Pentecost

“We Are All Children Today”

Romans 8:14-17

If we ever have doubts as to how God views us, Paul gives us radical reassurance. As God sees us, God sees nothing but beloved children. God sees recipients of God’s nurture and care. God sees the focus of God’s providence. God sees us as we really and truly are (now matter how we try to convince ourselves otherwise)—we are dependents; we are fragile creatures in need of protection, keeping, and guidance; and we are convinced that we are none of those things. That is what it means to be a child—especially a child bordering on adulthood. We are never quite sure of where we stand, despite the presence of loving care supporting us. 

Let’s deal with our denial right out of the box. Most of us here this morning are grown-ups—there’s wear on our tires! We’ve been around long enough to know how our world works. We have experience. We have scars. We have memories— treasured and those we wish weren’t there. Most of us feel a long way past childhood. Yet, the presence of God reveals reality—compared to God, what are we? None of us are silly enough to have a god complex—the assumption of absolute power or control—and that bugs us! But it doesn’t change who we are. We still need help. We need hope. We need holding. We aren’t sure about the world. We aren’t sure anyone really cares. We need reassurance constantly. That’s just the way we are.

The revelation of Christ is God’s response to us as we actually are. Here, in Jesus, is our help, hope, and holding.

Paul speaks of this message in terms of adoption. What he has in mind is baptism. Jesus came to us as God with us. Jesus came as a perfect embodiment of God’s compassion. As Jesus spoke and worked, it was always as a manifestation of grace, linking us directly to the power of God. But Jesus is no longer tangibly present. He’s been gone for 2000 years. Yet, our gospel is that nothing has changed. Jesus still speaks and still works among us, with us, and through us. How? Because of the promise of the Spirit—the Spirit will celebrate on Pentecost. The Spirit is God’s promise and pronouncement that all barriers between ourselves and God are erased and broken. In baptism, we fully enter that promise. We symbolically die as the water covers us; and then we rise, we rise into the full claim of God upon us. We rise in the complete embrace of the Spirit. This is true whether it is a burbling infant or a stumbling man or woman who comes up dripping. God claims us, draws us to himself, and keeps us as God’s children.

And the church is the family farm, so to speak.

Let me unpack that thought…

First, home. 

Today is Pentecost—the Sunday a lot of folks call “the birthday of the church.” Luke tells us the story in Acts 2—the disciples are gathering in the Upper Room, still reeling from the overwhelming mystery of Easter, not quite recovered from the horror of Good Friday; and the Spirit manifests, dancing over each of them as a single flame. What happens is that they can talk to anyone outside in the street, no matter where they come from, or what they are. The disciples are given the ability to connect, communicate, and commune with any human being they will meet. They can bring them home. 

They bring them home, though, with special intent. They are to gather the children of God into God’s presence, letting every single person they meet know that they are beloved, valuable, and worthy of God’s grace.

Somewhere along the way in the last 2000 years, we have slightly wandered from the path of that first Pentecost. We began to question God’s judgment. As human beings—especially human beings with some miles on the tires—we are astoundingly good at making judgments about each other. We seem more than intent on being sure there is a pecking order. We want to be sure everybody knows who is boss, who is in, and, of course, who is out, and who is beneath contempt—watch a political rally. We would hope the church would be beyond such things, or free from blatant divisiveness, but time and again, there is the religious community leading the movement to divide, separate, and judge people. That is the consequence of our existential insecurity.

So, consider today your own Pentecost—the new beginning of you as a child blessed by God, kept by God, and empowered by God. We may not see the actual flames dancing on our foreheads, but they are there. God is among us, quickening our spirits to join God’s own in gathering the children together, overcoming all that our world does to keep everybody in their own place, pen, or pit. 

Now—that farm bit. Farms are all about raising things. Farms raise animals, vegetables, and fruit. They raise them to be the best they can be. They raise them to nourish us. This church is also a farm, but not one aimed at future consumption, instead directed to nurture and nourish faith to fruition. Our task is to raise up children of God. 

Some of us may have actually grown up on a family farm, although census studies indicate that fewer and fewer of us do so, but of the folks I have known who did, there is a different way of looking at the world. There is an appreciation for how nature works, what life needs, and how we impact all that. Take that attitude directly into this place. What we say and do matters. We are shaping people. We are forming souls. We are tending children of God. We have been given the ability to speak to others in a way that can be heard and understood. Use it. Plant the seeds of faith, hope, and community. God gives us the necessary tools to make it so. Trust them to be here. 

That is what Pentecost is truly all about. God blesses the community of faith.