A Woman Called Faithful: Stepping Out on Faith

Ruth 3:1-18

When we first met Naomi, she was a woman who seemed to have everything go wrong in her life. There is a famine and she travels with her husband and sons to a foreign land. While they are there, her husband and her sons die. She decides to travel back to her home town of Bethlehem and Ruth, her faithful daughter-in-law comes with her. Once back in Bethlehem things begin to look up. Ruth goes out to glean with the other widows and just so happens to go gleaning in the field of an extra-ordinarily generous man named Boaz, who just so happens to be one of Naomi’s closest relatives. He is so generous that not only does he provide water and meals for Ruth while she while she is gleaning, but he instructs his workers to be sure there is extra grain for her to glean and to allow her to even pick grain they have not yet harvested. This allows for the two women to have not only enough to eat but enough to sell and provide for all their needs.

And so we enter into a new phase of our story. After the continued generosity of Boaz goes on for the entirety of the Barley harvest and through the wheat harvest as well, we see a complete change in Naomi. The Widow, Naomi, who lost her two sons to sickness and disease in a foreign land, who returned so distraught that wanted to change her name from “Sweetness” to “Bitterness”, after watching the faithfulness of God poured out upon her through the generosity of Boaz, she becomes a completely new woman. And she hatches a plan; a plan to make sure that she and Ruth continue to benefit from Boaz’s favor, a plan that will assure that they will never go hungry.

She calls Ruth over and gives her specific instructions to about what to do, when to do it and what to say and by the end of the chapter Ruth and Boaz are effectively married, with only a small issue concerning Naomi’s husband’s land and the only other relative of her husband who is a closer related to her than Boaz. But don’t worry, Boaz will fix all that by the end of the day.

You see Naomi’s plan is basically for Ruth to take matters into her own hands, there has to be only one reason Boaz is being so very generous to Ruth, he must think she is awfully pretty. And Naomi is sick of waiting for him to do something about it. Clearly he needs a little nudge, now granted, the nudge she proposes for Ruth to carry out, is just that a proposal. When she lays at Boaz’s feet she is effectively asking for him to marry her, when he spreads his cloak over her, he is in fact accepting that marriage. Spreading one’s cloak over a woman was a sign that you were married. By morning the two of them are effectively married.

The only problem is this issue of the land. You see the land basically belongs to the son Ruth could potentially have with Boaz. But, the responsibility of taking care of the land, was the responsibility of Naomi’s closest relative. He is the one who is supposed to be tilling and planting and harvesting the land and basically holding it until any son Ruth might have comes of age. So now that Ruth is married and could actually possibly have a son, it is not really in his interest to take care of that land. Boaz is going to go out and settle the issue with the land so that they can properly celebrate their new marriage with their whole community.

There are two movies that come to mind when I think about Naomi and the plan she hatches. Both of which so happen to feature Harrison Ford. The first one is from the first Star Wars movie where Luke and Leia are trying to escape and find themselves at the edge of a precipice with nowhere to go. There is no way to go forward without falling and no way to go back, so Luke, pulls a grappling hook out of his utility belt, because what good utility belt does not come with a collapsible mini-grappling hook? He is able to use it snag a piece of something overhead and the pair, with a kiss for good luck, and a whole lot of hope that their cable will hold, are able to escape nearly being captured by swinging across the precipice to safety. The two must come up with a risky plan in order to move forward.

The other movie scene this makes me think of is when Indiana Jones comes to a similar kind of precipice and must make a literal “leap of faith” in order to go on. He must walk out into the precipice trusting that he will not fall, in order to discover that there is a perfectly camouflaged walkway right in front of him that allows him to cross safely. Indie has to move forward trusting that there is a walkway in front of him that will keep him from falling.

In both situations the main characters must come up with a plan and then move forward on faith, trusting that things will work out. This is exactly what Naomi and Ruth do in our chapter today. Ruth and Naomi have come to the end of the Harvest. God has provided for them for this season. But she and Ruth are at an edge of a precipice, the harvest is over. They might have enough grain stored that will allow them to eat for a while, but they probably don’t have enough to eat all through the winter, the planting season, and growing season, while saving enough aside to plant in Naomi’s husband’s fields, so they are not continually in this same place each year. And they still have yet to find someone who will step up and help them till, plant and harvest when the time comes. They are standing at the edge and need to find a way forward, so Naomi comes up with a risky plan. She is Luke fumbling around in her utility belt for the grappling hook so they can swing across. Once she has the plan, she goes to Ruth and lays it out for her, telling Ruth that she needs to trust her. Ruth needs to take a leap of faith. She needs to step out over the precipice and trust that God will be there for the two of them. Faithful (that is what Ruth means after all) needs to have faith and trust that God will not let her fall. Ruth must act on that plan in faith trusting that things will work out as Naomi trusts they will.

The women do not just wait for God to act, they do not just keep doing what they are doing hoping that God will make things better for them. They act, they come up with a plan and they trust God to walk with them through that plan. They trust God to be there for them, just as God proved to be faithful to Naomi, when Ruth clung to her; just as God was going before her and leading her when Ruth happened upon Boaz’s field; just as God had been providing for them through the genericity of Boaz. Now Naomi was trusting that God would continue to work in their lives; through this plan has put together that will end with Ruth having the security she needs through a husband, and both of them having the food they need to live, if not from Boaz himself, from the planting and harvesting of Naomi’s land (because it is the issue of the land that Boaz will have settled by the end of the day), and if all goes well (spoiler alert they do) Ruth will have a baby, which will ensure the women’s future as they age. This is not just any plan, this is the plan that will put everything right, the plan that will assure that in the end Naomi, who returned to Bethlehem empty, will forever be made full, that plan that will give them a hope and future.

These women move forward trusting that God is with them, that God is in their planning, that God is in guiding them and instructing them. They move forward in the faith that God is there with them, just as God has proved to be there with them all along the way.

There is a saying I hear everyone once in a while that goes like this, “We make plans, and God laughs.” But I don’t think God laughs at our plans. I think God created us to be creative beings. God gave us brains. God gave us the ability to reason and to dream. God the creator, created us in the image of God to be creative beings.

God gave Naomi the ability to hatch a crazy plan. God gave Ruth the gumption to go through with it and to figure out what to do when things did not go exactly as Naomi predicted. God did not laugh when Naomi made her plan. No, God created Naomi, so that she would be the kind of woman who could come up with a crazy plan like this, sending her daughter-in-law to the threshing floor, a male only domain, to basically propose marriage to him. And God gave Ruth the spunk to hear Naomi’s plan and care it out. God made these two women, and gave them the very abilities they would need to carry them through this time in their lives.

God created us with all our gifts and skills and abilities, so we can use them, and God works in them and through them when we use them, trusting that God is with us as we do so.

I am a planner. I like setting up flow charts and to do lists. I like to have everything laid out. I like to know what is coming and what we are doing next. I can hear Mike inwardly groan when I start to lay out the agenda for the next few days or for our upcoming vacation. I think many of you know this about me, it is not something I could hide, even if I tried.

