Pentecost 2 - Luke 7:1-10

Have you ever come to Jesus feeling like the centurion in our story today? Knowing that you need what Jesus has to offer, but not feeling able to fully commit to the life of discipleship Jesus models? In our Gospel story this morning, the centurion was a supporter of the Jews, but not Jewish himself, which was rare although not completely unknown in Jesus’ day. He built a synagogue for the Jews of his community, so that they could worship God, but he didn’t convert to Judaism. He knew of Jesus’ ability to heal, but he didn’t leave everything and follow Jesus himself. He clearly loved God, but that didn’t compel him to change his life completely. And so when he turned to Jesus for help, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was unsure whether he would get what he asked for. The centurion was righteous, but not that righteous. He was drawn to the God of Israel and Jesus, but he didn’t let it change his life. And he knew it. When Jesus did come to help him, the centurion professed himself unworthy of Jesus’ direct presence. He wanted Jesus’ help, but he wasn’t ready for Jesus to come right into his house. “Help me, but no need to come all the way in.” That might be too much of a commitment. Allowing Jesus to come all the way into his home might make the centurion one of Jesus’ followers, which would mean some serious upheavals in his life. The centurion wanted Jesus’ help in this little matter of his slave’s health, but he wasn’t interested in going the whole hog, as it were.

So, have you ever felt like the centurion? Turning to Jesus for help, for love and for healing, but not wanting to go all in? It’s true that we’re pretty much all Christians here. We’re not quite like the centurion in that respect––we both recognize who Jesus is and we’re committed to following him. But we are like the centurion in the sense that we could be much more committed than we are. We could all stand to be better Christian disciples, and I know that, at least for me, there’s a hesitancy to allow Jesus to come all the way in and truly transform my life (again) because, generally speaking, I like my life the way it is right now. So, I’m like the centurion, asking for Jesus to fix a few things here and there, but from a distance, without making any serious, life-altering changes.

And yet, as much as this is the story of the uncommitted centurion, it’s also the story of Jesus saying Yes to him. Yes, I’m committed to you, even though you don’t feel the same. Yes, I will help you. Through Jesus’ actions, he even says, Yes, I love you. And if you notice, Jesus doesn’t ask the centurion to convert, or question the centurion’s commitment to God. Jesus doesn’t push to come into the centurion’s home. Jesus simply does what Jesus alway does. He heals––loves––without asking why the centurion doesn’t commit more. He responds to the centurion without asking for anything in return.

The centurion isn’t the only one in this story, however, and his isn’t the only experience of Jesus. Maybe you don’t resonate with the centurion this morning. Maybe your experience is more similar to the Jewish elders. They already know that they’re God’s beloved children, and that they’re fully committed to God. They already live with God fully immersed in their lives. The story of the Jewish elders in our Gospel reading is the story of people who are confident that they’re part of God’s people, but who aren’t so confident that God is there for those outside of their group. They’re sure of their own status in God’s eyes, rightly so, but they’re not sure about those who aren’t Jewish. They know that Jesus has been sent by God to help them, but they don’t know if Jesus is there to help the non-Jews, too. That’s why they come to plead their centurion friend’s case to Jesus, and why they seem somewhat defensive when they do it. “He is worthy of having you do this for him, for he loves our people, and it is he who built our synagogue for us.” In other words, we know he’s not part of God’s established community, and we know that he might be seen as your enemy, but please do this for us, because we care about him. Just like we wonder if God comes to those outside of the church, the Jewish elders wondered if God would come to those outside the people of Israel. We know he’s not one of your flock, but won’t you please help anyway? Their care for their neighbour, who’s not quite like them, does them credit.  

So, have you ever felt like the Jewish elders? Maybe you’ve prayed that Jesus would look with kindness on someone you love, even though that person doesn’t go to church or isn’t a Christian. Maybe you want Jesus to love your friend or family member as much as you do, but you’re a little worried that he won’t. And so you go to him, asking on their behalf, hoping that it’s enough. This experience is a common one for us, especially as our families grow bigger and more multicultural and inter-religious. 

And, once again, in the story of the Gospel reading, Jesus says Yes. Jesus says yes to the Jewish elders. Yes, I will help this person whom you love. Yes, I am here for those outside of the flock. Jesus doesn’t criticize them because they love this non-believer. Jesus doesn’t tell them he cares only for fellow Jews. Instead, Jesus says yes to the Jewish elders and goes to the centurion. Jesus loves those they love, and heals those they want healed. 

Of course, there’s another person in this story, whose experience might be common to your own. And that’s the slave. The experience of the slave in this story is surely the most unusual. One day he’s sick, and the next day he’s better. From his perspective, he probably has no idea what’s going on. After all, who explains things to slaves? The slave was highly valued by the centurion, but that’s an economic term, not a relational one. He was a slave, not a servant. His life was restricted to his master’s house and he lived exclusively according to his duties there. So what would he have known of what was going on? All the slave knows is that his life was a dismal and dim experience, that he was sick and ailing (and no one has use for a sick slave), and all of a sudden, for no reason that he could see, the sun was shining, life was beautiful, his body and mind felt whole and clear again, he felt loved.

