Knox Presbyterian Church

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This morning as we celebrate Pentecost we are going to talk out beginnings and endings – beginnings and endings that play themselves out in our scripture stories and in the stories of our lives in our world today.

Beginnings and endings are woven into our Pentecost story in Acts, when the church is birthed, and in the gospel of John, when the resurrected comes to his disciples with the gift of the Holy Spirit.

I spent most of this week at a Pastor’s Conference at Regent College in Vancouver, BC. “With Eyes Lifted Up: The Pastor as Pray-er” – these were certainly poignant words considering what happened in Myanmar (Burma) this week.

More than 60-thousand human beings have died now after a cyclone hit the largest geographical country in Southeast Asia a week ago Saturday. The ruling military generals don’t want to let anyone into their country making it very difficult to get food and water to those who are suffering. The few humanitarians who did get saw something they’d never seen before after a disaster. Survivors of this ferocious cyclone were hit so hard by winds and rain that they had burn marks on their faces.

Dare we imagine what it must’ve been like and is like now for those who are alive?
As International renowned theologian, author and educator Marva Dawn said during one of our sessions of prayer for Burma, “Lord here is one more troubled spot in our broken world.” Later she said that because of the brutality of war allover the globe, and looming food and water shortages, Christians all over the world sense – and say to her – “the end of what we know may be near.”

The image of wind and rain powerful enough to leave burn marks on human faces should give us pause – as we consider the beginnings and endings in our stories this morning. In Acts chapter 2 people from all over the world are witnessing something they’d never seen or heard before. Language and religious divisions are being torn apart in front of them. The Spirit is bringing understanding about the power of God, and who is welcome in God’s family, to them in their own tongues.

If you’re able would you stand for the reading of God’s word from Acts 2:5-13.

*The First Pentecost: Acts 2:5-13 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

Interesting isn’t it that there are always two responses to God doing something new: Some marvel, and seriously seek to know the truth. Others scoff believing things will always stay the same.

Now the passage I’ve chosen to preach on this morning from John 20:19-23. In John’s gospel it is Sunday night, on the first Easter: When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

Sermon: Rev. Paul Seebeck, “The Spirit of Forgiveness”

The story is told that some years ago at Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary there was a rather stiff and traditional Professor of Doctrinal Theology. He was known for rather dry lectures and insisting on precision in how things were stated doctrinally. At least one time he made a point with a student. One day the Professor was walking across the campus and a very enthusiastic student came up and asked him "Do you have the Holy Spirit?"
He paused a moment and answered, "The question is not whether I have the Holy Spirit, but whether the Holy Spirit has me!" After this he walked off.
Do you have the Holy Spirit? Does the Holy Spirit have you?

This is a great place for us to begin this morning. As we open ourselves to these two questions – I’d like us to say together words of the opening prayer for Pentecost Sunday (that has been said through the ages, as part of the celebration of our birth.
I’ll say it first – and then we’ll say it together a few times:

Almighty and ever-living God,
You fulfilled the Easter promise
by sending us your Holy Spirit.
Do you have the Holy Spirit? Does the Holy Spirit have you?

This is where I believe we should linger, in these two questions and in this prayer,
Almighty and ever-living God,
You fulfilled the Easter promise
by sending us your Holy Spirit.
For on this Pentecost Sunday we officially celebrate the beginning or birthing of the church.
We also live in uncertainty, perhaps wondering with the worldwide church, if we might be near the end of what we know.

This is exactly what the disciples were experiencing when the Holy Spirit came to them.
Remember how during these fifty-days of Easter we have been using the resurrection story of Jesus appearing to his disciples on the road to Emmaus? Remember how confused and sad the disciples were thinking that everything they had given their lives to was over (ending)?
Remember from this story how we came to understand the resurrected Jesus journeys with us, just like he did with the disciples,

1) Even when we don’t know it
2) Through the opening of scripture
3) And known in the sharing of and breaking of bread

Well now scholars like William Willimon of Duke University believe the story of Pentecost told by Luke in Acts must be read within the context of his Road to Emmaus story in Luke. Willimon believes even though Luke separated the Pentecost story from the death and resurrection story of Jesus, he did not intend for us to read them as separate events. Pentecost is an extension of the wonder of Easter – of God’s extraordinary power to live in and with humanity in spite of all the obstacles.

In his account of Pentecost in Acts Luke recognizes it is the Spirit that provides the power for witness, that it is the spirit the drives this new community of faith into all-of-the world.
In spite of the disciples not knowing that is was Jesus on the road with them, the Spirit was at work creating a sense of burning within their hearts as he explained scripture to them, and when they recognized him in the sharing and breaking of bread, they acted immediately by going to Jerusalem to tell the others. This is when Jesus told them to wait in the city until they had been clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49), which has becoming the defining coming of the Holy Spirit story.

