THE HOLY SPIRIT: A SPIRIT OF RECONCILIATION

This Sunday, we will be gathering to celebrate Pentecost, one of the important festivals of the Christian Church.  The English name Pentecost comes from the Greek word for “fiftieth.”  According to the Book of Acts (chapter 2), the first Pentecost happened during the Jewish “Feast of Weeks” (Shavuot), a festival celebrated 7 weeks after Passover. Ever since, the Christian Church celebrated Pentecost 50 days after Easter Sunday (counting inclusively, i.e., including both the first and last days).

On the first Pentecost, Jews from all over the ancient world had gathered to sacrifice at the Jewish temple.  The Book of Acts specifically names more than a dozen geographical places, large and small, Jewish and non-Jewish, rural and urban, from which people came. They represented the whole earth.

Then the Spirit comes upon them. And here’s what happened next: Even though they all spoke different languages, they understood each other. The text says that the folks doing most of the speaking were “Galileans” but everyone heard what the Galileans said in their “own language,” their native tongues (Acts 2:6).

“Galilean,” by the way, was shorthand for “backwoods folks from the hills” – they had a strange accent and spoke in a really distinct dialect – maybe a bit like an Appalachian dialect is regarded in the U.S.  In other words, the preachers on that first Pentecost were country folk who were frowned upon and seen as unsophisticated, uneducated, and uncivilized.

But regardless of whether the preachers spoke with a country twang or British flair (or Hindi, Mandarin, Arabic, Spanish, or German), the point is: They all understood what was being said as if it was being spoken in their own language.

It is the Holy Spirit that allowed the people who were present at the first  Pentecost to understand one another. That day, reconciliation happened and was translated into action - witnessed in the amazing number of 3,000 baptisms that took place that day.  (Acts 2:31)

On the first Pentecost, a really diverse group of people understood each other, as the Spirit of God fell upon them. It was a divine moment of reconciliation among people from many different tribes and nations and languages. What happened to them was the exact opposite of what had happened when the people attempted to build the tower of  Babel (Genesis 11). At Babel, God scattered the pretentious human race. And at Pentecost, God reunited the scattered people into a new beloved community - made one not by their own hands or by a shared single language, but by the Spirit of God.

Ever since that first Pentecost, God has entrusted Christ’s Church with the message of reconciliation in and through Jesus Christ. You and I are called to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. You and I are called blessed because we are called to be peacemakers. You and I are called to witness  by word and deed to the new heaven and the new earth in which righteousness dwells.

How can we do that, you ask? Come to church this Sunday to find out more!

LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE

 

Celebration of the Fine Arts

This is a week that a group of Bethel people who are passionate about art and crafts has been waiting for: Ever since 2011, Bethel has had an annual Art Fair.  For the first time in those 6 years, the art fair will be expanded to a 2-day Celebration of the Fine Arts (spanning Friday evening and Sunday morning).  In addition to the visual arts, we will have the opportunity to enjoy the gifts of writers, poets, and musicians in our midst.  The art fair committee has invited writers and musicians of all ages to entertain us with their work. 

Additionally, our communal art project for the year will be on display on campus.  This year’s project will be outdoor lanterns, made from recycled 2-liter soda bottles.

This “Celebration of the Fine Arts” will continue on Sunday morning with the art gallery in the Fireside Room.  If you have not yet made plans to add your artwork(s) to the gallery, please consider doing so.  There still is time to contact Sue Jacobus (giantswin1@aol.com) and make arrangements to enter your work(s).

Preaching & Worship Leadership as Art

As I am contemplating which piece(s) to bring to the art gallery, I am also reflecting on how both preaching and worship leadership involve the arts.

I am NOT talking about adding little pictures here and there as sermon illustrations or to put together a PowerPoint presentation to help the audience follow the main ideas of a sermon.  While all of these may be helpful, I am rather thinking along the lines of Jesus’ own storytelling.

Jesus’ Parables as Art Form

Jesus, as we all know, told stories in the form of parables. Jesus’ parables are little literary gems that harvest their material from the everyday life of common people – farmers, merchants, homemakers, fishermen, day laborers, landowners, business managers, travelers, and fathers and sons.

Jesus crafted his parables that they hit people over the head and made them see their lives in a completely new way.  What if God’s kingdom is present with us already in the here and now? What if God’s kingdom causes me to give up anything that's precious to me just so that I might obtain it? What if my neighbors actually included also those whom I look down at, like Samaritans? What if God really loved me and asked me to return  to him, even though I squandered everything that he ever gave me? What if everyone is truly equal in God’s kingdom? 

Jesus told these little literary gems, and people’s eyes were opened.  They could see God and God’s kingdom at work where they had previously only seen hardship, toil, and life as usual.

If that’s not art, then I don’t know what is.  

The role of artists is, in my mind, to help us see our lives in new and challenging and life-giving ways.  In Jesus’ case, that message was, at its core, “the Kingdom of God is at hand – God calls you to get on board. Everyone’s life matters.”

Preaching & Worship Leadership as Art

I aim at doing the same in my preaching and worship leadership. Through both, I hope to break open some of the preconceptions and norms around which we have organized our lives (such as survival of the fittest, winner takes all, you only live once, put yourself first, etc.). Whether in preaching or designing meaningful worship services, I hope to create cracks through which God’s light might shine into our darkness.

Sometimes, this involves PowerPoint slides. At other times, it involves dramatic readings, storytelling, play acting, history lessons, prayer stations, hands-on projects in the middle of the worship services, such as getting up and adding your own pebble to a water-filled vase to make it overflow. Those are not merely little gimmicks. No. With all these things I hope to do what I have been called and ordained to do: to serve as minister of Word and Sacrament and tell of the good news of forgiveness, salvation, and new life in Christ.

