
Perhaps what was true for the fledgling church on Pentecost is true for the church today: the time has come to learn to speak new languages of hope with fluency, ease, and proficiency.
In the Scriptures
Luke’s account of the day of Pentecost is sometimes called the “birthday of the church.” And what an event it was -- a true spectacle that could even rival a bedazzled Kardashian-style shindig stocked with A-list celebs. For one thing, as Luke notes, the apostles were “all together in one place.” It’s a minor note, but like the shepherds abiding in the fields near Bethlehem, a small detail foreshadows something spectacular that is about to occur. All the apostles are gathered together, Luke reminds us, as if to emphasize the drama accompanying the Holy Spirit’s entrance.
Forget great coffee and uptempo music, this church has literally set the house on fire! This is a place where God’s vision of inclusion is proclaimed and enacted. This is a community alive and alert to what God is doing.
It is also necessary to remember that Pentecost was first and foremost a Jewish harvest festival that had come to be associated with the giving of the law at Sinai. The event recalls not only a formative event for Israel, but now for the young church. Just as theophany accompanied the giving of the law at Sinai, so does the Spirit’s rushing wind evoke images of God’s power and immanence.
The drama shakes the church into being. The Spirit’s entrance evokes images of the wind of creation -- blowing, breathing, shaping this disparate set of individuals into sacred community. And, unlike the divisions present throughout contemporary Christianity, the one body begins to speak in the languages of each other. These Pentecostal Christians are speaking in tongues -- albeit not in a secret prayer language, but instead in a panoply of languages understood by representatives from all the nations present. It is, in truth, a reversal of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9).
The Spirit-event spills over from the apostles to the entire community, almost as if the walls containing the church had been blown open. The vast assemblage of visitors and foreigners is a reminder of how the Spirit is at work in the world. No wonder all who heard the deeds of God’s power spoken in their native tongues looked at each other and said, “What does this mean?”
Peter, taking the pulpit, assures the crowd that his friends aren’t drunk -- this is just the nine o’clock service, after all! Clearing his throat, he begins preaching. Quoting Joel (the biblical prophet, not Osteen, of course), Peter declares the promise of God: “...your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”
As far as sermons go, this was one a home run. By the time the ushers had finished counting heads, Luke tells us about 3,000 persons were baptized that day. There was no need to be hip, no need to rely on slick marketing efforts aimed at the 20-somethings. This community is a happening place -- a place of promise, and of power. It’s a place where God’s Spirit is present.
It isn’t just a place, however. Instead, it is a Spirit-infused network of relationships and a communion of hearts united in Jesus Christ.
In the Sermon
This year, it could be tempting for the preacher to take a vacation on Pentecost. After all, it is the beginning of summer. The winter was long and cold, and the beach sure does look inviting. And if, as the Pew study indicates, millions have already walked out the door -- why should we bother preaching Pentecost anyway?
Pentecost matters because the Spirit is calling the church to learn new languages. Just as the Holy Spirit danced above the heads of the global gathering in Jerusalem, the Spirit yearns to dance around the church today. The changing landscapes of religion in America should emphasize the importance of learning new languages. We may not have busloads of Parthians and Medes and Cappadocians visiting this Pentecost, but we might have a young family, or a recently graduated college student. They may come to our worship yearning to hear words they can understand. We may have an older person yearning to dream new dreams. Or perhaps even a “none” or two or three who would appreciate a word spoken in their language.
Take the time to learn the language, and they will notice.
Pentecost matters because the Spirit is calling us to preach a sermon that mirrors Peter’s faithfulness. He spoke the lingua franca of his day, calling the assembled women and men to discover God’s works of power in their lives. It was a sermon intentionally aimed at a multi-ethnic audience, a reminder that the Gospel is given to all of God’s people. It was a declaration of what God could do, and what God’s justice might accomplish.
That’s what it means.
Peter’s sermon was addressed to those who had no particular religious affiliation, as well as to those who were steeped in the traditions of Israel. His words did not go unnoticed, and neither will ours if we take the time to learn at least a spattering of the languages our culture is speaking. For Peter, it was a reminder that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” And for that reason, Pentecost matters a great deal.
SECOND THOUGHTS
The New Oil
by Dean Feldmeyer
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Water is the new oil. Or it will be soon.
We used to think of water as plentiful and free. Since it was a necessity for every kind of life, we just assumed that access to potable water was a basic human right. Oh, we didn’t mind paying a little bit for it to be desalinated or cleaned and sterilized, but we never thought it would become scarce.
That happens only in the desert, right?
Ask California. Now in its fourth year of drought, the Golden State has had to place some pretty stringent regulations on how and when water is used -- and those regulations are enforced, for the most part, with some stiff fines.
Here are just a few of the restrictions: Potable water cannot be used to wash driveways or sidewalks. There can be no runoff when irrigating plants with potable water. Hoses used for outdoor activities must have shutoff nozzles. Fountains must recirculate the water they use. And watering outdoor plants for 48 hours after a measurable rainfall is prohibited. Restaurants can serve water only upon request. Hotels and motels must provide guests with an option of not having their towels and linens laundered daily.
Of course, some of those restrictions haven’t reached the wealthy yet. Todd Woody, senior editor for environment and wildlife for Takepart.com, writes that, as might be expected, the wealthiest areas of California are (thanks to some huge loopholes) using most of the water. Since California provides about 20% of America’s fresh produce, agriculture is largely exempt from water regulations. Some wealthy estates and communities have been able to get their private avocado or lemon trees officially approved as commercial agriculture because they sell a couple of bushels to their friends and neighbors.
This has allowed the community of Rancho Santa Fe (in southern California, near San Diego) to use about 605 gallons of water per person per day, while in San Francisco the average is 45 gallons per person per day. (Under rationing, if it comes to that, the allowable usage would be about 65 gallons per person per day.)
Nobody wants to see healthy fruit trees wither and die for lack of water, says Woody. But he calls on the urban water districts to be especially vigilant in “determining how much water a resident is using... to irrigate lemon trees, and how much to fill a swimming pool or keep acres of landscaping green.”
Karen Piper, author of The Price of Thirst: Global Water Inequality and the Coming Chaos, notes in an interview with Salon that while the lack of water due to overuse, unrestricted use, and pollution is a problem, the next problem is going to be that of distribution. She points to the fact that by 2025 multinational corporations will control water distribution to 21 percent of the world’s population.
If that isn’t scary enough, the Canadian business newspaper The Financial Post is quick to remind us that North America has about 1 percent of the world’s population and about 20% of its fresh water. Also, bottled “designer” waters, which are often just tap water with a fancy label, are already more expensive than oil.
What will happen, we wonder, when not just designer water but all water becomes a commodity to “be traded as a futures contract along with pork bellies, oranges, or lumber”?
Water holds a special place in the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. It is ubiquitous in scripture as a symbol of God’s loving kindness, a blessing which YHWH bestows upon the faithful people.
In Genesis, all of creation is formed by dividing the primordial waters horizontally and vertically, creating space for dry land and all that walks upon it.
When creation became polluted with sin and corruption, YHWH cleansed the earth with a flood and brought the survivors to dry land in a boat so they could repopulate the earth.
When drought afflicted the land of Canaan the people fled to Egypt, the land of the Nile, where Joseph welcomed them and there they made their home.
