Alive // Life After Easter / Freedom to Be

 

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 06/08/2014

video available at www.sundaystreams.com/go/MilanVineyard
podcast here:  http://feeds.feedburner.com/VineyardChurchOfMilan
or via iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/vineyard-church-of-milan/id562567379

18 years old, living in Belfast, playing basketball for Queen’s University. Going out to the pub with the team after games. Wanting them to like me, to fit in, to belong. Trying to figure out how to be. Knowing some of my teammates lived with me in this house of modern monastics. Knowing some of my housemates knew my parents back home. Wanting my housemates and my parents to approve of me, to fit in, to belong. Trying to figure out how to be. A constant tension, a push and pull, a tug of war.

Years later, I think to myself, what would that experience have been like without the energy and attention drain of that “imagined approval of others” tension?

From an early age, we learn to be different people in different settings. We act one way with mom, and another with Dad. We are one way at school with our teachers, and one way with our friends, and another way at home with our families. In part because we discover we can get certain results by being certain ways with certain people. And in part because this is just how we figure out who we are, trying on personalities like we try on clothes, seeing which ones fit and make us feel good about ourselves. This isn’t unhealthy, necessarily. It’s part of growing up and learning to navigate our world.

However, once we’ve matured, having this kind of “split-personality” experience doesn’t serve a healthy purpose anymore. It’s exhausting, wasted energy, unproductive, even counterproductive. It’s a dis-integration of our selves, and ultimately damaging both to us and those around us.

Perhaps you’ve experienced it. Being one person at work – because you know what gets the job done there, what wins people’s approval, what keeps you from taking too much flack. Being another person – or maybe a couple – at home. Someone with your spouse, someone else with your kids. Someone with your neighbors, or your teammates. Someone else at the club or the pub. If you’re a churchgoing type, maybe you add your churchgoing self, your Sunday self, to your growing collection of selves. At the end of the day, you can feel like you’re lying to everyone, even if just a little bit. And maybe you’re not even sure which self is the real you.

What if there was a way to become fully integrated, to live as one human being everywhere, the same potentially incomplete, potentially growing, but genuine person in all of those settings? What if faith – the context for so much hypocrisy – could actually be the thing that was meant to open the door to that kind of experience, to give us the kind of freedom we need to be the same person everywhere?

What if part of being Jesus’ disciple was being given what you needed to not be organizing so much of your life around the imagined approval of others? So that you could be an employee or employer or spouse or friend or parent or child or teammate or regular at Cheers (or Fenders or whatever) and simply be. Just you, exactly as you are – giftings, talents, passions, hurts, history, dreams, flaws and all – everywhere.

This is part of what the gift of the Holy Spirit poured out on planet earth on Pentecost is all about. Giving us the freedom to be our in-process selves with one another, without fear.

Because to be filled with the Holy Spirit, the divine breath that hovers over the waters of creation, the living, wild wind that blows where it pleases, the animating energy at the heart of all that we call Good, is to be filled with Love. And, as scripture and experience and research all bear out, perfect love drives out fear. Even, and especially, the fear that causes us to organize our lives around the things that we think will cause us to belong, or succeed, or give us protection from the negative judgments of others.

So we’re going to take 2 Sundays, starting today, on Pentecost, to talk about how the Holy Spirit given on Pentecost empowers us to be the same growing-in-love person everywhere, all the time.

As a reminder to all of us, and perhaps as an introduction to anyone newer, Pentecost is the day in the Christian calendar when we celebrate, remember, and reflect on the remarkable and earth changing event that took place in Jerusalem 50 days after Jesus’ resurrection. Pentecost just means 50, and it was the Greek name given to the Jewish festival of Shavuot, or Feast of Weeks. It took place 7 weeks and 1 day after the Passover (7 days X 7 weeks + 1 day = 50 days), thus “Pentecost.”

After his resurrection, Jesus told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem until his Holy Spirit came. They weren’t entirely sure what he meant by that, or what to expect, but they had enough faith to do it, to be obedient. So they waited, praying, until something extraordinary happened on Pentecost.

2 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. ²Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. ³They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Jerusalem is a crowded city, flooded with people from distant countries who have gathered for the Feat of Weeks, and this explosion of languages in loud praise draws attention. Some are amazed because they hear Galileans speaking in the native tongues. Some see just the weirdness and spectacle of it all and think these students of Jesus are drunk.

