I assume you’re like me in that you like to have control over your life, and you want a good deal of orderliness to your life. I don’t mean being a neat freak or a control freak. I mean that things are predictable and you feel like you can manage things. You’re responsible, conscientious. You want to live within your means. You want to honor your time commitments.
I know I’m behind the times with this, but I like to write everything down in an old-fashioned pocket calendar. The church denomination used to give every pastor one of these for free every year. Apparently they wanted pastors to stay organized too! But times change and these calendars aren’t free anymore. In fact they’re going to stop making them next year. I’ll have to find something else.
I also begin every week by sitting down at my desk on a Monday morning and making a to-do list. It helps me get a feel for what all is ahead and how I have to manage my time. Last week was crazy. There was all the usual weekly stuff, plus the funeral I have to do this afternoon, plus all the work needed to prepare the church garden for planting tomorrow. By making a list at the beginning of the week I could manage time and get everything done that I had to do.
Of course things happen that ruin our plans. Life is not entirely predictable. Last week something failed on the tractor that I could not have anticipated. That had me rethinking things. But with the to-do list leading a time management plan, I could work around the unexpected too.
Yes, I like to have a sense of control over my life. So when we read things like the Pentecost story from Acts 2 that we had as our first Bible reading it makes us uneasy. God’s Spirit is not predictable. It cannot be contained, controlled, or predicted. If tongues of fire, the sounds of wind, and understanding different languages just happens without warning, you have no idea what to do! That doesn’t have a place on a weekly to-do list!
I suspect we have mixed feelings about that story. Part of us is anxious. What will God do next? What if God calls me to do something totally crazy, or something that upends the well-organized life that I have created for myself? What if God calls me to do something that hurts or is risky? God can do anything after all. So part of us is anxious.
But I think another part of us deeply wants something like that to happen to us. We would use it as proof of God’s existence, and it would give us a clear direction for what we are to do. It would show us that faith is God’s work and not up to us. It would be an energy boost for our lives, especially our lives of faith, which can so often seem draining rather than inspiring.
So, I think we both want something dramatic and fear something dramatic!
Regardless of how we feel, it is worth noting that events like the one described in Acts are rare; if they ever happen at all. Sometime we should read through Acts in Sunday worship. Perhaps we’ll do that next summer. (This summer we’re focusing on Old Testament poetry readings like Psalms, Proverbs, Job, and others.) When you read through Acts you discover that much of what the apostles are described as doing is quite ordinary. They are also not immune from hardship. St. Paul describes miraculous things. But he mostly describes ordinary struggles with no miraculous help whatsoever. Overall, Christianity has not grown through miracles and great events. Christianity has grown through very ordinary means. It’s just ordinary people doing ordinary things, but doing them with their minds on God.
For that we should turn to our gospel reading. There we have Jesus talking to his disciples during the Last Supper. What he says is hard to follow. Jesus says, “…if I go, I will send the [Holy Spirit] to you.” So far so good. We understand what he’s saying and we understand how that fits into the theme of Pentecost. But then Jesus continues, “And when [the Spirit] comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.”
Those words leave us puzzled. Hopefully I can explain them briefly.
There are three concepts there: sin, righteousness, and judgment. Each of those words is used in multiple ways in the Bible. Sin is used to mean one thing one place, and it may mean something different another place. The same goes for righteousness and judgment.
Whenever I hear the word sin I think of it as if it were a moral category. Like, killing is a sin. Stealing is a sin. Lying is a sin. These are bad acts we shouldn’t do. Indeed, most places the Bible’s authors use sin that way. But John’s gospel does something different. For John, sin is more of a theological category. For John, sin is to not believe in Jesus. Or, it is to not believe that in Jesus God has revealed God’s true nature to us. For John, if you believe that Jesus is God’s true nature then it will automatically lead you away from doing destructive things.
Righteousness in John’s gospel is also used in way different from what we are used to. Righteousness does not refer to the righteousness of people. Righteousness refers to God. It means that God can absolutely always be counted on to do the right thing. God does not make mistakes. God does not do careless things. And God’s actions, difficult as they can be do understand somethings, do not result in unavoidable collateral damage. Righteousness means God total reliability.
Finally judgment. The word is again used differently from what we’re used to. I invite you sometime to sit down with your Bible and read the account of Jesus’ trial in John’s gospel. It is in chapters 18 and 19. As you’re reading it keep asking yourself who’s on trial? On one hand it appears that it is Jesus who is on trial. After all, he’s been handed over by one of his disciples, and arrested. He’s questioned and he’ll ultimately be executed. So it seems like Jesus is being judged. On the other hand, there’s an ironic twist to every scene where Jesus is the one who is the judge, and the whole world is on trial. Even though the world (filled with greed and fear, and acting in ignorance and darkness) seems to win, it is actually God who wins. The ways of the world are condemned.
So when Jesus says in verse 11 that the Holy Spirit will prove the world wrong… “about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned,” he’s actually talking about his judgment of the world in his crucifixion.
John’s gospel reverses and upends many of the ways we usually think. That’s a big part of what makes it so hard to understand. But it’s also worth getting a grasp of it. John’s gospel is playful and ironic all the way through.
John’s gospel is also serious. It sees the world in a way that is helpful for us here on Pentecost, and helpful for us as we like to have life be orderly in the midst of the chaos that can be life.
John’s view of the world fits well for today. It talks about sin, righteousness and judgment. As for sin, John’s gospel recognizes that people would rather hear so-called truths that are convenient for them, rather than real truths that are healthy for them.
As for righteousness, people would rather live with their own self-made morals because they can make themselves righteous by their own power, rather than recognizing God’s righteousness, which is not in their power but tells them their true value rests in who God made them to be.
As for judgment, people would rather think they can keep everything under control, rather than realizing real control comes through connecting with God.
I started by saying we want control in our lives. And I talked about the way the dramatic coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost may seem to be out of control. But we do realize that true control of life comes through faith in God.
Indeed, whether it is dramatic or subtle, the Holy Spirit is working in us to remind us that God is solid and dependable. We are therefore too, regardless if the world is in control or not.
And our faith sends us into the world which has lost its way, in its own darkness and chaos. We witness the solidness that comes from God to it. If history is any indication, many will reject the goodness God has to offer. But also many will recognize the truth. And that truth also sets them free.
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