Maybe this has been your experience. That you lived for a while in darkness, and then for no reason that you could see, there was light and love and healing. If it has not been your experience, because you are even now living in darkness, then have hope––your story may very well end the way the slave’s did. With a light and life that comes from Jesus. 

Because Jesus is, of course, in the slave’s story, as well. Jesus healed the slave, without even knowing who he was. Jesus sent wholeness to the slave knowing that the slave would probably never know where that healing came from. That slave would probably never know about Jesus, or even care about the God of Israel. And yet Jesus loved him and healed him anyway. Jesus said yes to him, when the slave didn’t even know he was asking a question. Jesus healed the slave, even though the slave was completely oblivious to the source of his healing. Jesus said yes to the slave without any expectation that the slave would, in any way, say yes to Jesus in return. Jesus’ love for all of God’s creation was so great, his desire to heal our hurts so deep, that he did so without any expectation of commitment or love or even thanks. 

The story of the slave is actually the story of all of us. Jesus died on the cross and was raised to new life, so that we, too, would experience new life. And Jesus did this before we were even born, before we became aware of him, while we were as ignorant as the slave. Two thousand years ago, Jesus said yes to the world––to us––before we even knew what was happening, without any expectation of thanks or even acknowledgement in return.

Jesus in the Gospel is the Jesus we know today. Jesus says yes, and Jesus loves. Jesus loves those who don’t fully commit to him. Jesus loves those who are loved by us. Jesus loves those who don’t even know he loves them. Jesus goes to them to share the healing power of God’s presence, and doesn’t ask for anything in return. Jesus comes to you, is committed to you, heals and loves you, and doesn’t ask you for anything in return. This is the gift of God’s love for us, offered without expectations of any kind. This is the Gospel we proclaim––the Good News that Paul is so eager we cling to in the letter to the Galatians we heard earlier. This is grace. And so, even though there are no expectations from us, we freely and abundantly respond, Thanks be to God. Amen.

Pentecost - God is with Those on the Margins

One of the keys to understanding the story of Pentecost, and the whole book of Acts, actually, is to understand the context in which it was written down. While the story of Pentecost takes place fairly soon after Easter, it wasn’t actually written down for another fifty or sixty years, possibly even later. We know this because the Gospel of Luke, which was written before the book of Acts, but by the same person, makes reference to the Temple in Jerusalem being destroyed, and that happened in the year 70, so we know that the book of Acts, and the story of Pentecost, were written down after the year 70.

Which is critical for us to understand Pentecost. You see, when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans it was a big deal. In the year 70 CE, the Romans burnt the Temple to the ground and sacked the city of Jerusalem. The fire in the Temple was so intense that it melted all the gold inside, and everything around the Temple walls––the houses and shops that had been built up against the outside wall––was incinerated. It was like the Ft. McMurray fire. Only imagine that, instead of the orderly evacuation we saw in Ft. Mac, the people of Jerusalem, as they were fleeing, were being hacked to bits by the swords of the Roman soldiers. It must have seemed like the end of the world to the people of Jerusalem. The last days, as the prophet Joel wrote, with “blood, and fire, and smoky mist,” the sun “turned to darkness and the moon to blood.”

And when it was over, Jews all over the Mediterranean had to come to grips with what it meant for Judaism that the Temple in Jerusalem was gone and the Holy City devastated. The Temple was where the Spirit of God resided. It was the holiest place on all the earth, it was where every Jew could go and know they would be in the presence of God. The Temple was the life of Judaism and of the Jewish community. Just like we go to church on Christmas and Easter, faithful Jews, like Jesus and his disciples, would travel to the Temple for every major holiday and participate in the same rituals and worship that their parents had, and their grandparents, and that they thought one day their children and grandchildren would do. When they came together to worship at the Temple, they felt what it was to come together as the people of God, knowing that God was in their midst.

And then it was gone. Destroyed, with no hope of it being rebuilt because the Romans still had control of Jerusalem. This is the context in which the book of Acts was written down, and the Gospel of Luke, and likely all of the Gospels. Most of the Christian Scriptures were written by Jews who were struggling to understand: if God’s Spirit is in the Temple, and the Temple has been destroyed, where is God’s Spirit now? Is God still even with us? Has God abandoned us? How are we, as God’s children, going to continue?

These are questions that Christians in North America are now beginning to ask, particularly those in what we call the mainline denominations - Lutheran, Anglican, United. We, too, feel like the centre of our worship, where we have so deeply experienced God––the church, instead of the Temple––is being destroyed. It’s not happening in the same radical fashion––ours is a slow destruction rather than a quick one, but the effects are the same. People don’t go to church anymore, congregations are closing, you can’t assume that the person you’re talking to is a church-goer, fewer and fewer people celebrate Christmas and Easter in a religious way. The places where we worshipped, and our parents, and our grandparents; we can no longer assume that our children will worship in the same places, or that our grandchildren will, or our great-grandchildren. And so we ask the same questions as the Jews of the first century: If God’s Spirit is with us in the church, and the church is being destroyed, where is God’s Spirit now? Is God still even with us? Has God abandoned us? How are we going to continue?

