Pastor Darren: Well, my first question, have you ever heard a sermon from numbers?
Pastor Darren: Yes.
Pastor Darren: Success.
Pastor Darren: All right.
Pastor Darren: I knew when I picked numbers there would be one happy person in the room.
Pastor Darren: How are we, Stephen?
Pastor Darren: Next we work our way through Leviticus.
Pastor Darren: How exciting.
Pastor Darren: No, I know some of you, longtime Christians, you're waiting for your good story.
Pastor Darren: Uh um, you know, the Pentecost story, right?
Pastor Darren: The disciples, all right.
Pastor Darren: They're all up there, they're hiding, they're scared.
Pastor Darren: Jesus has died, he's ascended, but now, yeah, they've got the message about something, someone coming, but it's not here yet.
Pastor Darren: So they're hiding, they're trying to figure out what it all means, right?
Pastor Darren: And they're stuck, and then all of a sudden they get that visit from the Holy Spirit, right?
Pastor Darren: And these flames start appearing over every one of their heads, right?
Pastor Darren: And then they they start uh getting some inspiration, some courage.
Pastor Darren: They go out and they start preaching.
Pastor Darren: They start telling the word, preaching it like Jesus told them to preach it.
Pastor Darren: But the amazing thing is people are hearing it, they're listening.
Pastor Darren: And part of what makes it amazing is that there's this big festival going on.
Pastor Darren: So there's people from all other, all the regions coming in to not only to be part of the festival, but to sell the stuff that they've been growing or or you know, all the different layers of that.
Pastor Darren: So there's a lot of diversity in the place.
Pastor Darren: So they don't all speak the same language.
Pastor Darren: So when they start preaching and people start understanding, it becomes part of the miracle that they're getting it, right?
Pastor Darren: And and the movement kind of gets going again after Jesus' death.
Pastor Darren: So you're like, where's that passage, right?
Pastor Darren: It's it's it's Pentecost.
Pastor Darren: We should be right there.
Pastor Darren: And once again, I say, you poor people, you're cursed with this past who's like, oh, that old story again.
Pastor Darren: Let's do the numbers text.
Pastor Darren: Let's dig into that thing.
Pastor Darren: I I don't know, I guess there's part of me who loves the idea that there was always passion in faith, even in our stories from the Old Testament, even from numbers, which comes from pretty close to the beginning of things.
Pastor Darren: But I also like the idea that maybe the spirit might have always been there with us.
Pastor Darren: And we get this celebration, this acknowledgement when we finally start being more real to us, but but really the spirit's been there all along.
Pastor Darren: I guess I like that idea as well.
Pastor Darren: But in any case, a little bit of ramp up to this particular story.
Pastor Darren: They're in there 40 years in the wilderness.
Pastor Darren: You remember from our Lenten journey through Exodus?
Pastor Darren: 40 years they're wandering, and you'll remember they get anxious, they get upset, they're so anxious and upset, they start looking at what was really, really good about enslavement.
Pastor Darren: Hey, then maybe that wasn't so bad back there.
Pastor Darren: And then Moses goes to complain to God and he says, Why do you put me in charge of all these people?
Pastor Darren: They're anxious, they're scared.
Pastor Darren: You, God, you should be taking care of them.
Pastor Darren: You're wiping me out here.
Pastor Darren: And then God's answer comes as a question back to Moses, and he says, Is the Lord's power limited?
Pastor Darren: You're gonna see what God can do.
Pastor Darren: At that point, Moses gathers 70 elders, and as they're gathered, a cloud comes over Moses, and then other little clouds start coming out of Moses, and they start uh uh uh resting above all of these elders up there, and then they start preaching, they start prophesying.
Pastor Darren: They are in the spirit, shall we say?
Pastor Darren: And it's exciting.
Pastor Darren: Now, what happens in this story in particular, two of the men who did not go with all the 70 elders are back still with everybody else.
