Where is God? Pentecost Sunday May 24, 2015

Gian Lorenzo Bernini - Dove of the Holy Spirit (ca. 1660, stained glass, Throne of St. Peter, St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican). This photograph was taken by Dnalor_01 and released under the following license: the Source (Wikimedia Commons) and the license (CC-BY-SA 3.0) SOME NOTES FOR THE MESSAGE MAY 24, 2015Please listen to the audio message as these notes are not a transcript, but are only here to help provide a  framework for the message.You can use the comments below to discuss or go to the Message Discussion Group on FacebookWhere is God?Life is lousy a lot of the time:     - good people die of cancer    - School shootings    - addictions    - failed marriages    - Abuse    - stress at work, school, home    - family members in trouble, distressWhere is God in life? What is God doing? How can I believe in a God who lets people die young and lets people get away with murder and genocide?  How can I believe in a God who sits back and watches people die of HIV/AIDS simply because they were born in sub-saharan Africa? How can I believe in a God who lets my life get so out of control?What is God doing? This is the Holy Spirit question.Any time we start asking what is God doing in the world, in our lives - we are asking what is the Holy Spirit doing. The Holy Spirit is God’s active presence in the world. The Holy Spirit is who makes Jesus real to us.  The Holy Spirit is who guides us to know our Creator.If you believe there is a God, and you believe that God is good, then you have to be asking - why doesn’t the Holy Spirit to show up and do something about the mess that we’re in?Why doesn’t the Holy Spirit show up like in the Bible and do something!I’m here to tell you that the Holy Spirit is showing up, but we’ll come to that in a minute.We need to know that the Holy Spirit is unpredictable.Last year I wrote a short article to post on our website called “The Beginning of Prairie Presbyterian Church”  Yellow sheet.Starts like this:No one planned this from the onset.Yes, there were a lot of meetings and a lot of prayer to get to the point of Prairie Presbyterian Church being formed through the amalgamation of Trinity Presbyterian Church and St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, but nobody sat down two years prior and mapped this out. Except maybe God.Would anyone from St. Andrew’s have predicted their journey to where we are today?Will people 5 years from now, or 10 years from now look back with wonder at what the Holy Spirit has done?  I think so.If we go back to October 2012.There was a Presbytery visioning day. At that day it was decided that Presbyterian Congregations in close geographical proximity ought to discuss ways they might work together.  Holy Spirit at work!The following month, two things happened amongst the leadership of Trinity. They affirmed that God was directing them to work toward building in the southwest of Winnipeg. And an opportunity to support the development of a new Arabic language church was put before them. They decided to explore that opportunity.  Look where we are now.Lighthouse is growing. There are building plans on the walls. We have over $550,000 committed to the project and are now applying for grant money.   Yes, we have a long way to go, but imagine yourselves 5 years from now or even just a year from now, looking back on what God has done.   It is all the work of the Spirit, and it is not predictable.Last week we heard what Jesus told his disciples right before he went up to heaven: “ you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”He was responding to their question: when will you restore the kingdom to Israel?No matter how you frame the disciples’ question, they are essentially asking this: Jesus - when are you going to fix things? When are you going to do something to set everything right?And Jesus tells them: just you wait.  The Holy Spirit is going to come upon you, and you are going to go out and be my witnesses.Its a weird response.  How is this going to fix anything?  How is this going to put things right?But look what happens...On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came upon a relatively small group of people.  The scripture tells us that there were something like tongs of fire that rested upon them. And they started speaking in different languages, that even they did not understand.Totally unpredictable.But that’s what we’re talking about, right?  Its fine to talk about God organizing church things, but why doesn’t God do something dramatic and obvious? Something that would make everyone pay attention?Maybe we don’t want exactly that - but at least some evidence or some sign that God is going to do something to clean up the mess. Church amalgamations and buildings are okay, but what about the hurt and sorrow in our world. Doesn’t God care about that? At the very least we could do with seeing and experiencing God, knowing that the Spirit is really there and is going to do something.  That’s what the early disciples got! They heard and saw and experienced God.  There was a sound of a mighty rushing wind, there was fire.  They knew for sure that God was active.  