When they become oppressed in Egypt, Moses led them out through the Red Sea and Joshua led them into the Promised Land through the Jordan River.
Jesus was baptized in that same river and grew up in Nazareth, near the Sea of Galilee, and it was from that sea that Jesus called his first disciples, fishermen who were made fishers of people.
The preacher can wax poetic about water, taking the congregation on a virtual tour of the entire scriptures, stopping at all the places where water is an important factor or plays an important role.
And finally we land at Ezekiel and this day’s reading from the Hebrew scriptures.
Ezekiel preached just before and during the Babylonian exile of the Children of Israel. In chapters 1-32 he has preached the bitter message of the coming destruction of the nation and the end of temple life as it had been known.
In 587 BCE that prophecy came to pass when Nebuchadnezzar breached the walls of the city of Jerusalem, slaughtered its inhabitants, burned the city, and razed the temple to the ground. King Zedekiah was captured trying to escape with his family. He was forced to watch his children murdered and then blinded and taken to the dungeons of Babylon from which he never emerged.
The leaders -- the educated, the wealthy, the influential people -- of Judah were marched in chains back to Babylon, where they were forced to live in a ghetto near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
In chapter 33 Ezekiel leaves off his message of doom and begins, with Second Isaiah, to preach a message of hope to his people in exile. In chapter 37, from which today’s reading is taken, he shares with them a vision that YHWH has given to him.
In the vision, Ezekiel is taken to a valley of dry bones.
It is probable that this scene is not unfamiliar to the Hebrew exiles. They had been forced to walk from Jerusalem to Babylon. If they marched in a straight line through the Arabian desert, it would have been a journey of about 540 miles. More likely they went by the accustomed caravan route, which historians put at roughly 900 miles.
Either way, they would have encountered dry bones. The Arabian desert was and is brutal in its arid heat, and the bones of those who have underestimated its lethality bare striking witness to it -- until they are covered by the ever-moving sands.
The caravan route would have gone through all those territories where Nebuchadnezzar’s army had been victorious, the battlefields where the dead had been left as mute witness to the carnage and cruelty of which he was capable.
A valley of dry bones, picked clean by scavengers and left to bake in the sun, is the very definition of hopelessness and an apt symbol for what the people in exile felt upon arriving in the Babylonian ghetto.
When YHWH asked the prophet “Mortal, can these bones live?” the obvious answer is “No, of course not!”
But Ezekiel isn’t quite ready to throw in the towel. He doesn’t say yes, but he doesn’t say no either. He allows that YHWH may have a plan and a power of which he, a mere mortal, is ignorant. “O Lord YHWH, you know.”
What follows is God’s plan, God’s program, God’s process for bringing hope to where hope has been lost. Ezekiel must prophesy, and he must prophesy that which, to an outsider, may seem foolish and a waste of time.
He prophesies to the bones and commands them, and lo and behold, something happens. There is a great rattling and shaking, and the bones begin to move.
Then sinews appear and knit the bones together. Then muscle (flesh) appears and covers the bones and sinews. Then skin covers the bodies, but they are not living souls. They are (forgive me) the walking dead. It is not until God’s breath (wind, spirit) is given to them that they come to life.
Through prophecy the order of death and decomposition are reversed and life emerges.
Who will be the prophets who dare to speak what seems ridiculous to God’s people about the salvation of our environment?
Who will preach to the shrinking aquafers, the dried-up lakes, the trickling streams, the polluted rivers, and those who behold them and see naught but profit to be made?
Who will put the process in motion that will reverse the death of our free, plentiful, potable water and bring life back to the people?
This is the challenge that Ezekiel brings to us today.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Ron Love:
The Arbella, a ship of 350 tons, 28 cannons, and a crew of 52, set sail from Cowes in the Isle of Wight on March 29, 1630. The passengers on board for the voyage across the Atlantic were the future leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The families could do little to amuse themselves during the long hours at sea: the most popular form of entertainment was listening to a sermon. As the Arbella neared the coast of the New World, John Winthrop, the leader of the colony, delivered a stirring sermon. Winthrop prophesied to the colonists: “We shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all the people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with our god in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.” With those words the Puritans had their mandate: to be the perfect Christian community, one to be imitated throughout civilization.
Application: As a church we ought to think of ourselves as a community set upon the heights of society, a community that can be observed by everyone. Looking to the church, people ought to see a fellowship that abounds in love, that cares for friend and stranger alike, that is supportive and complimentary to all persons, that is inclusive of people from every walk of life, and that is not dependent upon the color one one’s skin for membership in the fold. This Pentecost and Memorial Day we must recognize the leadership potential of the Christian church.
*****
Samuel Hulton invited his unemployed nephew, Dwight L. Moody, to come to Boston and work in a shoe store. But Moody could only come if he accepted the following conditions outlined by his uncle: he must attend church and Sunday school every week, and never go anywhere that he would not want his mother to know about. Accepting these rules, Moody journeyed to Boston where he attended the Mount Vernon Congregational Church. Moody came to his class with very little knowledge of the scriptures. But his Sunday school teacher, Edward Kimball, was a kind and gentle man who worked patiently with the shy lad. Soon Kimball knew that it was time for his student to surrender his life to Jesus. Kimball walked to the store where Moody worked, desiring to share with the youth God’s plan of salvation. Reaching the door Kimball paused, uncertain about entering. Kimball questioned if it was proper to witness to an employee during business hours, and if in doing so the boy would be embarrassed and laughed at by the other clerks. Realizing it was his duty to share the gospel message, Kimball dashed into the store. To his relief, Kimball found Moody alone in the rear of the store, boxing shoes. Kimball put his hand on the 17-year-old’s shoulder and made what he felt was a weak plea for Christ. But it must have been strong enough, for Dwight L. Moody accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior. Moody described the change in his life with these words: “Before my conversion I worked toward the Cross, but since then I have worked from the Cross; then I worked to be saved, now I work because I am saved.”
Application: This day you and I work from the cross, for we rejoice in the blessing of our salvation. However feeble we may feel our witness to be, the power of the Holy Spirit will change lives. There is no reason to be uncertain regarding the message which has been entrusted to us, nor are we to be irresolute in sharing it. Standing in the radiance of the cross, we confidently announce the Word of God.
*****
The Moravian community of Herrnhut in Saxony was well established by the year 1727. Unfortunately, dissension and bickering began to plague the commune. The leader of Herrnhut, Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, realized that only a revival would restore order among his followers. On May 12 the revival was held, and a great spirit came upon the people. By the end of the summer the communicants wanted this magnificent blessing to continue, so on August 27 a prayer vigil began. On that August morning, 24 men and 24 women decided to spend one hour in prayer, with the time being scheduled so that someone was praying every hour of the day. Soon others joined what became known as the “hourly intercession.” Amazingly, this discipline lasted for 100 years. Those who participated based their calling on this Old Testament text: “The sacred fire was never permitted to go out on the altar” (Leviticus 6:13).
Application: The sacred fire is placed so all people may see the good works done by Christians everywhere, and bow in homage before the Creator. Thus anyone who chooses to be a part of the light must engage herself/himself in ministry. It is only by being empowered by the Holy Spirit that the love of Christ is reflected in the world today.