While Luke emphasis is on the Spirit’s power to move this new faith community into all-of-the world, John’s emphasis on the gift of the Spirit given to the new community is on forgiveness.
This is where I’d like to spend the remaining minutes we have wrestling with all of the beginnings and endings that come through the power of forgiveness, by looking at this passage in John. Notice that here the Spirit coming is not disconnected from Jesus resurrection story. Instead it is part of it. The disciples are afraid behind locked (closed) doors.

I love the imagery here as it relates to beginnings and endings. Even though disciples believe the end is near, there is a new beginning coming where God will do what God does, breaking down barriers from the tempter that cause us to believe God is not for us and humanity.
How many times have you been here with the disciples? Locked up in fear? Believing God was no longer with you?

The Greek word here is kli'-o. Listen to the depth of this word, in what has been used to convey in scripture: to shut down, to shut up compassion, to obstruct entrance into the kingdom of heaven.

Often when we think we are at the end of what we know, or facing some darkness, that may require asking for or extending forgiveness to ourselves or to others, we can end up here can’t we? Fear. Fear. Fear. Here the disciples are afraid of the power of religious authorities, and it causes them to withdraw behind closed doors. What they don’t know is they are about to receive a completely different kind of power.

Jesus shows up in their fear, in what they think is an ending – or is a beginning? Resurrection’s tend to be that way – sometimes it’s difficult to discern. Am I done dying yet? Am I living again?

Jesus says, “Peace be with you.” I suddenly have this image that I saw this week of the only reporter that got into Myanmar – from CNN. It was so incredible to watch him move alongside these suffering people – at one point he was with them on camera telling them that he was telling the world who would respond in compassion about their story, when there was commotion around him. He said, “The generals are coming now and are not happy that I am here. I must shut down for a moment.”

“Peace be with you,” Jesus says, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” What a remarkable depiction of what the Holy Spirit does in our lives – sends us into places God needs us to go to make peace, to bring God’s breath into those places that suffer from a sense of divine absence.
Do you have the Holy Spirit? Does the Holy Spirit have you?
Jesus breaths on his disciples, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” “If you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven, if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” Wow! The power to forgive sins and withhold forgiveness is given to the disciples, to us!

Did you see that recent story where an injured nun asked a judge to show her assailant mercy?

Three years ago, Sister Muriel Curran was shoved to the ground by a young man. He ripped her purse from her, and left her with broken bones and deep bruises. She is still unable to raise one arm and incapable of living on her own. Yet here was the Nun quoting scripture in a Baltimore courtroom, thanking him for pleading guilty and sparing her a trial.

She turned to the judge, “Please don’t send him to prison. There is always possibility and hope—I believe in it, it’s what I’m about – rehabilitation and a future. I’ve taught too many boys in my life not to believe that growth and change can place. Sometimes the penal system leaves criminals worse off than when they went into prison.” The nun’s remarks drew astonished looks from police officers in the jury box waiting for other cases. The veteran prosecutor handling the case fought back tears calling it “the most profound thing I’ve ever heard in a courtroom.” The defendant’s aunt and grandmother wept openly.

The convicted robber 22- year old Charles Dodson hung his bald, tattooed head, tearfully offering his apologies, begging for the forgiveness that had already been granted. The judge wanted to know why she was doing this, “The Gospel,” she said. “You always hear that cliché – What would Jesus do—but if you live it, you got to believe it (remember how belief in Jesus days meant allowing the teacher to shape your action).”

Turns out Dodson had moved to West Virginia after the attack, and had done a great deal of growing up. He’d earned his GED, gotten a full-time job as at Pizza Hut, and began studying to become certified in glass customization, after he moved in with his girlfriend and baby girl. Talk about beginnings and endings!

Before the judged sentenced Dodson, the nun read from a card quoting the prophet Jeremiah, “For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare, not your woe, plans to give you a future full of hope.” Facing him she said, “this is my hope for you, Charles, I want to give you that.”

The judged sentenced Dodson to 10 years in prison, suspending all but 4 ½ years, ordering him to serve three years probation upon his release.
At our “With Eyes Lifted Up- Pastors as Prayers” conference we spent quite a bit of time talking about how cynical our culture and world is right now, and how easy it is for those of us who want to help others, for those us who want the world to be saved, to become cynical as well.

Yet who here doesn’t believe that the power of forgiveness offered by this nun to this 22-year old man won’t make some sort of difference, at some point, in spite of the prison sentence?
We haven’t given up yet on this kind of Holy Spirit power have we?
May we know again that even though what we may know is ending, that God is for us, God is with us, God is in us, moving into our world, into those places of suffering and division, into those places of that need forgiveness, into our places of forgiving and un-forgiving.
Remember God’s power will accomplish something new, in all of the obstacles, in all of our beginnings and endings.

Do you have the Holy Spirit? Does the Holy Spirit have you? The wonder of Easter happens again and again and again, in spite of, or is because of, evidence that Jesus is with us – coming and going to God with us.
Please pray with me.