Faithful Presence: Testify

Pentecost May 19, 2024

Texts for this sermon are Acts 2:1-36, 1 Peter 3:13-17, John 14:15-16 ; 15:26-27

Who likes to be ridiculed? shunned? put down? criticized? thought to be a fool? or naïve?

We sure don’t go looking for these reactions. We work very hard to avoid them. And when we do feel ridiculed, shunned, put down, criticized, made to feel a fool. What do we do? If you’re anything like me, you’re first response is to flee or fight.

So as we come to the first Peter text today we might all feel like squirming in our seats---or as the case may be---squirming in the pulpit.

It starts mild enough 
Who’s going to harm you? if you do what is good? 
Okay, who indeed? But then he says: 
But you might suffer for doing what is right. 
We all know that’s true enough: think Mahatma Ghandi, Archbishop Óscar Romero, Martin Luther King, Jr, Jesus. But common folk get it as well : whistleblowers calling out corruption, journalists reporting unwelcome facts, peaceful demonstrators advocating for justice.

Then Peter adds what appears to be a contradiction or a bit of naïveté 
Even if you suffer for doing good, you are blessed. 
But then Peter does the most irritating thing---at least to me---he doesn’t say how we’re blessed. He just tells us why we should not worry about suffering and keep doing good.

But we’re not his first audience and they likely made the link he’s making to Jesus’ sermon on the Mount: The word Blessed here is the same one Jesus used in what we call the beatitudes: 
Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and speak falsely about you.
Rejoice and be glad (Matt 5:10-12)

And what were all those things that preceded this verse? Blessed are the humble, those who are gentle, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers. These will inhabit the Kingdom of Heaven, they will be comforted, inherit the earth, be satisfied, receive mercy, see God, be called the children of God.

The great grandfather of Marilynn Robinson’s novel Gilead said “When hit with any kind of adversity, I am confident that I will find great blessing in it.”

Doing what is right and good even in the face of adversity returns blessing.

And here’s a really important piece in Peter’s counsel: 
In your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord.
Let Christ be the object of your godly reverence. Let Christ be the master of your life. The word ‘sanctify’ is the same one in Matthew’s version of the Lord’s Prayer Hallowed by your name : Sanctified be your name is the recognition that God is Holy and we are to be holy as well.

So how do we Hallow?

Peter says we do it when we revere God and give an account of our relationship with God: That we live in such a way, we behave in such a way, that we call attention to God by how we live in contrast to the rest of the world. And when we’re asked why we’re the way we are, we respond with what? With what we’ve discovered about God---what God has done for us. We are not to give some lame, diverting explanation. We are to say it is because I’ve discovered God loves me, I love God and am trying to love others.

This is what Peter did on the day of Pentecost. And by testifying as he did to that great audience in Jerusalem, he proclaimed God’s great work and he gave evidence of the promise Jesus made some days beforehand: That God would send an Advocate who would inspire and embolden God’s followers, which is exactly what Pentecost is about.

Why are these people acting this way? the crowd asked. Some concluded they were drunk. Peter stands up and fearlessly answers that charge with an eloquent explanation that unveils the great eternal work of God through Christ.

Do you ever wonder why we Christians don’t live in a more exuberant, out-loud way? And by ‘out loud’ I don’t mean noisy. What I mean is living in a more compelling way.  

Is it that we are fearful? When Jesus says “fear not” he’s referring to mis-placed fear. When we live with mis-placed fear, we fear what others think of us more than what God thinks of us. Fearing God means reverencing God, honoring God above all else and everyone else. 

Is it that we let life weigh too heavy on us? Do we worry as we navigate difficult situations and relationships?  Do we fail to feel or look buoyant. Do we get prodded to anger or resentment or even weariness? 

If we claimed, truly claimed the counsel, strength and comfort of the Holy Spirit? How might we overcome our mis-placed fear and wearisome burdens? How might our life light up the life of others? 

I attended the Academy for Spiritual Formation some years ago and one of our faculty members was Ray Buckley of the Tlingit Nation. At that time he was Interim Director of the Center for Native American Spirituality and Christian Study. He had also served as Director of the United Methodist’s Native People’s Communication Office. 

He told a story about his grandmother. I may not have all of the facts straight but this is my recollection of what he shared with us. She was walking home one mid-winter day when two white young men she knew stopped her, ridiculed her, took her moccasins away from her and left her to walk home barefoot. She did not complain, protest, or yell. She walked home. Some months later, she walked to their house, knocked on their door, was given entry by a confused household. She didn’t say anything but walked up to the two young men and presented each of them with a beautiful pair of moccasins of the softest leather. She smiled a grace-filled, forgiving smile, turned and walked home.

And this is what I drew from his story about her: That this was a Holy Spirit led testimony. It was a testimony that was fearless and buoyant. It was a testimony that I believe maked way for the Holy Spirit to work in the lives of those young me.

In Peter’s Pentecost sermon he quoted from the Psalmist who proclaimed:
I saw the Lord always before me,
for he is at my right hand so that I will not be shaken;
therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced; (Ps 16:8-9a)

What the world sorely needs from us, from the Church, today is Holy Spirit gladdened heart and fearless, rejoicing speech. 

And as a Post Script, I offer this reflection on Methodism:

What Fervor?
Methodists were not always 
staid, sophisticated urbanites.

They were illiterate miners with 
coal dust embedded in their fingers.
They were drunkards 
trying to relinquish gin.
And battered women trying to
love their husbands again;
And wranglers bringing to heel
chewing tobacco and expletives;
Prostitutes stranded in dust-road towns
in the reaches of the American West;
Lumbermen and cooks,
blacksmiths and laundresses,
who’d been claimed by 
the grace of God and
ignited by the warm embrace of the Holy Spirit
who knew themselves forgiven.

So they sang with abandon hymns of glory,
clapped their hands and stomped their feet
as they shouted hallelujahs.
They washed their hands,
pressed their clothes and
started their climb up the social ladder
where they trained themselves to 
sit in dignified rows and quieted their
“Once I was lost but now I’m found” testimonies
to measured recitations of the Nicene Creed.

LQ 2018

Pastor L Quanstrom