So Peter, one of their leaders, addresses the crowd and lets them know that they aren’t drunk, but rather that a new age has dawned, something long promised by God, where our relationships with him and one another are transformed. And he explains about how Jesus is the anointed king of this era in human history, where the kingdom of God has begun to come to earth. Thousands of people hear his message and get baptized and join with them, giving birth to the Jesus movement. And from that moment on, the Holy Spirit is everywhere in the world, changing our experience of God and one another and life in the ways we’ve been talking about these last several weeks.

So what does that have to do with freeing us to be the same in-process person everywhere, without fear? Everything.

Let’s dig into it a little bit.

It will help to begin by seeing the parallels between what happened on Pentecost and a major event in Israel’s history. Shavuot (the Hebrew name for the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost) is a festival celebrating when God gave the law to Moses on Mount Sinai. That’s significant, because God giving the Holy Spirit is the next major step after Sinai in his freedom-giving, love-drenching plan for humanity.

Israel had been enslaved for 400 years in Egypt prior to what happened on Mount Sinai. 400 years. Generation after generation after generation after generation who only knew what it meant to live as a slave. And fundamentally slavery is the denial of in-process personhood. The slave exists only to serve and contribute to the personhood of the master. Life in Egypt was entirely a fear-based response to the demanding and more powerful oppressor.

But interestingly, in the midst of their slavery, God gave a gift to the Hebrew slaves that was a sign of full freedom coming. That gift was birth unbridled. They kept having babies. More and more, despite the best efforts of the Egyptian slave masters to stop them. Slavery could not contain the freedom God intended.

After 400 years, God delivered the Hebrew slaves on the first Passover, in which they ate a meal of a slaughtered lamb while God dealt a crushing and costly blow to the Pharaoh and all of the Egyptians. A few days later, the Hebrews were liberated and crossed the Red Sea, and their pursuers were defeated. But the rag tag bunch that had been rescued had no idea what it meant to live in freedom yet. All of their habits and customs were derived from their lives as slaves. All of their actions had been dictated to them by their slave masters for the benefit of their slave masters; they had precious little experience living as free people. So 50 days after they crossed the Red Sea, they found themselves at Mount Sinai, and something dramatic happened.

And it happened on the third day as it turned morning, that there was thunder (qolot – voices) and lightning and a heavy cloud on the mountain and the sound of a ram’s horn, very strong, and all the people who were in the camp trembled…And Mount Sinai was all in smoke because the LORD had come down on it in fire, and its smoke went up like the smoke from a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And the sound of the ram’s horn grew stronger and stronger. Moses would speak, and God would answer him with voice. And the LORD came down on Mount Sinai, to the mountaintop, and the LORD called Moses to the mountaintop, and Moses went up.

This bright and noisy birth is how it begins that the Hebrew slaves are formed into a nation, a people freed from slavery and devoted to God, spoken to directly by God, given words that teach them the way of life as free people, that are intended to keep them on the path of life and away from the path that leads back to Egypt, and to slavery, and to death. These words set them apart as God’s people. Holy words that reveal God to Israel, and are meant to shape them in ways that reveal God to the world, eventually opening the door for the whole world to the freedom that Israel is meant to enjoy.

Much in the way that parents have rules that teach kids to live in life-giving ways while they don’t yet have a well-defined sense of self or awareness of the selfhood of others. A wise parent’s intention might be that the child would grow up and become a fully-formed human being who can love herself and love others as she loves herself.

This seems to be God’s intention for Israel: for them to become a family of people aware of their unique identity as people specially beloved by the God who is Love, who can, out of their belovedness, extend that belovedness to the world.

But of course, it so happens that the nation of Israel, God’s firstborn son, makes a mess of its freedom from the outset. Israel does not allow its heart to be shaped by the gift given it on Sinai, but instead turns the law into an idol that sometimes it worships and sometimes it discards and ultimately that it uses for its own purposes, as a tool to exercise power over others. Sort of like the kid who uses his parents rules not to lead him to growing in love and freedom, but to keep his siblings in line so he can feel like he’s charge.

And so Israel missed out on the freedom giving purpose for which the law was given on Sinai, and Israel’s heart became like the stone the ten commandments were written on, and not living and active like the words themselves.

That’s why we find this prophecy in Ezekiel: I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

What’s the difference between stone and flesh, after all? It’s the difference between slavery and freedom. A stone has no will or intention or selfhood, only moved from the outside by the external forces to which it is subject. Flesh is alive, free to be moved from the inside by love, by passion, by conviction, by choice. God made us to be his image-bearers, free as he is free, subject only to him, and subject only through the freely given love and devotion of one self to another.