*****
Mother Teresa once shared how the Missionaries of Charity established their first shelter in Melbourne as a result of one small task. While visiting that city, Mother Teresa learned of an old man living alone. She went to his apartment and gave it a thorough cleaning. She discovered the man always sat in the dark, even though next to him was a lamp that was never used, a lamp covered with layers of dust. The man explained that since he never received a visitor, there was not any reason to light the lamp. Mother Teresa then asked, “If the Sisters come to visit you, will you light it?” “Yes,” he replied, “I will light it if I hear the sound of a human voice.” For that man and the many like him, the Sisters opened a chapter in Melbourne. Through the years the visiting Sisters were always greeted by a lighted room.
Application: The Holy Spirit will guide us to be a light unto others.
***************
From team member Mary Austin:
What We Notice
We miss a lot about each other, but researchers at Harvard University say that the very things we notice about each other is not our shoes, height, or even financial status. Almost without realizing it, we take in race and gender before anything else. Using functional MRI (fMRI) to see which areas of the brain respond to new faces, researchers found that the brain “is constantly categorizing faces by sex and race.” The researchers add, “We found that a brain region called the fusiform face area, or the FFA for short, seems to play a key role in differentiating faces along these two dimensions [race and gender].... When we studied the patterns of activation in this region, we found they were different for black and white faces, and for male and female faces.”
The researchers suggest that this part of the brain is involved in sorting out the identity of the people we meet. “Sex and race can be important things to know about another person, so it would make sense that as soon as you see another person, you need to know figure out the social categories to which they belong,” one of them explained. “Obviously, characteristics that are inextricably linked to you, like your race and your sex, are part of identity.” We notice these things about each other, often without knowing we’re doing it. (Read more here.)
*****
What We Don’t Notice
We fail to notice much of what we see each day. Science Daily reports that, in spite of seeing the Apple logo every day, most people failed to draw it correctly. Researchers note that this is true for many common objects: “Earlier studies have shown that most people have a poor memory for other items they encounter daily or almost daily, including computer keyboards (even skilled typists have difficulty describing a standard keyboard), pennies, and road signs.” It turns out that we may not need to notice ordinary items. “An explanation may be that our brains have learned it is not important to remember specific details. An efficient memory system does not need to store the details of a corporate logo, except perhaps to distinguish counterfeit products, the researchers concluded.” However, we think we see more than we do. “There was a striking discrepancy between participants’ confidence prior to drawing the logo and how well they performed on the task,” said the study’s senior author, Alan Castel. “People’s memory, even for extremely common objects, is much poorer than they believe it to be.” We don’t even notice what we’re not noticing. (Read more here.)
***************
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:
A pair of illustrations on being “gathered together in one place”:
In the new movie The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Tony “Iron Man” Stark and David “The Hulk” Banner decide to attempt to create an artificial intelligence that will protect the earth from other invasions like the one they barely managed to drive off in first Avengers film. When the rest of the team discovers what the two scientists have done in secret they are angry, but Stark tries to defend what he and Banner have done:
Tony Stark/Iron Man: Does anybody remember when I put a missile through a portal in New York City? We were standing right under it. We’re the Avengers, we can bust weapons dealers the whole doo-dah-day, but how do we cope with something like that?
Steve Rogers/Captain America: Together.
Tony Stark/Iron Man: We’ll lose.
Steve Rogers/Captain America: We do that together too.
Later in the film when Ultron comes face to face with the gathered Avengers, he asks them: “How do you propose to stop me?”
Iron Man answers, with a nod to Captain America, “Like the old man said: Together.”
*****
In the movie Gladiator the character Maximus, once a general in Rome’s army, has survived an assassination attempt that came under the order of the new emperor, Commodus. He has barely survived, and he comes home to find his family murdered.
Wounded, discovered, nursed back to health, and sold into slavery, he has been purchased to fight in the arena as a gladiator -- and finally makes his way to the Great Circus in Rome.
Now he and a few other gladiators stand in the middle of the fighting ground as the coming battle is introduced to the crowd:
Cassius: On this day we reach back to hallowed antiquity, to bring you a re-creation of the second fall of the mighty Carthage!... On the barren plain of Zama, there stood the invincible armies of the barbarian Hannibal. Ferocious mercenaries and warriors from all brute nations, bent on merciless destruction, conquest. Your emperor is pleased to give you the barbarian horde! [crowd cheers]
Maximus:[to the other gladiators, while Cassius continues his introduction] Anyone here been in the army?
[An unknown gladiator responds yes and tells Maximus he served under his command at Vindobona.]
Maximus: You can help me. [to the others] Whatever comes out of these gates, we’ve got a better chance of survival if we work together. Do you understand? If we stay together we survive.
Cassius: I’m pleased to bring to you the Legionnaires of Scipio Africanus!
On that cue, the giant gates open and armored chariots charge into the arena. On Maximus’s order the gladiators form a phalanx, the standard Roman military maneuver, and working together, with their shields interlocked, they are victorious -- to the surprise and delight of the crowd.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: How manifold are the works of God!
People: In wisdom God made them all.
Leader: May the glory of God endure forever.
People: May God rejoice in the works of creation.
Leader: Let us sing to God as long as we live.
People: Let us sing praise to our God while we have being.
OR
Leader: Come and offer your praises to God!
People: We come to speak of God’s goodness and greatness.
Leader: Come and hear of God’s compassion and grace.
People: With joy we hear the Good News of the gospel.
Leader: Take that message with you and share it with others.
People: We will learn to speak of God’s love to all whom we meet.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
“Lord, Speak to Me”
found in:
UMH: 463
PH: 426
NCH: 531
ELA: 676
W&P: 593
“I Love to Tell the Story”
found in:
UMH: 156
AAHH: 513
NNBH: 424
NCH: 522
CH: 480
LBW: 390
ELA: 601
W&P: 560
AMEC: 217
“Hope of the World”
found in:
UMH: 178
H82: 472
PH: 360
NCH: 46
CH: 538
LBW: 493
W&P: 404
“There’s a Spirit in the Air”
found in:
UMH: 192
PH: 433
NCH: 294
CH: 257
W&P: 133
Renew: 282
“Heralds of Christ”
found in:
UMH: 567
“We’ve a Story to Tell to the Nations”
found in:
UMH: 569
NNBH: 416
W&P: 562
“O Zion, Haste”
found in:
UMH: 573
H82: 539
NNBH: 422
LBW: 397
ELA: 668
AMEC: 566
“Sois la Semilla” (“You Are the Seed”)
found in:
UMH: 583
NCH: 528
CH: 478
“Lord, I Lift Your Name on High”
found in:
CCB: 36
Renew: 4
“How Majestic Is Your Name”
found in:
CCB: 21
Renew: 98
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who speaks to your children in words of love: Grant us the wisdom to learn to speak of your love to others in ways that connect with their lives and speak to their hearts; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We worship and praise you, O God, for you are the one who speaks words of love to our very hearts. Help us to so learn the ways of your love that we may share them freely with others in our deeds and in our words. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins, and especially failure to know others well enough to speak in their “languages.”
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We gladly receive the words of grace and love that you speak to us, but we are slow to offer grace, forgiveness, and love to others. We have our favorite ways of talking about you and your works, and when others do not understand we write them off as godless or hard-hearted or worse. We do not try to get to know them so that we can speak in words they can understand. Forgive us, and renew us in your love so that we can lovingly seek to share with others the Good News of Jesus. Amen.
