Oneness over Sameness (5-24-2026)

Rev. Sarah Roberts  preaches on the subject, "Oneness over Sameness."

We invite you to join us for worship at Spanish Fort United Methodist Church! Our Traditional Service is at 8:45 a.m., and our Contemporary Service is at 11:00 a.m. every Sunday. Learn more at our website.

https://www.spanishfortumc.org/welcome

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

So I'm quickly approaching being here for a year now. I think it's only a little less than two months until I've been here for a whole year. And one of the most fulfilling things in my ministry here so far is all the relationships that I've made. And it's been such a joy to experience the many ways that we're all involved in one another's lives. And a really great recent example of this happened just a couple weeks ago. I've been leading the uh the women's Bible study, Women of the Word, on Thursday nights. And uh Katie Lynn Kelly is a part of that group. And for those of you who don't know, um she'll be having a baby boy very soon, within the month, I think. Um, and a few weeks ago, during one of our meetings that she couldn't attend, um, Holly Coleman spoke up and suggested that we ought to do something for her to celebrate her and uh baby Clark before he gets here. And we all immediately agreed because we love Katie Lynn and we're excited for her. We want to celebrate her. And so, as one does, I started a separate group chat and left Katie Lynn out of it so that we could plan behind her back how we were gonna surprise her. And we ended up decorating the conference room with balloons and confetti, and we all pitched in to get her gifts. And I even reached out to her husband to make sure that she was gonna be there that night. And we were so excited for her to be there and to see the surprise on her face. But it's also important to note that our group has decided to take just a short break at the beginning of the summer. And in the group chat, Katie Lynn is a part of, I had talked about doing something a little special for our last meeting before the break, trying just kind of trying to throw her off the scent a little bit. And so she arrives and we're all talking in the lobby for a few minutes, and then she makes her way to the conference room, and we're all following behind her, and we're all like, oh, I can't wait. Um, and she just walks in and she just keeps talking, keeps finishing the sentence she was already doing, and she just sits down and she's just looking at us, and we're all waiting, and she apparently doesn't notice anything around her, anything that's going on. And finally, Laura Maxwell speaks up and she goes, You have no idea what's happening, do you? And Katie Lynn looked up at her and still she said, No, what? What's happening? And so we all start laughing, and I point to the the whiteboard that is very clearly decorated for a little baby boy shower, and it finally clicks and she she gasps and she's like, Oh, for me. And she was very, very surprised. And the whole time she saw the decorations, but she thought they were there for something else. So she just kind of ignored them. But she was very grateful and clearly very surprised. And that was one of the most fulfilling moments for me as one of your pastors here. That that moment reminded me of something very important, and and I appreciate our Bible study group so much because it reminds me of that same very important thing all the time. This group that we have is full of diverse women with different backgrounds, different jobs, different experiences, different beliefs, women in their 20s and women who are more experienced in life. And none of us are the same, but we're all brought together as one through this shared experience and through the word. I think this is a beautiful example of what happened in Acts chapter 2. It's one way of carrying on the legacy today of the birth of the church and what it looks like to all come together, not because we're the same, but because we're one. And by itself, the Pentecost story in Acts 2 can definitely seem strange. And maybe not when I read it a couple minutes ago because we're so used to hearing it, but let's just actually think about what we read. People from all over had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Pentecost, which was a major agricultural festival. It's also known as the Feast of Weeks. And it's celebrated, this is just a fun fact, celebrated exactly 50 days after Passover, which the Greek word for Pentecost means 50th. So you can take that home with you. Um it marked the end of the spring grain harvest. So all the Jewish men were required to make this pilgrimage and offer their first fruits. And so there's over 3,000 people here who had gathered for this festival, and they're likely expecting it to go just as it has gone any other time. But then the unimaginable happens. All these people were gathered together in one space, and suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the house where they were sitting. Which maybe isn't all that odd, a violent wind coming through. I guess that's kind of normal, just bad weather. But then tongues of fire, little flames appeared over everybody's heads. That's a little weird. It's a little strange. And then they all started speaking each other's languages. That's super weird. That's very strange. And the scripture tells us that there were Jews there gathered from every nation under heaven. Think about how many different languages that was, or different dialects that that might have might have included. Amazed and perplexed, hearing their native languages being spoken, more and more people came into the space, and their conclusion was that everybody was drunk. And honestly, I can't I can't really blame them for that conclusion. I don't know what else would have made sense in that moment. What other realistic explanation could there have been for them? And I love Peter's response to that claim. He just says, it's nine o'clock in the morning. Let's be serious. And one thing that you all might not know about your pastors is that we're always learning, we're always studying even after seminary. Because believe it or not, we did not learn everything in seminary, not even close. And we even discover new things about scripture and theology often. And I actually listened to a podcast from the Bible Project while preparing myself for today. And we've mentioned it many times before. We've used their videos and things and service, a very incredible resource, and it's all free. So this is my plug to you. You should definitely check them out. But I was listening to this podcast series that they had on the book of Acts, and I ended up learning something about Pentecost that I had never heard before. Seeing what happened on the day of Pentecost within Scripture's larger narrative makes the story a little bit clearer and maybe a little less strange. So Luke, the author of Acts, is a historian. He's not just a storyteller. He's telling us what happened in a way that intentionally draws from repeated Old Testament patterns and themes. In the podcasts that I listen to, they provide context that in the Hebrew Bible, spontaneous and unexplainable windstorms, accompanied by fire or lightning, are almost always associated with two things: God's presence and the formation of a new temple. So God appears to Moses through a burning bush, speaks to Moses in his own native language, and implies that the very place where Moses is standing at that moment is holy ground, like a temple. And after Moses delivers his people from slavery, he finds himself on Mount Sinai, where an even bigger fire blazes, along with lightning and another violent windstorm. And just like before, this signifies to