Text: Acts 2:1-13

I wonder how many languages we have represented here – that we can speak or at least partially understand.  We speak English, Spanish, Japanese, some Chinese, German, sing language…  What others?…. Some of you speak fluently in the language of music, its notations, its layers of meaning, its references to itself and beyond itself, each instrument speaking its own dialect.  Some of you are attuned to the language of mathematics, the language of psychology, of physiology, the language of politics, of design, the language of computer programming – a foreign language indeed.  There is the language of children which parents learn to understand, perceiving within a moment the messages after a day at school which say, “It was a hard day,” or “today was awesome.”  There is the language each couple has developed between themselves to express their affection, and their frustrations.  There’s the unique language between siblings and friends, laced with inside jokes and obscure references to favorite movie quotes.  Who here knows the language of the chickadee, chattering away with their companion calls, their signaling of danger, and talking about lunch.  Who can understand the milkweed, speaking, “Here I am” to the monarch butterfly looking for a place to lay its eggs.  Who can walk into a forest and hear the language of the trees, telling the story of the place, revealing the gifts and the limitations of the soil in which they are rooted, pronouncing themselves into a canopy of language.

Acts chapter two records the coming of the Holy Spirit during the feast of Pentecost.  The feast happened 50 days after the Passover celebration, which, for the group gathered in that upper room, equated to the same amount of time since their master had been killed as a common criminal at the hands of…

https://joelssermons.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/20150524sermon.mp3

Text: Acts 2:1-13

I wonder how many languages we have represented here – that we can speak or at least partially understand.  We speak English, Spanish, Japanese, some Chinese, German, sing language…  What others?…. Some of you speak fluently in the language of music, its notations, its layers of meaning, its references to itself and beyond itself, each instrument speaking its own dialect.  Some of you are attuned to the language of mathematics, the language of psychology, of physiology, the language of politics, of design, the language of computer programming – a foreign language indeed.  There is the language of children which parents learn to understand, perceiving within a moment the messages after a day at school which say, “It was a hard day,” or “today was awesome.”  There is the language each couple has developed between themselves to express their affection, and their frustrations.  There’s the unique language between siblings and friends, laced with inside jokes and obscure references to favorite movie quotes.  Who here knows the language of the chickadee, chattering away with their companion calls, their signaling of danger, and talking about lunch.  Who can understand the milkweed, speaking, “Here I am” to the monarch butterfly looking for a place to lay its eggs.  Who can walk into a forest and hear the language of the trees, telling the story of the place, revealing the gifts and the limitations of the soil in which they are rooted, pronouncing themselves into a canopy of language.

Acts chapter two records the coming of the Holy Spirit during the feast of Pentecost.  The feast happened 50 days after the Passover celebration, which, for the group gathered in that upper room, equated to the same amount of time since their master had been killed as a common criminal at the hands of…

Speaker: Carol Wise

Texts: Psalm 32; John 5: 1-9a

In my opinion, no other book in the Bible quite captures the depth and the breath, the valleys and the peaks, the challenges and the comforts, the joys and the anguish of faith quite like the Psalms. The simple movement from one Psalm to the next can take us from proclamations of hope, expectation and beauty then rudely thrust us into the painful realities of betrayal, struggle, violence and even death. The intensity of the psalmist’s swing from lamentation and groaning to shouts of ecstasy and victory is disquieting and has a way of catching us off guard and unprepared.

Sometimes in my work with the Brethren Mennonite Council for LGBT Interests, I feel as though I inhabit this intense, unpredictable and wonderful world of the Psalms in an almost frenetic and pervasive way. Life, as I have experienced it within the BMC community, often seems like a jarring oscillation between powerful forces where fragile hope is met with bitter disappointment, quiet joy with broken despair, fresh idealism with aching tragedy.  I cannot tell you the number of times that I have been ready to throw in the towel when suddenly I catch a whiff of something in the air, and I lift my head and inhale and, alas, it’s the sweet scent of hope, and I’m hooked again. Such turmoil can leave even the strongest of us unsettled and weary.

I am reminded of the magnificent novel by Toni Cade Bambara entitled The Salt Eaters.  It is an intriguing story about a Southern community’s complicated terror, fear, strength and deepest desires as they confront the struggles of a racist and wounding environment. The tireless, ever sturdy and dependable Velma has suddenly spiraled into the depths of despair. She is lost and sick, weary and…

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Text: Acts 8:26-40

Every once in a while one of the lectionary readings for the day is pertinent enough to current events that it might have been the passage one would select even if one had all of scripture to choose from.  Today’s reading from Acts is one of those passages.

It’s the story of Philip, one of Jesus’ original 12 apostles, and his encounter with an Ethiopian eunuch, an official in the queen’s court, who had made the long pilgrimage to Jerusalem to worship and is now on his way home.  The Ethiopian eunuch is studying the prophet Isaiah, and Philip uses the opportunity to talk with him about the good news of Jesus…convincingly, because the man requests to be baptized right there on the spot, which Philip gladly does.

Given the events of the past week in the Supreme Court’s hearing on marriage equality, one could focus, if one were so inclined, on the fact that as a eunuch, this man was a sexual minority of his time.  As was common in various kingdoms of the ancient world, men who served in the court were often castrated so as to remove the threat of them being a sexual rival to the king or a threat to the queen.  One could become a eunuch early or later in life.  Eunuchs oversaw various functions of the court including being guardians of the harem.  Eunuchs were seen as being less-than, a deficient version of the full complete human being, the fertile male.  In the Ottoman empire the name given to eunuchs literally meant, “Chief of the girls.”

The most important first century historian of the Jewish world, Josephus, writing just a few decades after the events of Acts, wrote this: “Let those that have made themselves eunuchs be had in detestation; and avoid…

Texts: Matthew 6:9-13; Acts 4:32-37

Maybe this has happened to you before: You’re in a group that’s praying the Lord’s Prayer without a script, everything is going smoothly until: “Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our…”  At this point, unless a leader has prompted the group ahead of time, you have one of four options.  You can say “sins,” “forgive us our sins.” You can say, “debts,” “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors.”  You can say “trespasses.”  Or, you can make a noncommittal mumble  or simply stay silent as a way of yielding to whichever choice the majority of others go with.  I think I’ve tried all four options at different times.

One can cite Scripture for using any one of those three words, but on closer examination, there is one that comes out as the leader for the original intent of the prayer.

The Lord’s Prayer appears twice in the New Testament, once in Luke’s gospel, and once in Matthew.  Jesus is giving his disciples words to use when they pray.  The prayer condenses Jesus’ theology into just a few statement. Luke’s is the shorter and more compact version and goes like this: “Father, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come.  Give us each day our daily bread.  And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.”  So Luke uses both “sins” and “debts.”

Sins 1, Debts 1

Matthew is the more commonly cited version of the prayer, the one Eve and Lily recited, which occurs in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount.  Right after Jesus teaches this prayer in Matthew, he says, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.”  Trespasses doesn’t occur within the prayer itself, but it is one of the…