Invited In

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; John 16:12-15

How do you usually get an invitation these days?

More often than not in my life, an invitation is a few words; a text message: “Hey, what are you doing for lunch?” Or a Facebook post or an email about an event, with the assumption that if the creators can just get the information about what’s happening in front of me, I’ll want to join in. 

And most of the invitations I isssue go out by email, come to think of it.

I also get an occasional beautifully printed wedding or anniversary invitation, or a phone call from a friend who would like me to visit, outlining plans and hopes and how good it will be to spend time together.

There are a wide variety of ways that you and I get invited to events and occasions; a wide variety of ways we get invited into relationship – as many ways to invite one another, in fact, as there are means of communication between one person and others.

And God uses all of them.

Including some that aren’t very usual these days, like the town crier. We heard about that this morning: Does not Wisdom call and understanding raise her voice? On the high hills and by the road, at the crossroads and the gates: in the town hall and the mall and the coffee shop and the internet?

Wisdom is trying to get your attention everywhere. Every possible place that people go, every kind of communication: Wisdom is there, calling out an invitation to all living people to enter into relationship with God.

The author of the Book of Proverbs pictures Wisdom as a person, and as an aspect of God known and distinct from the beginning of creation, as a co-worker and friend of God, sharing in the planning of the universe and celebrating the delight of armadillos and azaleas and riptides and human beings.

Centuries after Proverbs was written, Christians would start identifying the person of Wisdom with both the Holy Spirit and with Jesus, separately and together, but the most distinct, consistent feature of the portrait of Wisdom in the book of Proverbs is her invitation into true, healthy, holy, enduring relationship with God.

Wisdom issues that invitation to all living people, every single one of us created by God, without exception, without regard to qualifications or pre-existing relationships.

In a spirit of celebration and delight, Wisdom goes high and low and uses print and mail, text and email, TV and radio, Facebook or Twitter, even LinkedIn or Match.com, to invite every single one of us into honest, faithful, wholehearted, lasting relationship with God.

Jesus does the same thing, by the way, all his life long, with his teaching and parables and miracles, and his living example, right up to and through and after death. Jesus keeps on inviting his disciples, Gentiles and strangers and outcasts and you and me, all into deep, truth-filled, transformative relationship with God. In fact, Jesus invites us explicitly to imitate and to share his own relationship with God, and promises that the Spirit of God is going to be here with us to keep leading us into – or deeper into – that relationship with God that is just like Jesus’ relationship with “the Father”, just like our relationship with Jesus, because they are one and the same… and here the whole relationship invitation gets circular and swirly and we arrive at the heart of the relationship and the theological theme of today.

The theological theme of Trinity tells us that God – Jesus, Spirit, Wisdom, Creator, Father, Son, One, All – God keeps inviting us into this central relationship because relationship is central to who God is.

Two thousand years after Jesus, even more centuries after God’s people first began to describe the Spirit of God, or the Wisdom of God, as the active presence of God, you and I have inherited the vocabulary of “the Holy Trinity”, of “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” to describe the way that God relates to God, as revealed through the collective human experience of God. We’ve inherited, and we regularly repeat, a basic story of God: Almighty, creative, and unified, who is also Jesus in a particular time and place, distinct from and entirely unified with God Eternal, who is also the Holy Spirit, the force and effect of the presence of God when we don’t know how else to describe God.

We call that story “The Creed,” and recite it often as if it’s a collection of facts and stated beliefs, when it’s actually more of an attempt to describe what can’t be explained: to hear color, see sound, or measure and weigh love.

But it still conveys, somehow, the truth that we have learned through thousands of years of experience with God: that from the very beginning to the very end, God’s whole being is in relationship.

And the story of our faith is the story of being invited into that relationship, to grow closer and closer to the heart of God, whether we first encounter God as Jesus of Nazareth, as the dancing, electric wind or deeply quiet voice of the Holy Spirit, or as the eternal and all-powerful Creator of all things.

Some of us – probably a relative few – find the logical impossibility of three-in-one a natural understanding of God. Some spiritual extroverts may revel in the confusion and crowding of all the persons of God into one relationship.

Many of us, though, make sense of that relationship mostly by knowing the “persons” of God one at a time – by studying and following and imitating Jesus, perhaps. Or by worshiping and praying to the all-powerful, eternal and original, creator or father face of God. Or by seeking and following the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the faceless, fiery and gentle movement of God in our lives as individuals and communities. All of them continually inviting us to grow closer to Godself.

Any way we begin our relationship with God, any way we grow in that relationship, the truth of that relationship is known not in linear logic, but in experience and story, in the language of the heart.