In Israel, after the last prophet Malachi speaks, there is a 400 year period of silence from God. A silence during which the nation of Israel finds itself under the occupation of the Roman Empire. 400 years. The same amount of time Israel had been under slavery in Egypt.

Enter Jesus. The only begotten Son of God, the Word made flesh, dwelling among Israel. Filled with the Holy Spirit, living faithfully as Israel was meant to live, the freest human being on the face of the earth. Free from slavery to sin. Freely following the path of self-giving love, all the way to death. Like a lamb led to slaughter on Passover.

Jesus and his students share a meal that Passover night, but that night will not be the night the Pharaoh’s firstborn is killed. That Passover the firstborn and only begotten son of God will be killed. A sinless death that deals a crushing blow to sin and death. And then, a few days later, all of humanity is liberated from sin and death in the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb, a new exodus, a new crossing over from slavery to freedom begins.

Now 50 days later, the disciples aren’t on a mountain, but they are in an upper room. It’s time now for a people who have been enslaved to sin for every generation in human history to enter into full freedom. For the first time. Full freedom. Full of freedom.

2 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. ²Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. ³They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

Do you see how much this is like the giving of the law on Sinai? There’s blowing and sounds and fire. And yet it’s not the same, either.

Receiving the Spirit of God is a lot different than receiving the laws of God. It’s different on some pretty profound levels, differences that change everything about the lives we lead going forward. The Spirit isn’t etchings on stone; it’s breath and energy capable of resting on and dwelling in a person. Designed to empower the kind of freedom the law could only point towards and prepare us for.

We’ll unpack the particulars more next week, but for now, just consider how different it is to live life from an internal compass and energy source vs. externally oriented motivations. Because that’s the fundamental difference between a law on tablets and being filled with the Holy Spirit.

As Jesus said, when he described what life would be like for people filled with the Spirit: “The wind blows wherever it pleases…so it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” Wherever it pleases. That’s the very epitome of freedom, isn’t it?

Let’s start with an easy to translate environment like church. Do you act like you act in church because of the rules of the church people? Because of their expectations and judgments? (for example…) Or because of who you are and what you need and what you are longing for and hoping for and how you feel led by the divine energy and breath within you? (for example…)

Well, if you act like you act in church environments because of the rules and expectations and judgments, then as soon as you’re out of the environment, you might as well be someone else. Because other environments have different rules and expectations and judgments. Places like work or your family or the club or school or the bar or your team. (for example…)

But if it’s because of who you are and what you need and what you are longing for and hoping for and how you feel led by the divine energy and breath within you, then that doesn’t change when you leave the church environment, does it? It’s exactly the same at work or in your family or at the club or at school or at the bar or on your team. Because you’re you and what the Holy Spirit is doing in you is the same thing he’s doing in you everywhere. (for example…)

And it might even be the case that not only does being filled with the Holy Spirit free you to be able to be the same person you are becoming everywhere you are, it also frees you to care about different things wherever you are. So instead of caring about the norms of the place and everyone else’s expectations and judgments, you start to instead pay attention to how the Holy Spirit – the one who is energizing and animating you – is energizing and animating the place and the people around you.

You start to notice, and you start to nudge. Because you’re free now, free like you’ve never been before. And that changes everything. The Holy Spirit changes everything.

Practical Suggestions:

1. Identify Your Egypt. Where is the one place you act least like the real person you believe God’s Spirit is energizing and animating you to be? Church? Work? Family? Etc. Ask the Spirit to help you see (remember, that’s what he does first and most often) and to help you notice when it’s happening. Freedom begins with the noticing – ask Moses about that time he saw a bush on fire.

2. Identify Your Upper Room. Where is the one place you act most like the real person you believe God’s Spirit is energizing and animating you to be? Church? Work? Family? All by yourself in the woods? In your car? Ask the Spirit to help you see that the truth about that environment that helps you be at peace enough to be most fully the person God is making you to be is actually true everywhere else, even in your Egypt. Because freedom is experienced through faith.

Alive // Life After Easter / Everywhere

 

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 06/01/2014

video available at www.sundaystreams.com/go/MilanVineyard
podcast here:  http://feeds.feedburner.com/VineyardChurchOfMilan
or via iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/vineyard-church-of-milan/id562567379

Looking to connect with God not long after my mom’s death, wrestling with identity questions. The spit had hit the fan in my life, feeling alone, disconnected, unsure of myself. Running at Riverside Park in Manhattan, evening descending, 18000 songs on random shuffle. A nudge to pay attention, that maybe the Spirit had something to whisper to me through the music. Next song comes on, a showtune. One of Ronni’s songs in my collection. No way God can speak through a broadway showtune (obviously!), so my fingers search for the skip button on my headphones, hoping to get to a U2 song, or maybe a worship song, something God might be present in. I pause, a nudge in my heart; let it play. So I do.