I think most of you have seen my sermon planning chart. Once a year I sit down and plan out 18 months of sermons. I pour over scriptures, and choose what I will preach. I put together serieses, just like this one. And even write little notes for nearly every week.

Shortly before the end of one series and the beginning of the next I put together notes for each week, so that the sermons fit together and work in sequence. I do this because I love to do it and it helps me as I move through the year as a preacher. But I also do it because God gave me the gift of being a planner. I have joy inside me that loves looking at the chart and seeing where my sermons are going and uses that to help make me the preacher I am. I enjoy this time of year (because Summer is when I work on the next year’s chart).

Each year I put together the chart prayerfully, in faith believing that God is in the planning, that God is at work throughout the process that brings each Sunday morning sermon into being. From the moment I put together the chart, to the plan ahead times I have for a series, to the weekly studies, to the writing, the rewriting, and the early Sunday morning editing, all the way up through my actually preaching the sermon and you hearing it, God is at work in and through it all.

God is at work in the things you do. You may not be a planning person like I am, but God made you person you are, and is able to work in and through all the gifts, skills, and joys that you have. God directs you through the things you do on a daily and weekly basis using who you are. God is at work in the things you do that move you forward. God is guiding and directing you just as God was guiding and directed Naomi in the plan she put together. And just as God guided and directed Ruth as she carried out the plan and improvised on the spot as she moved through it.

God is at work in our lives, in the things we do. Often times the most mundane things we do that help us get from point A to point B God is able to use. God is at work in our plans, working in our plans and with our plans, and in everything we do.

Sometimes it is easy to forget that, or get frozen in place, waiting for God to move or to direct us, when what we really need to do is take the leap of faith and trust that God is there in the leap providing a path on which to walk. Moving forward past a precipice is not always easy. Finding the direction we need to go is not always clearly laid out. Rarely does God speak to us through a burning bush, in a great and booming voice, or even with a clearly marked road sign. Most of the time God is at work in our inclinations, in our gifts and skills, just as God was in Naomi’s plans and Ruth’s actions and words on the threshing floor. God works in mundane ways throughout our lives setting the path before us, and sometimes all it takes is for us to put one foot in front of the other and take the first step for us to truly be able to see the way.   

A Woman Called Faithful: Fingerprints of God

Ruth 2:1-23

When last we left our heroes, to say things were not going well for them would be an understatement. Naomi and Elimelech fled to Moab in search of food, where Elimelech died. And then not long after that their two sons died as well, leaving Naomi with two daughters-in-law and no way to take care of them. Naomi decided to travel home to Bethlehem in search of better prospects, attempting to send the two young ladies back to their families, so they could get on with their lives. Ruth refused to leave, clinging to Naomi, vowing to make Naomi’s home her home, declaring that she would convert and worship Naomi’s God, saying she would never leave Naomi, no matter what.

Today we find our heroes (heroines?) Naomi and Ruth back in Bethlehem, having traveled together along a perilous journey and finally having arrived in Naomi’s hometown. Will there be bread in the house of bread?  Will they be accepted and taken care of among Naomi’s kin, or will calamity continue to follow them where ever they go?

Upon returning they immediately realize their journey was ill timed, they have returned just as the Barley harvest is beginning. Calamity it is!

To those of us who know how the story goes this seems fortuitous, but it most definitely was not. Naomi was returning hoping to find someone who would help her plant her husband’s abandoned field, so the two of them would have grain to sell and food to eat, but they had mistimed their journey and returned just as the harvest was beginning. The land had not been planted; therefore there would be no harvest for the ladies. They would have to wait out the winter, and then continue to hope to find ways and means to provide for themselves through both the planting and the growing seasons. Most likely there would be no guaranteed way to take care of themselves until this time next year. A year is long time to go without food.

Ruth must have asked around, seeking advice from the neighbors about what to do and how to get food, because she comes to Naomi and asks about gleaning. Gleaning was a specific way to provide for the poor in Israel’s society and was not common in other lands.  Anyone who was hard up was allowed by law to go through a field after it had been harvested and pick up anything that had been dropped or pick anything that the harvester’s had missed. In fact land owners were forbidden to go back over a field in order to pick up what remained. It was to be left for the poor, the orphan, foreigner and the widow. Ruth was a foreigner and both of the ladies were a widows, so this was exactly what they were supposed to do.

Can you imagine what a relief it must have been to Ruth to find out that not only had she landed in a country where there was a system in place that was meant to provide for those who were unable to provide for themselves, but that she had also manages to convert to a religion and had chosen to worship a God who made it a religious obligation. A God who set up in the laws and commandments of their religion to make sure the poor, the orphan, the widow and the foreigner were to be taken care of and provided for? There were explicit instructions telling land owners exactly what they were and were not supposed to do with their own land (given to them by God) so that those who were struggling the most would be able to have grain that would not only provide them with food but allow them to be able to sell the grain to provide for their other needs as well.

Ruth would not have needed to go very far or ask around very much, everyone knew exactly what she needed to do. She needed to go glean in the fields.

So Ruth goes to Naomi and tells her that she is going to go glean with all the other foreigners and widows. We can only assume that Naomi was too old and frail to be able to go in to the fields and perform this laborious task, so Ruth goes out alone. And she works hard. In fact when Boaz inquires about who Ruth is, his servants not only tell him who she is, she Ruth is the Moabite woman from Moab, who returned with Naomi. But they also tell him that she has been working hard all morning, without even stopping to take a break. She is working hard.

But it is not Ruth’s industrious nature, or her can do attitude that saves Ruth and Naomi, although I am sure these attributes did her no harm, but is pure coincidence that completely changes her and Naomi’s lives forever.

You see Ruth just so happens to choose to glean in Boaz’s field. And Boaz just so happens to be one of Naomi’s closest relatives. Not only that Ruth just so happens to catch Boaz’s eye. I mean perhaps it is a small town and being someone he did not know and a foreigner, she stuck out. But he sees her and is curious about who she is, so he asks his servants who she is, thus finding out that she just so happens to be the widowed daughter-in-law of Naomi, a woman who just so happens to be related to him. And he then decides that he will be generous, no extra generous, and does several things that are above and beyond any obligation he might have had to any gleaner who came to his field. First he instructs her to stay close to the reapers, gleaning right behind them. This way she would be able to catch everything that fell and would be the first to see anything they failed to be harvested. He also tells his young men to leave her alone, to not give her a hard time or bother her in anyway. He then instructs her to drink from the water he provides for his workers. Then at lunch time he calls her over and allows her to eat alongside of his workers, giving her an extra heaping portion, so that she is satisfied and has enough to take back to Naomi, so they both have food to eat that day. And then he instructs his reapers to purposely drop grain for her to pick up off the ground and to even allow her to go ahead of them into the standing grain and take whatever she likes. The man is beyond generous and is making sure these women will not only, not starve, but they will be able to make a livable wage by selling what Ruth was able to glean.

At the end of the day she has gleaned so much that Naomi asks her where in the world did she glean all day. It is only then that Ruth finds out that she had managed to stumble upon the field of a very close relative. Needless to say, Naomi tells her to stay in Boaz’s field for the entirety of the harvest. The ladies may be unfamiliar with good fortune but they still know it when they see it.

