Click to hear this sermon   sermon090614

When you buy an airplane ticket, you don't think you are buying a history lesson.

Living With Spirit: REMEMBER - Acts 2: 22-36 - June 14, 2009 - Cicero United Methodist Church - Everett J. Bassett

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When you buy an airplane ticket, you don't think you are buying a history lesson. But a week ago yesterday, when Sharon and I landed at JFK in New York, as we were taxiing to our gate, the flight attendant got on the public address system to say some of the usual Stay seated until the plane has stopped and Thanks for flying with us sorts of things. But then he asked us to pause and consider the significance of the day - the 65th anniversary of D-Day. He gave a heartfelt speech about the privilege of freedom, and shared statistics of how many gave their lives during that Normandy invasion. He asked for veterans to identify themselves so we could show our appreciation. And we did.

It was clear that that flight attendant had a strong belief in the need for historical awareness. Time and time again we are reminded that not everybody does, and our lives are poorer for it. In the church we are very aware of this because fewer and fewer people know the basics of biblical history. College chaplains say that even young people with a lifelong church background don't know answers to basic questions like, "Who lived first - Moses or Jesus?" or "What happened on Pentecost?"

Some may say, 'So what?' As long as people learn a sense of right or wrong, and believe in God, what does it matter if they know anything about the order of things?

There are a couple answers to that. First of all, if people don't know their historical roots, then they are easy prey for those who want to bend the truth. For example, surveys show that most people believe that the Bible says, "The Lord helps those who help themselves." The Bible didn't say that; Benjamin Franklin did. And Franklin said some wise things, and there may be some wisdom in that expression. But it also has been used to preach a kind of selfishness that is the exact opposite of the teaching of the Bible. But people don't that, because they don't know their biblical roots.

The same danger is strong in the rest of our social lives as well. It is, for example, very distressing to hear about a rise in Neo-Nazism and anti-Semitism in Germany over the last few years. Of all places to shrink in horror from the very idea of anti-Semitism, Germany should have learned the lessons of that kind of hate more than any place on earth. But here's the shocker: a survey in 2005 showed that over half of young people in Germany under the age of24 cannot tell you what the Holocaust was. They don't know their history, so the major safeguard against a repeat of history is gone.

But it goes deeper than that. If we don't know our history, we can't know who we are. We can only have the most superficial sense of our own identity. One place I saw that illustrated is in Toni Morrison's novel Tar Baby, where Jadine is a young African American woman working hard to disconnect from the terrible struggle of her ancestors, and to forget her past by joining the jet-set life of New York City. But as her world unravels, she sits with the aunt who raised her, and her aunt shares this: "Jadine, a girl has got to be a daughter first. She have to learn that. If she never learns how to be a daughter, she can't never learn how to be a woman. I mean a real woman: a woman good enough for a child; good enough for "a man - good enough even for the respect of other women ... A daughter is a woman that cares about where she come from ...I don't want you to care about me for my sake. I want you to care about me for yours."

There are, of course, many layers of meaning in those words. But a strong layer is the wisdom that says if you don't honor your roots, your past, your history - then you can't know who you are. You've got to understand what it means to be a daughter before you can reach the fullness of womanhood; a son to reach the fullness of manhood.

All this, I hope, is a good way to think about our scripture lesson for this morning.

We have been reading through the Pentecost story in Acts 2, and I have been preaching a series of sermons entitled 'Living With Spirit.' That's what the disciples of Jesus were learning to do. They were gathered together after Jesus rose to heaven, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Their hearts were lifted in joy, and they felt a burning flame of power. Peter stepped forward to preach the first sermon in the history of the church, and people were moved to listen and respond. And the church was born.

So if we want to live with spirit and joy the way those disciples did, the first thing we have to remember is to gather - to stay connected. The second thing we need to do is to proclaim - live lives that spread the joy of God's grace. And you might think that the next step would be 'blast-off. The new power has come. The people are attentive and ready. The fire is lit. This is ignition time - full speed ahead into the new future.