Leader: God loved us enough to speak to us in human ways through Jesus. God loves us and forgives us, and bids us to share that love with others.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord’s Prayer)
Glory and power are yours, O God, for you have created us in your own image. As you made us out of your great love, you have made us for loving you and one another.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We gladly receive the words of grace and love that you speak to us, but we are slow to offer grace, forgiveness, and love to others. We have our favorite ways of talking about you and your works, and when others do not understand we write them off as godless or hard-hearted or worse. We do not try to get to know them so that we can speak in words they can understand. Forgive us, and renew us in your love so that we can lovingly seek to share with others the Good News of Jesus.
We give you thanks for all the ways you have taught us about your love and care for us. We thank you for family and friends and our sisters and brothers in the Church who have spoken the language of love to us. Most of all we thank you that you gave us Jesus to speak in word and deed about your grace.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our needs, and for all, anywhere, who have not heard in their language about your grace.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father . . . Amen.
(or if the Lord’s Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
If you know a language other than English (or whatever language your congregation normally speaks), you may try a little of it out on the children. If not, you may try reading a bit from the Bible in another language. Some of you may even remember your Greek and Hebrew from seminary! Ask the children about what you said or read to them. Talk about how, if we want people to understand us, we need to speak the language they understand. On Pentecost God helped people to speak and hear the same language. God wants us to spread the Good News of the gospel.
CHILDREN’S SERMON
Open to the Spirit
by Leah Lonsbury
Acts 2:1-21
The story of Pentecost is a wild one, full of great visuals and vivid, almost hyperbolic descriptions of what it must have been like to experience the inbreaking of the Spirit --
There is “the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.”
Divided tongues of fire rest on each person gathered, and filled with the Holy Spirit, everybody starts speaking in other languages. Everybody also hears in the language they can understand.
The crowd is bewildered, amazed, astonished, and perplexed. They question, doubt, and scoff. Ultimately, they learn that the Spirit comes to all, and that the faithful response isn’t found in having it all figured out and casting off all fear and doubt. The faithful response is in being open to the Spirit and becoming vessels for its dreams, visions, saving words, and acts of love.
Items needed:
* A kid-accessible version of the Pentecost story. Rewrite/retell it in your own words, or look to an established version. (Ralph Milton’s The Family Story Bible is one.) Try to work in the feeling words found in the NRSV -- bewildered, amazed, astonished, perplexed.
* A feelings poster or pictures of people’s faces expressing different emotions. Alternatively, drum up volunteers to make the appropriate faces.
* A balloon (or two) you can easily inflate.
Read, act out, invite the kids to act out, or have some adults and teenagers act out the kid-accessible version of the Pentecost story. Emphasize these words and responses: bewildered, amazed, astonished, perplexed, questioning, doubting, and scoffing.
Look for these feelings and responses on the feelings poster, in pictures, or on each others’ faces.
Ask the kids what these feelings and responses tell us about Jesus’ followers. These reactions are normal when we’re scared, overwhelmed, surprised, or experiencing new and unusual events. They aren’t less faithful, able, or ready to be God’s Good News for the world.
Ask the kids to talk about a time when they were feeling one of these ways, and they went ahead and did what they were aiming to do anyway. Give your own example.
Share the example of artist Georgia O’Keefe, the mother of American Modernism, who said: “I’ve been absolutely terrified my whole life -- and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.”
or
Share the example of 17-year-old Charlotte Brown, who made it to the medal stand at the Texas state high school track and field championships in pole vaulting this month. Charlotte is also legally blind.
or
Share the example of 18-year-old Sonita Alizadeh, who was born in Afghanistan and fled with her family to Iran. There she got involved in an arts program and wrote and performed a rap for a video called “Brides for Sale” that changed her parents’ minds when they decided she should be married at 14 so they could have her dowry to pay for her brother’s wedding.
Remind the kids that you don’t have to be unafraid or have it all figured out to be open to and moved by the Spirit to do powerful and loving things, just like Jesus’ followers did.
If you wish, use a balloon to demonstrate the above. Talk about the way the balloon has to be open to receiving air. Blow it up, and let it go. Imagine together what we can do if we’re open to the Spirit.
Prayer: Loving God, help us stay open to you and to your Spirit. We want to be brave and ready so we can be your Love for the world. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, May 24, 2015, issue.
Copyright 2015 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
Team member Dean Feldmeyer shares some additional thoughts on the Ezekiel text through the lens of a current valley of dry bones: namely California, which is dealing with historic levels of drought. Dean suggests that water is a precious resource that too many of us have long taken for granted -- and that its looming scarcity may make it “the new oil”: a valuable commodity that engenders conflict. While the predicament in California may not be anywhere near as catastrophic as that of Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones (not yet, anyway), those who fear for the state’s future must surely be asking themselves the same question: “Can these bones live?” And the answer, as with Ezekiel, is all about hope and trust in the Lord. Dean asks us who might take action to reverse our water problems and bring life back to our valley of dry bones.
Of Pentecost, Polls, and Power
by Chris Keating
Acts 2:1-21
Pentecost is coming, but the question to ponder is “Will anyone notice?”
It’s a serious question. This year, the church’s celebration of Pentecost is not competing with just the 37.5 million Americans who will be away from home. We’re up against a lot more than baseball, patriotic parades, and camping trips. Missing from church this Pentecost will be the ever-growing pool of Americans who have long since stopped attending.
We’ll be missing more than just Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia.
This isn’t news, of course, but the recently released Pew Religious Landscape Study documents just how quickly U.S. adults are leaving church. The survey indicates that there are about five million fewer Americans identifying as Christian than five years ago.
The impact is felt everywhere, and in every denomination. Those who identify as “nones” are still growing, as is the quite broad category of “nothing in particular.” The rapid decline is fueled in part by young adults (members of the “millennial” generation), but includes numbers from every age demographic. Like those gathered in Jerusalem who witnessed the Spirit’s descent on Pentecost, many are perplexed and confused. We’re saying to each other: “What does this mean?”
We can point fingers at kids who won’t come back, or argue about styles of music. We can panic and trade in our Geneva gowns for skinny hipster jeans. Or perhaps we can take a cue from Peter, who stood before a confused and chaotic crowd and raised his voice to say, “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.”
Pentecost is coming -- will anyone notice?
In the News
For some church leaders, declining affiliation is not a new story. For others, however, the news felt like a violent, rushing wind.
The Religious Landscape Study -- whose first hefty, 200-plus page paper can be downloaded from the Pew Forum’s website -- documents American Christianity’s freefall. The study’s reporting on the seismic shifts occurring in North American religion generated headlines in major newspapers, while also peppering conversations across social media. Among the most dire findings is the unsettling news that while the United States remains a staunchly Christian nation, the number of persons identifying as Christian dropped from 78.4% in 2007 to just 70.6% today. Millions have walked away from religion in just five years.
The report surveyed 35,000 American adults over age 18. It is considered to be one of the most comprehensive gauges of religious practices available because of its intensive profiling of American religious practices. Findings from the study will be published in a series of reports throughout the year.
Mainline Protestants showed the greatest decline in absolute numbers -- perhaps a loss as large as 7.3 million in five years. Historically African-American denominations were stable, while white evangelicals showed a modest increase.
Included in the survey were tallies of growth among certain segments. Yet even here the news isn’t so cheery. The fastest growing religious group? Once again, the “nones” have it. This expanding group of persons who are either agnostic, atheist, do not otherwise identify with any major stream of religion, or show no preference rose from slightly more than 15% of the population in 2007 to 22.8% in 2014. Ambivalence in religion is growing.
