Good Morning Friends,
Even as we contemplate the journey to Pentecost and the growth of people of faith around the world in the power of the Holy Spirit, there is something that calls me back to the presence and power and focus of an earthly Jesus and his prayer that we be one, shared well before the Ascension and even the Crucifixion and Resurrection. The thing is that in the Bible we read about the Church of Corinth and Ephesus and other communities and it is never the churches plural of a place. The underlying message is about unity. However, today in our reality of multiple churches in a place, the focus on God gets blurred, much like the situation in Athens presented in today’s text from Acts. You see the Athenians had way too many gods to worship much like we have way too many churches in community. Of course, there is only one God and one Church and one Called Out Assembly of believers in each community. Unfortunately, the way it plays out now does not seem to reflect the power of God nor the joy of believers in unity and relationship with one God in three persons. So, interestingly maybe it is the unknown God we need to be paying greater attention to. Friends, we seek the truth but find the ignorance bliss. We often do not want the inconvenient truth of the Holy Spirit. We are so divided. So in trinitarian fashion we ask, How Connected Is Our Relationship And Mind With The Father, Son And Holy Ghost?
Scripture: Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens; and after receiving instructions to have Silas and Timothy join him as soon as possible, they left him. Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, “We will hear you again about this.” At that point Paul left them. But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them. After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth.
Acts 17:15, 22-18:1 (NRSV)
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
John 16:12-15 (NRSV)
Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
Romans 5:1-5 (NRSV)
Message: Today we look for the Creator, Sustainer, and the Redeemer in scripture and in our daily life in the communities in which we live and work, in the hope of being of one accord. We see this hope of unity perhaps most clearly through the commandment of Christ that we love one another. Pentecost gives us another clear communication of the hope for unity that we be made into one body. But our examples of a human unity on a personal and collective basis seem so imperfect. The Trinity, however, is a divine unity, the one and only perfect unity, of how three distinct Persons are together as One. When Paul was guided by the Spirit to speak before the Athenian Counsel about an Unknown God that he had come to know though Jesus and the Spirit. He conveyed a message about the truths of the Unknown God to ease the burdens of a people in Greece. These inherent qualities are revealed in the Trinity active in our lives. Paul’s sermon is basically that the Unknown God was made known to him and that God gives to all people and all things life and breath. Paul reveals that the unknown God is the Lord of heaven and earth and having up to now overlooked our ignorance, is now declaring that all people everywhere should repent so their burdens might be lifted. The real message of Paul’s sermon is that the Unknown God has made Himself known, and we can know Him today, through the Spirit of Jesus, His Son. Friends, God has been revealed to us so that the burden of sin on our lives might be lifted and our journey through life made easier even in its suffering. Thankfully, we have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit as John explains in today’s scripture. And with this relational gift we can reach out into the community both corporately and as individuals growing in relationship with Jesus and the Father. Friends, as I read our task, we are sent out into the world to tell people about God through words and actions that demonstrate we are filled with the Holy Spirit and the love of Jesus connected in a way to enjoy and glorify God. We like Paul are to get to know people on an individual basis and then larger crowds. We are to get to know the people and place, so we too can better relate to the body of believers. Here we are to see how people are struggling. Here we are to see who is lonely and isolated. Here we are to see who is facing illness in their families. Here we are to see into the lives and hearts of others and be guided by the Holy Spirit in the mission we have been given. We see Paul demonstrate this act of sharing the Gospel, when he was up against a lot in Athens. The philosophies of Athens ranged from the Epicureans to the Stoics. One was about enjoying life and the other about enduring it. One was about indulgence with the chief goal of life being pleasure and the other indifference with the chief goal to not care. Paul knew that both were dead ends but also opposite ends of the spectrum of a whole list of beliefs and idol worship that missed the mark. However, all the philosophies of ancient Athens had something in common. They all hated the preaching of Paul. They were looking down their noses at him as if he knew nothing. Then Paul cleverly pointed out that their culture acknowledged a God that they did not know and was not embodied in a little stone or wood carving. So, he shared the message about the God that they acknowledged as an asterisk and yet did not know…the God of creation…the God of personal involvement…the God of repentance…and the God of judgement. And that just set them off. Even their tolerance had its limits and still, some believed anyway. So too today in the truth of the Holy Spirit, in the great diversity of expressions of faith, we need to realize that we may never be one until Jesus returns and yet we still might have some sense of revival of the faith, so others might believe.