At the top of your program today there’s a picture of that truth. It’s one way – though hardly the only way – to envision the story we tell of the God who invites us in. Three curves reach out and swirl back toward the center, three different ways of encountering and knowing God, all inviting us in, all in motion, none of it linear, all of it rooted in and pointing toward the center. And at that center, the root of all, and the connection of all: love.

The image you see there is one you’ll start to see more often over the summer and into the fall, to represent this congregation, developed in consultation with the Vestry and staff and a few other leaders. The Vestry liked the sense of growth and movement, and the heart at the center as an image of ourselves, of our relationship with God and one another.

You yourself may not see what I just described in that image. You may see more. You may see less. Someone else will see something entirely different than you do. That’s  not unlike our encounter with God the Trinity: the same true thing, experienced differently from time to time and person to person.

Behind and beyond whatever you see, whatever I see, whatever we draw or say or do, is the same original and eternal invitation: the voice of Wisdom, the voice of God, calling out to each of us, to everyone we don’t know, and to all of us together, to enter into relationship with God, to join ourselves with the heart of the true, abiding, faithful and transformative relationship of God, with who God is, now and forever. 

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Comfort Zone

Acts 2:1-21

How many of you hear the Pentecost story – this story of disciples set alight, telling the story of God in languages they don’t know, the public, noisy, fiery spread of the gospel – and just can’t wait to be lit up by the Spirit and jump in?

Excellent. I think God has a use for you!

And who hears this story and thinks it sounds thrilling – for someone else to do? Exciting, sure, but not easy; not natural for you, even distinctly uncomfortable?

That’s usually a majority among communities that have been Christian for a while and have gotten comfortable with our faith the way it is. For those of us who don’t find our own faith story startling and new. It’s not surprising if many of us here this morning find it hard to get out of our comfort zone.

But it might not actually have to be that hard.

This Pentecost story is also very much a story of God moving right in to people’s comfort zones and meeting us there.

Think about the wonder and amazement of the crowds. “Aren’t these people Galileans? How on earth are we hearing them speak each in our own native language?” Hearing in the language of my birth, my childhood, the language of home.

Many of the people in Jerusalem at that time would have spoken Greek, the common language of the Roman Empire. They would have understood perfectly well if the disciples had proclaimed God’s deeds of power in that common language.  

But the Holy Spirit lights up the disciples to speak to them each in the language of home. In their first language, most natural and comfortable.

When the Spirit wants us to listen, we’ll hear in the language of our hearts.

And the Spirit isn’t grabbing the attention of strangers who’ve never heard of God before. These are “devout Jews,” immigrants who had moved to Jerusalem from places near and far to be close to the center of their faith, to live more deeply into their relationship with God.

The Spirit lights up the disciples to speak to them about the deeds of the God whom they already know; already want to know better. Peter interprets the experience for them using scripture they already know, familiar words from the prophet Joel, a vision they may have been longing to see become real.

The Spirit gives them – us! – what they and we are already looking for; opens up our understanding with the truths we already know, the stories we already love. Invites us to grow in the relationship with God that we already have, however devoted or distant it feels right now.

The Pentecost experience – that experience of being filled with, lit up by, the Holy Spirit, may not really be so hard.
God really does come to us right in our comfort zones, really does speak the language of our hearts, really does teach us to find what we are looking for in stories we already know, even love.

God comes to us within our comfort zones, and the Holy Spirit lights us up so that we don’t get stagnant there.

So that we don’t get stuck, and lose the love, the joy, and the freshness of the miraculous story and powerful love that come to find us where we need God, where we already are.

Because God wants to get close to us in trust; not paralyze us with fear.

It’s true that when the Holy Spirit moves into my comfort zone, or yours, that safe, familiar space gets stirred up. Sometimes it’s the noise of a storm wind, the shocking brightness of a living flame around you – like the disciples felt that first Pentecost, while they were sitting together in the comfortable, holy space they had made for themselves by prayer and celebration, by telling each other the stories and reminding themselves of Jesus’ promise to send that Spirit to help them, to defend and encourage them. The bright, noisy Spirit stirs them up to share the comfort of their community; share their assurance of God’s promises; share their favorite Jesus stories with people who were waiting to hear them in the language of their hearts.

Those disciples don’t have to invent anything new, plan an “elevator speech”, a compelling sales pitch, or find the perfect words of comfort or inspiration, either. Those lit-up disciples simply tell the story they already know, the story of Jesus that they love.

Peter tells the story he already knows – and knows that his audience knows – the vision of Joel, the story of the promises of God that we’re all already longing for.