That's why it seems a little shocking that what Peter does, in his sermon, is not full-­speed ahead - it's Let's look back. Let's remember who we are. Let's gather up our history so we can understand this new thing that has happened. And so, right at the critical moment, Peter explains the meaning of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ by looking back at promises that were made to the prophet Joel four hundred years before, and other promises made a thousand years earlier, to King David, in what we now know as the fifteenth Psalm: 'In the last days it will be,' says the Lord, 'that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.' 'You have made known to me the ways of life; you will make me full of gladness with your presence.' Those were words from the distant past.

In reality, Peter is doing something technical here. He is following a tradition common in debating circles in those times - using well-known scriptures to form an argument - in this case, an argument about who Jesus was. If this were a Bible study, we would get into that in more detail. But the point here is to note that before the church soared ahead under the power of the Holy Spirit, there is this moment when the connection with the past is made. You've got to be sons and daughters first - linked to your heritage -- before you can charge ahead and be men and women making the future.

Probably the most famous quote about remembering our roots was by the American writer George Santayana, who said, "Those who can't remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Santayana also said this, "The freest spirit must have some birth place, some (place to stand) from which to view the earth." I think that's one way to look at the story of Pentecost. The freest spirit in all creation was unleashed - God's Holy Spirit. But this spirit was not a newcomer on the scene. The Holy Spirit had roots from the very beginning of time. It moved on the face of the waters in creation; it inspired patriarchs of the faith, and great prophets; it directed Jesus through his whole life. And that connection with all of history was powerful as it flowed into the disciples at Pentecost.

So I've been talking about living with spirit - with passion and enthusiasm and hope. And that all sounds like charge into the exciting future stuff, and it is. Except if you're going to charge into the future, you need to know that you won't just charge into the unknown and end up groping around in strange territory. The way to do that is to be firmly rooted in the past, because those roots tell you where you are, where home is, and where the source of your power dwells.

It's where the power of a nation dwells. The history of our nation is both glorious in its ideals and the high hopes of so many who came to live here, and shameful in the way whole groups were mistreated, and in some cases nearly totally eliminated. So, for example, when we have a time such as the last couple months, when we've seen hate crimes in Binghamton and in the Holocaust Museum in Washington, we're not in the dark about those things. Our history teaches us about the deadly power of prejudice in our midst, and the danger of complacency toward it. We need to learn the lessons of the past, and also to celebrate the glorious times in our national history.

Rootedness in the past is where the power of a church dwells. In our church, we talk about the new directions God is taking us - buying the Conference offices, expanding in discipleship and mission, and so on. But those new directions hold promise only to the extent that we remember the old, old story at the heart of who we are - the God who made us, the Savior who died and rose, and the countless generations of those who have proclaimed love here in this very spot, and met the challenges they faces, so that we could stand on a strong foundation today.

And finally, so often facing the past is where we find our personal power as well. I know it's more complicated than this; I know there are exceptions to this; but I still think it's basically true that it's the demons of the past that we try not to think about that have the most power over us. Those hidden things sabotage our hopes, and keep us from truly living with spirit. When we face them out in the open, and name them, and place them in God's hands, they begin to lose that power.

And as for the other side of the coin - the blessings and victories and wonderful, wonderful memories - they remind us, when we're down and out, of how there is grace in this life, and how faithful God is. Claim your history, with its hard times and its joys. I believe you'll see that God was walking beside you the whole way. And knowing that truth is what sets us free, and allows us to live with spirit.

In the airport last weekend, I watched a little child, maybe two years old, go exploring. She would take a couple steps, then turn around to see her mother watching her, then take a few more steps, and turn around to look back again. Those steps ahead were a little scary, I imagine, but looking back made her secure. And what joy she had on that journey. Not a bad lesson from a two year old.