Ruth and Naomi’s circumstances have indeed taken a turn for the better. And it is due to three coincidences, first Ruth stumbles upon the field of a relative, where she just so happens to catch the eye of the land owner, and lastly that relative just so happens to be in a particularly kind and generous mood.  And because of these three coincidences, the ladies have enough to eat and plenty left over to sell, so they are able to meet their needs, not only throughout the barley harvest, but on through the wheat harvest as well. And the ladies whose lives seemed to be marked with nothing but destruction and calamity are finding that things are indeed looking up.

In chapter one there is a lot of “God talk.” Naomi instructs her daughters-in-law to leave asking that the Lord will deal kindly with them and hoping God will provide security and husbands for them there. Naomi laments that God has turned away from her and does not want Orpah or Ruth to share in this fate. It is not only to Naomi to whom Ruth chooses to cling, but to God as well. And upon returning to Bethlehem, Naomi declares to the women of the village that God abandoned her, dealt bitterly with her and has returned her empty to her homeland. God is mentioned throughout the chapter, Naomi’s husband’s name is even, “God is my king.” But when we get here to chapter two, it is almost as if God has truly abandoned these ladies. God is scarcely mentioned, except by Boaz in his conversation with his servants. God is not mentioned nearly as much or even alluded to as God was in the previous chapter. It is almost as if God is simply not there.

Or is God?

We could choose to say this was just a series of coincidences that allowed the women to get back on their feet. We could say it was Ruth’s hard work and industrious nature mixed with a bit of good luck that allowed the women make a living for themselves. We could even say that Ruth must have been awfully pretty to have caught Boaz’s eye and caused him do all those nice things for her as a way of gaining her favor. And looking at the chain of events that would not be an incorrect understanding of what had occurred. But I think it was God. I think it was all God.

After an entire season where nothing is going right in Naomi’s life, everything is famine, destruction and death, but here in this chapter, after a rough start over the timing of their return, everything seems to be going pretty well. If God had abandoned Naomi when she found herself alone, where is God now that she has industrious Ruth to go gleaning in the fields and generous Boaz looking out for them and plenty of food on the table and a bustling side business selling the extra grain? God must be there.

 I would venture to say that the fingerprints of God are all over this story. I mean it was God’s laws that set up the system which allows for Ruth to go gleaning in the first place. It had to have been God who guided Ruth to the just the right field. It had to have been God who allowed Ruth to catch Boaz’s eye. It had to be the voice of God speaking through Boaz’s servants praising Ruth, and therefore it was God who softened Boaz’s heart and created in him the desire to not only be generous to Ruth, but to go above and beyond the bounds of generosity, causing him to show exorbitant favor.  God was at work in these ladies’ lives, helping them and guiding them. As one commentator put it, a coincidence is really just a miracle where God remains anonymous. And a series of coincidences is a surefire way to know that God is at work in a person’s life.

Last week we looked at the faithfulness of God in seasons of trouble, nothing was going right for Naomi. Her life was an utter disaster. She was plagued with one calamity after another, tragedy upon tragedy, heartache upon heartache and even though she felt she was abandoned by God, we could see God’s faithfulness to her in and through it all. Even when she doubted that God was faithful, God was there working through her daughter-in-law Ruth, a woman whose name literally means faithful, refusing to leave or abandon her; clinging to her when it seemed that the only other things that clung to her were death and destruction.

And here in chapter two we can see God at work in the good fortunes of these two ladies’ lives. God is faithful in times of trouble and therefore God is of course faithful in the good times as well.

What is interesting is that we, like these chapters are all too ready to blame God for the calamities in our lives, and barely even mention God when things are going well. Perhaps we are able; almost always retrospectively of course, to see how God was there for us when things got really tough, but then we attribute our good fortune, to our own hard work, and industriousness, or to good luck or coincidence. When life is at its darkest and we are unable to see clearly at all, of course it is hard to see God at work in our lives, but when things are going well, when we are walking in the sunshine, what is our excuse? Why are we unable to see God at work when there is light all around by which to see?

The fact is God is always faithful. God is faithful when everything around us is falling apart and God is at work when life is going pretty well. When we look back on our lives, when we see the course of past events sometimes it is easier to see how God sustained us, was our comfort, our strength, provided people to help us through our dark times but when we look back at times of prosperity, when things were going well. We tend to only see what we did to make things go well. It is easy see how hard we worked, the long hours of labor, how diligently we studied, we are even able to see what others did to help us, to encourage us and when we can clearly see that something happened that we had no part in, we easy laugh and speak of our good luck (like we had anything to do with it) or shake our heads at the amazing coincidence. It is almost as if we are completely unable to see God at work for the good in our lives, helping us, guiding us and directing us. We are like these first two chapters of Ruth all to ready to blame God for our hardships, for all the death, and destruction, we see that God had dealt poorly with us when everything is falling apart (which by the way is not true) and then when things are going well, we are silent when it comes to God. We put on blinders and refuse to see the miracles God is working all around us, calling them good luck or amazing coincidences. We see only what we have done to better our lives and are completely unable to see the fingerprints of God working through our lives, guiding us and directing us, giving us strength and comfort, bringing the right people into our lives, and providing for us in so many unseen but no less amazing ways. God is at work, the fingerprints of God are all over our lives, we just need to pay attention and see them.

A Woman Called Faithful: When there is no Bread

Ruth 1:1-22

There once was a young girl, whose mother died when she was very young, and before she was fully grown she lost her father as well. She was left to live with her step-mother and two step sisters, who made her clean all day and at night she was forced to sleep near the fire among the cinders and they called her Cinder-Ella.

There once was a beautiful princess whose hair was as black as ebony, her lips as red as blood and her skin as white as snow and her name was Snow White.

When telling a story, names matter.  Sometimes a person just so happens to be named the right name like when a person with the last name Major is a Major, so his name is Major Major, but most of the time when you have heard a story where the Chiropractor’s name is Dr. Bones, the Medic’s name is Dr. Healer, or the nicest guy in the story’s name is Mr. Goodman, you know that the names were put there to make a point.

The story given to us in the book of Ruth is no different. When you are reading this story in the original language that is exactly how this story feels. In fact many scholars believe that although the events of the story are real, most, if not all of the names of have been changed.

 I almost feel like before we begin to read this story we need a deep voiced narrator:

 “Ladies and gentlemen, the story you are about to hear is true. The names have been changed to make the point more evident.”

Oh, and the story itself is rife with word plays and puns. If there is one thing I learned about the ancient Hebrews from learning to translate Hebrew, is that they are a people who love their puns. The Bible is seriously full of corny word plays and groan worthy puns that we all miss simply because we read it in English.

At one time there was a famine in the city called The House of Bread, where there lived a woman named Sweetness, her husband, God is my King and their two sons. They were from the Tribe whose name literally means Fruitful or Fertile. There in the House of Bread, nothing was fertile, the land was not fruitful so therefore there was no bread. The three of them, Naomi, Elimelech, and their two sons, decided that the living some place with actual food and not merely named for food, would be best. So they traveled to the far off land of Moab to live. They made a pretty good life for themselves there. There was food and apparently women, because both of the sons found wives for themselves. And for a while Sweetness had a pleasant life. That is until her husband died and her sons, whose names were Sickness and Consumption (Mahlon and Chilion) died (perhaps of sickness and consumption – but we cannot be sure the Bible does not tell us).