And that surprised some researchers, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “It’s truly stunning that the percentage of the Nones continues to rise,” said University of Notre Dame scholar David Campbell. “Those of us who watch this closely keep expecting to see that number to reach a ceiling; I’d have expected that line at some point to plateau and reverse.”
Not only are the “nones” growing, but they are getting younger, making it much harder for the church to live up to the prophetic hopes of Pentecost that young ones shall see visions.
For example, the median age of the religiously unaffiliated continues to drop, even as other groups are aging. The “nones” are a particularly youthful bunch, down to age 30 from 37 in 2007. Millenials are not coming back to church -- or even going to church in the first place. The median age of mainline Protestants, by contrast, is now 52. For Catholic adults it is 49.
Among young adults ages 18-24, 36% are unaffiliated. But it isn’t just young adults who are part of the nones. The number of religiously unaffiliated individuals rose across all age spans, according to Pew. In addition, the number of college graduates who identify as Christians has also shrunk since 2007.
Some -- including New York Times op-ed columnist Ross Douthat -- have scoured the findings for indications that the report may overstate the case for Christianity’s decline. Douthat, for example, notes that while there may be a shedding of those who consider themselves culturally Christian, the faithful core may be holding steady. Affiliation, says Douthat, may be in question, but not actual practice.
Others, like Steven Ramey from the University of Alabama, contend that the survey actually reveals very little about American religion “beyond changes in how people are willing to present themselves to anonymous surveyors.”
Yet the overall thrust of the report cannot be argued. As the study itself notes, even accounting for statistical margins of error “the results of the second Religious Landscape Study indicate that Christians probably have lost ground, not only in their relative share of the U.S. population, but also in absolute numbers.”
Despair in the face of these studies will not be helpful. Neither will it be helpful to assign blame to segments of the population. (“If they knew what was good for them, young people would just go to church!”) And, according to millennial writer Rachel Held Evans, making the church more hip by trying to lure young adults with great coffee, iPad giveaways, and hipster-styled preaching won’t cut it either.
Perhaps the best approach may be to contemplate what the Spirit is calling the church to become. Consider, for example, the sage reflections of Phyllis Tickler, author of The Great Emergence. For Tickle, the news may not be as grim as some would believe. In last week’s Presbyterian Outlook, Tickle noted how shifting landscapes have historically shaped Christianity:
We can know -- hopefully with some humor -- that had Roman Catholics been as obsessed with membership numbers in the 16th century as we are today, they would undoubtedly have fired the pope and shut down the Vatican. Declining congregant numbers have rarely declined more dramatically than they did for Rome in the 16th century. Why? The reason is so obvious it is almost pedestrian: There was nothing to make Protestants out of except Roman Catholics. It was that simple, just as it has been that simple in every one of our 500-year brouhahas and just as is happening now when both Protestantism and Roman Catholicism find their numbers dwindling as more and more former congregants move on to Emergence forms of faith and practice. (One could ask just here whether membership numbers are the best index of church vitality in the first place anyway, but that is a different, though related, issue.)
Perhaps what was true for the fledgling church on Pentecost is true for the church today: the time has come to learn to speak new languages of hope with fluency, ease, and proficiency.
In the Scriptures
Luke’s account of the day of Pentecost is sometimes called the “birthday of the church.” And what an event it was -- a true spectacle that could even rival a bedazzled Kardashian-style shindig stocked with A-list celebs. For one thing, as Luke notes, the apostles were “all together in one place.” It’s a minor note, but like the shepherds abiding in the fields near Bethlehem, a small detail foreshadows something spectacular that is about to occur. All the apostles are gathered together, Luke reminds us, as if to emphasize the drama accompanying the Holy Spirit’s entrance.
Forget great coffee and uptempo music, this church has literally set the house on fire! This is a place where God’s vision of inclusion is proclaimed and enacted. This is a community alive and alert to what God is doing.
It is also necessary to remember that Pentecost was first and foremost a Jewish harvest festival that had come to be associated with the giving of the law at Sinai. The event recalls not only a formative event for Israel, but now for the young church. Just as theophany accompanied the giving of the law at Sinai, so does the Spirit’s rushing wind evoke images of God’s power and immanence.
The drama shakes the church into being. The Spirit’s entrance evokes images of the wind of creation -- blowing, breathing, shaping this disparate set of individuals into sacred community. And, unlike the divisions present throughout contemporary Christianity, the one body begins to speak in the languages of each other. These Pentecostal Christians are speaking in tongues -- albeit not in a secret prayer language, but instead in a panoply of languages understood by representatives from all the nations present. It is, in truth, a reversal of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9).
The Spirit-event spills over from the apostles to the entire community, almost as if the walls containing the church had been blown open. The vast assemblage of visitors and foreigners is a reminder of how the Spirit is at work in the world. No wonder all who heard the deeds of God’s power spoken in their native tongues looked at each other and said, “What does this mean?”
Peter, taking the pulpit, assures the crowd that his friends aren’t drunk -- this is just the nine o’clock service, after all! Clearing his throat, he begins preaching. Quoting Joel (the biblical prophet, not Osteen, of course), Peter declares the promise of God: “...your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”
As far as sermons go, this was one a home run. By the time the ushers had finished counting heads, Luke tells us about 3,000 persons were baptized that day. There was no need to be hip, no need to rely on slick marketing efforts aimed at the 20-somethings. This community is a happening place -- a place of promise, and of power. It’s a place where God’s Spirit is present.
It isn’t just a place, however. Instead, it is a Spirit-infused network of relationships and a communion of hearts united in Jesus Christ.
In the Sermon
This year, it could be tempting for the preacher to take a vacation on Pentecost. After all, it is the beginning of summer. The winter was long and cold, and the beach sure does look inviting. And if, as the Pew study indicates, millions have already walked out the door -- why should we bother preaching Pentecost anyway?
Pentecost matters because the Spirit is calling the church to learn new languages. Just as the Holy Spirit danced above the heads of the global gathering in Jerusalem, the Spirit yearns to dance around the church today. The changing landscapes of religion in America should emphasize the importance of learning new languages. We may not have busloads of Parthians and Medes and Cappadocians visiting this Pentecost, but we might have a young family, or a recently graduated college student. They may come to our worship yearning to hear words they can understand. We may have an older person yearning to dream new dreams. Or perhaps even a “none” or two or three who would appreciate a word spoken in their language.
Take the time to learn the language, and they will notice.
Pentecost matters because the Spirit is calling us to preach a sermon that mirrors Peter’s faithfulness. He spoke the lingua franca of his day, calling the assembled women and men to discover God’s works of power in their lives. It was a sermon intentionally aimed at a multi-ethnic audience, a reminder that the Gospel is given to all of God’s people. It was a declaration of what God could do, and what God’s justice might accomplish.
That’s what it means.
Peter’s sermon was addressed to those who had no particular religious affiliation, as well as to those who were steeped in the traditions of Israel. His words did not go unnoticed, and neither will ours if we take the time to learn at least a spattering of the languages our culture is speaking. For Peter, it was a reminder that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” And for that reason, Pentecost matters a great deal.
SECOND THOUGHTS
The New Oil
by Dean Feldmeyer
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Water is the new oil. Or it will be soon.