Moses that the mountain is holy ground and that God is present there. And later, after a tabernacle is built on Mount Sinai, God appears in a huge column of fire hovering over it. And this is another tangible sign that the presence of God has settled there. These stories in the life of Moses all include a fire that blazes when God appears and marks holy ground, a new temple, or a new church. So in Acts 2, Luke is connecting to these scenes to give a background to this Pentecost story that we know today. And remember, by this point, Jesus had already died, resurrected, and ascended into heaven. And Luke reminds us that after his resurrection, Jesus was appearing to the apostles and speaking of things concerning the kingdom of God. And I can only imagine how much this excited them and filled them with hope. For generations, God had promised to end division and unite everybody as one by fully integrating his way of life in heaven with our way of life on earth. And the apostles were probably thinking, finally, the the world is going to be as God has promised it will be, and how God has always intended for it to be. Have y'all noticed those? Everywhere I look, I see people wearing on clouds. And I remember when I was in college, I that was the same thing with Chacos. Does anybody even remember Chacos? It was a big deal when I was in college. And I noticed everybody around me was wearing them and I kind of felt left out. So I got a pair and I wore them like twice. Um, but we see it with with TikTok trends too. And I can't tell you how many times I've received questioning or even judgment for never have been like I've never had TikTok. And it's a problem because everybody has to be on TikTok. Everybody, it's it's the thing, you have to do it. And not to mention social media and and streaming platforms, the algorithms are designed to create shared, synchronized cultural moments. That's how things go viral, that's how things start to trend. And additionally, people are increasingly putting themselves into communities of only like-minded individuals, especially in political spheres, often only desiring to live among kindred spirits. There are many who think that living in a city or going to a church or working in an office where everybody looks and thinks just like you is what's best. They think that in those spaces where everybody looks and talks and acts the same is the only place where they can find unity. And there's this misconception, this closed-off way of thinking, that if somebody doesn't fit into that sameness, that you can't be in unity with them. And if we aren't careful, we'll also fall into that same mindset. I count myself as very blessed to have grown up uh as an Air Force brat, they called me. My dad's been in the Air Force my my entire life, still in. He's right there. And I'm not gonna say anything else about you, I won't embarrass you. But my family has has lived all over the U.S. We've even lived outside the U.S. a few times. And not to mention my dad is he's half Filipino, so I grew up around a lot of Filipino culture. And uh, from the beginning, for me, I was surrounded by people who didn't look just like me. And I've always gone to school with other military kids who are also from all over the world, and my friend groups have just always been very ethnically and culturally and even religiously diverse. That's just what I've always known. And growing up, that was the norm for me. And most of my friends and I, we just bonded over the fact, usually, that we were all military kids. We all had this one major shared experience that brought us together as one, despite the many ways that society might have said that we should be apart from one another. It's always that one thing that would bring us back together, no matter what society said, should drive us apart. And when I think about the friends I have now, I don't align with any of them on everything. But we all come together as one through the things that matter the most to us. And we see this played out in the New Testament, and Acts sets the stage for what other writers in the New Testament pick up on. That we can still be one while embracing our differences. First Corinthians provides yet another beautiful illustration of the importance of this kind of diversity in oneness, when Paul writes comparing us, the church, to a body made up of different members. He says, indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say, Because I'm not a hand, I do not belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear would say, Because I'm not an eye, I don't belong to the body, that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members, yet one body. Everyone, with all of their different gifts and experiences, can play an important role in spreading the good news. Everyone is invited into this because everyone has something to offer, and everyone has been created in God's image. I really love that our church's vision team before I even got here. They all agreed that it was very important for us as a church to say that all are welcome here. It's been almost a year since that decision, and it still stands as one of the best things that came from their vision casting. Everyone is welcome here. Not just people who live in Spanish Fort, not just Alabama fans or Auburn fans, or cat people, or dog people, not just Democrats or Republicans, not even just United Methodists. Everyone is welcome here. When everybody is guaranteed a place at the table, we are bearing the legacy of Acts 2 as a congregation, as members of the same exact church that began at Pentecost. As people who are one, even if we are not the same. Pentecost gives us a glimpse into the kind of world that God has always intended for his creation. A world in which decades, generations of division and hatred and indifference are reversed by oneness, by love and by grace. A world in which people who have been separated from one another can finally begin to hear and understand each other again. What happened through the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was never just meant for that group of 3,000 plus people. It wasn't meant for one place and one time. From the beginning, God's plan has been bigger than that. It has always included every language, every culture, every person created in his image. And what could bring more hope than that? And that hope matters today as much as ever. We continue to live in a world that is divided. Just get on Facebook and scroll for 30 seconds. Everywhere we look, there are reminders of how quickly people turn against one another the moment they find out that they're not the same. And we see these differences becoming weapons rather than gifts. This is why Pentecost matters so much. It reminds us that sameness is not the ultimate goal or solution. The Holy Spirit does not erase our differences or force everybody to speak one language. Instead, the Holy Spirit acts through our differences. The people described in Acts 2 didn't hear the good news and share this experience with one another because they all suddenly became the same. Each one of them heard the good news in ways that they could understand because God made room for everyone in that holy moment. Everybody was brought together in that moment as one and not the same. There won't be any violent wind or fire today. I'm sorry if you came here. We don't have the pyrotechnics set up just yet. Pastor Words is working on it. But we're not here for the wind and the fire. We're here to worship the God behind the wind and the fire. We're here to receive again the promised Holy Spirit, who in ways that defy all expectation and all imagination, unites us as one. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Will you pray with me?