Day 896 - Stop, Look and Listen

A Reflection on Pentecost for the Chattanooga Urban Ministry

OT Reading: Genesis 1:1-4

NT Reading (1): John 15: 26-27, 16:4b-15

NT Reading (2): Acts 2:1-21

Every one of us has found or will find their way into a moral dilemma. You will confront a situation that offers several difficult choices with little or no guidance to choose. You will find none of them particularly attractive, or perhaps you find yourself just unable to decide on the “right” choice because the choices contradict your view of "how things should be."

It could be that someone has confronted you over the merciless killing of Christians by ISIS/ISIL in Syria and Iraq. They demand we take up arms and slaughter the soldiers of ISIL/ISIS.  Is this an act of revenge? Or is it an act of justice? How does it fit into the teaching of Jesus? How should we fulfill our patriotic duty to serve our country?

Perhaps you are aware of someone stealing supplies from work, or a relative selling drugs out of their parents' home. What should you do?

Perhaps you are in anguish over the loss of a pastor. Whenever there is someone in anguish over a loss, there likely is another in joy over it. What should both do?

Perhaps you are aware that your ancestors participated, perhaps only vicariously, in a lynching? Does historical racism encourage unrecognized racism?  What should you do?

Ultimately in each case you must answer the question, “Does my answer conform to a consistent understanding of my Christian belief?” That requires that you pursue a confidence in such understanding, even though you may feel you are totally unequipped to make such decisions.

Sunday was Pentecost, and I suggest the answer to what equips you to answer such questions lies in its significance.

Pentecost is the day we mark as the appearance of the Holy Spirit described in Acts (2:1-21). The disciples and a large crowd of curious Jews and Gentiles from all over the Mediterranean were gathered in Jerusalem when the spirit of enlightenment came up on them all. Everyone could understand the words spoken in the language of the other visitors. (Luke does not tell us what they actually spoke.)

{This passage has been distorted over the years as justifying an exuberant shouting gibberish in an emotionally charged worship service. It is called “speaking in tongues.” But in actuality, everyone was speaking in their own language but everyone heard it as their own.  The key to setting aside the distortion of “speaking in tongues" (gibberish) is found in  the two verbs used to describe the reaction of the people.

The first verb is amazed, (Acts 2:6,7) that in Greek means they were so bewildered by the experience that they almost fail to comprehend what one has experienced. The second verb is astonished that in Greek means the listeners marveled in wonder at the experience. The context of being astonished can be either negative or positive. Here people in the crowd clearly reacted in both ways - thousands believed the experience was from God (we have to jump ahead to read Acts 2:40-43), and negative – some sneered (Acts 2:13) and said the people speaking were drunk on new wine. There is no question everyone heard and understood what was spoken, something you cannot say about "speaking in tongues" as is practiced in the present day.}

Following the rest of the passage in Acts, we could say understanding what each was saying in their own tongue caused many in the crowd to “stop and look.” If you read the link to Acts 2: 13-43, you will see that they also listened to Peter as he explained the significance of this event in the context of Joel’s apocalyptic prophesy and then explained to the crowd the significance of Jesus as the Messiah and then they understood by the force of the Spirit the guilt of their act to crucify him.

John’s Gospel, on the other hand, described the Holy Spirit/Paraclete in a way that validates this stop, look and listen/understand idea. Jesus speaks to the disciples who are so distraught with His message that He shall be crucified and leave them helpless that they fail to understand the significance of what Jesus says (16:5-6): “But now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’  But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts.” (Are they amazed?)

What shall they do next? Jesus promised that help will come from the Father in the form of the spirit of Truth that will guide, if not impel them in what to say and do as witness to the faith (15:26-27).

He repeats this message again in 16:5-11. In v8 Jesus promises the spirit of enlightenment will come and prove (some translate prove as convict) the world wrong about sin because the world does not believe in Jesus, and prove righteousness or justice because Jesus shall overcome the judgment of death invoked by the Roman world, arising and going to the Father. His resurrection and ascension finally will bring about the same judgment of condemnation on the world (actually says, the ruler of the world) that hates Jesus. 
       That is, what the world proclaims as moral and good, light and right, will be revealed as unrighteous folly and guilt. This is not really a collective guilt of the world, but a guilt of the forbearer of persons of every generation that are hostile to Jesus. [Does this passage strike you odd in our age of pluralism wherein we often hear and accept criticism of Christianity but do not see it as particularly hostile to Christianity?]  

Vv 5-11 tell us this Holy Spirit will bring us the truth about Jesus.

Essentially vv 5-11 give us the first message about the presence of the Paraclete. It validates or affirms the risen Lord by its presence among us.

But there is more. Vv 13-15 (A passage that challenged even Augustine and Thomas Aquinas) says that the Paraclete will teach or bring the truth about things to come to the disciples (and by extension to us). While many prefer to read the declaration of things to come in 16:13 as a promise of future revelation of the truth, we also find in v7 that Jesus says he brings them the whole truth of the Gospel and its import to the future already. This passage does not imply some prophesy about revelation in the future.

Finally we come to the heart of the problem - the solution to our questions about finding the answer to difficult questions such as what to do about the merciless killing of Christians by ISIS/ISIL in Syria and Iraq, illegal activity by your neighbor (or relative) and perhaps even what we should do about racism and the wounds on society caused by past links to racism such as past lynching African-Americans, or the current search for a new pastor.

The key is that the Paraclete is an intercessor with the guidance in a way of life in conformity with Jesus’ teaching, not that far removed from OT ideas expressed in passages such as Ps25:4-5 and 143:10. The key in 16:13 is that Jesus has promised the Paraclete as his continuing presence to teach us and enable us to interpret in each coming generation the contemporary significance of what Jesus has said and done. That is, it is NOT a promise of prophesy, per se, but of a fundamental understanding of what Jesus means for one’s own time, and, as Jesus was God’s presence among the Disciples as a human, so too the Paraclete is God/Jesus’ presence among humanity conveying to us what God means to us today.

The world, Paul’s world of flesh, is a loud, noisy and distracting thing. John may have called it evil, or Satan's world of darkness, but Paul describes the world of flesh as our entire existence, all our feelings and experience in this boiling, troubling and tempting world of our life begging us to live for today. If we love Jesus and do not hate Him as this world does, and we are committed to living as Jesus did, that is to love God and love our neighbor the way God loves our neighbor, we must stop, look around and listen for that wind over the water expressing how we ought to act to reveal the truth of Jesus in our present time.

We can use another word for “Stop, Look and Listen:” discernment of what living for today really means.

If you stop, look and listen, and hear the Spirit, you know that light is good and will discern how you are called to live and act accordingly as Jesus representative in this old world.

       This is the essence of good, practical Reformed radical theology.

Amen.