Sunday, May 20, 2018

The Bare Bones Truth; Sermon for Pentecost Sunday by: Rev. Nicole A.M. Collins, OSST


You want the truth? You can't handle the truth, and this truth is that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. We know that Pontius Pilate is reported to have said: “what is truth...?” just before Jesus was taken to the cross. The Gospel for Pentecost Sunday this year, is one of those beautiful conversations Jesus has with His disciples. This conversation was more less to be both a farewell message to them, as well as His instruction on just who is coming to aid them once He is gone. We know that this aid is the advocate, the paraclete, the helper, the mysterious nebulous “ghost” of the Trinity that is to guide our very thoughts and our very hearts to live for the revelation of Christ and the building of His Gospel in this world.

We all lay claims to understanding, just what is the truth of God; but we will never know that complete reality until we stop looking, and we start living into the lifestyle of Grace freed for us, given to us to “grow and go” in this world as the Body. Both of our first lessons this morning is wonderful.  We have this fantastic, surreal vision from Ezekiel writing and prophesying during the Babylonian exile. Here is the valley of dried bones! I don't know about you, but I can just see one of those 1950’s style “Claymation” staged movies with Charleston Heston, and a cast of favorites from that era, watching the Resurrection of these bones into a renewed humanity, a renewed Israel!

What you must realize with this writing, when it came out during the time of the Old Testament, and who it came from, it was considered fairly outrageous. Some speculation out there wondered if the elevator was going to the top floor for Ezekiel…  But then similar speculation exists for Jeremiah and Elijah. Another more important aspect was they didn't believe in the resurrection, and just take out Jesus here, they didn't believe in the resurrection of the dead, at all. This was a very radical image that Ezekiel prophesized to the bewildered, wandering people in a crisis of faith, oppressed and indentured to the Babylonians.  The exile away from their homeland and their lives in general, was a long time. I think the image in this scripture alongside Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead is wonderful to imagine and think about in regard to this profound hope for New Life.

As mentioned last Sunday, the entire Book of Acts, you could say, is the Gospel of the Holy Spirit. It is a grand effort to remind us and renew us to what we DO as the body of Believers in the world, as Jesus disciples. This is that classic scripture, that classic moment, that some have over-simplified by saying it is purely the birthday of the "church." I'd say it's the birth of our realizing a new language and this is the Holy Spirit working through us. I love a lot of modern mystical Christians out there such as Brother Wayne Teasdale and Thomas Moore…  They talk about and share their deep spiritual journey with striving to be in touch with God.  Let’s just say their personal faith practices are admirable and profound.  The bare-bones truth, if you can handle it, that is, is that we are called, enlightened, sanctified and renewed by this invisible advocate, paraclete, helper, “essence” of God, to DO, what is right in the world.

In keeping with the thought of the “bare bones truth” and New Life; just behind me, just around us is our replanting efforts. All of the fertilizer hasn't been patted down yet. All of our weed and feed has not been sprinkled upon us, our branches haven't been fully pruned.... but we are officially Resurrected. Today is the resurrection of our community First Congregational United Church of Christ. The Holy Spirit is speaking to you right now, through me, and He needs for you to hear what He has to say, in regard to coming to know the truth. The truth will set us free. The truth has set us free.  This week, I couldn't spare you the “four-mile-long” reading from the Book of Acts, because it is important to hear. I did gloss over verses 9 through 10 to spare the poor Lector, from getting tongue tied… but if you saw those verses what is it really saying about language? Here are those lines starting from verse 8: “8And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.”

I have talked about my skepticism in regard to speaking in tongues, and what I think this passage really means or this whole entire event of the day of Pentecost. The Spirit moving through all who were there that day, in this surreal scene of wind & fire and the multitude of languages, is more about a unified diversity under the central truth, that is Jesus Christ. Our prose written Gospel from John has many beautiful things coming from Jesus to try to teach us things that are very hard for our human nature to grasp.