We used to think of water as plentiful and free. Since it was a necessity for every kind of life, we just assumed that access to potable water was a basic human right. Oh, we didn’t mind paying a little bit for it to be desalinated or cleaned and sterilized, but we never thought it would become scarce.
That happens only in the desert, right?
Ask California. Now in its fourth year of drought, the Golden State has had to place some pretty stringent regulations on how and when water is used -- and those regulations are enforced, for the most part, with some stiff fines.
Here are just a few of the restrictions: Potable water cannot be used to wash driveways or sidewalks. There can be no runoff when irrigating plants with potable water. Hoses used for outdoor activities must have shutoff nozzles. Fountains must recirculate the water they use. And watering outdoor plants for 48 hours after a measurable rainfall is prohibited. Restaurants can serve water only upon request. Hotels and motels must provide guests with an option of not having their towels and linens laundered daily.
Of course, some of those restrictions haven’t reached the wealthy yet. Todd Woody, senior editor for environment and wildlife for Takepart.com, writes that, as might be expected, the wealthiest areas of California are (thanks to some huge loopholes) using most of the water. Since California provides about 20% of America’s fresh produce, agriculture is largely exempt from water regulations. Some wealthy estates and communities have been able to get their private avocado or lemon trees officially approved as commercial agriculture because they sell a couple of bushels to their friends and neighbors.
This has allowed the community of Rancho Santa Fe (in southern California, near San Diego) to use about 605 gallons of water per person per day, while in San Francisco the average is 45 gallons per person per day. (Under rationing, if it comes to that, the allowable usage would be about 65 gallons per person per day.)
Nobody wants to see healthy fruit trees wither and die for lack of water, says Woody. But he calls on the urban water districts to be especially vigilant in “determining how much water a resident is using... to irrigate lemon trees, and how much to fill a swimming pool or keep acres of landscaping green.”
Karen Piper, author of The Price of Thirst: Global Water Inequality and the Coming Chaos, notes in an interview with Salon that while the lack of water due to overuse, unrestricted use, and pollution is a problem, the next problem is going to be that of distribution. She points to the fact that by 2025 multinational corporations will control water distribution to 21 percent of the world’s population.
If that isn’t scary enough, the Canadian business newspaper The Financial Post is quick to remind us that North America has about 1 percent of the world’s population and about 20% of its fresh water. Also, bottled “designer” waters, which are often just tap water with a fancy label, are already more expensive than oil.
What will happen, we wonder, when not just designer water but all water becomes a commodity to “be traded as a futures contract along with pork bellies, oranges, or lumber”?
Water holds a special place in the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. It is ubiquitous in scripture as a symbol of God’s loving kindness, a blessing which YHWH bestows upon the faithful people.
In Genesis, all of creation is formed by dividing the primordial waters horizontally and vertically, creating space for dry land and all that walks upon it.
When creation became polluted with sin and corruption, YHWH cleansed the earth with a flood and brought the survivors to dry land in a boat so they could repopulate the earth.
When drought afflicted the land of Canaan the people fled to Egypt, the land of the Nile, where Joseph welcomed them and there they made their home.
When they become oppressed in Egypt, Moses led them out through the Red Sea and Joshua led them into the Promised Land through the Jordan River.
Jesus was baptized in that same river and grew up in Nazareth, near the Sea of Galilee, and it was from that sea that Jesus called his first disciples, fishermen who were made fishers of people.
The preacher can wax poetic about water, taking the congregation on a virtual tour of the entire scriptures, stopping at all the places where water is an important factor or plays an important role.
And finally we land at Ezekiel and this day’s reading from the Hebrew scriptures.
Ezekiel preached just before and during the Babylonian exile of the Children of Israel. In chapters 1-32 he has preached the bitter message of the coming destruction of the nation and the end of temple life as it had been known.
In 587 BCE that prophecy came to pass when Nebuchadnezzar breached the walls of the city of Jerusalem, slaughtered its inhabitants, burned the city, and razed the temple to the ground. King Zedekiah was captured trying to escape with his family. He was forced to watch his children murdered and then blinded and taken to the dungeons of Babylon from which he never emerged.
The leaders -- the educated, the wealthy, the influential people -- of Judah were marched in chains back to Babylon, where they were forced to live in a ghetto near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
In chapter 33 Ezekiel leaves off his message of doom and begins, with Second Isaiah, to preach a message of hope to his people in exile. In chapter 37, from which today’s reading is taken, he shares with them a vision that YHWH has given to him.
In the vision, Ezekiel is taken to a valley of dry bones.
It is probable that this scene is not unfamiliar to the Hebrew exiles. They had been forced to walk from Jerusalem to Babylon. If they marched in a straight line through the Arabian desert, it would have been a journey of about 540 miles. More likely they went by the accustomed caravan route, which historians put at roughly 900 miles.
Either way, they would have encountered dry bones. The Arabian desert was and is brutal in its arid heat, and the bones of those who have underestimated its lethality bare striking witness to it -- until they are covered by the ever-moving sands.
The caravan route would have gone through all those territories where Nebuchadnezzar’s army had been victorious, the battlefields where the dead had been left as mute witness to the carnage and cruelty of which he was capable.
A valley of dry bones, picked clean by scavengers and left to bake in the sun, is the very definition of hopelessness and an apt symbol for what the people in exile felt upon arriving in the Babylonian ghetto.
When YHWH asked the prophet “Mortal, can these bones live?” the obvious answer is “No, of course not!”
But Ezekiel isn’t quite ready to throw in the towel. He doesn’t say yes, but he doesn’t say no either. He allows that YHWH may have a plan and a power of which he, a mere mortal, is ignorant. “O Lord YHWH, you know.”
What follows is God’s plan, God’s program, God’s process for bringing hope to where hope has been lost. Ezekiel must prophesy, and he must prophesy that which, to an outsider, may seem foolish and a waste of time.
He prophesies to the bones and commands them, and lo and behold, something happens. There is a great rattling and shaking, and the bones begin to move.
Then sinews appear and knit the bones together. Then muscle (flesh) appears and covers the bones and sinews. Then skin covers the bodies, but they are not living souls. They are (forgive me) the walking dead. It is not until God’s breath (wind, spirit) is given to them that they come to life.
Through prophecy the order of death and decomposition are reversed and life emerges.
Who will be the prophets who dare to speak what seems ridiculous to God’s people about the salvation of our environment?
Who will preach to the shrinking aquafers, the dried-up lakes, the trickling streams, the polluted rivers, and those who behold them and see naught but profit to be made?
Who will put the process in motion that will reverse the death of our free, plentiful, potable water and bring life back to the people?
This is the challenge that Ezekiel brings to us today.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Ron Love:
The Arbella, a ship of 350 tons, 28 cannons, and a crew of 52, set sail from Cowes in the Isle of Wight on March 29, 1630. The passengers on board for the voyage across the Atlantic were the future leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The families could do little to amuse themselves during the long hours at sea: the most popular form of entertainment was listening to a sermon. As the Arbella neared the coast of the New World, John Winthrop, the leader of the colony, delivered a stirring sermon. Winthrop prophesied to the colonists: “We shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all the people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with our god in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.” With those words the Puritans had their mandate: to be the perfect Christian community, one to be imitated throughout civilization.
