Seventh Sunday of Easter

Today's text is Luke 24:44-53, read by Jennifer Goode. This morning's sermon was delivered by the Rev. Dr. Phil Snider.

Lead Pastor: Rev. Dr. Phil Snider (he/him)

Associate Pastor: Rev. Emily Bowen-Marler (she/her)

Youth Director: Paije Luth (she/her)

Children’s Church Coordinator: Valerie Bush (she/her)

Executive Assistant: Wacey Rivale (she/her)

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Our scripture reading today comes from Luke chapter 24, verses 44 through 53. Then Jesus said to them, These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, Thus it is written that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is due to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things, and see, I am sending upon you what my father promised, so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high. Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven, and they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple blessing God. May we hear what the Spirit is saying to the church.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

One time he got the word out that on the upcoming Sunday, he was gonna preach a sermon titled The Church Member I Would Most Like to See in Hell. Well, you can imagine that got all the people out. Word quickly spread around town. Pastor's gonna spill the tea. This can be the pastor's last Sunday. What's going on here? And to a packed crowd, the pastor let everybody down. He said that the church member he would most like to see in hell was this dedicated, lovely, beloved Sunday school teacher who had taught for years. That if she went to hell, then all of hell would be converted, even the devil himself, because of her power of persuasion and impeccable character. So I mean it's kind of fun, but also kind of a letdown, if we're honest. You know, I thought of this story because I had a sermon title come to my mind. Why is John Prime such a liar? Now, some of you may not be familiar with John Prime. He's a musician. Anyone heard of John Prime? Oh, okay, okay. Several of you. That's good, that's good. Um, you're not alone if you haven't. I mean, he's not had a bunch of like chart-topping success, so to speak, but he's been a folk icon for nearly half a century. He was recently named to Stephen Colbert's prestigious Mount Rushmore of greatest American songwriters, including Bob Dylan, who, by the way, Bob Dylan named John Prine as one of his favorite songwriters. Now, I'm a big fan of John Prime, obviously. Uh, I've listened to his music a lot. Uh one time I listened to a couple of songs, and it made me think, why is John Prine singing in such a contradictory fashion? So, so a couple of these songs that I was listening to, one was called How Lucky. The other was called I Remember Everything. Okay, does anybody know those songs? A few, okay, a few. Um dedicated John Pride fans out there knowing those songs. Okay, so in How Lucky, he sang about how he was walking down the streets of his childhood and how lucky he is that there are several things that he does not remember from his younger days of life. Yet in the song, I remember everything, he's not singing about forgetting stuff and being glad for forgetting stuff. He's singing about how he remembers everything. Every tree, every blade of grass, every glance from someone who loved him. He remembers everything. What's going on here? Why does the same artist have a body of work that has two songs that are so contradictory? Well, I think you probably know the answer to that. It's because he's giving artistic expression to different experiences of his own life at different stages in his life. He wrote how lucky in 1979 he was relatively young, and he was reflecting on several of the mistakes of his youthfulness. Things that he had done that he regretted that he wished he had not done, things that he was worried were going to ruin his life, and how lucky he feels that those things don't hold him hostage, that he's not forever defined by the mistakes of his childhood or of his youthfulness. He feels lucky that there are some things he's been able to let go of that don't have a hold on him anymore, which can make some sense. But he wrote, I remember everything, in 2019. And it was released shortly after his death in the year 2020. And this song won a Grammy. Celebratory for the Grammy. This song won a Grammy. And this song, I remember everything, spoke to the ways as as you age, as you get older, there can be a different reflection on life. How you hold everything precious and dear. You don't take one second for granted. You recognize the gift and the preciousness of life like perhaps you did it before when you were young. These songs are not so much about contradictions as they are about two different kinds of truths about aging. It's about giving artistic expression to two different kinds of truths experienced at different times along one's journey. Now, at this point along the way, it's fair to ask, what does any of this have to do with the Gospel