And So, modern thinkers say to have true happiness we need three things. We need to have something to do, someone to love and a future to look forward to. Maybe it is a cognitive bias but in the western world we are ruled by threes. Three-oriented phrases are everywhere. So, whether you are going down for the third time or the third time is the charm, you will find a phrase for your situation. Most of us even have three names. And we imagine it on the world as well. We say there where three kings bringing gifts to the baby Jesus, though scripture does not give us a number. The importance of three through is throughout the Bible. Interestingly its importance is not in all cultures. For the American Indian it is four and for the Chinese, I think it is five. But for those of us reading this it is three. Three men appeared to Abraham. Peter denied Christ three times and was forgiven three times. There were three crosses on Calvary. Jesus cried three times in the Bible. He cried when he heard about his friend, Lazarus’ death. He also had tears of sorrow for the city of Jerusalem. And finally, Jesus had tears of struggle in the Garden, known as Gethsemane. There are the three parables of the lost sheep, coin, and son. Things come in threes. There is faith, hope and love. There is the past, present and future. And the trinity of God, well it is just about everywhere, and its doctrine is wrapped up very nicely in Paul’s letter to the Romans found in today’s scripture. I think it is there for a purpose. Seeing through the eyes of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit can be helpful. You see, the best of relationships is formed in threes: you, me and Jesus…in the trinity of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Here God is the good foundation for the future. So, the answer to today’s question is going to be based on the power of the Holy Spirit in each of our lives working to reveal the Trinity to us. The whole idea is complicated on the one hand and simple on the other. It is mission but also the strategy for life that is beyond integrating the expectations of our family and community with our own desires. It is love but also theology. In the context of the body of believers on the road to Pentecost, is about being sent by Jesus to carry the implication of Jesus to others with an effective plan of how to share the Good News. Here the Father is more than a patriarch. Jesus is more than an obedient son and the Holy Spirit is more than a dove or atmospheric condition. At a time when people are more concerned about making it through the day than making it into heaven, we have our work cut out to live God’s plan for our lives. And here it soon becomes obvious that we need to listen and obey God so that our actions are part of God’s plans. You see it is not just about making mission plans and asking God to bless them and then carrying them out. And it is not a job we can differ either. It is not the work solely of religious professionals, but rather it is about all of us who are members of the body of Christ. So, here is the deal, we must get better at this work. The Gospel is clear that this is a job for all of us, so we need to all learn the necessary skills to spread the message if only in small ways that affirm our relationship with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. And yes, the truth about God can be a little problematic for those living in the world, for it requires of us our body, mind, and soul…it requires us to grow in a love not of this world. It requires a healthy relationship that sanctifies us for a purpose.
Pray we continue to be Christians even though it is often inconvenient. Pray we understand the folly of mythology and the limits of philosophy. Pray we realize that complete open-mindedness is its own trap. Pray instead that we work to empower people for worldwide mission but also for a unity that honors the Trinity. Pray we stretch our love so that others might believe. Pray we be witness to the spark of the Spirit that glorifies Jesus. Pray we realize that in this age of the Spirit that we must seek the truth even at the risk of controversy. Pray we listen to what the Holy Spirit declares so that we might know better what we are to declare. Pray we stretch our love but not the truth. Pray we journey through times of suffering. Pray we realize the great strength of our God. Pray we realize the goodness of God. Pray we believe in the grace of God. Pray we realize that we cannot internalize all that is happening in the world, but that God can. Pray we get to know and to trust in God’s Spirit as our guide on the journey. Pray we recognize that God navigates our life in measure of what we can handle. Pray we recognize the divine presence in three dimensions. Pray we realize that we are useless unless we are going somewhere. Pray we realize that we are dependent on the winds of the Spirit and a Captain to steer, and a crew to properly set the sails. Pray we realize that the Captain of the ship keeps a log. Pray we see the Spirit in the Sails, the Maker in the Ship and Christ in the Captain. Pray we see the Three as One and the One as Three in the communities in which we live and become who God created us to be. Pray we learn from the Trinity to glorify God and be as one in the unity of love.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 