The Grove Charlotte — Podcast

This Sunday is Pentecost, the day Christians remember and rejoice that Jesus kept his promise to us, pouring out his spirit—the Holy Spirit—on all of his people. When the Spirit was unleashed, the gospel of Jesus began to spread beyond the small group of his disciples. When the Spirit came, cowering Peter became a mighty evangelist. When the Spirit came, miracles and acts of power came with it. When the Spirit came, the church was born. And for centuries, churches have remembered and celebrated this moment in history with passion and joy and loud shouts of praise. But not this year. This year, our church building will be empty. Our sanctuary won’t be filled with our voices lifted in songs and shouts of praise. We won’t laugh and launch kites or gather around pot-luck tables, taking and rejoicing in the unity we’ve found in him.   This year, in our building, we’ll have a silent Pentecost. And, uncomfortable and disappointing as that will be, maybe it’s right. Maybe all of our shouting and celebrations have been the wrong kind. Maybe it’s prophetic. Maybe this year’s silent Pentecost is a judgment against our silent churches. Maybe God can’t hear our pentecost shouting because our silence is deafening—silence in the face of injustice, silence in the relentless cycle of blood shed, silence in accepting the racist systems which kill our brothers and sisters. But here’s the thing—our God is full of loving grace. Grace was never meant to free us from judgment; grace was always meant to free us for judgment, so that—in spite of our fear and weakness—we might be filled with His spirit of powerful redeeming, repenting, transforming love. So, friends, this Sunday is different. It won’t feel the same; it won’t be the same. But we shouldn’t be the same. We will remember and rejoice in the promised gift of our savior that was given to change us, change everything. Together—even while apart—we will pray for the Spirit that fills us and resurrects us—and we will pray and pray, until there is something to shout about.

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This week we gather together in worship centered around another one of Jesus’ more troubling parables. It’s the story of a beautiful party and all the reasons most of the guests missed it. They didn’t miss it because they were busy sinning, committing crimes, or hurting people. They missed it because they were prosperous and responsible and because they put their families first.

As we begin to move from Phase 1 into Phase 2 of lifting COVID-19 restrictions, we have to decide what parts of our lives we will pick back up again. This parable reminds us that the choices our culture celebrates are the very choices Jesus warns against in this story. So…how should we live now?  

I hope you’ll listen in as we allow the words of Jesus to shape the next steps of our journey.

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I have terrible eyesight, but I mostly refused to wear glasses until I was in my twenties just because I didn’t like to wear them. And then, when I was 24, I got contacts. I wore them all the time. For the first time in my life, I could see. 

The parables are like that—like spiritual contacts. These stories sit on top of our souls and become the lens through which we see reality clearly for the first time–if we are willing. Without them, we see Jesus and his Kingdom, but not clearly. We can get by, but not very well. We squint and miss connections and, sometimes, crash catastrophically. But when we let these stories correct our sight, we see clearly how to live. Things we thought were familiar to us, like grace, are revealed to be something more.

This Sunday, we use the parable of the unjust tenants to help us see how we are called to live as followers of Jesus. Fair warning, sometimes clear sight terrifies before it clarifies. But all truth is God’s truth—and when we receive the grace to walk in truth, it will set us free.

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Many of us are carrying bruised hearts into worship this Sunday. Some of us have already watched loved ones get buried. Some of us are wondering how much longer we can hold on financially. Some of us are overwhelmed by the mental, relational, and spiritual challenge of continued isolation.

Some of us are raw from the trauma of the lynching of Ahmaud Arbery.

Again and again, through the prophet Isaiah, God consoles, comforts, and warns: “Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old, behold I am doing a new thing, now it springs forth, do you not perceive it, for behold I am creating new heavens and a new earth and the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.” These promises were sealed in Jesus’ words from the throne in Revelation: “Behold, I am making all things new.”

In a whirlwind of pain and suffering, we cling to these words. We cling to all of these words—especially the all—because Jesus entered into time and space to usher in complete and total redemption.

This is always good news, but it is especially good news in a week like this one when we see how trapped we are in cycles of sin, violence, hate, and destruction. God really is making A-L-L things new. Every last bit of reality. But, we can’t embrace and participate in the new if we are clinging to parts of the old. Jesus warns us that the holy new can’t be patched onto the broken old; that, when we try to fit the new reality into the old forms, destruction ensues.