It’s an expanded comfort zone, all of a sudden, for those disciples, of course. That’s what the Holy Spirit does to us; for us.

The Spirit doesn’t generally drag us unwilling into the streets, knocking on doors and forcing salvation on suspicious strangers. Instead, God comes to meet us inside our comfort zone, and widens and deepens the story we already know and love so that we can recognize and receive from God what we’ve already been longing for.

And then the Holy Spirit expands that zone. Makes your comfort zone, or mine, a place that reaches out to comfort others with what you or I already love and know, and trust with all our hearts.

On Pentecost, we remember and renew the covenant of our own baptism as a way to return to the deep trust of what we already know. To remind ourselves in the words of the creed that we know God as Father and Creator; that we know Jesus as human and divine, as a teller of stories and a story we tell; that we already know the Holy Spirit who fills us with life and makes the connections that create community.

Baptism also reminds us to live in that story, to let the beloved story of God shape our daily lives, our comfort zones. We promise again to take comfort in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers, the promise of God’s forgiveness, the challenge of God’s hope for the world in a daily, regular, life-shaping way.

We’ll promise to proclaim Good News the way the disciples did – with the story we already know, the love we already feel, sharing the language of our hearts with the language of someone else’s heart.

We’re also hearing from our RenewalWorks team this weekend. They have planned a lot of ways to refresh and deepen your comfort zone with God, to help us see all the room for God to work that we already have in our hearts, receive the gift that we are already longing for from God.

The spiritual growth we are embarking on as a congregation, and the growth we’re each invited to as individuals, is not necessarily a leap into the unknown or uncomfortable.

That’s why you’re seeing an invitation to refresh your familiarity with God’s story this summer; to get more familiar with the Bible and The Book of Common Prayer, the books that are about the story we love.

To grow spiritually, to be disciples lit from within by the Holy Spirit, might not be as hard as it sometimes sounds.

It might already be within your comfort zone; it certainly grows from the language of your heart, the stories you already know, and the longing you already have for God.

I know that the Holy Spirit loves to meet us in that place of trust, and light up our hearts, two thousand years ago in Jerusalem, or here and now, today, so that we keep falling in love with the old story; so that the story stays fresh for us, and that we tell it, not only to others, but to ourselves, with deep and joyful love.

I love to tell the story, for those who know it best

Seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest;

And when in scenes of glory I sing the new, new song,

’Twill be the old, old story that I have loved so long.

I love to tell the story. Twill be my theme in glory

to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love.

Life Saving

Acts 16:16-34

Every true conversion story – every authentic life of Christian faith – is rooted in the truth that Jesus saves our lives.

Literally, sometimes. Metaphorically, more often.

But deeply true: when we follow Jesus – if we follow Jesus – it’s because Jesus saves our lives.

Some of you can remember exactly when and how that happened for you. Others may be a little worried that I’m taking you off the evangelical deep end.

But don’t worry if you don’t recall Jesus rescuing you from death or saving your life in any other way. It may be that your own conversion hasn’t happened yet. Sometimes the conversion of our hearts happens years, often decades after baptism. Or it might have happened and you didn’t notice it as a matter of life and death. Sometimes the saving of our lives is slow and subtle and metaphorical instead of clear and literal.

That’s fine. Conversions and Christian lives without drama are just as faithful, deep and true, as the kind of story we heard this morning – the melodramatic story of the conversion of the Philippian jailer.

His conversion story comes with a big set up that involves spiritual possession, an angry, poorly timed deliverance miracle, lawsuits and political accusations, a justice system turned into a mob scene, and the kind of ridiculous overreaction that would fit right in to a bad TV drama or a popular sitcom.

All of that to set Paul and Silas up in jail in time for a remarkably well-managed earthquake that somehow tidily and precisely unlocks every chain and opens every door without bringing the ceiling down on anybody’s head.

All of that so that the jailer’s life can be saved.

As soon as he wakes up from the earthquake and sees the prison door standing open, the jailer of Philippi whips out his sword and prepares to die of failure.

A failure he didn’t cause or control, you may have noticed. That door-opening earthquake was hardly the jailer’s fault, and nothing he could have done would have stopped it.

And a failure that didn’t actually happen. He’s ready to kill himself before he even checks to see if a single one of the prisoners has left his jail. Or, for that matter, if any of them got hurt in the earthquake!

You and I can read this story and know the jailer hasn’t failed at all. But as far as he’s concerned, in that dark, shaken, scary moment, his failure is complete, devastating, and absolutely enough to kill him.