Celebration of the Fine Arts

Please consider participating in out 2-day Celebration of the Fine Arts and thank the members of the art fair committee for their dedicated service.  Remember, there’s still time to harvest your home for entries for the Sunday Morning art gallery.

CELEBRATE EARTH-KEEPING SUNDAY AT BETHEL ON APRIL 24

I am going to use this week’s blog post to help publicize an exciting set of worship services on April 24. 

Some time ago, I was approached by some among our congregation to focus an entire worship service on the care for the environment. After all, we believe that the earth and all that exists in it are God’s gifts to us.  We also believe that God has entrusted us with the awesome responsibility of taking care of God’s creation:

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

²⁷ So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them.

²⁸ God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

²⁹ Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. ³⁰ And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

³¹ God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day. (Genesis 1:26-31)

The unfortunate fact is that we haven’t done a great job at taking care of God’s gift to us.  In fact, our environment has been degraded; mind-boggling numbers of plant and animal species have gone extinct because of humanity; our planet’s atmosphere, rivers, lakes, and oceans are polluted, rain forests are cut down to make room for cash crops and cattle growing; people have very uneven access to the beautiful resources which God has given to us, and so forth.

On April 24, two days after our nation observes Earth Day, we at Bethel will be celebrating our first Earth-Keeping Sunday. All aspects of both worship services (confession, prayers, litanies, readings, music, offering, visuals) will be creation-themed. 

In addition, I am also using this day to plan one last interactive set of prayer stations which will be available smack in the middle of both services.  Each service will feature 18 prayer stations, spread out over the sanctuary, narthex, Music & Ed Room, and Fireside Room. 

There will be stations for all ages and abilities. Some of the prayer stations allow or quieter, meditative prayer, other will have opportunities for artistic endeavors and playful ways of praying. 

To wet your appetite a bit, I am attaching the list of prayer stations and a map.  

April 24 would be the perfect Sunday to invite all your biking, hiking, nature-loving, child-loving, pro-environment-activist, and/or creative friends.  We would love to welcome them among us. With them, we will start from the inside-out, from what is most significant to us – that is, worship – and hope to be equipped to take better care of God’s gift of creation.

SOME AFTER-EASTER REFLECTIONS

Year after year, I really like the first Sunday after Easter and I do so for a number of reasons:

(1) By this time, the week between Palm Sunday Easter and its many, many services are in my rear view mirror, so to speak.  My previous anxiety of whether or not everything would work as I had hoped it would has passed.  

This year, all of our services were beautiful collaborations between many gifted and dedicated people:

• the members of our three choirs (adult, bells, 
• children), our volunteer and staff musicians (organist and worship team, plus outside trumpet players),
•       all who contributed to the magnificent sanctuary decor (envisioning it, purchasing supplies, fabricating and installing props).  
•       our staff who designed our various publications (worship screens, postcard, newspaper ad, bulletins, and eNewsletter),
•       our deacons, lectors, Media Shout and sound operators, ushers, greeters, and offering counters at all of or services,
•       all who donated flowers (thank you to all who purchased altar flowers and Easter lilies!),
•       all volunteers who helped spruce up our facility during our work-day, and, lastly,

  

I am confident that our collective service touched lives in many ways, both big and small.  Together, we helped touch all who worshipped at Bethel this Holy Week and Easter with the message of God’s salvation and new life in Christ.  One never knows who is present in worship and what they may have gone trough recently.  You have been Christ to them. Thank you!

(2) By this time, I have had the opportunity to take a couple of days off to rest and relax. This year, our immediate family was strangely spread out over three different places: Kumar needed to stay at home to attend to matters relating to our upcoming move to India, Naomi (who will be turning 16 years old on April 4) has been and still is visiting with her godmother in Dallas and experiencing life at a divinity school and attending the graduate classes that my good friend Susanne is teaching (Perkins School of Theology, part of Southern Methodist University), while Anna and I were spending 2 restful days on the coast, south of Pescadero, relaxing, doing some crafts, and visiting the northern sea elephants at Año Nuevo Reserve. 

(3) My third reason for enjoying this Second Sunday of Easter is that it is still part of our Easter celebration.  We still have the sanctuary decked out in white, still get to sing Easter hymns and songs, still get resurrection readings as our lessons … but we do so surrounded by our regular family of faith.  While it is nice to see pews filled on Easter (and Christmas), it is even nicer to see churches filled with people who are part of our community year-round, with people looking for a new church home, or with people who visit, because they may be visiting the Bay Area and attending worship, because that’s simply what they do on Sundays.  From this pastor’s perspective, Easter feels a bit strange, since I am designing and leading worship services for people who judge worship by what they were familiar with some 20-30 years ago.  If they don’t find what church was then, they often complain on how church has changed and just isn’t the same anymore!!! OK, I got my judgmental two cents of my chest.  I hope you don’t mind.  J

(4) Finally, I am glad that I got to be part of yet another meaninful celebration this Holy Week – when I officiated at the wedding of Rachel (Stolan) and Chris Kasinski last Saturday at Léal Vinyeards in Hollister. What a joy to help them get hitched so soon before I leave Bethel! I wish them joy and happiness in their new life together.  It seems very fitting to me that they picked this date to begin their new life together, given that the church celebrates the new life we have in Jesus Christ.  May Christ be present in the way they live together!

Wishing you a blessed first weekend in May and second Sunday of Easter!