The wood, bricks, mortar and glass around us, is an Earthly symbol of gathering together to then GO, scatter with the good news. For us, here and now, this very day, it has more meaning perhaps since it's been a long way back, living in transition, coming to understand who we really are as a people of faith on the Eastside of Las Vegas.  I've been spending a lot of time down here this past week doing some literal grassroots evangelism. This included trying to post flyers, leave postcards and look around the neighborhood, see who our neighbors are.... it's been very enlightening. Very few places allow you to post flyers, though Starbucks and Albertsons on Eastern, officially have some word on our church posted, as well as UNLV’s student union bulletin board. These are just the beginnings of what it takes to grow into this new life as a renewed, replanted body. The Holy Spirit and Tylenol rapid release gel caps is what kept me inspired this week to get the word out!

A few years back, I remember a very pleasant experience I had at a bilingual Parish doing some field ed. The pastor actually gathered up a bunch of the Youth in the neighborhood and those needing to do community service as well as some people who had enough Tylenol and Bengay to walk with him down the streets of Joliet Illinois, to meet and greet and give out flyers on his church. I might be a little too introverted to go knocking door-to-door and we don't want to set a precedence like some of our Christian brothers and sisters have done, but we do need to spread the Word. This isn't just spreading the Word for ourselves, for this church, but it's for a greater purpose.  Everything around us here today and tomorrow should inspire you to see God’s great purposes for us to DO and BE as His Body in the world!

There is that powerful word that is a part of the truth of the Gospel—purpose. Purpose is a wonderful word that in some senses, is the motivation for life in general. All of creation is a gift from God and truly has an ultimate purpose, destiny. Purpose for the disciple of Jesus, is resurrecting from those dry bones. It is opening the doors of our hearts to not only truly know and hear Jesus and His Gospel, but to grow that fire within, as a Holy spirited fire, to make the mountains move with our faith and resolve. We are to be the change in the world, through Jesus Christ, through His Grace and the help of His Advocate, the Holy Spirit, we are to reap that New Nature. This building behind us, around us is our potential New Nature as First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ. I loved Carla's idea of having everyone write on the wooden beam supports in the new walls that are being put up for our main sanctuary wall… It's so fitting to this scripture. It's so fitting to Our Gospel today. Wood is the most porous, most flexible element used in construction. It is the substructure to many a building. The Church of the heart and its structure is influenced and buttressed by this nebulous reality, the Holy Spirit.

Our very soul is the creation of God. It is the Tabernacle for the Holy Spirit to work within. We are challenged and called to testify to the Truth of Jesus Christ and His gift to the world: GRACE. This testimony comes in many forms. It comes through our Ministries we do out of this place, this new beginning for us. It comes with new friendships. Most importantly, it comes with growing into another chapter and not looking back to the past but moving forward. As your pastor, it is my duty to God to aid you to see where you are, and what you are to be in the know of because of growing with God, growing your faith. And I know it's only been a year and a month or so of hopping into your story, at now chapter 53, but I am concerned and hoping that you grasp the reins of this New hope and move forward without looking back. You need to move forward just as those ancient Israelites did during the exile. They moved forward, resurrected their Spirits from the dead those dry bones in the wilderness and listened to God. They became obedient to God and His mission for them.

When I came by the other day you had your electrician working on all the dangling wires from the ceiling, so we'd have lights and nothing in danger. That reminds me of a funny story of when a few pastors back at Bethany, it was discovered that he tried to do some amateur re-wiring of his basement parsonage lights…  Let just say when the inspectors came through, they were amazed the whole building didn’t burn down… Returning to our new building here, what I thought was amazing was when I walked out into the backyard. It was the first time seeing the pool completely gone and buried under who knows how many tons of sand and dirt.... it was impressive. But then, like the visionary in me and perhaps even like our Old Testament writer this morning, I saw a vision of having perhaps a Christian meditation labyrinth built in various colored stones set into the sand on top of that mound. I also saw this as a place where we could set up to have various youth activities and places for Spiritual retreats. Living into a vision is important. Every disciple should be bold and take that step forward. If you have ideas, share them grow with one another. Those early church disciples that were talked about throughout the Book of Acts did everything together. They were truly united in their diversity. They were united in their diversity of languages of the things that they knew and did. They were united in their love for Christ and saw the truth to what He was preaching and leading them to. Most importantly, this event, that Luke was not even an eyewitness to, but wrote about what Peter eye witnessed, is a concrete symbol, message that we are not alone in the work that we do as the Body of Christ in the world.

