This month,. I would like to do something a little different. I am posting a copy of the sermon I heard this past Sunday from Williston Presbyterian Church in Williston, SC. I really felt as if God was giving me a word from the Holy Spirit about a number of issues I have been wrestling with and I thought I would share this with you, in the chance that God would use it to bless you as well.
Peace,
Dr. Trey
Rev. Cassandra Todd
Williston Presbyterian Church
Pentecost Lectionary Readings:
Ezekiel 37:1‐14 & Acts
2:1‐21
May 27, 2012
“The
Exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the World”
I have been preaching through the
Great Ends of the Church for these last 6 weeks (if
you include this week), and have
been doing so as our session explores revisiting our
missional strategy. The Great
Ends are to show us our purpose, and our purpose is our
identity. Our identity is who we
are, and we must look at who we are through who God sees
us. In doing so we are looking to
identify how we fit, by the invitation of the Holy Spirit, into
the mission of God.
We first looked at the first
great end, or purpose of the church during the first week.
This is the proclamation of the
gospel for the salvation of humankind. In reviewing this as
part of who we are, a body made
to proclaim the gospel for salvation, we remembered how
important it is to hear the
gospel in our lives and to spread that not only in what we do, but
also in telling people the
Gospel. We are to spread the Word as part of who we are.
The second great end, second in
written order, not in importance, that we looked at is
the shelter, nurture and
spiritual fellowship of the children of God. We discovered that not
only are we a home for ourselves
to find shelter, nurture and spiritual fellowship, but part of who we are is
God’s way of providing for the shelter, nurture and spiritual fellowship of
others. We fulfill this part of
who we are by purposefully living together. We discussed that
in doing so we are being
sheltered and providing shelter, nurturing and being nurtured, and participating
in spiritual fellowship: sharing what we have so that others can participate
too.
Then we discussed the next
purpose of the church, the maintenance of divine worship. We looked at worship
as being part of who we are meant to be, and how our worship should reflect our
gratitude and thankfulness to God. It is important, we, to not put which is ‘meh’
or less than into our worshiping body because maintaining divine worship is
about giving our best to God. We also really discussed how it is so important
that we don’t put things that can be harmful to others in our worshiping body
(such as rude or mean and hurtful language to others), for that goes against
God.
After this, we spoke about our
purpose as the preservation of the Truth. When we dived into this end, we
discovered what is true to one person may not be true to another. What is
dishonest could really point towards salvation (for example those who lied to
Nazi officials about hiding Jews during the holocaust to save their lives).
Therefore we came to this conclusion: preserving the Truth is always pointing
to the greater Truth, which isn’t a statement, but a person, Jesus Christ.
Jesus is truth. Who we are is a group of people who proclaim Jesus is truth.
Finally, last week, we discussed,
well I preached on, the promotion of social righteousness. We recalled the
story of the Good Samaritan and what being a neighbor to others means. Being a
neighbor to another means giving to all people, crossing social boundaries, as
all need God’s grace and are undeserving of it. Being a neighbor to others is being
a servant of God, ready, able, and being used by God so that justice may come.
Today, we are coming to the end
of this study, with the final great purpose of the church: the exhibition of
the kingdom of heaven to the world. Some say all of the other great ends, all
the other purposes of the church we discussed, are all connected and then
summed up in the purpose of the church to portray or exhibit the kingdom of
heaven to the world.
On days like Easter, when we
remember Christ rising from the grave and a heavenly
body at the tomb, the day of
Ascension when we remember Christ ascending into heaven and promising to send
us the Holy Spirit to be present with us, and today, Pentecost, when we remember
how Jesus kept his promise by sending the Holy Spirit from heaven to us, on
these days we are more likely to think about the kingdom of heaven and what it
is. On Pentecost, especially, we read lectionary passages from Ezekiel and Acts
and hear the divine prophecies of how God’s reign interacts into our very
lives.
In the 6th Century BCE, during
the beginning of the exiles of the Judeans, Ezekiel prophesized. He lived
amidst families who he saw ripped apart, near divine land that was crushed by
the Babylonians, and experienced the temple, where God lived for so long, torn down.
He lived in a time, where fear and faces of despair were widespread. In this
time, Ezekiel being the theologian he was, struggled with the questions of
whether there was a purpose to all this despair and destruction, if God left the
temple and Jerusalem and thus wasn’t destroyed at all, and if God did not leave
the people but left the temple, where they experiencing God abiding with them?
Was God with them?
The people Ezekiel was around
were spiritually dried up, as if they were dry bones.
Faithful still to them, God gave
a vision to the prophet that this wasn’t the end of God abiding with the
people. This wasn’t the end of the story. Their relationship together, the
covenant was not over. These dry bones, the people, would again have life given
to them through God’s very own breath.
In Hebrew, the word used here for
breath is ‘Ruach’. This word in Hebrew does mean
breath, but it also means Spirit
and Wind. It is the same word used in Genesis to describe the wind or the
Spirit of God that swept over the formless void beginning creation. That is to
say that same Spirit, wind, breath of God that began creation and was actively
involved in creation is the same which will rise up these exiles again and fill
them with life. Ezekiel was given this vision which shows the reestablishment
of the exiles in Judea through the power of God, by the Spirit of God, and also
shows a vision of the Resurrection for the multitudes‐ God will resurrect
their very bodies through God’s Spirit.
Given this great vision, Ezekiel
did what he was called to do, what he was meant to do, he shared this vision
with the exiles: sharing the wonder and fear and awe of God’s sovereignty,
holiness and mystery. In sharing this vision, Ezekiel was sharing the Kingdom of
heaven with the world. He was sharing that even in this horrendous state of
being that they were in, God was still in control, God was using them, pointing
to the real bodily resurrection into a new state of being‐filled with the
Spirit, the breath of God.
