Scriptures for Sunday, May 29th, 2016
Psalm 96
1 Kings 8:22-53
Galatians 1:1-12
Luke 7:1-10

In our worship services at Bethel, recently, we have had two Sundays in a row with special titles: on May 15th, it was “Pentecost,” and on May 22nd, it was “Trinity.”  These two special Sundays close out the part of the church-year which began with Lent, back in February.
In the season called Lent, we worked on preparing our hearts for the passion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Then came Holy Week.  It began with Palm Sunday, waving palm branches as Jesus came riding into Jerusalem.  As that week went on, we also remembered Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples; his trial, crucifixion and death; and then his glorious resurrection from the dead on Easter Sunday.
Seven weeks of Easter-tide followed, in which we continued to confront the reality that Jesus Christ did not stay dead, but is alive now and forever.  On May 5th and the Sunday that followed, we remembered that the risen Christ left his disciples and ascended into heaven.
The Day of Pentecost always comes fifty days after the Jewish Passover, which Christians observe during Holy Week.  On the Day of Pentecost, we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ followers who were gathered in Jerusalem as he told them to do.  The arrival of the Holy Spirit is the “Birthday of the Church.”
Finally, there is Trinity Sunday, an old tradition, meant to kind of “tie a bow” on the period which began with Lent.  Trinity Sunday is a moment when we may take stock of the mysterious and complex ways that God got involved with the human race in the story of Jesus Christ.  Worshiping the Holy Trinity, God understood as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, distinguishes us Christians from other faiths.  We not only recognize God as the Creator, but also God Who came to be with us in human form as Jesus Christ, and God Who continues to work in and among and through us as the Holy Spirit.  All of these “persons” of God together make Christianity a living, eternal faith path.
Sing to the LORD, bless His name;
     tell of His salvation from day to day.
                                      Psalm 96:2

​In this church-year, called “Year C,” we are reading from the gospel according to Luke.  And, from now through Sunday, July 3rd, we will also be making our way through Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. 
Galatians is acknowledged by nearly all serious scholars as an authentic letter from Paul.  The New Testament is mostly made up of writings that reflect Paul’s interpretation of Jesus Christ’s being and meaning.  Paul’s Letter to the Galatians gives us a rich and fascinating view into his faith.
Galatia was a province of the Roman Empire where Paul had preached.  Certainly there were Jews in Galatia, but Paul’s letter is addressed to people there who were not Jewish, but who had chosen to abandon their other gods and follow Jesus Christ.
 
Paul begins his letter by wishing them “Grace and Peace.”  This is a pastoral custom which I myself have adopted.  It links the ancient Jewish prayer for one another’s “shalom” – peace – with a prayer that the grace of Jesus Christ will rest with the flock.  No doubt, Paul sincerely cared for them.
But then, immediately, Paul expresses severe disappointment with the Galatian flock: they have allowed themselves to be drawn away from the Good News which Paul had given them: “You are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are confusing you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.”
In the weeks to come, we will strive to share the Good News of Jesus Christ clearly and truly.

Poetry has something to do with creativity
and something to do with communication.
What is your relationship to poetry?
Perhaps as a student you were forced to memorize and recite a poem or poems you didn’t like.
Or perhaps you write your own poems,
          your inner visions spilling onto a page.
Do you love a song or a rhyme
          that won’t let go of your mind?
Getting any grasp on the character of our God requires a bit of poetry, a bit of creative thinking or visioning.  Christians believe in the One God, yet not a simple motionless god that can be pinned down, but rather a God Who is in action, relating at once to our past, present, and future; Who is involved and involving; Who plants the seed, nurtures the process, and enjoys the fruits....
This coming Sunday is traditionally a day when the church brings together the story of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Three in One, celebrating the mystery of the Threeness within the Oneness, the mystery Christians call the Trinity:
‘tri-’ (meaning three) + ‘unity’ = Trinity.
That word Trinity does not occur in the Bible, yet Christians very early came to speak of our God in terms like these.
The traditional creeds of Christendom talk about “three persons” who together are One God:
“I believe in God, the Father, the Almighty,
            Creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, Our Lord.”
“I believe in the Holy Spirit....”        (Apostles’ Creed)
The United Church of Christ’s “Statement of Faith” talks about how the Three Persons of God relate with us: “He bestows upon us his Holy Spirit, creating and renewing the church of Jesus Christ, binding in covenant faithful people of all ages, tongues, and races.”
The Scripture passages that lay out for us the mystery of God the Three-in-One can be very poetic, even in English translation from the Greek:
If the Spirit of Him                      (Romans 8:11)
   Who raised Jesus from the dead
      dwells in you,
He who raised Christ from the dead
   will give life to your mortal bodies also    
      through His Spirit that dwells in you.
 