Until Paul stops him.
Until Jesus stops him, actually.

It’s dark. Midnight, pre-electricity dark, and Paul and Silas are in the furthest, innermost cell. There’s no way Paul sees what the jailer is doing with his sword pointed at his own heart. So it may be Paul’s voice, but it’s God who speaks in that moment, announcing to the jailer that he hasn’t failed after all, and shouldn’t harm himself.

Maybe you remember a time when a friend said that to you, when you were about to die of the feeling of failure.

And that is a life-saving miracle.

It’s the kind you or I might not notice as a miracle when you wake up the morning after you didn’t, actually, die of embarrassment and failure.

Because you already know embarrassment doesn’t really kill you, even when you wish it would.

But it’s a fact that just as he is about to die of failure, Jesus saves this jailer’s life.

And in that dark and shaken moment, the jailer recognizes the life-saving gift, and responds. He throws himself at the feet of Paul and Silas and demands to know how he can be saved. How he can deserve the saving of his life that just happened; achieve the saving of the rest of his life.

He can’t earn it, of course. You know that. I know that.

At least, we know this when we know we’re talking about God, and especially if we’re talking about someone else, or talking in the abstract.

But I bet that deep in our not-so-logical minds and hearts, many of us have believed at some time, or believe right now, that we do, in fact, have to earn our own lives.
That we have to live and act and achieve right in order to deserve salvation from whatever most hurts or threatens us.
We may believe – not necessarily with our heads, but with our habits and attitudes; by the way we act without thinking, the things we fear and the things we can’t say no to – that we have to eat or parent or work or rest or recycle or whatever exactly right – better than we do now – to save ourselves and our families and our world from failure or disease or loss or just not being enough.

Or we believe that our current happiness or success or security or even the state of our relationship with God, for better or worse, is due mostly to how hard we have ourselves worked for it.

After all, that’s the story about success and failure, value and merit, that every one of us is told in our present culture every single day.

It’s the story that Philippian jailer believed as truth. A story that almost killed him.

But it’s a lie.

And here in church, here on Sunday morning, temporarily sheltered from the story the world keeps telling us, we can hear what Paul and Silas try to tell that jailer, when they tell him to believe in Jesus and be saved.

Not that salvation depends on how much he agrees that a particular man was actually God, or how successfully he can absorb the illogic and impossibility of Jesus being raised from the dead.

When Silas and Paul utter that classic conversion line, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and be saved,” I believe they are trying to tell this jailer that being saved is not – is never – a matter of earning it, but of accepting it.  Accepting from God what we cannot earn with our own effort; letting go of the anxiety and strain of trying to achieve it for ourselves and the embarrassment of not “deserving” it as a gift.

That’s how Jesus saves our lives – yours and mine – still today. Not, usually, with a miraculous rescue from a natural disaster, traffic accident, or deadly illness, but rather by saving us day by day from the life-draining, life-limiting belief that we actually have to earn our way to heaven, or success, or love, or any other form of salvation.

It can feel safer, sometimes, or more virtuous, to rely on myself, or maybe a few others, than to rely on Jesus for security, loveableness, daily necessities, healthy relationships, virtuous behavior, and all the other things that are supposed to make us right and righteous and “okay” in this world, or any other.

It can feel better to rely on ourselves right up to the point when we’ve failed.
The point where, sometimes, failing our selves or our loved ones feels like dying.

But when we can accept that gift of unearned healing, when we trust Jesus to protect our hearts and souls every single time we fail, that will literally save our lives – both from the smothering weight of not measuring up, and from the sword in our own hands.

And then that gift pours out of us again, like it pours out of that jailer in generosity and care for Paul and Silas: not with a list of more things to do or achieve on our own responsibility, but a gift easy to share.

That gift – un-earnable, un-winnable – is called grace when you get theological about it. Other times, it just feels like love. Like loving and being loved beyond anything you or I can deserve or imagine. Like love you can fall into – even fail into – with overwhelming trust and joy.

It isn’t always easy to fall – to fail – into grace. I know.

So the church gives us rituals to practice with, like baptism and the water that washes us with new life, even before we’ve spent the first one. Like communion, when we practice opening our hands to receive something that looks nothing like a meal, but somehow feeds our souls. Like the prayers we sing and say together that remind us that so much of what we can’t do for ourselves and our world is actually God’s responsibility and delight anyway.

In doing this, we remind ourselves that however long ago or recently your story started, however dramatic or slow or powerful or unfinished the process of your own conversion to God’s gift of trust and grace, you and I and all of us together are rooted in the truth that Jesus saves our lives, once and always.