When you're a Jet,
You're a Jet all the way
From your first cigarette
To your last dyin' day.
When you're a Jet,
If the spit hits the fan,
You got brothers around,
You're a family man!
You're never alone,
You're never disconnected!
You're home with your own:
When company's expected,
You're well protected!
Then you are set
With a capital J,
Which you'll never forget
Till they cart you away.
When you're a Jet,
You stay a Jet! 

As I listen to the lyrics, it’s like God is in my headphones, speaking to me. And then I realize the name of the musical: West Side Story. I’m on the Upper West Side, the actual setting for the musical. Tears start to fall down my cheeks and blend in with the rain that’s started lightly falling.

Alive // Life After Easter is about Jesus alive, present everywhere now after the resurrection through his Holy Spirit. What does that mean for us human beings who live on the bright side of the empty tomb? Well, among other things, it means that the most important reality in our world, whether we are religious or not, is that the Spirit of the Living God is near, available, close, desiring to speak to us, to lead us, to teach us, to change our relationships with one another and with a God who has seemed distant and inaccessible. A Spirit who is a defense counselor, not an accuser or condemner. Love, alive and active in every corner of the world, inviting us to wake up to his presence and activity, and to join him in nudging everyone around us to wakefulness as well.

Last week we looked at how Jesus nudged some friends awake after his resurrection, in a passage in Luke 24. Jesus calls us to join with him in being a nudger. People who are awakening each other to the presence of the God who is already here. A nudge here. A nudge there. Our only agenda to bless, to serve, to cooperate with God in announcing and demonstrating and embodying the good news of the God of grace and peace.

A quick review of nudging...

The first goal of nudging is seeing. Awareness. This is what separates it from the goals behind sales tactics and shoving. The misguided seller and the shover are content with action divorced from sight (examples...). Not the nudger.

Nudges begin by coming near and joining with.

Nudges involve paying attention to the nudge-ee, asking questions, noticing, probing or more, listening.

Nudges are non-anxious and proceed at a graceful pace.

What we’ll concentrate on today is this: Nudging counts on God being at work everywhere through the Holy Spirit. All the time. In life after Easter, nowhere is off-limits for the Holy Spirit. It's a question for us of noticing. Of recognizing. Of having eyes to see him, no matter where he's present.

Let’s try an exercise.

For some of us, some of the time, in some situations and relationships and places, our problem is that we're not expecting God to be present... And because we aren't looking for him, or even because we're pretty sure he wouldn't be there, we miss what Jesus wants to nudge us into awareness of: God is alive and blowing like wind throughout the earth. It’s what almost caused me to miss him in the Broadway song.

It’s what happened to Jesus’ disciples on Easter morning, too.

⁹When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. ¹⁰It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. ¹¹But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.

Luke 24v9-11

Their words seemed to them like nonsense... more literally, their words appeared, or were shining, in their presence as nonsense. What we have here is a failure of sight, isn’t it? How can they not see these true words as true?

Two reasons. 1, in their minds, women aren’t reliable witnesses. This is a blindness that permeates their culture. And 2, dead people in tombs stay dead people in tombs. This is just an assumption about the way the world works based on their experiences. Which of course is a blindness rooted in the smallness of their worldview.

How often do we miss opportunities to find the Holy Spirit alive and kicking in our world because it seems like non-sense to us? Because we’ve got the wrong assumptions?

I remember a time, growing up, when I thought the Holy Spirit was only present in “Christian” things. Christian music, Christian books, Christian movies, Christian places, Christian people. And even then, some “Christian” people were suspect.

Perhaps you’ve written off the possibility of God being alive and present in your extended family. Or your workplace. Or your school. Or at your gym. Or at Prom. Or at some party this weekend. Or some “godless” activity or passion you have. Or in some painful situation.

Because dead people stay dead in tombs, right?

And maybe your blindness to the Holy Spirit’s activity and presence goes even deeper than that, like mine did. Not only did I think God wasn’t present in “non-Christian” things, I thought those things were somehow hostile to his presence. That they were somehow able to keep him out. As if the creation could exile the creator, or even want to.

Let’s cut the disciples, and ourselves, a little slack, though. Not on the discrediting women front, so much, that bit is foolish through and through. But on the basic idea that there are certain places we can expect to find God and certain places we can’t. Because before the resurrection, God was uniquely present on planet earth in a particular place in the Temple that Israel had built for him, under his instructions. A place called the Holy of Holies, where the ark of the covenant was kept, with two angels on top of it.