They knew the Holy Spirit was there.But lets consider what the Holy Spirit actually did on Pentecost, and how it was perceived by those outside of the inner circle of followers.Once the Holy Spirit came to this inner circle, and they started speaking different languages, it was heard by Jews who were worshipping in Jerusalem at the time. (Pentecost was actually a Jewish Festival, where Jewish people from all over came to Jerusalem to worship. First opportunity to reach a number of Jews after the Passover when Jesus had died.)The people came and heard the inner circle declaring “the wonders of God” in their own language.  Not Hebrew or Aramaic, but in all kinds of other languages.  Some understood this as the Holy Spirit working.  But others thought that they were all drunk.  Notice that even though to us its obvious that its the Holy Spirit, to a bunch of people who were there, they had no idea that this had anything to do with God.1) The work of the Spirit was not immediately obvious to everyone.  That’s still the way it is.2) The story of Pentecost is actually less about the Spirit coming in the form of a wind and fire, and more about the message.  The Spirit enables a message to be proclaimed in such a way that people come to listen to it.3) Peter, guided by the Spirit, uses the opportunity of the gathering of people, to tell them about Jesus. Peter preaches a sermon about Jesus, and 3000 people believed and were baptized. And a new form of community was created - the Church.  Jesus’ body on earth.But think about this for a second.  The situation is dire for many of these people. Roman oppression, many of them in poverty.  And the Holy Spirit’s solution is to make a few people speak in other languages? No, the Holy Spirit’s solution is to form a new community.The book of Acts has a more official title: “The Acts of the Apostles”  The Acts (activities) of the first inner circle of Jesus followers.  But I wonder if maybe it should be called “The Acts of the Holy Spirit”Because, this new community that was formed, was powered by not by the Apostles, but by the activity of the Holy Spirit.  Pentecost was just the beginning of the acts of the Holy Spirit. Just look at what happens in the rest of Acts:People connect with God for the first time, or in a new wayPeople start to share what they have with one another so no one in the community goes without.People are healed of disease and sicknessThey set up a social service for the widows and the poor in JerusalemThey realize that the message needs to go beyond the Jewish world, and go and set up new Churches in the Gentile world, so that these kinds of things can happen all over the place.This all happened under intense persecution.Do you see God’s strategy? Do you see the Holy Spirit’s plan?Its still the same strategy -we’ve just forgotten, and we’ve let the world win.The world is a lousy place a lot of the time.So the Holy Spirit creates communities of people who will be powered by faith in Christ and the Holy Spirit, who will help people connect with God, who will strive to work for healing in all aspects of life, who will serve the widows and the poor of our world.How do we think God is going to solve the HIV/AIDS problem?  Waving a magic wand?  No, The Holy Spirit will set up communities who will work hard to respond to the gospel and to the need of the world.How do we think God is going to solve the problem of abuse, of marriages failing, of addictions?  Magic wand?  No.  The Holy Spirit will set up communities who will work hard to respond to the gospel and to the need of the world.This is why Pentecost is really the celebration of the birth of the Church.  Because the Holy Spirit’s activity and God’s action plan is to establish communities of people for the Holy Spirit to work through.We have a great opportunity, and a great hope.  Just look at what the Holy Spirit has already done here.  We have a new community forming, we have a partnership with an Arabic Language Church that is reaching new people, even supporting two families who have just arrived from Syria escaping the civil war. We have committed ourselves to building relationships with Winnipeg Inner City Missions (one of our members is on their board, Terry), we support Presbyterian World Service and Development (one of our members is on their national committee, Erin), we collect food for Winnipeg Harvest, one of our young people is representing our denomination at a conference in Hungary this summer, Emily.  We have a group of young adults leading a worship night this week. We had a group of people here at the Church this past Wednesday sharing together (Young At Heart - 60+). They decided they are going to work toward providing school supplies to a neighbourhood school in need of extra supplies.  I am just scratching the surface here.It may seem small right now, but at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit started with just a few people speaking in different languages.  Jesus changed the world by handing his ministry over to just twelve regular guys, with regular jobs: fishermen, tax collector.So, what is God doing? Why doesn’t the Holy Spirit show up and do something about the mess that the world is in?  The Holy Spirit has shown up, and is showing up all the time, creating communities, and powering us to carry out the mission of God.