Application: As a church we ought to think of ourselves as a community set upon the heights of society, a community that can be observed by everyone. Looking to the church, people ought to see a fellowship that abounds in love, that cares for friend and stranger alike, that is supportive and complimentary to all persons, that is inclusive of people from every walk of life, and that is not dependent upon the color one one’s skin for membership in the fold. This Pentecost and Memorial Day we must recognize the leadership potential of the Christian church.
*****
Samuel Hulton invited his unemployed nephew, Dwight L. Moody, to come to Boston and work in a shoe store. But Moody could only come if he accepted the following conditions outlined by his uncle: he must attend church and Sunday school every week, and never go anywhere that he would not want his mother to know about. Accepting these rules, Moody journeyed to Boston where he attended the Mount Vernon Congregational Church. Moody came to his class with very little knowledge of the scriptures. But his Sunday school teacher, Edward Kimball, was a kind and gentle man who worked patiently with the shy lad. Soon Kimball knew that it was time for his student to surrender his life to Jesus. Kimball walked to the store where Moody worked, desiring to share with the youth God’s plan of salvation. Reaching the door Kimball paused, uncertain about entering. Kimball questioned if it was proper to witness to an employee during business hours, and if in doing so the boy would be embarrassed and laughed at by the other clerks. Realizing it was his duty to share the gospel message, Kimball dashed into the store. To his relief, Kimball found Moody alone in the rear of the store, boxing shoes. Kimball put his hand on the 17-year-old’s shoulder and made what he felt was a weak plea for Christ. But it must have been strong enough, for Dwight L. Moody accepted Jesus Christ as his Savior. Moody described the change in his life with these words: “Before my conversion I worked toward the Cross, but since then I have worked from the Cross; then I worked to be saved, now I work because I am saved.”
Application: This day you and I work from the cross, for we rejoice in the blessing of our salvation. However feeble we may feel our witness to be, the power of the Holy Spirit will change lives. There is no reason to be uncertain regarding the message which has been entrusted to us, nor are we to be irresolute in sharing it. Standing in the radiance of the cross, we confidently announce the Word of God.
*****
The Moravian community of Herrnhut in Saxony was well established by the year 1727. Unfortunately, dissension and bickering began to plague the commune. The leader of Herrnhut, Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, realized that only a revival would restore order among his followers. On May 12 the revival was held, and a great spirit came upon the people. By the end of the summer the communicants wanted this magnificent blessing to continue, so on August 27 a prayer vigil began. On that August morning, 24 men and 24 women decided to spend one hour in prayer, with the time being scheduled so that someone was praying every hour of the day. Soon others joined what became known as the “hourly intercession.” Amazingly, this discipline lasted for 100 years. Those who participated based their calling on this Old Testament text: “The sacred fire was never permitted to go out on the altar” (Leviticus 6:13).
Application: The sacred fire is placed so all people may see the good works done by Christians everywhere, and bow in homage before the Creator. Thus anyone who chooses to be a part of the light must engage herself/himself in ministry. It is only by being empowered by the Holy Spirit that the love of Christ is reflected in the world today.
*****
Mother Teresa once shared how the Missionaries of Charity established their first shelter in Melbourne as a result of one small task. While visiting that city, Mother Teresa learned of an old man living alone. She went to his apartment and gave it a thorough cleaning. She discovered the man always sat in the dark, even though next to him was a lamp that was never used, a lamp covered with layers of dust. The man explained that since he never received a visitor, there was not any reason to light the lamp. Mother Teresa then asked, “If the Sisters come to visit you, will you light it?” “Yes,” he replied, “I will light it if I hear the sound of a human voice.” For that man and the many like him, the Sisters opened a chapter in Melbourne. Through the years the visiting Sisters were always greeted by a lighted room.
Application: The Holy Spirit will guide us to be a light unto others.
***************
From team member Mary Austin:
What We Notice
We miss a lot about each other, but researchers at Harvard University say that the very things we notice about each other is not our shoes, height, or even financial status. Almost without realizing it, we take in race and gender before anything else. Using functional MRI (fMRI) to see which areas of the brain respond to new faces, researchers found that the brain “is constantly categorizing faces by sex and race.” The researchers add, “We found that a brain region called the fusiform face area, or the FFA for short, seems to play a key role in differentiating faces along these two dimensions [race and gender].... When we studied the patterns of activation in this region, we found they were different for black and white faces, and for male and female faces.”
The researchers suggest that this part of the brain is involved in sorting out the identity of the people we meet. “Sex and race can be important things to know about another person, so it would make sense that as soon as you see another person, you need to know figure out the social categories to which they belong,” one of them explained. “Obviously, characteristics that are inextricably linked to you, like your race and your sex, are part of identity.” We notice these things about each other, often without knowing we’re doing it. (Read more here.)
*****
What We Don’t Notice
We fail to notice much of what we see each day. Science Daily reports that, in spite of seeing the Apple logo every day, most people failed to draw it correctly. Researchers note that this is true for many common objects: “Earlier studies have shown that most people have a poor memory for other items they encounter daily or almost daily, including computer keyboards (even skilled typists have difficulty describing a standard keyboard), pennies, and road signs.” It turns out that we may not need to notice ordinary items. “An explanation may be that our brains have learned it is not important to remember specific details. An efficient memory system does not need to store the details of a corporate logo, except perhaps to distinguish counterfeit products, the researchers concluded.” However, we think we see more than we do. “There was a striking discrepancy between participants’ confidence prior to drawing the logo and how well they performed on the task,” said the study’s senior author, Alan Castel. “People’s memory, even for extremely common objects, is much poorer than they believe it to be.” We don’t even notice what we’re not noticing. (Read more here.)
***************
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:
A pair of illustrations on being “gathered together in one place”:
In the new movie The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Tony “Iron Man” Stark and David “The Hulk” Banner decide to attempt to create an artificial intelligence that will protect the earth from other invasions like the one they barely managed to drive off in first Avengers film. When the rest of the team discovers what the two scientists have done in secret they are angry, but Stark tries to defend what he and Banner have done:
Tony Stark/Iron Man: Does anybody remember when I put a missile through a portal in New York City? We were standing right under it. We’re the Avengers, we can bust weapons dealers the whole doo-dah-day, but how do we cope with something like that?
Steve Rogers/Captain America: Together.
Tony Stark/Iron Man: We’ll lose.
Steve Rogers/Captain America: We do that together too.
Later in the film when Ultron comes face to face with the gathered Avengers, he asks them: “How do you propose to stop me?”
Iron Man answers, with a nod to Captain America, “Like the old man said: Together.”
*****
In the movie Gladiator the character Maximus, once a general in Rome’s army, has survived an assassination attempt that came under the order of the new emperor, Commodus. He has barely survived, and he comes home to find his family murdered.
Wounded, discovered, nursed back to health, and sold into slavery, he has been purchased to fight in the arena as a gladiator -- and finally makes his way to the Great Circus in Rome.
Now he and a few other gladiators stand in the middle of the fighting ground as the coming battle is introduced to the crowd:
Cassius: On this day we reach back to hallowed antiquity, to bring you a re-creation of the second fall of the mighty Carthage!... On the barren plain of Zama, there stood the invincible armies of the barbarian Hannibal. Ferocious mercenaries and warriors from all brute nations, bent on merciless destruction, conquest. Your emperor is pleased to give you the barbarian horde! [crowd cheers]
Maximus:[to the other gladiators, while Cassius continues his introduction] Anyone here been in the army?