In Exodus 25, we read about God saying this to Moses:

²²There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the covenant law, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites.

So maybe we can be forgiven for not expecting to encounter the living God everywhere. Strike that, surely we can be forgiven. However, there were signs even then (one of which we’ll get to in a bit), and it’s especially true now, that God isn’t confined to the Holy of Holies. And he never was. He’s everywhere.

Perhaps you remember in Mark’s account of Jesus’ death, that when he breathed his last, releasing his Spirit (get it, spirit/breath, the same thing; Jesus’ spirit, the Holy Spirit), the veil of the temple, the huge curtain that separates the Holy of Holies from the outside world, was torn in two from top to bottom. The presence of God in other words, busting out into the wide, wide world. And a Roman centurion, one of the ones who oversaw Jesus’ crucifixion, the last person on earth you’d expect to have the Holy Spirit, sees who Jesus is for the first time. “Surely this man was the Son of God!” How did he see that if not for the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who makes the blind see?

Here in Luke’s gospel, do you remember what the women found when they went to the tomb?

²They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. ⁴While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.

These two men are like the angels on the ark of the covenant, and the tomb is like the Holy of Holies, except of course it’s empty now. Because God is out, Jesus is alive, walking about in the garden, his Spirit soon to be everywhere.\

Did we think God can be stuck in a box? Did we think God was only present in "godly" places and among "godly" people? Did we think we could only find him by looking for him where we last put him?

God has shaken off the chains of death and now he's roaming the earth, his Spirit blowing like the wind. Nowhere is off limits to the resurrected Jesus, nowhere is off limits to his Holy Spirit.

In the beginning, God blessed everything. The earth - it's good, God says. The oceans, the land, the animals, the sky, the rivers, the plants. It's good. It's blessed. It's his, he can go where he wants, and he wants it all because it's good.

And then, in making us, the soil itself has been infused with Spirit, the breath of God.

Sure, the well-ordered and God-inhabited creation has been disrupted by sin. But God has never left the building. Or maybe better said, God has left the building - and now he's everywhere, arriving with peace, the truest kind of peace that restores good order and is marked by his nearness and favoring presence.

Listen to what happens when the big payoff finally comes, when all the blindness gives way to seeing.

³⁶Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace] be with you."

That kind of peace is only possible when the Spirit of God is present. Peace be with you. You, image bearer of God, peace be with you.

Nothing made in the image of God or blessed by God is godless. The word "godless" in the scriptures never means "devoid of God. It always means lacking reverence for God, or polluted, corrupted, profaned. But never, ever "empty of God."

Consider a man named Ezekiel. A priest who is the son of a priest. A good priest whose whole life and experience of God is wrapped up in the temple, the place where God dwells. And the temple is destroyed. And the children of God are exiled to the land where Ishtar is god. And his wife is dead. And Ezekiel is dragged through the gates of Ishtar into Babylon. And one day, by a river in Babylon, he has a fantastical, wild vision, with multi-faced creatures and spinning wheels with eyes, and he realizes, God is here. In Babylon. And he falls face down in worship. Right there in the land presumably belonging to Ishtar. Only it doesn't. Nothing belongs to Ishtar. Because, as the people of Israel sing in psalm 24, the earth is the Lord's and all it contains. The world, and those who dwell in it.

Consider the disciples in a boat out on the water, sans Jesus. And they see a figure out on the water. The water that is filled with terrors. They know, they absolutely know, that when someone shows up out on the water, not in a boat, it's a ghost. Something evil and undead. Only this isn't a ghost. It's Jesus. Courage. No fear. I am. God loves to be outside of our safe boats. Walking on the water all around us. Saying, Courage. No fear. It's me. Awaken each other to me.

The resurrected Jesus is everywhere through his Spirit unleashed on planet earth. Are we looking everywhere for him, with expectation?

We can’t be very effective nudgers until we are. Because nudging is awakening each other to the presence of the God who is already there. God is already there. Wherever there is.

Where have you stopped looking for him, expecting him?

Practical Suggestions:

1. Turn and Burn.

Repent of any false assumptions you've held along the lines of "dead people stay dead in tombs."

Do it this way: write down the name of a person or place or situation that you've written off as "godless" or as an unlikely candidates for God's presence and activity. Especially a place you go often or a person you would love to be part of them experiencing the fullness of God's blessing.