And so we come to the story of Pentecost. In Jesus’ time, Pentecost was one of the major Jewish holidays, when all the Jews went to the Temple bearing the first fruits of the harvest. Remember, they’re in the Mediterranean, where harvest starts in spring, not in fall, like it does in Canada, where it snows in May. So on Pentecost, Jews from all over the known world would come to the Temple to worship God and be in the presence of God’s Spirit, asking for God to bless the rest of the harvest. And so, the writer of the book of Acts, who’s living in a time when there is no more Temple, must try to make sense of its destruction and still proclaim that God is blessing God’s people. He couldn’t accept that God had abandoned them, and so he was trying to find where God might be now. And he found it, in Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit wherever they were, and in the words of the prophet Joel. God was not restricted to the Temple, because God was amongst the people. God’s Spirit would now be found wherever the Jewish people gathered, whether they were inside Jerusalem or outside of it––especially if they were outside of it. In the story of Pentecost, the writer of Acts was proclaiming that God was still with the Jews, and more than that, God was doing wonderful new things out of the ashes of the old. God was sending God’s Spirit not to a building, but to people. To “all flesh.” The people of Israel, the children of God, no longer needed to mourn that the Temple was destroyed and that they could no longer worship in Jerusalem. They no longer needed to mourn the devastation of the centre of their faith because God was now among them. God had moved the centre of God’s presence from a building and an institution to people and to communities. God’s Spirit would now be present wherever God’s children were, which is to say, everywhere.

The story of Pentecost is a story for us, too. As we face the loss of the church and as denominations wither and die, as the places that we have come to associate with the presence of God disappear, we, too, are offered the story of Pentecost, and the reminder that God is not found in places, in buildings, or in denominations. God is found in people. God’s Spirit is found in individuals who bring new life to others. Peter proclaimed, “This is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.” God’s Spirit is poured out on our sons and our daughters, on our grandchildren and our grandchildren, no matter where they are. God’s Spirit is poured out on the young and the old. The church is dying, but God’s Spirit is flourishing in new and different ways.

If you want to see what this flourishing looks like, there’s no better place to look than in those areas the church calls chaplaincy. Hospital chaplains, campus chaplains, prison chaplains, nursing home chaplains, military chaplains. Chaplaincy operates on what we consider to be the margins of the church. Chaplains do all their work on the ground––they have no church buildings, they have no official congregations, they have no membership, no committees or church councils, they have no Sunday morning worship. But God’s Spirit is poured out on them and on those they minister to. In prisons, chaplains work with inmates using models of restorative justice. They help inmates work through restoring their relationships with those they’ve hurt, focusing on the love and restoration that God gives to us every day. There are no churches in prison, but the need to hear that God’s life is for all is so desperate there, and God’s Spirit is at work in a powerful and life-giving way on these margins. In hospitals and nursing homes, chaplains sit by the side of those who are ill or ailing. They help patients find God in the midst of the tubes and tests, and they proclaim that God’s Spirit is with the patient and their family, as they make difficult decisions about treatment. There are no churches in hospitals, but God’s Spirit is at work there. On the fields of war, military chaplains work with soldiers to help them reclaim their souls and believe that they are still children of God after all they’ve done. There are no churches on the battlefield, but God’s Spirit is burning brightly among people whom we would not recognize as God’s children, but whom God claims nevertheless.

The Christian church today is in a Pentecost moment. The centre of our worship experience is disappearing, but God is working hard on the margins of what we would consider religion. If you want to see and feel the fire of the Holy Spirit burning most brightly, look to the edges. Look to the edges, and past, of what the church considers “church.” Go to prisoners, to students, go to soldiers, go to the groups of people gathered together whom we would consider the least Christian. Go to the homeless, to addicts, to prostitutes, to atheists. Go to people who stay home on Sunday morning, to people who take their kids to soccer instead of church. We can sneer, and accuse these people of being “filled with new wine,” but there is where the Holy Spirit is working. There is where God is pouring out God’s Spirit. Not in the centre anymore. Not in the Temple. Not in the Church. If we pay attention to the story of Babel, it may even be that God tears down our very centres before they become our idols. We can hover over the ruins, and lament that the Temple has been destroyed. We can lament that the Church is dying. Or, we can move on to the places where we least expect God to be, where God is actually sending us, and look, and find that the Holy Spirit is most active and most alive there, and that outside of the Temple walls, and outside of the church walls, God is building a new community of children and prophets. New life is springing up out there, Christ’s resurrection is taking root out there, and there the Holy Spirit is burning brightly. Let us go and see! Thanks be to God. Amen.