[An unknown gladiator responds yes and tells Maximus he served under his command at Vindobona.]
Maximus: You can help me. [to the others] Whatever comes out of these gates, we’ve got a better chance of survival if we work together. Do you understand? If we stay together we survive.
Cassius: I’m pleased to bring to you the Legionnaires of Scipio Africanus!
On that cue, the giant gates open and armored chariots charge into the arena. On Maximus’s order the gladiators form a phalanx, the standard Roman military maneuver, and working together, with their shields interlocked, they are victorious -- to the surprise and delight of the crowd.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: How manifold are the works of God!
People: In wisdom God made them all.
Leader: May the glory of God endure forever.
People: May God rejoice in the works of creation.
Leader: Let us sing to God as long as we live.
People: Let us sing praise to our God while we have being.
OR
Leader: Come and offer your praises to God!
People: We come to speak of God’s goodness and greatness.
Leader: Come and hear of God’s compassion and grace.
People: With joy we hear the Good News of the gospel.
Leader: Take that message with you and share it with others.
People: We will learn to speak of God’s love to all whom we meet.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
“Lord, Speak to Me”
found in:
UMH: 463
PH: 426
NCH: 531
ELA: 676
W&P: 593
“I Love to Tell the Story”
found in:
UMH: 156
AAHH: 513
NNBH: 424
NCH: 522
CH: 480
LBW: 390
ELA: 601
W&P: 560
AMEC: 217
“Hope of the World”
found in:
UMH: 178
H82: 472
PH: 360
NCH: 46
CH: 538
LBW: 493
W&P: 404
“There’s a Spirit in the Air”
found in:
UMH: 192
PH: 433
NCH: 294
CH: 257
W&P: 133
Renew: 282
“Heralds of Christ”
found in:
UMH: 567
“We’ve a Story to Tell to the Nations”
found in:
UMH: 569
NNBH: 416
W&P: 562
“O Zion, Haste”
found in:
UMH: 573
H82: 539
NNBH: 422
LBW: 397
ELA: 668
AMEC: 566
“Sois la Semilla” (“You Are the Seed”)
found in:
UMH: 583
NCH: 528
CH: 478
“Lord, I Lift Your Name on High”
found in:
CCB: 36
Renew: 4
“How Majestic Is Your Name”
found in:
CCB: 21
Renew: 98
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who speaks to your children in words of love: Grant us the wisdom to learn to speak of your love to others in ways that connect with their lives and speak to their hearts; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We worship and praise you, O God, for you are the one who speaks words of love to our very hearts. Help us to so learn the ways of your love that we may share them freely with others in our deeds and in our words. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins, and especially failure to know others well enough to speak in their “languages.”
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We gladly receive the words of grace and love that you speak to us, but we are slow to offer grace, forgiveness, and love to others. We have our favorite ways of talking about you and your works, and when others do not understand we write them off as godless or hard-hearted or worse. We do not try to get to know them so that we can speak in words they can understand. Forgive us, and renew us in your love so that we can lovingly seek to share with others the Good News of Jesus. Amen.
Leader: God loved us enough to speak to us in human ways through Jesus. God loves us and forgives us, and bids us to share that love with others.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord’s Prayer)
Glory and power are yours, O God, for you have created us in your own image. As you made us out of your great love, you have made us for loving you and one another.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We gladly receive the words of grace and love that you speak to us, but we are slow to offer grace, forgiveness, and love to others. We have our favorite ways of talking about you and your works, and when others do not understand we write them off as godless or hard-hearted or worse. We do not try to get to know them so that we can speak in words they can understand. Forgive us, and renew us in your love so that we can lovingly seek to share with others the Good News of Jesus.
We give you thanks for all the ways you have taught us about your love and care for us. We thank you for family and friends and our sisters and brothers in the Church who have spoken the language of love to us. Most of all we thank you that you gave us Jesus to speak in word and deed about your grace.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our needs, and for all, anywhere, who have not heard in their language about your grace.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father . . . Amen.
(or if the Lord’s Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
If you know a language other than English (or whatever language your congregation normally speaks), you may try a little of it out on the children. If not, you may try reading a bit from the Bible in another language. Some of you may even remember your Greek and Hebrew from seminary! Ask the children about what you said or read to them. Talk about how, if we want people to understand us, we need to speak the language they understand. On Pentecost God helped people to speak and hear the same language. God wants us to spread the Good News of the gospel.
CHILDREN’S SERMON
Open to the Spirit
by Leah Lonsbury
Acts 2:1-21
The story of Pentecost is a wild one, full of great visuals and vivid, almost hyperbolic descriptions of what it must have been like to experience the inbreaking of the Spirit --
There is “the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.”
Divided tongues of fire rest on each person gathered, and filled with the Holy Spirit, everybody starts speaking in other languages. Everybody also hears in the language they can understand.
The crowd is bewildered, amazed, astonished, and perplexed. They question, doubt, and scoff. Ultimately, they learn that the Spirit comes to all, and that the faithful response isn’t found in having it all figured out and casting off all fear and doubt. The faithful response is in being open to the Spirit and becoming vessels for its dreams, visions, saving words, and acts of love.
Items needed:
* A kid-accessible version of the Pentecost story. Rewrite/retell it in your own words, or look to an established version. (Ralph Milton’s The Family Story Bible is one.) Try to work in the feeling words found in the NRSV -- bewildered, amazed, astonished, perplexed.
* A feelings poster or pictures of people’s faces expressing different emotions. Alternatively, drum up volunteers to make the appropriate faces.
* A balloon (or two) you can easily inflate.
Read, act out, invite the kids to act out, or have some adults and teenagers act out the kid-accessible version of the Pentecost story. Emphasize these words and responses: bewildered, amazed, astonished, perplexed, questioning, doubting, and scoffing.
Look for these feelings and responses on the feelings poster, in pictures, or on each others’ faces.
Ask the kids what these feelings and responses tell us about Jesus’ followers. These reactions are normal when we’re scared, overwhelmed, surprised, or experiencing new and unusual events. They aren’t less faithful, able, or ready to be God’s Good News for the world.
Ask the kids to talk about a time when they were feeling one of these ways, and they went ahead and did what they were aiming to do anyway. Give your own example.
Share the example of artist Georgia O’Keefe, the mother of American Modernism, who said: “I’ve been absolutely terrified my whole life -- and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.”
or
Share the example of 17-year-old Charlotte Brown, who made it to the medal stand at the Texas state high school track and field championships in pole vaulting this month. Charlotte is also legally blind.
or
Share the example of 18-year-old Sonita Alizadeh, who was born in Afghanistan and fled with her family to Iran. There she got involved in an arts program and wrote and performed a rap for a video called “Brides for Sale” that changed her parents’ minds when they decided she should be married at 14 so they could have her dowry to pay for her brother’s wedding.
Remind the kids that you don’t have to be unafraid or have it all figured out to be open to and moved by the Spirit to do powerful and loving things, just like Jesus’ followers did.
If you wish, use a balloon to demonstrate the above. Talk about the way the balloon has to be open to receiving air. Blow it up, and let it go. Imagine together what we can do if we’re open to the Spirit.
Prayer: Loving God, help us stay open to you and to your Spirit. We want to be brave and ready so we can be your Love for the world. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, May 24, 2015, issue.
Copyright 2015 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