Get a candle that you like the smell of, and put that paper under the candle. Every time you light the candle or smell it's scent, allow it to remind you that the light of the world is shining there, or on that person, that the wind of the Spirit is blowing there, or on that person. Pray: Jesus, Nudge me awake to your presence, so I can be a nudger.

2. Change your Identity.

Resolve to stop thinking of yourself as someone who "brings" Jesus to a place or a person. For one, that's a lot of pressure... And 2, Jesus already beat you wherever you think you're bringing him, so you're wasting your time.

Instead, receive a new identity as a member of the New Creation Road Show. Like the Antiques Road Show, only you're helping people identify the hidden signs of new creation already present in their lives. Put NCRS on a wristband if you like, or stick it on your review mirror. If someone asks what it stands for, suggest: "No one Can Really Say." If they laugh and ask again, take it as a sign of new creation at work, and tell them what it really stands for. If they look at you like you're weird and move on to another subject, maybe the time for a nudge is still a little down the road.

Note, when we talk about new creation, we’re talking about the idea that what God is up to on this side of Easter is making a new creation, repairing, restoring, redeeming, renewing everything damaged by sin, by our lack of trust in him, by our going our own misguided way in so many ways. (For those who like putting pieces together in the bible, connecting the dots, the linen gravecloths in the tomb are probably representative of the linen garments that the high priest would leave behind when he exited the Holy of Holies the last time on the day of Atonement, as he represented God coming into the earth and cleansing his creation.) The Holy Spirit is the breath of God breathed into the new creation soil to bring it to life. So step one is allowing him to fill your lungs, to fill you and animate and energize your life. I’ll be here, up front, to pray for anyone who wants that, or more of that, in their spiritual lungs and lives.

Alive // Life After Easter / Nudge

 

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 05/25/2014

video available at www.sundaystreams.com/go/MilanVineyard
podcast here:  http://feeds.feedburner.com/VineyardChurchOfMilan
or via iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/vineyard-church-of-milan/id562567379

Difficult challenges a few years ago, taking their toll, not sure how I was going to get through them gracefully. The kind of experiences that led to hopelessness, despair, loneliness. Had dinner with an out of town friend, shared about life and the present circumstances and how I was handling it. He listened patiently, and then said, very simply, and with a sense of excitement that took me by surprise, “You’re getting a promotion.”

It was like the lights turned on in my world. Everything looked different. Disconnected things were connected, senseless things made sense. My perspective changed and hope made a fresh entrance into my life.

What he meant by a promotion, of course, wasn’t about a new job title or professional advancement or anything like that. It was a much more personal thing, having to do with what God was up to in my world and my life. The specific meaning isn’t really the point. The point is that my friend saw something, and nudged me just enough so that I could see it too. And once I could see it, that’s when everything changed.

I’d propose to you that my friend saw what he saw and said what he said with the help of the Holy Spirit. And further, I’d propose that something like that is what the Holy Spirit wants to help all of us do, all the time.

Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit as wind. Before wind fills our sails and really moves us somewhere, it gets our attention. It wakes us up. It makes us look around. It shifts things enough that we can see what we couldn’t see before. It moves the clouds so the sun can shine on the landscape in front of us. It shows us that the world around us is alive and calls us out into it. It arrests our wandering brains and gently (or not so gently) brings them into the present moment, where Love always dwells.

When Jesus rose from death to new life, he spent almost all his energy getting his followers engaged in a new kind of life, a new era in human history. Life after Easter. Because God is alive among us in a new way. Or, at least, we're coming awake to his living presence in a new way. And he's breathing new life into us, too. So we can live energized by his life. Cooperating with his living presence.

Life after Easter is mostly about the Holy Spirit, really. What (or who) the Spirit is. What the Spirit does. How we hear and respond to and experience the Spirit.

Today I want to begin talking about how the Holy Spirit brings us into a new kind of relationship with each other. The Holy Spirit makes us nudgers.

A little background first.

The Holy Spirit has been around from the beginning, hovering over the waters of the first creation, bringing order out of chaos. And throughout the Hebrew bible, the Holy Spirit is offered to individuals for specific purposes – ruling wisely, prophecy, art, etc. But it’s always temporary, situational - nothing like what we experience today, after Easter.

There is however, a promise, that things will change. That God himself will become more profoundly accessible and known to us, more intimate and personal. Jeremiah, the great Hebrew prophet, wrote this:

³¹“The days are coming,” declares the Lord,

“when I will make a new covenant

with the house of Israel

and with the house of Judah.

³²It will not be like the covenant

I made with their ancestors

when I took them by the hand

to lead them out of Egypt,

because they broke my covenant,

though I was a husband to them,”

declares the Lord.