Pastor Darren: They start getting that cloud, they start getting the inspiration, and now they're prophesying over there, but not with all the other other elders.
Pastor Darren: So one young man, he hurries over, he's got to tell the guy in charge here, hey, somebody's over there.
Pastor Darren: I don't know that they got permission to prophesy.
Pastor Darren: And Joshua, right hand man of Moses, says, Oh, we better get over there.
Pastor Darren: We better stop that right now.
Pastor Darren: But Moses, Moses says, No, isn't this great?
Pastor Darren: People got the spirit that prophesying.
Pastor Darren: That is something we should be celebrating.
Pastor Darren: Can you see why this passage gets paired with the Pentecost passage?
Pastor Darren: Can you hear the similarities?
Pastor Darren: I mean, if you're gonna pick an Old Testament text for Pentecost, this is a pretty darn good one.
Pastor Darren: But what's interesting about it is the reaction that people have to those two guys prophesying over there, seemingly out of the guidance oversight of Moses.
Pastor Darren: They aren't really recognizing the spirit that is maybe happening in these guys preaching.
Pastor Darren: In fact, they're immediately suspicious, aren't they?
Pastor Darren: You better go tell Moses right now.
Pastor Darren: You better let him know.
Pastor Darren: Now, if we're being fair, we might have had the very same reaction were we there.
Pastor Darren: We have the advantage of knowing the story, having read up to it.
Pastor Darren: We know that Moses went to God and said, Hey, you gotta help me out here a little bit.
Pastor Darren: We know that God said, All right, some help is coming.
Pastor Darren: So it's a little easier for us to sit in judgment of Joshua in this case with his suspicions, because we've got some other knowledge.
Pastor Darren: But if we didn't know that, would we really have been any different?
Pastor Darren: Would we really have been able to recognize the spirit here so much so that our suspicions were gone?
Pastor Darren: Let's say someone was preaching in the courtyard after worship.
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: They're out there preaching, preaching away, right?
Pastor Darren: And somebody's like, uh oh.
Pastor Darren: I better go tell Pastor Darren.
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: And then I hopefully my first response would be great.
Pastor Darren: The Holy Spirit that we are filled, and these he or she is filled with the Holy Spirit.
Pastor Darren: But we all know what my second question is gonna be, right?
Pastor Darren: What's he saying?
Pastor Darren: What's he preaching?
Pastor Darren: Is it something that fits with kind of what we're doing here?
Pastor Darren: Is it something you guys would appreciate?
Pastor Darren: Is it something I would appreciate?
Pastor Darren: Maybe most importantly, is it something the choir would appreciate?
Pastor Darren: You better get the choir on your side day one.
Pastor Darren: This is what I'm saying.
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: You we want to believe, we're like, okay, Holy Spirit, take us over.
Pastor Darren: You take the wheel, as uh Carrie Underwood might say to Jesus and hopefully the Holy Spirit, right?
Pastor Darren: We'd like to think we're we're we'd feel really, really good about that, but I don't know, we might get a little suspicious, right?
Pastor Darren: We do this.
Pastor Darren: We do this, we trust that the Holy Spirit is with us and wants to be with us as long as it matches our sense of who that presence is supposed to be.
Pastor Darren: Right, then we get suspicious afterwards if we don't hear what we expect the Holy Spirit to say or what God would say, then we get a little more suspicious.
Pastor Darren: Now, again, to be fair, it's probably a good idea to be a little bit suspicious, a little bit cynical or uh circumspect.
Pastor Darren: If somebody is saying they've got a message from God and they want to preach this message of God, we probably with some discernment ought to listen and not to just assume that everybody who says they have this message from God uh is really in that right spirit.
Pastor Darren: But at the same time, how often is it that we kind of uh inhibit that spirit with our cynicism, our discernment?
Pastor Darren: We're really good these days at doing what what are the what here I'm gonna what are the young people call it?
Pastor Darren: The young people call it the canceling?
Pastor Darren: Or canceling?
Pastor Darren: We're really good with the canceling, right?