Now Naomi heard that there was no longer famine in her homeland and decided there would be more bread for a widow woman in the land of her relatives, than here in a land full of strangers, who might not be willing to take care of her. With this in mind, she decided to journey back to the House of Bread (Bethlehem) in hope to find a better life there among people she knew and who knew her, than here in this strange land where her husband and her two sons had died.

Now each of her sons, had a wife, one them was named, Back of the Neck, and the second was named Faithful Friend. When she decided to leave she instructed these two women to go back to their mother’s houses and find for themselves new husbands.

This is when Back of the Neck (Orpah) turned her head and left Naomi there in road, and as she went away Naomi saw nothing but the back of her neck. Faithful on the other hand clung to Naomi and refused to leave her, journeying away from the land of her mother and her father, and everything that she had ever known to go back to Naomi’s homeland, because she could not bear to leave her.  Would that all mothers of sons had daughter-in-law’s like Faithful Ruth.

The story we have before us this morning is actually all about Naomi. And her story is not a pleasant story. Nothing is as it should be, the land is not fertile or fruitful, there is a famine and there is no bread. So they have to leave the land where they belong and travel to a far off place and try to make things work there. And they go alright for a while. Her sons find wives and things are going well. But then her husband dies, and then her sons die and Naomi is left alone, in a foreign land with no one to take care of her. Her life has not been pleasant, nothing is sweet, everything is bitter. In fact at the end of the chapter she asks for the women of the town to change her name to bitterness because she feels the God of all faithfulness has abandoned her and left her empty.

She has lost it all. She has no husband, or no sons. She has no one to take care of her and no means of taking care of herself.  And although the root of the word used in Hebrew to talk about the Covenant Faithfulness of God is used throughout this chapter and the next, Naomi, sees none of it. It seems that even God has abandoned her. The forever faithful God is unfaithful.

Naomi’s story is a story we can all relate to. There are times when it seems that there is no goodness in sight, the people we love have died, we have lost any means of providing for ourselves or our family. Our lives or the lives those closest to us are plagued by illness. It seems we can never get out from under the continual barrage of bad things that just keep happening to us. We feel like Naomi. Even the God of all faithfulness seems to be unfaithful.

Last year was like that for me. I had a list, it started with Estelle and I getting food poisoning, and then due to some very poor customer service on the part of Best Buy my family went 5 weeks without a refrigerator, my wallet was stolen out of my office on a Sunday morning during worship, my father got sick, you would think that I would end the list with his death, but then I got back from the funeral and broke my foot. And then the Summer that followed was long and I fought with depression for what felt like forever. I felt like Naomi, maybe at one point my name was Sweetness but I sure felt like my life was full of bitterness.

All of us have had a week where we felt like this, most of us have had months like this, or seasons, and some of us have had years that are like this, years that seem to never end, one bleeds into the next and there seems to be no end to the heartache and the pain, to the disappointment and the bitterness. Where is the God of covenant faithfulness when our lives are so full of misery and pain? That is where Naomi is in our story today. She is in the middle of that season where there is no goodness, there is nothing to cling to, but yet in the middle of it all there is someone who is willing to cling to her.

She may be bereft of all that is good and beautiful in life. There is nothing that is going well for her, and yet Ruth refuses to leave her side, even though it is in Ruth’s best interest to go home to her own family and get on with her life, she refuses to leave Naomi. Naomi has nothing of value left to her, but Ruth will not leave. Ruth sees Naomi in her distress; Ruth knows Noami in her abandoned state and stays with her through all things. Even when God seems to be unfaithful, Ruth (whose name literally means Faithful Friend) remains faithful.

The thing is, Ruth staying probably did not entirely look like a good thing to Naomi at the time. Now, Naomi has to not only worry about herself, taking care of her own needs, but now she has to take care of Ruth as well. But it is through Ruth that God’s faithfulness is seen, it is through Ruth that Naomi will one day be restored (but let’s not rush to the end of the story quite yet). Right now Ruth is small crack in the clouds of what is otherwise a very dark and dreary day.

And that is the way it is in our lives. There are times in our lives when nothing is going right, when our lives are full to over flowing with nothing but darkness and pain. We hurt, we cry, we look around and we have lost everything. We look around at the shattered broken mess that is our lives, we see our pain, we see our loneliness, we look in the mirror and we are not even sure we know who we are anymore, are we Sweetness or Bitterness. And we begin wonder if we can even believe in the faithfulness of God.

But let me tell you God is always faithful. Sometimes we cannot see it, but there is something in our lives, perhaps it is small, perhaps it even feels like an extra burden at the time, but it is there, clinging to us like Ruth and it never leaves. It could be a person, the kindness of friend, or it can be something, a thing of beauty that we find each day, or even the love of a pet. But there always is a way that God is continuing to be faithful to us, even in the darkness. And because of the darkness we may not be able to see it. In the midst of the despair, and heartache we may not be able to find it, even when we are looking for it, but our “Ruth” is there. God is always there, faithful, clinging to us just as assuredly and as steadfastly as Ruth clung to Naomi.  

The hard thing is to never lose faith in God, to go on trusting, even when it is hard, to go on trusting even when we feel we have no trust to give, to go on trusting, even when our trust feels like it is being mislaid. God is faithful. It is who God is. No matter how rough things are, no matter how many pieces our lives have been shattered into, even when we have lost absolutely everything, God is still there, always faithful, even when we doubt, and find it hard to trust. God is still there, even in the darkness. And when it seems like the only thing to take hold of us is heartache and pain, death and destruction, know that God is faithfully clinging to us in all things through all things. God is always our faithful friend.

The Ten Commandments: The Last Six Part I: Relationship with Others - Exodus 20:12-16

One day a lawyer came up to him and asked him, which of all the commandments is the greatest. Many people debated which of all the things God had commanded them to do was the most important. If you were only able to do one thing, which one was the one you should absolutely make sure you did. If you were going to rank the top ten from first to last, which one would be first? Which would be last? It was as hot of a topic as any we have today. When asked, which one would he pick? What would that say about him? Would the people like his answer? Whatever his answer, how can we use it against him.

Jesus paused for a minute and said the greatest one is “love God,” and the second, which is not really all that far behind, is “love everyone else.” In some ways, he did not pick any, in other ways he picked them all. All of the commandments can be summed up in these two commandments. Jesus says that it is important to first of all, love God and secondly to love others. If you are going to boil down what it is we are called to do as the people of God, as followers of the Christ, this is it. 

Last week we went over the first four commandments, which Jesus summed up, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This week we begin look at latter six commandments, which are summed up in the, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” part.