³³“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel

after that time,” declares the Lord.

“I will put my law in their minds

and write it on their hearts.

I will be their God,

and they will be my people.

³⁴No longer will they teach their neighbors,

or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’

because they will all know me,

from the least of them to the greatest,”

declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 31v31-34

Following Easter, Jesus’ disciples waited for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, and after the Holy Spirit came, they understood that this new covenant had begun.

And notice that it doesn’t just change everything about how we relate to God (his law on our minds and hearts – inside of us!), but it also changes how we relate to each other.

“No longer will they teach their neighbors or say to one another…”

Jesus himself said something very similar:

⁸“But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. ⁹And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. ¹⁰Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one Teacher, the Messiah. ¹¹The greatest among you will be your servant.

Matthew 23v8-11

If we are living life after Easter in the community of Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, we cannot have relationships where we are telling each other what to do, or how to think, or where to go, or anything of that nature – one person over the other - but rather relationships where we are servants, nudging each other to help one another see, to come into deeper awareness of the Spirit’s presence and power and prompting among us.

It’s not that “teaching” is some bad thing, necessarily, but the witness of the people of God through history is that it’s fraught with danger.

Two problems.

One, it’s so easy to lord it over one another, to use our power for our own gain, to manipulate others. We become sales people and shovers.

And, two, it tells a fundamentally untrue story about ourselves to one another, about what it means to be a human being. The true story is that we are all sisters and brothers, but we function in different roles than that all the time, don’t we? And those different roles can mask the truth of our sibling-ness, often to detrimental effect [parents, bosses, doctors, law enforcement, prison guards, etc.]

Nudging, on the other hand, is the kind of activity brothers and sisters can thrive on.

There's no manipulation or pressure in a nudge, is there?

Our job is to nudge.

Nudge. Wake up. Look.

Nudge. Hey, did you see that?

Nudge. Look at you! Well done.

Nudge. I'm here, how's it going?

Nudge. Shhh...something's happening.

Nudge. Wow, can you believe that?

Nudge. Woah, careful there.

Nudge. Woah, did you feel that?

Nudge. Oops, did I press to hard? my bad. Please forgive me.

Nudge. Do you need a hand?

Nudge. Here he is. The one you've been waiting for, right there.

Nudge. Your number just got called. It's your turn.

Nudge. Go for it. I'm cheering you on.

Nudging affects both the nudger and the nudge-ee.

Nudging is an act of friendship, of love.

Nudging is up close and personal.

Nudging is invited, welcomed.

Or sometimes it's not - but even when that happens, or especially when that happens - it can open the door for more honest relationship.

Nudging happens at the right time, in the right place, and it can happen anywhere, at any time.

Nudging isn't rushed or forced, yet nudgers never hesitate or sweat bullets either, because nudges happen naturally, instinctively.

Nudges produce smiles and embraces, not narrowed eyes and clenched fists.

What is nudging all about? Our text today will be Luke 24, where Jesus awakens human beings to their first awareness of the living presence of the God who they thought was dead.

It takes place a couple of days after Jesus has been executed on Roman cross, and everyone who loved him is despairing and despondent.

Let’s see what this story can teach us about nudging.

¹³Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. ¹⁴They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. ¹⁵As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; ¹⁶but they were kept from recognizing him.

Luke 24v13-16

Jesus comes near and joins with. This is the context for all nudging. Coming near and joining. This is the relationship we are to have with one another. A nearness that love inspires and fear despises. Fear says stay away or stay above. Love says approach, come close. Nudging isn’t possible without love.

¹⁷He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”

Jesus pays attention to them. Asks them a question. -Nudge. His nudging begins by getting them to pay attention to themselves.

They stood still, their faces downcast. ¹⁸One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you only a visitor to Jerusalem and do not know the things that have happened there in these days?”

¹⁹“What things?” he asked.

“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. ²⁰The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; ²¹but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. ²²In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning ²³but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. ²⁴Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.”

²⁵He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! ²⁶Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” ²⁷And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.

Jesus notices their expressions. Probes for more. Listens to their answer. Surprises them with a very different perspective, an unexpected viewpoint - one that speaks to what they already know, but tells a different story about it. - Nudge.

The perspective that Jesus has comes from the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the one who helps us see, and the Spirit is the one who helped Jesus see who he was and what his life was all about and what the scriptures were saying about him in the first place, years earlier. So what Jesus is telling them, the nudge he’s giving them, is a nudge that comes from the Holy Spirit.