When we hear about the Kingdom of
Heaven and God’s reign, God’s sovereignty and control, the language of this can
be off‐putting for
some. We live in a country that pushed escape from a kingdom, from a monarchy.
The very idea of the misuse of that power can make us cringe at the thought of
kingdom and reign. It may also make us fanaticize about the stories of kings
and queens and princesses we grew up hearing in fairytales. We may do so,
because we are far removed from that kind of rule. We don’t know what it’s like
to live under the complete rule of another in the political world. Yet we do
live under the complete rule of God. This can be scary, precisely because we
want some control. Only when we give that control up are we really showing God’s
reign. We can’t control the kingdom coming, that is completely in God’s hands.
Jesus explained this about the
kingdom of heaven by telling us the parable of the weeds in Matthew 13. In
short the parable goes like this: a sower came and planted seed in the field,
and seeds from weeds sprout up among the wheat that was planted. The servants who
worked the field saw the weeds and asked the owner of the field whether they
should go through and pluck up those weeds. The owner told them not to because
some of the wheat may be damaged and uprooted by the very act. At harvest they
will be collected, the wheat and weeds together, and then separated at that
time.
Through this parable we learn
that the kingdom of heaven isn’t about making it come, or sorting through whom
should be part of the kingdom. As we don’t make seeds ourselves, only God can
provide them, we can’t make the kingdom nor can we make it grow. We can participate
by watering and providing nutrients, but only God makes things grow. Just as only
God can make a plant grow, only God can grow the kingdom. It’s not our job
either, when we spot a bad plant, someone who seems to be not part of the
kingdom, to pluck them out, for in doing so we can damage and pluck out others
who are part of the good harvest, that is the kingdom. There is nothing to
control; the kingdom of heaven is God’s alone to bring and to grow, to gather
and to sort. Building it is God’s task as Psalm 127:1 says, “Unless the Lord
builds this house, those who build it labor in vain.”
God decided to break this kingdom
into our world through experiencing God as a person, in Jesus Christ, through
Jesus’ death on the cross for our sin, and through his resurrection. This
Kingdom has broken into our lives already, and not yet completely. We live at a
time in which the already has happened and the not yet is coming. At this time Heaven
and Earth are not one. We still plead to God each week, for “Thy Kingdom Come”
as we repeat the Lord’s prayer‐
thus we pray for that which hasn’t completely happened yet. We pray for
completion to happen, for the kingdom to reign, for God to unite Heaven and Earth
as one. At the same time, we live in the already, Jesus has already came into
our lives and God participates actively now in our lives. Jesus promised before
he ascended into heaven to sent the Holy Spirit to us after his death so that
God can still continue to reign in our lives and so we can be part of the
kingdom of heaven right now.
We read this in the passage from
Acts we had today, where the apostles are gathered
in Jerusalem after Matthias has
been added to the apostles to take Judas’ place. There was a
crowd in town from all over at
that time for the festival of weeks: the spring barley harvest,
or what we call Pentecost. With
the crowd gathered, this great rush of wind, which is an
allusion to the Spirit, wind,
breath of God that actively participated in creation and was
prophesized by Ezekiel to fill
the dry bones, this rush of wind came upon the apostles. The
Holy Spirit came to them and gave
them the gift to speak to all who were in town and who
had other native languages.
The apostles spoke to spread the
Word of God to all the ends of the earth as if Babel
was reversed. They shared visions
and dreams. Social barriers built up were in turn
forgotten as if they never
existed. The Holy Spirit came upon men and women alike.
Nationals and foreigners. Slaves
and free persons. Old and the young. The Spirit ignored
our social barriers and spread
through the world. There was unity in the diversity. In this,
God was really showing God’s
interaction with us, and the apostles were exhibiting the
kingdom of heaven to the world.
In this beautiful, wonderful,
amazing and powerful event, some snickered and made
fun of this act of God among the
people. They were nay‐sayers, those
who sneered and
called the people drunk. Sharing
the visions God has given us, sharing our experiences of
interaction with the reign of
God, we are sure to come among them, those who will make fun of us, but that
shouldn’t stop us from sharing. When this happens, we should follow Peter’s lead,
and use the scriptures that God has given us, not as proof for them for no
proof is ever good enough for one who scoffs at God among us, but to help us
stay strong.
Even with the help of scripture,
we may grow weak. More and more we may think its
our duty to build the kingdom of
heaven and forget that only God can. At these points, we
must not forget that its not our
ministries that matter, its Jesus’ that we must lift up. Lifting
up Jesus’ ministry, letting God
grow the kingdom, that is exhibiting the kingdom of heaven to the world.
Exhibiting the kingdom means
giving witness to it. We give witness when we share, when we share how God has
touched our lives. We share God’s gifts of life to us by giving a victim of
poverty or disaster a meal. We exhibit the kingdom when be with others, visiting
with other people. When we let the children come, and let them be children as
Jesus did. When we sit with those who mourn or are ill, just being present as
God is present with us. When we focus on other people and spreading the Gospel
of the Good News with them, and build up others, not putting our focus on
ourselves, that is sharing and giving witness to the kingdom of heaven.
Our purpose as a body of Christ
is to show Christ to others. We are made in God’s image, to share God with the
world, so that others may experience God too. Deeply rooted from our very first
ancestors, who we really are meant to be, are beings that show God, that highlight
God among all things, and God’s reign in this world. Our mission, is who we
are, all wrapped up in who we are meant to be: children of God, showing Christ
to this world.