When the Spirit of truth comes,
          He will guide you into all the truth;
           for He will not speak on His own,
            but will speak whatever He hears,
             and He will declare to you
              the things that are to come.
He will glorify me,
     because He will take what is mine
and declare it to you.
All that the Father has is mine.
For this reason I said
          that He will take what is mine
          and declare it to you.        John 16:13-15
 
Graphic art, as well as geometry and mathematics, has power to illustrate a vision of God the Three-in-One.  This figure is one example of a “triquetra,” a shape demonstrating both threeness and oneness:

​God is not a shape; God is not a poem; God is not a woman or a man....  But God is love (agapē), and love is sensual, poetic, complex, inspiring, wise, beautiful, mysterious,
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
You, beloved of God, notice the blanks around you, and fill them with a love-letter to your Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.

SCRIPTURE READINGS FOR PENTECOST
Sunday, May 15
Genesis 11:1-19
Psalm 104:24-36
Romans 8:14-17
Acts 2:1-21
John 14:8-17; 25-27

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.  Send forth Your Spirit and they shall be created, and You shall renew the face of the earth.
O, God, Who by the light of the Holy Spirit did instruct the hearts of the faithful, grant that by the same Holy Spirit we may be truly wise and ever enjoy His consolations, through Christ our Lord, Amen.
If you have been worshiping at Bethel during the past ten years, you have probably heard me offer the above “Prayer to the Holy Spirit.”  Years ago, Nancy and I participated in a Christian renewal experience called the Walk to Emmaus, and there we prayed this Prayer to the Holy Spirit several times each day.  It is not magical, and we didn’t have to “roll in the aisles,” but it introduced us to a way of relating with God that we can whole-heartedly recommend to everyone.
We can’t truly say that we “understand the Holy Spirit.”  This is not just because we are talking about God, Who is far beyond human comprehension.  The Holy Spirit is especially challenging because “spirit” as such is impossible to pin down— whether the spirit of an individual person, or of a group of people, or of an animal, of a place, of a plant such as a tree or a flower, or the Spirit of God.
In his famous conversation with Nicodemus in John chapter 3, Jesus baffled that well-educated teacher with his riddles concerning the Holy Spirit: 
“Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.  What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You-all must be born from above.’  The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Jesus’ words are a riddle partly because, in the language that he and Nicodemus were speaking, “spirit” and “breath” are the same word (pneuma, as in pneumonia and pneumatic). 
Is it any wonder that, down through the ages since then, people trying to follow Jesus have had differing experiences of what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit ?  Some folks engage in quiet contemplation, some roar with bold preaching, some serve others enthusiastically, and some run or roll on the floor or cry out— as the Spirit moves them.  With over seven billion people on this planet, it is a wonder of God that every one of us might be filled with God’s Spirit in unique, individual ways.
Some of us have witnessed people having religious experiences when they did things “in the Spirit” that we perhaps did not understand or approve of.  Jesus taught us to not judge others, lest we be judged.  Nevertheless, the New Testament also teaches us to “discern the spirits” (1 John 4)– that is, we must not assume that every spiritual experience is of God.  As surely as a person may be inspired, that is, filled with the Spirit, by God, so also a person may be full of the devil, who is also active in the realms of spirit.  So when we— prayerfully— feel that some spiritual experience is not right for us, it is probably a signal that we ought to go a different way…  while also admitting that we are not the other person’s “judge.”
This Sunday is the Day of Pentecost, when we remember how God sent the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ followers long ago. 
You might choose to wear something bright red this Sunday, to remind us of the flaming tongues of the Holy Spirit which descended upon the believers in Jerusalem, two thousand years ago. 
Then again, you might find yourself inspired to do something entirely different. 
Whatever you do, do us all a favor: pray to the Father in Jesus’ name about it, making sure your choice is inspired from the right Spirit.
For all
who are led by the Spirit of God
are children of God.         - Acts 2:14