of Luke? What does any of this have to do with our scripture? What does any of this have to do with a sermon? I mean, honestly, the main goal is to prove that as a Gen X guy like myself, I can quote a musician besides Bruce Springsteen or Bono. That'd be the main goal. But also, I think it's an analogy that helps us unpack what is oftentimes viewed as one of the most contradictory parts of Scripture. One of those scripture uh verses that seems so contradictory to some others that it serves as a real gotcha kind of moment. Okay, so let's let's go there. Um in today's story from Luke, we get a synopsis of the most important aspects of Jesus' life and ministry. It all takes place on Easter Day. Everything that is important about Jesus' life and ministry, Luke wants to condense in one story, and he does so with the synopsis of what happened on Easter Day. Jesus tells the disciples to stay put in and around Jerusalem, stay put and wait for the Holy Spirit, which will be given to you. And of course, you know, in the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit is given to the disciples. This is after Jesus had ascended into heaven. And so a week from today is the day of Pentecost, and so we will celebrate that Holy Spirit being given to the disciples after Jesus' ascension. But in the Gospel of John, Jesus gives the Holy Spirit before he ascends to heaven. In John chapter 20, the risen Jesus breathes on the disciples and says, Receive the Holy Spirit. This is before he ascends to heaven. And so a lot of times people will point to these verses just as being very contradictory. You know, which is it? Did the disciples receive the Holy Spirit after the ascension, according to Luke, or did they receive the Holy Spirit before the ascension, according to John? I mean, you can imagine it like in a courtroom setting, you got John on the stand. And you got a lawyer, and the lawyer just knows, oh, this is their moment. They've got John in the dock. John, which is it? Did the disciples receive the Holy Spirit before Jesus ascended, like you said? Or did the disciples receive the Holy Spirit after Jesus ascended, like your colleague Luke says? And the lawyer's like, you know, I got him, because you know, if he answers one way or the other, it's gonna be a contradiction, and I can disprove the, you know, whatever, whatever. And so John replies, not like Jack Nicholson. Like, you can't handle the truth. John's like, uh, uh, no, I don't know how John would have responded. John would not have been on the in the dock. So, so you get a lot of folks that want to look at passages of scripture like this and say these are just contradictory. So the Bible is a fraud, it's a hoax. You can't take it seriously. It can't be a true book because a true book would would line up, the different authors would know what was being said. If God is behind it all, if it's inspired by God, then why would John be writing something and Luke be writing something that doesn't go together? It that doesn't add up. So Christianity or the Bible, it it's it's a fraud, it's a hoax. It's like a real gotcha kind of moment. And that's why I began with the illustration about music and the way that different songs speak to different moments in our lives. In different ways, yet in important ways, that express different kinds of truths that the artist is trying to help us understand. In John's Gospel, Jesus gives the Holy Spirit to those who are very afraid. And the Holy Spirit is understood as the comforter, the one who will come alongside you in the midst of your struggles. In Luke's Gospel, it's a different kind of story. In Luke's gospel, the Holy Spirit is given as one who will empower the disciples to go and do great things, even though Jesus is leaving. In John's Gospel, it's about comfort, it's about strength, it's about companionship. In Luke's Gospel, it's about empowerment. These are not contradictory things. It's the authors trying to give different expressions to different kinds of things that can both be true, and they set it up through the framework of a narrative. Now, if we're going to try to lay out the transcripts in a courtroom kind of way and try to figure out factually what adds out adds up according to John and Luke, I mean that that's a no-wing game. You know, and you've got folks who are Christians who will bend over backwards. I call it, you know, uh gym like hermeneutic and interpretive gymnastics and acrobatics, bending over backwards to try to make things, two things that don't go together somehow fit, and it just, you know, is not honest. You have to just like make it stretch too much. Because sometimes the Bible says things that don't seem to add up in terms of like exactly being the same all the time. And on the other hand, you have folks who point to that and say, well, as a result of that, the Bible can't be true. It's a fraud, it's a hoax. Both of those approaches miss the point. Um, those approaches lose sight of the fact that the Bible is full of different voices who are trying to give