We are called to follow Jesus whole-heartedly into the new realm of God. Among other things, that means telling the truth about the brokenness of the old. That means embracing what is strange and unfamiliar in its uncompromising righteousness. That means trusting God and longing for redemption enough to let go of customs and beliefs that are familiar and seem harmless and benign. It means embracing the same kind of rejection and suffering our Lord endured when he spoke truth and lived among us—all for the offer of new life with and throng him.

So, friends—please listen in as we face the lies we have been freed to rise against.

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Many of us have heard the parable that Jesus told about the man who built his house on a rock and the man who built his house on the sand. But, before he told this story, he asked a question.

“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?”

Why, indeed.

Because, this is what we do, isn’t it? We call him Lord, but we do not do what he says. And—newsflash. It’s not because we don’t understand him, it’s because we can.

Last month, we celebrated the upside down Kingdom of God. This month, we are exploring the parables of Jesus as we learn how to live in his upside down Kingdom.

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Some of us are surprised, and a little ashamed, to admit how difficult just staying home with my family can be. We cycle through feelings of boredom, worry, panic, and frustration. As followers of Jesus, we thought this would be our time to shine with hope and wisdom and courage. We had hoped that this would be a season of great spiritual growth and deepened relationships and creativity and abounding love I thought it might be the beginning of a glorious renewal. Honestly? For many of us, including me, it hasn’t been. And that can be disappointing.

But—Jesus shows up for disappointed people. 

If you haven’t been the person you’d hoped to be in this extraordinary season, or—more devastatingly—if God hasn’t been active in the ways you hoped, this Sunday’s worship service is especially for you. Sometimes, the Upside Down Kingdom of God is so extra-ordinary we can’t miss it, even when we are in the midst of it. I hope you will listen in with us for some real. good. news.

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On Easter evening, Jesus broke into a room, where the disciples had barricaded themselves in fear, and breathed on them.

And what was in him was infectious and contagious. They caught his peace, his power—his Spirit. Jesus gave to them the most impressive and most valuable thing in all creation. And God offers the same to us today.

But do we even want it? In our kingdoms on earth, the Spirit of God is worthless: you can’t sell it or trade it, and everyone gets it for free. And being infected be the Spirit will totally change how people live. It did for the early disciples (just read past the gospel accounts into Acts to see how…), and it can for us if we let it.

Listen in to hear more.

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Mark’s account of the Gospel, and especially his story of the resurrection (which he would have learned from Peter, an eyewitness) is the worst. The story leaves out some of the best details and then ends without much good news at all.

The tomb is empty. But now what?

This Easter, amidst a pandemic and some difficulty seeing the good beyond the present moment when so much of our world is in crisis, we learn something meaningful and powerful about how Mark tells the story of the resurrection. And we learn it’s not so bad after all.

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This Sunday, we enter into Holy Week. And many of the things we treasure most about these days will be absent. We won’t break bread around one long table for our beautiful Maundy Thursday meal and foot washing service. We won’t gather in a hushed and holy sanctuary to sing and pray and weep our way through the passion of Jesus on Good Friday. We won’t hold a prayer vigil on the lawn on Holy Saturday. There won’t be flowers on the cross or eggs on the lawn or pews packed with beautiful people on Easter Sunday.

We won’t have any of those things and I will miss them.

But, these things we won’t have—they were never the things that made this week holy. The things we’ll lack were never the things we were supposed to be celebrating. The moments we’ll miss were never meant to be the sacred center of this holy week that tethers us to our faith.

They were only signs. Beautiful and powerful—but only signs.  They were never holy—they only pointed us toward the Holy in our midst.

The life-giving Holy reality remains, and we may be able to see it and celebrate it and experience it more fully this year than ever.

I believe that these might be the most powerful holy days we ever live.

They will be stripped down and strange and uncomfortable. And they will help us see that it is God who gives us life, not our sacred rituals. We don’t produce Holy Week and Easter for ourselves—we make a space for God to reveal salvation through Jesus Christ.

So, I invite you to enter into this Holy Week with all the real feelings you have—doubt, loss, and fear are welcome. But, make room for some unreasonable expectations and wild anticipations. Because—it’s Holy Week, and there is power and life in the cross of Jesus our savior.

When Jesus entered Jerusalem, those who understood who he was and why he was coming waved branches to celebrate. They rejoiced that he was the savior of the world. They celebrated that he was coming to destroy everything that destroys us. Authorities tried to shut them up, but Jesus said nothing can stop the joy and hope of those who know him.

So, nothing will stop us either.

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This Sunday, we smash our last idol: control. None of us have it anyway, so it’s long past time to stop worshiping it. And we learn how to worship what gives us life: grace. It’s even more than you thought.

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