Pentecost's Miracle (5/24/15)

Pentecost’s Miracle

John Shuck

Southminster Presbyterian Church

May 24, 2015

Dhananjaya Bhat 

If you get rid of your ego and become like a hollow reed flute, then the Lord will come to you, pick you up, put his lips and breathe through you and out of the hollowness of your heart, the captivating melody will emerge for all creations to enjoy.                     

                                    

                                                            Acts 2:43-47    

The believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, cultivation of unity, their meal, and their prayers.  Awe overtook everyone.  The apostles became the agents of numerous portents and miracles.  All the believers remained together and shared everything.  They would sell their goods and property and distribute the proceeds to everyone on the basis of need.  Every day they met together in the temple and ate in homes, taking their food with happy and sincere hearts that were filled with praise to God.  Everyone approved of them, and the Lord increased daily the number of those who were being saved together.

“…And the Lord increased daily the number of those who were being saved together.”

Are you saved?   

I would see that question on church signboards while driving through the lush, green hills of East Tennessee.   I knew exactly what that question was asking.  It was the question the preachers would ask when I grew up in church.     

Those who knew they were saved would affirm it enthusiastically.  They could tell the story of their salvation with date and time.   You could tell who really was saved, that is who was in and who was out, based on how enthusiastically they answered that question.   Those who hedged or who said things like, “Well it depends what you mean by ‘saved’” were suspect.   

True believers knew that “saved” meant that you accepted the fact that Jesus died for your sins and you accepted Jesus personally as your Lord and Savior.  By doing this you were saved from hell and had thus made a reservation for heaven.      

What could be more clear?

The more I learn about the scriptures the more complex and the less clear it becomes regarding these matters.    Different gospel writers use the word translated into English as saved or salvation differently.     

In Mark’s gospel, the woman with a hemorrhage touches Jesus’s robe in a crowd and the text says that Jesus feels healing power go out of him.   He asks who touched him and she is frightened and falls at his feet and tells him the truth.    Jesus says to her, “Your faith has saved you.  Go in peace.”   Sometimes the English word is cured you.  Some translations say, “made you well.”   The word is the Greek word elsewhere translated as saved.    

The word saved or salvation can mean wellness, wholeness, cured.  That isn’t quite the same as being saved from hell.   In fact, it has nothing to do with it.  

Marcus Borg in his excellent book, Speaking Christian, offers chapter long definitions for Christian words.  The subtitle of his book is Why Christian Words Have Lost Their Meaning and Power and How They Can Be Restored.  

One of these words is salvation.  He devotes 20 pages to that word.    He has some interesting statistics.  He writes:

Salvation and its siblings appear almost 500 times in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bilbe….Salvation occurs 127 times; save, saved, saves, and saving, about 300 times; savior, about 40 times.  Roughly two-thirds are in the Old Testament and the rest in the New Testament.    pp. 38-9.

He goes on to say, 

Salvation in the Bible is seldom about an afterlife.  p. 39.

The bulk of this sermon is taken from Borg's chapter on salvation.  Salvation in the Bible can mean 

Liberation from bondage.  For example, the exodus from slavery in Egypt.    Exodus 14:50, “Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the Egyptians.”   What might it mean for you and me to saved, that is liberated from various forms of bondage, and to participate in the liberation of others?  Salvation can mean…

Return from exile.   This the return from Babylonian captivity in the 6^th century BCE.  Isaiah writes about it as salvation.  Isaiah 45:17:  “Israel is saved by the Lord with everlasting salvation.”  What does it mean to go home, to make home for ourselves and others?  Salvation can mean…

Rescue from peril.   The peril can be enemies, danger, illness, sometimes for an individual, sometimes for the nation.  Sometimes saved from death or the Pit, which is mortal illness or from enemies who desire one’s death.    The Psalms are filled with this.   7:1:  “Save me from all my pursuers and deliver me.”    In what ways is this understanding of salvation true for you?   How have we been rescued and how do we rescue? 

Salvation is deliverance and transformation in both the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament.   Salvation is seen in personal and political ways.  In the Gospelas salvation is shown through the stories of Jesus.  Salvation is…

Blindness to sight.   Many stories are attributed to Jesus of helping the blinded see.  Whether or not there is an historical basis for these stories they serve as a metaphor for transformation.   It is really about insight.   The hymn “Amazing Grace” captures it, “I was blind but now I see.”  Salvation is also…

Death to life.   In this case, Jesus raises people from the dead such as Jairus’ daughter and Lazarus.   Again, this is metaphor and legend not history.   The point is that there are sighted people who are blind.  There are living people who are dead.    Salvation is transformation.  Live with full insight. Paul also speaks of salvation as dying and rising with Christ.  This is what happens in this biological life.  This is metaphorical language, of course, about transformation in this life.    John’s gospel calls it being “born again.”   Salvation is also…

Sickness to health.   This is the story I referenced earlier of the woman with the hemorrhage becoming cured.  These healing stories are more than literal.  Salvation as healing is moving from sickness, illness, woundedness to wholeness.  This is not about miracle cures.   We have medical science with the recognition that we are all terminal.    Again, the healing stories are metaphorical stories to tell us that there are healthy people who are sick.    We can move from woundedness whether that woundedness be grief or sadness to wholeness regardless of what our bodies are doing.  Salvation is also…

Fear to trust.    A common phrase used by Jesus is “Do not fear, only trust.”   Or he will say, “Your trust has saved you.”    This is a transformation in how we approach life and how we approach others.   How do we live lives of trust and acceptance as opposed to anxiety and a need to control?  