expression to different kinds of truths that they've experienced. And to try to say that's always the same thing for all the same people does a disservice to the people who are trying to give expression to them. This doesn't devalue the Bible, but it makes it all the more meaningful. It allows us to see and understand different perspectives, different experiences that people might have had, and the way that they're helping us understand. Sometimes we're gonna go through some hard personal times. As human beings, there are gonna be some hard personal times we're going through. And we're gonna need a comforter. Life is not easy for any of us. There's times we need that comforter to come alongside us and help us in the midst of our struggles. Our hearts as a congregation continue to break for the family of Annie England Noblin. Many of you know Luke England and Taryn England, members here at Brentwood. We've been praying for Annie, and last Sunday we we announced during our prayer time that after a collision, whenever a driver swerved into her lane, she didn't make it. And her um memorial service was yesterday. Um it was just a small family graveside. There's a lot of grief happening, and our heart's break for her family. And it's a time when the Holy Spirit gives in as comforter, as strength to help a family through the kind of time that's just about unspeakable grief and unspeakable loss. There are times in which we need the Holy Spirit as comforter to get us through the hardest times, the most unimaginable times that we might face. We need that voice from John and John's gospel. We need to know that God is going to be with us through the hardest times. And there are other times we need to hear from Luke. Times in which we need that Holy Spirit to empower us, like it empowered the early disciples to speak truth to power, for us to be empowered. Like the representative Justin Jones in Tennessee, who's following in the legacy of the civil rights movement right now, being empowered to do the right thing at the right time. There are times in our lives when we need the strength of the Holy Spirit to help us rise up. And there are times when we don't have it in us to rise up. We've been hurt too much, we've gone through too much, we've faced too much that's unfair. And we need the Holy Spirit to come alongside us and comfort us. Gone into the same job every day, year in, year out. Yet he shows up for one day and he's called into a meeting, it's a short meeting, and that short meeting changed the entire fabric of his life. He was let go, had no heads up. He said the hardest part at first was not even figuring out the finances. It was waking up with this deep feeling. He did not know who he was. He felt embarrassed, he felt afraid, he left, felt left behind. He would meet people, they'd ask him, Well, what do you do for a living? And he felt shame. He didn't want to say, I've been let go, I don't have a job. And even though that happens to a lot of us, that can be really hard to go through. And and those kinds of conversations can be incredibly difficult, and we can question our own value and our own worth. Even though we can be in a system that sets us up to fail and then blame us for failing, we can still question our own self-worth, our own value. This man had a hard time trying to figure out how to pass the time, and um, he would go into coffee shops and he would spend time reading, try to figure out what was next. And he had this moment that just overcame him. He can't explain it, he doesn't know where it came from, but he had this moment overcome him. It wasn't some dramatic miracle or voice from on high, but it was the strange comfort that came over him, a sense that his worth did not have to be tied to his productivity, and that God had not abandoned him just because his life had changed. And then months later, after finding another job, he started volunteering at a local job center. He helped people prepare resumes, practice interviews, that sort of thing. He became a calm voice for people who felt hopeless because he knew what that felt like. He had been there, he could identify. And one day he realized that the same spirit that comforted him when he felt lost was now empowering him to give strength to others. In John, Jesus speaks to anxious disciples and promises the comfort of the Holy Spirit that God will stay with us when our walk, our path is uncertain. And in Luke, the Spirit is power. It's about giving you the courage to go into the world with boldness and to purpose to make this and to make this world a better place. These are not contradictions, these are different expressions of the same gift because sometimes we need God to walk with us, to sit with us in our fear. Sometimes we need God to help us become strength for somebody else. And thank goodness the Holy Spirit is given to us in a multitude of ways so that we can get through the hardest times we face. And then when the time is right, we can help others get through the hardest times that they face. Amen.