Where the first four commandments deal with our relationship with God, making God first in our lives, not allowing anything to not only stand between us and God, but also not allowing anything to stand alongside of God, competing for our attention or coming to mean as much or more than God does to us. We are not to misappropriate the name of God, using it for our own gain, saying things are “from God” when they are in fact not. And not only does God want to be first and only in our life, but God wants to be in relationship with us and asks for us to take one day, not only for the rest we all need, but also to focus on that relationship; spend time with the people of God, in worship, in prayer and doing things that draw us close to God together. We explored both the individual and the communal aspects of these commandments.

This week, we will begin to look at the latter six commandments, the loving others part, which deals with our relationships with the people around us. We are not called to follow God alone. We are called to follow God together, because God does not simply call a person, but calls people and calls for us to be a people, God cares how we interact with one another. God created us to be relational creatures Not only did God create the desire we have to be in relationship with one another but we were created to live in community, to live together, to thrive on the relationships we build around us. We were meant to live together; we were created to make connections with one another. We are, at our core, relational beings.

I say that today we will begin to look at the latter six, because I am splitting these six into two sermons. Today I will cover the bulk of them, leaving one whole sermon for the final commandment. That’s right on whole week on not coveting, not desiring what is not yours; not wanting what you do not have. But that is next week, and this is this week.

God created us to be social beings; people who seek relationship with God and who are continually seeking relationship with one another. From the moment we come into this world we are in relationship with others. And there is one set of relationships which shapes us, forms us and nurtures us as we grow and become. These are the people in our family. The family is the primary social unit and it is in the family that we first begin to understand who we are, who we are becoming. The primary relationships, our first relationship are those which we form within our family.

When I was a child, I was taught that honoring your parents is about obeying them. Doing what you are told; you know, cleaning your room, making your bed, not talking back; following the rules your parents lay down for your health and wellbeing. But honoring is about so much more than simply obeying. Obeying is a part of the formational part of your relationship but the bulk of our lives is spent in a relationship with our parents where obeying is not really even a part of the fabric of the relationship. Honoring your parents is about so much more than merely obeying, it is about respect; it is about valuing these relationships. It is about nurturing them, doing the hard work it takes to keep them going; being the son or daughter you know you should be, working to be the son or daughter you want to be; being loving in all things, at all times and in all life’s seasons.

It is about treating the people in your family with respect, kindness and care at all stages of life. When we are young, this is primarily carried out through obedience, but as we get older and following the rules of our parent’s house no longer becomes an issue, honor takes on new life. It means continuing to value these relationships, listening to our parents’ point of view, respecting the place they come from even as our thoughts and opinions may vary from theirs. As life goes on, it means taking care of our parents, making the hard decisions that life brings and being the kind of person who respects their best interests as well as their wishes as they move toward the ends of their; always treating them with love and respect when it is hard or they become difficult. God calls for us to honor our parents so that we may live long, so that they may live long and so that when we do live long, we have modelled how we want to be treated those you will eventually be taking care of us, our children.

But not only are we to value the relationships we have with our parents, but we are also to value the relationship we have with our spouse. We do not do anything that would put the relationship with our spouse in jeopardy. We do not form relationships with people or do anything, for matter, that would pull us away from our spouse, nor do we ever seek to put ourselves in a position where our relationship with another person jeopardizes the relationship they have with their spouse. As the relational unit, which begins a new family and from which all other relationships in that family are rooted, we are to do what needs to be done to nurture, to build, to maintain and keep strong, the relationship we have with our spouse. 

God speaks to us about our relationship with our parents and our relationship with our spouse; it might seem odd that the commandments do not cover the relationships between parents and their children or between children who are siblings. I think this is because God knows that children are not something that comes into every family. Some parents choose to not have children and others long for them but are unable to have them. And siblings are also not a given as a part of the family either. Not including these relationships in the commandments is an acknowledgement that these relationships may exist but are not necessarily a part of familial life. We are all children, we all have parents we need to honor. And although not everyone has a spouse of their own, not getting in the middle of someone else’s marital relationship is something we all need to avoid, whether we have a spouse or not. What makes it into the commandments are the relationships that apply to everyone.

The relationships parents have with their children and children have with one another even though they are not specifically mentioned, but it are implied, in that the reason we work hard to honor our parents and to adhere to our marital relationships because all the relationships within the family are valuable and should be protected, and nurtured. There is an assumption that all these relationships take precedence in our lives. God includes commandments about our marriage and about honoring our parents because God values families and the relationships we have within our families. Honoring the relationships we have with our parents leads into valuing all family relationships. We seek to live in good, nurturing, healthy relationships with everyone within our family.

Families are important to God.

So, for instance God would not side with a system, a law or a practice divides up families, separates loving parents from their children.  

These next three commandments are pretty intuitive. Once you have these primary relationships, the relationships within the family, in order, the commandments move on to more general rules on how to deal with all people whether they are part of your family or not. Do not murder. Do steal. Do not bear false testimony. To put it simply we work to bring peace within our community, as well as within our family. We do not bring harm to one another. We do not take from each other and we do not malign those around us with our words.

Every person, no matter who they are, what they have done, or where they are from is valued by God, and we are to treat them as a person of value and this begins by not killing them.  We all have the right to lives the life God is calling us to live and when we prematurely end another’s life, we are stopping God’s ability to work in their life, to use them for kingdom work. God is always seeking to work in a person’s life and if we end their life we are inhibiting the very work of God.

It is pretty intuitive that we do not murder but we also do not take what is not ours, we do not steal. Again this is pretty basic stuff. If it is not yours do not take is. It does not belong to you, it is not yours, do not take it. To take from one another sows distrust and distrust breaks down the bonds of relationships. It is important for us to live in good and healthy relationship with those around us, do not do things that break down those relationships, work to strengthen them, build trust with one another, do not take each other’s things.

Jesus would add that we should share. If you have more than enough, give the extra to those who are lacking. Don’t take what is not yours, is paired with do not keep what you do not need.

The final commandment is about not bearing false testimony. We do not lie about other people; about what they have done; about what they have said; about their motives. But is more than just lying. We do not seek with our words to degrade other human beings. Language matters, what we say about other people matters. They are also human, God created us all. God breathed God’s own breath into each of us giving us all life. We are all loved and valued by God. Not only are we to treat everyone as such, but our words, our language about others should always show that we not only realize they are valued by God, but shows that we value them as well.

We do not, with our words, turn others into less than. We do not use language that allows us or others to begin to see another human being as an object, as someone who does not at all times deserve to be loved, respected, and cared for. God loves each and every person created and we are to treat everyone we meet with the love God show and has for them.

We are to treat everyone, no matter who they are, no matter what they have done, or are doing, no matter where they come from, with the love and respect God has shown to us. We are to value all other humans because God values them. God created us to be relational beings. God expects us to live in relationship with the other people on this planet, with the people all around us. We are to value those relationships, beginning with the relationship we have at home but with each relationship we have beyond the home, every relationship should be valued, and every human we encounter is loved by God and should be treated as such.

The Ten Commandments: The First Four: Relationship with God - Exodus 20:3-11

The Ten Commandments are traditionally depicted as two tablets. When the commandments are split up between those two tablets, they are not split up with five on the first and five on the second. They are split up with the first four on the first tablet and the last six on the other. This is because there is a shift in the commandments following the fourth commandment.  The first four deal with our relationship with God and the latter four deal with our relationships with others.