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: We'll we'll roll with it, especially in today's world.
Pastor Darren: We can be grooving with something or with someone, and everything's there, the spirit is strong, and then they say that thing.
Pastor Darren: Right?
Pastor Darren: They say it that wrong thing, and we're out.
Pastor Darren: We're done.
Pastor Darren: What's the wrong thing?
Pastor Darren: I don't know.
Pastor Darren: But we all have them, do we not?
Pastor Darren: That thing that is a deal breaker that you have set for yourself, and if that deal is broken and we hit it, it's out, and we are gone.
Pastor Darren: And we totally forget that there were good things in play before the thing the deal breaker.
Pastor Darren: We were grooving in Christian terms, the spirit was moving and we were into it.
Pastor Darren: For um for the people, the Christians that we are looking to be, we are called to let the the spirit be unbound in our lives.
Pastor Darren: We we want that to be true in our lives.
Pastor Darren: But there's times we don't give that spirit much room, isn't there?
Pastor Darren: It's such a large part of why any of us is here.
Pastor Darren: We're seeking community, yes, but we also want this positive context for life.
Pastor Darren: We want hope, we want inspiration to live a holy life.
Pastor Darren: In short, we want to be filled with the spirit.
Pastor Darren: We want it to live unbound in our lives.
Pastor Darren: But it's often we give the Holy Spirit such little room to work with.
Pastor Darren: I started looking for examples of the spirit f just running amok in the world.
Pastor Darren: Unbound! And I found this video.
Pastor Darren: It's on a YouTube channel called Upworthy.
Pastor Darren: Have you found Upworthy yet?
Pastor Darren: Some of you.
Pastor Darren: I hear mumblings.
Pastor Darren: Yeah, Nancy.
Pastor Darren: It's this channel, I guess you'd say, on YouTube that's dedicated to positive stories of humanity.
Pastor Darren: Seems pretty simple and straightforward, but how often do we really, really need positive stories about humanity?
Pastor Darren: So this one, it's been called the most compassionate pizza place in Philadelphia.
Pastor Darren: So I'm e is the video ready?
Pastor Darren: Let's go ahead and play it.
SPEAKER_01: So it really sucks.
SPEAKER_01: But at least I know I can look forward to 11 o'clock when I know I can get some fresh hot pizza.
SPEAKER_07: The first day the paid forward program kind of started was when a gentleman walked in and he asked if a homeless person ever came in short, and he offered to pre-purchase a slice of pizza for the next homeless person.
SPEAKER_07: So he gave me a dollar.
SPEAKER_07: I ran out, got posted notes, put one up on a wall behind the register, told more people about it.
SPEAKER_07: Eventually, a couple days later, a homeless person came in, had like 65 cents on him, and we told him to just keep the change.
SPEAKER_07: It was already paid for.
SPEAKER_07: He redeemed one of the pre-purchased slices.
SPEAKER_07: So uh now we've given away almost 10,000 slices of pizza.
SPEAKER_00: You know, welcome I feel like you know, like I almost like I try to donate at least like five dollars a week.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and it's so funny because today I left my wallet and everything home, and I was I have 78 cents in my pocket, and I just came out like, okay, don't worry about it.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a really great feeling.
SPEAKER_00: So I can imagine how the homeless people feel.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's just a great thing.
SPEAKER_00: And the pizza is good.
SPEAKER_00: I'm from New York, so you know I know what pizza is.
SPEAKER_07: I just worked at a desk job in New York.
SPEAKER_07: You know, I showed up every morning, did some computer work, and then, you know, went home.
SPEAKER_07: Pretty regular stuff.
SPEAKER_07: I wanted to kind of do something new.
SPEAKER_07: I saw the success of the the dollar pizza stores throughout uh New York.
SPEAKER_07: So I thought I'd I'd open this place up and uh try my hand at it.
SPEAKER_04: I've been three years off the streets.
SPEAKER_04: I was seven years homeless myself as a as a veteran, you know, and I finally got myself out of the rug.