But salvation is not just for individuals.  Marcus Borg would often ask, “Who is your political Lord and Savior?”     That question leads us to reflect, uncomfortably perhaps, on what we trust to save us, to make us whole, to keep us from peril, as a people, as a nation, as global citizens.   

We find in both testaments that salvation has to do with how we live in the world.  Salvation is moving from…

Violence to peace.   In Luke’s gospel the angels announce to the shepherds:  “Today in the city of David, a Savior was born to you.”  What kind of savior?   Caesar was announced as savior, too.  His birthday was celebrated as the birth of the savior.   His salvation was through violence and economic exploitation.   The salvation of Jesus was peace through justice.     What is our salvation?  The United States is the leading exporter of weaponry.    Where do we really put our trust?  Salvation in the Bible is from…

Injustice to justice.   Economic justice is the primary justice issue in the Bible.    The story of Zacchaeus, the tax collector who has defrauded the people is converted after being confronted by Jesus.  Jesus says “Salvation has come to this house today.”  What did he mean?  Did he mean that Zacchaeus is going to heaven?  No.  It meant that Zacchaeus was transformed from greed and fear to generosity and trust.    For the gospel of Luke and Acts, salvation is the transformation from economic inequality to economic justice.    We heard it in Mary’s song last week. 

He has shown the strength of his arm, 

He has put the arrogant to rout, along with their private schemes;

He has pulled the mighty down from their thrones, and exalted the lowly;

He has filled the hungry with good things, 

And sent the rich away empty.  

Salvation is one of the most important concepts in the Bible.  Yet in popular religion it has been reduced to superstition and nonsense stories of heaven and hell.    It is long past time to speak honestly about our Christian tradition and to reclaim these words and concepts that have been misused.

Today is a good day to talk about this since it is Pentecost Sunday.  

Pentecost has often been thought of as the birthday of the church.    It is a celebration of Spirit imagined with tongues of fire and wind.     We think also of the miracle as the apostles all speaking in different languages.    The whole world is imagined in this story.   The point is not a literal miracle.   That is the language of metaphor and legend like the virgin birth or the resurrection of the body or walking on water or turning water to wine.  

The miracle of Pentecost, the miracle of salvation comes at the end of the second chapter of Acts.    It is the passage mostly skipped over at Pentecost, because we focus on the tongues of fire and so forth.    Here is the real miracle:

The believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, cultivation of unity, their meal, and their prayers.  Awe overtook everyone.  The apostles became the agents of numerous portents and miracles.  All the believers remained together and shared everything.  They would sell their goods and property and distribute the proceeds to everyone on the basis of need.  Every day they met together in the temple and ate in homes, taking their food with happy and sincere hearts that were filled with praise to God.  Everyone approved of them, and the Lord increased daily the number of those who were being saved together.

I am not sure how historical that was either.   We know from history that the miracle of sharing whether it happened or not, didn’t last.   Much like the Jubilee year in the Hebrew Scriptures where every 50 years all debts were forgiven and land went back to original owners to level the playing field.    We don’t know if it ever really happened.   

That of course, is why it is always an ideal.   Luke understands salvation as a radical revision of economics.    For Luke, salvation is a whole new way of running our house.  

“They would sell their goods and property and distribute the proceeds to everyone on the basis of need.”

What did that lead to?

“…and the Lord increased daily the number of those who were being saved together.”

The more we share the more we save and are saved.    

It is Mary’s song coming to fruition.  “He has filled the hungry with good things.” 

That is Luke’s understanding of salvation.  

The point of this Bible study sermon was to show that the word salvation and its siblings, saved, savior, and so forth is a great deal more broad than often understood both by people within the church and by those who now call themselves, “nones” or unaffiliated with religion.   

This old-sounding religious revival word, salvation, is more interesting than Dr. Love’s Traveling Salvation Road Show.    It is much different than miracle cures and going to heaven to avoid hell and what all.   It is not about being saved with a date and time stamp.   

Marcus Borg was asked by a mainline clergyperson in his 40s,

“If Christianity’s not about an afterlife, then what’s our product?” p. 54.

Marcus wondered how people could get through a mainline seminary without encountering a more biblical understanding of salvation.  But he answered the question seriously.    If Christianity isn’t about an afterlife, what is the “product?”

Marcus answered:  

“…the product is salvation  as the twofold transformation of ourselves and the world.”  p. 54.

That is something we all long for, whether we are “religious” or not.    One of the reasons some people might call themselves spiritual but not religious or who shun religion altogether is because Christianity has focused on life after death in a very narrow way as opposed to life before death which is what the Bible is really about.  

Salvation is about what we long for.  What I long for personally, to be a person of integrity, to be my best, true self, to be happy, helpful, to make a difference, and to participate in the transformation of the world, that is our human world, the only world that we can actually affect.   Of course, our actions have effects on the more than human world as well.    It is still this world, this Earth, our home.  

There may be many ways of how to get there of how we can be a beloved community, of how we can share the bounty of Earth sustainably with concern for future generations.    

But that we participate in the world’s salvation is what it means to be a community of faith, to follow in the spirit of Jesus.  It is what I think even more broadly of what it means to be a human being.    

Are you saved? 

For me, I can honestly say, yes and not yet. 

Amen.