In our Gospel reading this morning, Jesus is asked which of the commandments was the greatest, wanting Jesus to weigh in on a discussion that divided many in his day, hoping that in giving his stance on this topic, they could use it against him. Instead of picking one he says that the greatest is “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” And then goes on to say that the second greatest commandment is to, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It might sound like Jesus is side stepping their question and not picking any of the Ten Commandments at all, but what he is essentially saying the greatest commandment is the first four and the second greatest commandment is all the rest.

The Ten Commandments begin with God saying that we are to; have no other gods before me.” As people who have heard this so many times before, this sentence does not sound odd to us, because we are so familiar with it. But what does it mean when it tells us to not have any other gods, “before” God? What does it mean to have God before me and none else? When I hear that phrase I think of a line, like when I was early elementary school, when we went from place to place in a line, or here in Cambridge when you see the classes of preschoolers heading to the park each day; each one holding onto their own loop with their teacher going before them. Our lives are a line of small children who easily wander and the one who goes before, leading and guiding the way, assuring the path is clear and the way is safe, is God and no one else is to stand at the front of the line. God gets to be line leader every day.

This is a great image and it true in every aspect, but it does not get the heart of what God is actually requiring of us here in this passage. This is a directional word. How many of you have flown over the Midwest? Have you ever looked out the window? What do you see? You see large squares all laid out beneath you like a giant patchwork quilt. This is because the entirety of that part of the country is laid out in a grid; the roads basically only go in two directions; north and south, or east and west. When giving directions, you tell someone to go north on Rock for 3 miles and then turn west 21^st street. In the ancient near east when giving directions you did not use north or south or east and west, this was before cardinal directions but after getting lost. When they gave directions they spoke of going right or left, going before or going behind. Directions were relational words. And dealt with where you were in relationship to the things around you. When you go to Jerusalem from Bethlehem you keep the rising sun before and Bethlehem behind you. When it comes to where you are in relationship with God, God is to be always and only before you, but no one or nothing was to stand between you.

When it comes to having no other gods before you, the concept of God in front, like a line leader is not wrong, but it too impersonal for what is actually being said here. This is God standing before you, facing you. You, standing before God facing God.  You and God standing there face to face. This is a two people standing in relationship with one another, facing each other, looking into one another’s eyes. It is beautiful, this, this is what we do in a wedding ceremony. Two people there facing the one they love, looking them in the eye, with NO ONE standing in between. A couple, in love, facing each other, so the only one they can really see is the other, so that the rest of the world falls away and the only one there, the only one that matters is the one they love.

God says, “You shall have no other gods before me.” God wants be in that kind of relationship with us, no one standing between. Having no other gods before you, is not so much about hierarchy, about God being at the front, but is about being in relationship with God and having no one standing in the middle of the relationship, mucking it up. God loves us enough to not want to have anyone or anything to stand between you, to get in the way, messing up the relationship, taking your eyes off God, obstructing your view of who God.

God first, means that there is nothing or nobody in your life that matters more to you than God. Nothing means more to you than God. This does not mean that you do not love anyone else. Just as a married couple stands face to face, loving one another as they love no one else, this does not mean they do not have other loves. They still love their parents, their siblings, their friends and their children, if children are to be a part of their lives. It is the same with God, although God is the one who is to always before us, this does not mean that we neglect all others, or that there can be no other loves in a person’s life. No it means, the love we have for God is always and only “before” us, and all other loves are essentially behind us, to our right or our left, relationally speaking. Everything else is there, in relationship with us, but not before us, not front of us, not the one whom we are facing at all times, the focus from which all other relationships are derived.

But not only does God want to be forever and only before us, but God also says that we are not to make or have any idols. Not only is God to be always an only before us, but there are to be no other gods in our life, no other gods, to our right or our left. Nothing that looks like a God, nothing we have made or was made by someone else is to serve as god alongside of God in our lives.

This is sounds like the easier of the first two commandments. Not once in my life have picked up something that I have made, or that someone else has made and said to myself, “This is my god, or this is god too.” Since I was born into a Christian household and have been raised knowing this commandment, never have I had a thing called an idol, an object that I have purposely and actively worshipped, either alongside of God or instead of God. And although I know this was a very real problem in the ancient near east, in “bible” times, when they were constantly making golden cows and calling them God or setting up temples to Ba’al or erecting Asherah poles in the sanctuary, I know this was a constant problem with Israelites and those early Christians who were coming out of pagan religions, but this is not a problem for us Christians today. We all know better than to make an idol, to buy and idol or to worship anything that has been made by our own hands or those of another, calling it “God.” This is simply not a problem for us.

I think there is a failing in thinking this commandment is not for us, because it is not a temptation for us. We may not make golden cows, or anything else of that sort but there are a lot of things we make with our hands, with our time, with our money, a lot of things we make ourselves to which we all too freely give our allegiance, our honor, our respect. We may not bow down and worship any thing in our lives, but there are plenty of things that are vying for our worship, calling for our praise and honor, that are in essence desiring to at least be on par with God in our lives.

Our idols today are the things to which we give our attention, our time, our money, our honor allegiance. Jesus tells us that no person can have two masters. God is the primary relationship in our lives anything that attempts to vie for that position in our life, whether it be our marriage, our children, our job, our hobbies, or our love for this great country in which we have the privilege to live. Nothing is more important than God. Nothing stands next to God. Nothing is to take our focus off of God. Our love is first and foremost for God.

This has to do with where our attention is, where our time is spent, what is important to us. What takes priority in our lives? There are things you know you need to do, read your Bible, spend time each day in prayer, and in worship of God, taking time to spend with other Christians studying the Bible, in prayer, as well as coming to worship each week. We know we are to share the truth of the gospel with our friends, our colleagues and our neighbors. All this is a part of our relationship with God, all this (over simplified, yes, but in essence) is what it entails to standing before God and to have God stand before us. Doing these things and living a life that exemplifies the love Christ lived while here on earth, is what it looks like to stand in relationship before God. It is when other things unseat these things in our lives that we begin to make them gods for us. What stops you from reading your bible daily? That is a god, unseating a part of your relationship with the one true God. What keeps you from praying, from reaching out to your neighbor, from gathering with others who are a part of the body? Those are gods, taking over parts of your relationship with God. To whom are you giving your allegiance alongside of God? That is an idol in your life. What stands alongside of God in your life? Whatever that is, it is taking part of the priority off of God. All of these things, taking the place of and stealing parts of our relationship with God away, are the graven images. All of us are making for ourselves graven images, putting in to the house of our lives idols, worshiping other gods alongside of and sometimes instead of God, just as assuredly as the Israelites, did with the golden calf, Ba’al, Asherah or any of the myriad of other gods we know better than to worship. Idols, other gods, graven images we all have them, the key is to identify them, to admit that they are there and work to remove them, so that God can not only stand before us, but so that God can stand alone in the position of god in our lives. First and only in our hearts and our lives, so that we can indeed love the Lord our God with all our hearts, with all our souls and with all our minds. God first, God only.