SPEAKER_04: I got myself an income and I wouldn't pay food, you know?
SPEAKER_07: Oh, just yesterday there was a guy that came in, he'd been homeless for like eight months, and I hadn't seen him for like three months.
SPEAKER_07: And I'm like, yo, where you been at?
SPEAKER_07: He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm I'm working now.
SPEAKER_07: Figured I'd I'd buy slice for someone else.
SPEAKER_07: I was like, that was awesome.
SPEAKER_07: Just a couple days prior, I had been like, man, I hope that guy's okay.
SPEAKER_07: And it turns out, you know, he's killing it.
SPEAKER_01: We don't always have a chance to come in and get fresh food whenever we can.
SPEAKER_01: And for people to donate money and, you know, put slice to the pizza for us, but they really made a change in Philadelphia.
SPEAKER_02: In a city with poverty rate that is higher than all other big cities comparable to it, to see such a show of compassion and and brotherly love is is really inspiring.
SPEAKER_07: I think it's pretty cool how powerful something this kind of small and simple can be.
Pastor Darren: Yeah.
Pastor Darren: Kinda cool, huh?
Pastor Darren: Hey Steve, there's good people in Philly.
Pastor Darren: Huh?
Pastor Darren: Are you surprised?
Pastor Darren: Yeah, how that's great, right?
Pastor Darren: I think of all the good that was happening there.
Pastor Darren: The simple stuff, the hungry are getting fed, which is cool.
Pastor Darren: The under-resourced are getting respect, are getting shown that there's love in this world, maybe the kind of love that might help them get back on their feet.
Pastor Darren: Here's another key part of what's going on there that I always like to mention.
Pastor Darren: Others are getting a chance to help.
Pastor Darren: We forget that that is a gift to be able to be somebody who offers godly love to other folks.
Pastor Darren: That is a gift that we are given in this world and the feeling that gets from helping others.
Pastor Darren: Finally, another good a city is getting a chance to see grace in this world modeled.
Pastor Darren: You get to see what it looks like, to see that it is true and that it is real in the hearts of people.
Pastor Darren: But where else could we have gone with that video?
Pastor Darren: Are we really helping people who need to figure it out by giving them food?
Pastor Darren: The problem of homelessness is difficult, maybe impossible to fix.
Pastor Darren: Intellectually, maybe there's a place for this kind of conversation, but what do we have to sacrifice in order to have that conversation?
Pastor Darren: I would argue it's an experience of the spirit.
Pastor Darren: When we go there, especially when we go there right away, we miss the work of the spirit right in front of us.
Pastor Darren: We miss the chance to be nourished and inspired by people who are sharing the love of God with the unfortunate in our world.
Pastor Darren: We miss the chance to be assured of God, God's presence, God's grace, God's love not only for the unfortunate, but God's unconditional love for us in our own brokenness.
Pastor Darren: We can make the mistake of waiting for the Holy Spirit to come to us with flames in order that we might open our hearts and believe and listen and maybe be inspired, but we can make another mistake, and that is in missing the presence of the Holy Spirit when that spirit comes, when that presence is right around us.
Pastor Darren: Engaging the Holy Spirit, which is always around us, that is a faith discipline.
Pastor Darren: That is something we have to work at.
Pastor Darren: We have to be intentional about.
Pastor Darren: And having that spirit be unbound in our lives, it it takes work.
Pastor Darren: An intentional openness to the work of the spirit in and around us.
Pastor Darren: How often are we looking intentionally for this presence around us?
Pastor Darren: Richard Rohr, who uh shares that daily devotion that I've invited all of y'all in the email to join me in, he would say that the Holy Spirit is everywhere and in everything.
Pastor Darren: Maybe we should get to looking.
Pastor Darren: Pentecost is a long, long season.
Pastor Darren: Six months until the end of November.
Pastor Darren: Let's get busy looking for that presence.
Pastor Darren: I know.