I’m persuaded that all seeing that brings true new perspectives that had never been seen before can be the work of the Holy Spirit. And not just religious perspectives. Whether it’s Einstein or Copernicus or Galileo or Darwin or DaVinci or Rembrandt or Handel or Miles Davis or Ghandi or Martin Luther King, Jr, the Holy Spirit is the one who helps the seeing happen.

But back to Jesus in this story of nudges…

²⁸As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. ²⁹But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.

Doesn't make himself a nuisance, acts as if he's going on. – Nudge. Some nudges can only be given when the nudger is strongly welcomed; Jesus is sensitive to this and waits to discover how they feel towards him before any further nudging.

We carry incredible anxiety with us, and anxiety is like static in communication. Especially when a person is anxious towards you, it’s almost impossible to nudge well. It will always feel like a threat, an aggressive attack. The wise nudger is sensitive to this, like Jesus. Better to wait until the person is inclined toward you and makes that clear.

³⁰When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them.

Jesus accepts their invitation. Blesses their meal. Serves them. - Nudge.

³¹Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. ³²They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

Their eyes are opened, and they see him. And they see themselves. They see that God has been at work in them all along.

Can we see now what nudging does? The blind see. The Holy Spirit is having a field day. Seeing happening everywhere – God is seen, self is seen, the past is seen, the scripture is seen.

Opened = torn asunder // it’s like there is a rupture between the dimensions where God dwells and the normal dimensions of our embodied existence. The heavens and the earth joining together, light shining. Order from chaos, new creation. This is the work of the Holy Spirit, and it all starts with nudging.

³³They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together ³⁴and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” ³⁵Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.

They turn around. At once! – they are energized, animated, enthused - it’s the Holy Spirit at work, after all.

And they tell their story.

This is the fruit of many nudges.

Now they are witnesses.

Now they have eyes to see.

Now they can join in the nudging.

This is how life spreads in the kingdom of God. The shift from faces downcast, leaving the city of peace to running towards it, full of joy and energy, brimming with good news and eyes alive with wonder. It’s all the fruit of a nudge here, a nudge there. There is no wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am drama. No techniques. No systems.

Just people paying attention to the resurrection-infused world around them. And helping one another pay attention.

Jesus at the center of it all. Never pushing, always responding to their hunger and invitation. Patient. Never frustrated or angered at the slowness of the process.

Joining them in the normal, unexceptional things of life, looking for the right time to reveal the holy and divine present in the midst of the mundane.

Never defensive about their doubts of him.

Never cursing them. Always blessing them.

Until all the nudges make a landing pad for the Holy Spirit, until all the nudges open the curtains enough for the light to flood in.

Everything you need to know about Life after Easter can be found in Luke 24. Things are not what they seem. Jesus is alive and present everywhere without boundaries, often unrecognized. We are often reading the signs wrongly, but the signs are there to be read. Every nudge is a part of long process. There is a bigger story to be told, if we can see it with God's help. The very things that disturb and frustrate and sadden us are sometimes the very things that bear witness to the Living God, if we have but eyes to see it.

Practical Suggestions:

1. Get nudged.

Put a target on your shoulder. Invite people close to you who love you and know how to pay attention to the God who is already there to nudge you. To point out something they see God doing in your life that maybe you didn't notice. Or to point out something they see God inviting you to join him in that you maybe haven't yet said yes to. Or to point out something they see God doing through you that you didn't notice was him so that you can cooperate with it more fully. Or to tell you a different story - a kingdom of God story - about the facts of your life than the story you've been telling yourself.

2. Repent of Sales Tactics and Shoves

You notice how nice people who work at good stores are to you when you come in? It feels good, but deep down, you know they might be being nice just because they want you to buy something. Not because they actually love you. Is that why you're being nice to an unbelieving "friend." Because you want them to buy something? That's not how God relates to us. He calls us to love people because he loves people. Because it's a family he's inviting us into, not a pyramid marketing scheme.

And shoves miss the point as well. We shove someone when we think we know better than they do where they should be at a particular moment in time. God surely knows better than we do where we should be at any particular moment in time, and how often does he shove us? Most of the time God seems more content to let us fall flat on our face, or even let us get hit by a train, than he is to shove us off the course we choose for ourselves, doesn't he? Because he's inviting us into a life of following him, not a life on a leash.

So do some business with God and make a settled decision in your heart to get out of the business of selling and shoving. And to get into the joy of nudging.

3. Do a little homework.

Read Luke 24 this week (there’s a lot more to the story!) and ask the Holy Spirit to teach you about nudging like Jesus nudges. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you how Jesus has nudged you in your life so far.