Two week’s ago we celebrated Pentecost, remembering how the Spirit of God came like a rushing wind, equipping and empowering the frightened disciples to become instruments of God. In her Pentecost sermon, Marilyn invited us to consider where we have seen the wind, where we have seen the work of the Spirit. And she invited us to prepare for Pentecost moments of the Spirit by opening ourselves to receive the Spirit, by opening wide the windows and doors to let the Spirit of Pentecost once again renew the Church.
I hear Jesus extending a similar invitation in today’s text from Matthew when he speaks of welcoming the prophet. The coming of the Spirit like a violent wind that disrupts and interrupts the day-to-day, that brings the unexpected and unanticipated, is an apt description of the voice of the prophet.
Welcoming prophetic voices is not usually an easy thing to do. Prophets often say things that are difficult to hear. Sometimes they say things that disrupt and disorient. Sometimes they speak words which directly contradict what we understand God to have said in the past; words that are so strange that we wonder if they are really prophets at all.
This was the case for the prophet Jeremiah in today’s Old Testament reading. The broader context of the passage is that Jeremiah had received a word from Yahweh telling him to put on a yoke and to announce that Yahweh had given the land of Judah and that of the nations around her into the hand of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.
Judah had already suffered at the hands of Babylon – Babylon had already plundered the temple and taken many of the people into exile. Jeremiah’s message to King Zedekiah is “get used to it.” Zedekiah and his people are to submit to and serve Nebuchadnezzar, as well Nebuchadnezzar’s sons and grandsons – And if they do this, Yahweh promises that they will remain in the land.
Jeremiah chapter 28 begins with another prophet, Hananiah, announcing a message which contradicts Jeremiah’s: Hananiah approaches Jeremiah in the temple, takes the yoke from his neck, breaks it, and announces to Jeremiah, king Zedekiah, and all the people, that Yahweh will break the yoke of the Babylonians within two years. Within two years, all of the gold that has been plundered from the temple and all of the exiles will return.
What is Jeremiah to make of this? God has clearly spoken to him, and here is another prophet claiming that God has clearly spoken something quite different.
Given that Yahweh had specifically told Jeremiah that anyone who contradicted his message was a false prophet and a liar, Jeremiah takes Hananiah’s words surprisingly well. Rather than immediately denouncing him, he responds with “Amen! May the LORD do so; may Yahweh fulfill the words that you have prophesied, and bring back to this place from Babylon the vessels of the house of Yahweh, and all the exiles.”
“Amen! May the LORD do so.” When faced with a direct challenge to his understanding of the word of God, Jeremiah responds with hope and forbearance.
He responds with hope. Perhaps he is thinking that just maybe Hananiah’s words were truly from Yahweh. Yahweh might have changed his mind and sent Hananiah to speak these words about the end of the Babyloninan domination of Judah.
However, I suspect also that Jeremiah’s hope was accompanied by a good dose of doubt, of suspicion that Hananiah was only speaking what king Zedekiah and the people of Judah wanted to hear. But in spite of any doubt or suspicion he might have had, Jeremiah exercises forbearance. It is only some time later, after having heard a further word from Yahweh, that Jeremiah declares that Hananiah was indeed a false prophet who was not sent by Yahweh, that he lied to the people and led them astray – though in a further demonstration of grace, Jeremiah brings this message to Hananiah in private rather than in the presence of the king and the people.
I think that this is a model for what welcoming the prophet might look like. For Jeremiah, Hananiah’s word from Yahweh was strange and unsettling – A word that contradicted a message he had been given to deliver. But when faced with Hananiah’s message, Jeremiah does not jump to judgment and accusation. Instead he welcomes Hananiah and his message as a word from God.
Jeremiah made room for the strange message of Hananiah even in spite of his own convictions. While “Amen” was not Jeremiah’s final response to Hananiah’s prophecy, it was his first word.
Opening ourselves up to the Spirit means making room for such prophetic words. It means welcoming the one who might bring ideas that seem foreign or contradictory to our sense of God’s call. While we may be tempted to dismiss such voices as coming from hopelessly naïve conservative traditionalists, or perhaps from radical secularist liberals, or just way-out there crazies, welcoming the prophet means listening with hope and forbearance.
It may be that we as a community do not discern the Spirit in some of the prophetic voices we hear, but before deciding this we must take seriously and wrestle with the possibility that God might be saying something new; We must consider the possibility that the Spirit might be coming among us like a violent, rushing wind. Welcoming the prophet means taking seriously that these strange, disruptive words might be words of God; These unsettling voices may indeed be the wind of God come among us. If we dismiss prophetic voices too quickly we might just miss what the Spirit has to say to us/
But if there is a danger of us not attending to the coming of the Spirit through prophetic voices there is perhaps an equal danger of not attending to the more subtle ways that the Spirit moves among us. If we are looking only for a dramatic Pentecost experience of the coming of the Spirit, we might fail to notice that the Spirit is constantly moving among us as a gentle breeze, as a still small voice.
Just as it is easy to forget that all of creation is created and sustained by the constant presence and activity of a loving creator, it is easy to forget that the daily life of the church is infused with the active presence of the Spirit among us
So where have I seen the wind?
I have seen the wind in the parking-lot at TUMC. An empty space where cars were stored for a few hours at a time has become a place where things grow – Plants and community, relationships and food.
I have seen the wind at Fraser Lake Mennonite Camp – A time of laugher and relaxation, of conversations around picnic tables, of enjoying the water, wind and sun together; a time of worshiping together and blessing one another.
I have seen the wind in time with friends sharing food, laughter, as well as joys and struggles with one another.
I have seen the wind in the Youth Ministry Discernment Group, as they have met together to consider how best we as a church might discern where God’s Spirit is leading our youth ministries.
I have seen the wind in Sunday School at TUMC, in people of all ages learning and teaching. In celebrating
milestones in the lives of some of the children and youth among us this morning, we are celebrating the work of the Spirit of Pentecost, the Spirit of Jesus Christ
The Spirit of Pentecost is the same Spirit that is at work in the less dramatic but no less important day-to-day of our life together as the church. The Spirit who confronts us through the words of the prophets is the same Spirit who moves among us as we gather to worship and pray together, to share our joys and concerns, to welcome newcomers and build relationships.
It is this same Spirit who works through those who lead worship and preach, through those who lead music and play instruments; through those who sit on committees such as the board, the caring team, the inclusion team; through those who take care of the building, who attend to the church’s finances; And not least through those who teach Sunday School, investing their time and energy in preparing lessons and teaching week after week.
And it is through this spirit-infused life of the church that we become a people who are equipped to discern the more dramatic appearances of the Spirit among us. It is as we learn and live out the story of Jesus and the kingdom of God that we are formed by the Spirit into a people who not only welcome the prophets, but who are also able to discern which prophetic words reflect the Spirit of Jesus Christ.
May God’s Spirit open our eyes and ears, our hearts and mind, to discern the movement of the Spirit among us, both in the gentle breeze of the day to day life of the church and also in the prophetic voices that confront and challenge us.
Amen.