The next two also deal with our relationship with God, but they come out of the first two. The first two have to do with relationship to God, where God stands in our life. They tell us, God first; God only; God before, with none other standing alongside of God. The next two build on that relationship. “You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name.”

As I was growing up I was taught that this commandment basically meant cussing, Not saying the ½ dozen to dozen words our culture has set aside as crude; words that we hear peppering other people’s daily language but we should never hear in common usage among those who are saved and sanctified. We all know which ones I am speaking of, I do not need to make a list of the words we have all been taught are not to be a part of proper or formal speech but may by some be used in day to day communication, but not by “us.” I was taught that that kind of cussing was included in this commandment but also that this commandment included exclamations such as, “Oh, My God,” or the more simple, “Jesus,” with or without the “Mary and Joseph.” (Which was supposed to soften it and make it more acceptable, less offensive?)

And if you want to I have my own opinions on what kind of language is acceptable, as well as what is good and proper for a person who calls themselves a Christian to use, I do not believe any of these things are actually what this commandment is about.

This commandment is about misusing the name of God. Saying, “Thus says the, Lord.” Claiming that something is the word of God, are the words of God to the people of God, to the world, when in fact they are not. To be clear, to use the Lord’s name in vain is when Pat Robertson says that God has cursed Haiti because they made a pact with the devil, declaring that the economic difficulties and natural disasters that have befallen this country are the actions of God punishing this country.  Using the Lord’s name in vain is saying standing on the corner with a sign speaking of God’s hatred of homosexuals in language I could not even bring myself to quote in this sermon. And I hope that all of us here know better than to misuse God’s name in this way. I think we all know that declaring God’s hatred of anybody is blasphemy and in direct violation of this commandment.

Those are the easy ways to avoid misusing God’s name. Whenever we say, “Thus says the Lord,” we better be certain it is. This is why we end our scripture readings with “This is the Word of the Lord,” and not my sermons. Even still each time I stand here in the pulpit I do so carefully and prayerfully, no wanting to speak to in such a way that says, “Thus says the Lord,” when in fact it is not. Each week when I stand here, it is my hope and my desire that nothing I say ever misuses God’s name. But I am not the only one who can regularly stand up and speak for God when God is not speaking, thus misusing God’s name. I would guess most of the times a young person turns to their boyfriend or girlfriend and says, “God told me to break up with you,” they are misusing God’s name. It sounds like the spiritual way to break up with another person, and saying God told me to do X or God want me to not do Y and most especially God told me to tell you Z, sounds holy and gives a certain about amount of gravity to your words and your actions, but unless you God really came to you and told you to do this thing specifically then you better had not say that God told you this thing. It may be the right thing, it may be a good thing, it may be the best thing for you to do, but do not mix God’s name up in it.  God told Elijah to cook his dinner over some dung, but God did not tell me to break up with my long term high school, so I could date someone else. I fully and whole heartedly believe that God called me to this congregation to be your Pastor, but I do not believe the God called me to go on vacation to South Carolina at the end of the month. We do not use God’s name to make something we are doing more holy, we do not use God’s name to make what we are doing sound more serious or more important and when we do so, we are misusing God’s name. When we do so we are breaking THIS commandment.

This brings us to the final commandment that we have before us this morning, remembering the Sabbath day, taking one day out of our week and setting is aside for rest and for worship. In January, our congregation celebrates Sabbath month; one whole month of cutting back and refocusing, a month during which we focus on rest and we talk a lot about the value of rest and God’s call on our lives to pause. Our need for rest our need to stop doing one day a week, so can remember that it God is ultimately in control. Stopping our rush and our busy, our need to work and complete, so we can remember God is the one actually at work in this world and that the work of the creation, the work of the world can go on without us.

And although it is right and good to focus on rest, we must also remember that the call to Sabbath is two pronged; a call to rest and a call to worship. This God that wants to stand face to face with us, that wants to be the only one before us, that does not allow not only anything to stand between us, but also does not wish to stand alongside of anything else. This God, who sets into command the intimacy of our relationship, calls for us to stop, to set aside one day out of every seven, to spend on that relationship, strengthening it, nurturing it and helping it grow. God wants to spend time with us. Because this thing we are doing together with God is a relationship, the most intimate of relationships, the most exclusive of relationships and because God loves us and wants our love in return, wants to us to spend one day, on that love, set aside to nurture that love, to help that love grow and God does not desire for us to do that in seclusion, alone on a mountaintop, or deep in a cave, but God want not only to be in relationship with you or me, but God wants to be in relationship with US, this commandment (and in fact all of them, if you think about it and look at them closely) are just as much about God’s relationship with US, the body of Christ, the gathered people of God, the community of Faith, as it is about God and you, or God and me.

God want to be your God, God wants to be my God, first and alone, but God also wants to be OUR God, first and alone. The people of God, the Church, the Body of Christ, can have nothing that stands between them and God, nothing that hinders our view of God that distracts us from OUR relationship with God. The Body of Christ cannot have anything that matters so much to us that is stands alongside of God or distracts us from the heart of what it means to be the people of God, called by God. Nothing is more important than the kingdom work or making new disciples and growing together in our faith, NOTHING, no matter how important, no matter how good, not matter how much it needs to be done, or should be done, Nothing can distract us from loving God, loving one another and loving our world, so that we can make and be disciples in this world.

We cannot as the Church, as Christians ever misuse God’s name. We cannot say God says things, when God does not. We cannot say, “God hates you to anyone.” We cannot tell women that God tells them to stay in abusive marriages or relationships. We cannot declare that God’s will is for a people to suffer, for anyone to be systematically used and abused by a society in anyway. We cannot declare the will of God over anyone lightly and only do so with fear and trepidation. We need to stand for what God stands for in all things at all times and when we fail to do so, we need to admit it, we need to ask for forgiveness, work to make it right and work to do better. Just as we would expect a person to do individually, we should do so communally.

Rejoice in the Lord - Celebrating Pentecost

Paul calls for us to celebrate. Celebrating is not frivolous, it is not juvenile or immature, but it is part of our witness, part of our calling. We are a people who celebrate the  power of God within us. We are a people who celebrate who we are and who God is forming us to be. We celebrating in itself, in many ways is a witness to our world about who Jesus is. After all too many people have this dour, we don’t have any fun and we are not allowed to do anything fun and live entirely by a list of “do not’s” kind of people. When the Church remembers its call to celebrate we are showing our world that Jesus is about joy, that the gospel is a message of freedom as well as restraint. That the resurrection is something we are excited about that brings true happiness into our lives and that it gives us a reason to celebrate.

Today is a day of celebration. Today is THE day the church became the The Church. Jesus told us to wait. Jesus told us the Spirit would come. Jesus told us we would receive power. Jesus told us that we would go into all the world taking the truth of the resurrection with us wherever we go. And they did. The disciples waited, the Spirit came, they were filled with power and boldness and went out, immediately and began the work that the Church continues to this day, taking the truth of the resurrection into all the world.