We are not alone in the work that we DO as the Body of Christ in the world; is supposed to be beyond the steeple, even beyond ourselves, in living truly into the kingdom of God. We do get hung up on our things though, in the world. We do look back to the past, too often with grieving eyes, not necessarily ones that have learned a harsh lesson well. This is a part of the human journey, we have to “grow and go” with one another through. I was saddened to hear the other day, on the news, that a very beautiful, very old historic church in Milwaukee Wisconsin nearly burnt down to the ground. It was 140-year-old church with, as you can imagine the efforts of many artists, designers… inside the architecture, the craftsmanship and so on. All that remains of Trinity Church is a nearly hollowed-out shell of the former building with some of the beautiful murals left behind the altar intact. This beautiful mural has the center panel showing Jesus resurrected right behind a beautiful crucifix.

Think about that image in the shell of this building, what remains is Christ. After all else is Gone, Christ remains! It was nice to hear that the congregants of this church will still be holding services today at the campus of Milwaukee Area Technical College. I think that is a lovely gesture reaching out to people from another place of learning. Out of the tragedy of death, the hope of a New Horizon is ahead. Perhaps these remaining items within the former hull of what was Trinity Church, is a message of Hope from the Holy Spirit to these congregants who lost their church building. We have the crucifix in front with Jesus upon the cross and we have the mural behind him of Him resurrected.  Jesus is at the head of the church on the Sacristy wall of this former great Cathedral dedicated to Him. Another beautiful and similar image of Hope was the 911 cross as they have called it, that stood out slightly twisted amongst the rubble of the former twin towers…

The Church of the heart, our hearts also has Christ at the center. The Holy Spirit helps us here in keeping us focused as well as in keeping us grounded to what we need to do in the world to change the world for the Kingdom of God.  I have yet to see the giant cross that you have saved from your former Church location on Eastern, but I am looking forward to seeing that in this New Life Hope that the Holy Spirit is to lead us with, on our New Journey here on Horseshoe Drive. 

We don't have those little tongues of fire or great rushes of wind and the Dove of the Holy Spirit floating right above us, right now visibly, but I think we need to put ourselves there, just for today. Just for today let us see ourselves stepping on top of the dried bones of our past and looking outward into a New horizon that Jesus needs us to grow and go forward into for the sake of the truth: Gospel for all the world to hear.   We are united by the Holy Spirit. We are united as a family of believers on the Eastside of Las Vegas. But we are not just for the Eastside of Las Vegas… We need to set our sights much higher and farther. DO it, BE it, live into this gracious lifestyle of Grace, Jesus has right before us to tap into. Be that New creation, be that resurrected spirit for the sake of something much greater...

Gracious and loving Lord Jesus,
We thank you for this wonderful day of Pentecost
We are blessed with this wonderful celebration, this wonderful Hope!
Help us to be united in Spirit through our hearts as we act upon this Spirit
In our thoughts, words and deeds
Lead us, our great comforter, as we begin this New chapter
In our journey to serve you and our neighbor
Amen

May 20th, 2018; Day of Pentecost; Year B; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon by: Reverend Nicole A.M. Collins, OSST
Psalm 139:1-16; Ezekiel 37:1-14; Acts 2:1-21; John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15 





 The link below is to this sermon's delivery at First Congregational Church at 10am:

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