SCRIPTURE READINGS...

for Ascension of Christ (May 5)
Psalm 47
Acts 1:1-11
Ephesians 1:15-23
Luke 24:44-53
 
for Sunday, May 8
Psalm 97
Acts 16:16-34
Revelation 22:12-21
John 17:20-26

For each week of the church year, we have several Scripture lessons we may study and pray over.  As a preacher, it falls to me to choose what to try to communicate through Sunday morning preaching.  Most weeks, I also have the blessing of preparing two Bible study lessons.  At Journeys Crossing, we usually work on a lesson which will NOT be the main focus of our worship service at Bethel, that week.  In our worship services at Bethel, you may have noticed that, most Sundays, pieces and parts of three or more of these Scripture texts find their way into our responsive readings, songs, prayers, and the bulletin.
Even with all of these opportunities to glance at the Scriptures, it is never enough.  In our lifetimes, we will never wring from the Bible all the meaning and direction it could give us.  But we keep going back for another taste- just the same way we go back to the kitchen for another meal.
So, here are a couple of “leftovers” from last week’s Scriptures, which I would regret if I didn’t call to your attention.  Don’t dare let them get moldy !

† John’s gospel gives us a mysterious story, not found in the other gospels, of Jesus encountering a handicapped man who lay on the pavement by a bathing pool in Jerusalem.  John reports that Jesus knew the man had been there for a long, long time: thirty-eight years !   The handicapped man did not ask Jesus for healing: rather, Jesus asked him, “Do you want to be made well ?”
The man replied to Jesus, that nobody had ever managed to get him into the bathing pool while the water was stirred up— and that was why he had never yet been healed from his handicap.
Jesus told the man, “Stand up, take your mat, and walk.”   At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.
(John 5:2-9)
I’ll repeat: I find this story mysterious. 
Nevertheless, there seems to be a lesson there: if we actually want to arrive at the place of wholeness where  God  wants  us  to  be, maybe  we  ought to demonstrate some desire, and do our best to head in that direction.  Even so, Jesus healed that handicapped man: sometimes, God blesses us even when we have shown no initiative at all. 
And, perhaps, there may be a criticism within this story of the people of Jerusalem, who for thirty-eight years NEVER took the trouble to give that handicapped man his turn in the healing pool.
 
† In Revelation chapter 22, the prophet John says, Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city.  On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.  Nothing accursed will be found there any more.            (Revelation 22:1-3)
This is such a beautiful picture— we can all appreciate it. 
If we take a moment to consider the day-to-day reality faced by ordinary people in John’s time, this vision of heavenly, pure, clear water becomes even more precious.  In those days, the wealthiest and most powerful people commanded the high places in the towns and cities.  They arranged for supplies of clean water for themselves, with the help of the best engineering available, plus servants at their command to fetch water from protected wells and springs.  Meanwhile, everyone’s sewage flowed in the public streets… downhill.  It flows downhill from the good real estate to the bad, making it hard for the less-well-off to have any clean water at all— plus, passing the filth and diseases of the mighty and rich down to the poor.
How glorious, then, that in God’s City, the pure, clean water is freely available to everybody.  Not only that, but God’s gift of water irrigates the Trees of Life, helping them produce free medicine for all people.  It is not God’s will that only a few should enjoy the blessings of creation, while the many get crap.
Now- On to this coming week’s lessons !  In which we get to rise with Christ Jesus to the heavenly places and see him seated at the right hand of the Father.    Show a little motivation !  Let’s GO !!
[God] has put all things under his feet
    and has made him the head over all things
         for the church, which is his body,
the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
                    Ephesians 1:22-23