The Resurrection is the heart of our belief.  The Resurrection defines the primary belief of the Church.  We are Christians because Christ rose from the dead.  It is the most important event in all history.  Then 50 days later is Pentecost. Pentecost is the day that defines the Church.  The Church is who the Church is BECAUSE of Pentecost.  The events that occurred on the Day of Pentecost following the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, are the events, which put in motion the very existence of the Church today.  It is true that we are not the Church without the Resurrection, but it is also true that we are not the Church without Pentecost.  So what is Pentecost?

Pentecost was originally a Jewish feast, a celebration. It is an harvest festival celebration God’s provision; God’s provision during the desert wanderings, when manna and quail were provided for their sustenance, and God’s continually substance of continuing to provide for them for yet another year.  It is one of the seven major feast of the Jewish year. So when the scripture says, “When the day of Pentecost came. . .”  It is not saying, “When the day that would later be called Pentecost came. . .” IT was the day of Pentecost, the day of this particular celebration that was going on the day that Spirit came up on the disciples. The day of Pentecost was a day the disciples would have known and would have celebrated.  Pentecost takes place 50 days after Passover, which means that the events of Pentecost occurred 50 days after the Resurrection. It was a harvest festival, also known as the feast of weeks. The events that we have come to associate with Pentecost are not what the day of Pentecost was originally about, but because they occurred on this well-known Jewish holy day, we call the events that occurred that day The Pentecost.  So on the seventh Sunday after Easter; we celebrate the Christian holy day of Pentecost.

Before Jesus ascended, he promised to return, which is what we celebrated and remembered last week on ascension Sunday, but he also made another promise.  Jesus also promised that he would send the Spirit, that they would receive power and that they would go into all the world.

The day of Pentecost marks the day that the Church became the Church. Not only is it the day that the Spirit fills believers for the first time; but the events of this day result in the first post-resurrection converts to Christianity.  This is the first time that the disciples go out and share the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with people who had not previously followed Jesus. The Church really truly becomes the Church when it is reaching out to the world around it and drawing others in.

The book of Act is a written record of the beginning of the work of the Church in the world.  It begins with Peter and the disciples in Jerusalem and then goes on to talk about how the early church worked as it began to organize and spread.  They begin to take the truth of Jesus Christ to other towns and cities all over Israel. Then following Paul’s conversion Paul begins to take the gospel to towns and cities outside the Jewish world, the church begins to have more and more Gentile Christians.  But all these beginnings, which are recorded throughout the book of Acts, begin with this event, which occurs on the day of Pentecost.

Right before he ascended into Heaven Jesus, tells the disciples to go to Jerusalem and to wait for him there. And they went and waited.  Waiting is not easy but sometimes we are called to wait. But they did not just wait.  Act tells us, following the Ascension; they went immediately to Jerusalem and devoted themselves to prayer.  They waited and they prayed.  But not only did they pray, but they also did the things they needed to do to make sure that they would have leaders among them.  They elected from amongst themselves someone who would serve as an apostle in Judas’ stead.   They came together, prayed, waited and prepared themselves to be ready to receive the power Jesus promised.  They did not sit around idle wondering when God would come.  They did what they knew to do, while they waited.  They prayed and prepared themselves, so they were ready when the Spirit came upon them.  They were ready to receive the power Jesus had promised. Praying is a vital part of preparing to be the people God is calling us to. Whenever we begin a new venture prayer is our first step. We pray for God to be in what we are beginning to do, we pray for God to guide us and direct us, and we pray for Gods power to not only be in what we are doing, but to go before us preparing the way. We put the work and the ministry of the Church in God’s hands, we acknowledge that the work and the ministry of the Church is the work of God and that it is God who will work in us and through us in what we are about to do.

Then as they were gathered that day, they were ready, they were waiting and they were praying and the wind came, and the tongues of fire alighted on each of them and they then went out into the streets.  They were able to speak languages they did not know and people heard them speak in languages they were not speaking and everyone no matter what language they spoke or where they were from was able to hear the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that day.

When they were ready, when they had prayed, when they had prepared themselves, the spirit came and every last one of them, who had been doing all these things, went out from that room.  They burst forth out from that room; they flooded into the streets and shared about Jesus.  They all went, not just Peter, not just Peter, James and John, not just the 12, but all of them. Acts tells us that there were about 120 of them, men and woman.  Not just the ones who were good as speaking (and come on Peter never showed any skill at this prior to this day).  Not just the ones who were trained, or whatever stipulation you could put on who might or might not have gone out.  All of them went into the streets and spoke to all who would hear.

And because they were praying, because they were ready, because they were prepared, when the spirit came all of them went out, because all of them were filled, all of them were empowered all of them. This was not a miracle for just one or two of them.  Sometimes it is easier to think about God using a special person, a person who in themselves has somehow managed to harness the true power God can give, a prayer warrior, a deeply spiritual person, a very pious priest, but this was not a miracle for Peter, or John or James, or Martha, or Mary, or Johanna. The Spirit came up each of them. Each one was empowered so that the whole could be empowered. This was a miracle for all of them.  God empowered the Church.  They were gathered faithfully, they were worshiping and celebrating a festival God had called for God’s people to celebrate, they were praying, they were ready, they were prepared and the power of the Spirit came up THEM.  This was a miracle for the whole Church, not part of it, all of it. God promises to empower not just individuals, but the Church, all those who gather.

This means that the Spirit empowers each of us; this means that the Spirit empowers all of us.  We are the Church.  I am not the church; you are not the church, at least not on our own. We are the Church together and it is together the real work of God happens in this world.

I have heard people tell me that, “I’m a Christian, I just don’t go to Church.” It is popular thinking to believe that you can be a lone Christian.  You can believe in God.  You can pray. You can do good things. But that you do not need to be a part of the gathered body of Christ. It is popular to believe that you go at this Christian thing alone.  The fact of the matter is you cannot. There is no such thing as a rogue Christian, out there trekking through the world alone just you and Jesus against the world.  God calls us to the Church.  God intends for us to function together. And this is most clearly and distinctly seen on the day of Pentecost.  On the day of Pentecost, we do not talk about John receiving the Spirit.  We do not talk about the Power James received.  We do not celebrate how Peter was able to single handedly was able to speak to and 3,000 people were added to their number that day because of what Peter did.

No, we celebrate how the Spirit came up the Church that day. We do not celebrate a miracle that was performed by a disciple or even a small group of them.  We celebrate the forming of the Church on that day. People call Pentecost the birthday of the Church, because it was on that the day, when the Spirit came up one them that the Church became the Church.  When we celebrate Pentecost, we are celebrating that God called the Church into existence. We are celebrating that we are empowered to come together to do the work and the will of Christ in this world.  We are celebrating that God does not call us to do this alone.  We are not called to do it alone, we are called together.  We are called to gather, we are called to worship, we are called to pray, we are called to prepare ourselves and do what we know to do to make ourselves ready because it is when we are together that God empowers us, all of us. Not just the best among us, not just the greatest among us, but all of us. That means that none of us is left out.  That means that we are in this together.  God empowers all of us.  God has called us; God has called us to work together, to live this Christian life together.  God has empowered us to BE the Church. Do work together to do the work and the will of Christ in this world. Let us come together, let us be the people God is calling us to be, let us be the people God is empowering us to be together!