God’s promised justice, mercy, and peace will surely come to pass, and today it is you and I who are sent to be a part of it.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Second Sunday after Pentecost, Lectionary 11 A
Texts: Genesis 18:1-15, 21:1-7; Matthew 9:35 – 10:8

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Sarah laughed.

She wasn’t supposed to be listening, but what she heard was so ridiculous she couldn’t hold it in. She, ninety years old, would become pregnant by hundred-year-old Abraham?

But was her laughter amused? Or was it bitter? The promise God made to them decades before was so ancient now, her body bent and dry, her bones aching, this was laughable even to talk about. But not very funny. If God had meant to give her a baby with Abraham, God would have done it.

God heard her laughter, and understood. But God said, “yet surely I will do this.” Laugh if you must. Disbelieve. Say, now it’s too late. But I will be back to visit you, and at that time you will have a son.

Sarah laughed, but we don’t.

This earth has waited so long for God’s promised justice and mercy and peace, it’s not funny. The idea of a ninety year old woman having a baby is more realistic to us some days than the thought that what we see in our city and in our country could change, could be transformed.

So instead of laughing, we lament at the pain and suffering we see and hear in our city, the systems of oppression that crush people of color in our society, systems that seem unassailable. And those of us in our Mount Olive community who are white also lament our sinful part in this suffering of others, that we have not always heard this pain, pain caused by systems that benefit those of us who are white.

God hears the cries of God’s children as certainly as God heard Sarah’s laughter, and understands. But God says, “yet surely I will do this.” Say it’s been too long, and it’s too late. Disbelieve that I can do this if you must. But my justice and mercy and peace will come to this earth.

God’s promise has a long timeline, true. But at each step, hope is found.

Baby Isaac does arrive, and is given the name “laughter.” Now Sarah’s laughter is joyful, because God did the unbelievable. It took her whole life to see God’s promise, but see it she did.

But Isaac is more than a baby for a longing mother. Isaac is another step in God’s long plan leading directly to today. Without Isaac, there is no Israel, no Jesus, no Incarnation in our human flesh as we know it. This baby is the start of God coming to be with us.

Jesus’ coming is also just a step in the plan. An enormous, God-sized step, as Jesus is the face of the Triune God for the world. But not to instantly create a world of justice and mercy and peace for all. In the wisdom of the Trinity, the only path to God’s promise is to grow it in the hearts of each of God’s children, one by one, until all live in God’s way. And each time one steps into this way, hope is found.

Today, right now, it’s our turn to take that one step of hope toward God’s promise.

What we do in our city, in our world, today, and tomorrow, from our perspective might seem very small. But like Isaac’s birth, what we do as Christ is advance God’s promised justice and mercy and peace a step further into God’s world.

There’s a huge shift between verses 1 and 2 of Matthew 10 today. In verse one, Matthew says Jesus called out twelve of his disciples and gave them authority to cast out demons and heal the sick. In verse two, Matthew says, “these are the names of the twelve apostles.” In a few words, the disciples – followers – are changed into apostles – ones who are sent.

That’s the move Christ needs in you. To move from following Christ to going out as Christ. To do, as these initial twelve did, the work of Christ in the world. That’s how God’s justice and mercy and peace will eventually reign in this world.

Like the twelve, you and I are sent, Jesus says, “to proclaim the good news, that the reign of heaven has come near.”

The reign of heaven, God’s promised justice and mercy and peace, has come near. Is here. Is happening. Even if it’s hard to see.

And right now, in these days, being Christ, proclaiming that the reign of heaven has come near means walking with our siblings in pain. For those of us who are white, it means listening to how we’re a part of the problem. Offering our love and our ears, and our commitment to be a part of the solution. That’s living the reign of God on earth as in heaven. And in our compassionate listening as a whole community together, honoring all suffering, honestly searching our own hearts for where God needs us to change, we are signs of God’s reign coming near. And another step toward God’s promise.

“When Jesus saw the crowds,” Matthew says, “he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

As you might know, the word translated “compassion” is literally, “torn up in your guts.” Jesus’ guts are torn up over his flock, over their harassment and helplessness, their lack of a shepherd.

And that gut-wrenching compassion of the Triune God now laments over the suffering of God’s children in our city and in our world.

But it is that gut-wrenching compassion of God that is the hope of the world. It drives God’s plan for justice and mercy and peace. It leads God to inhabit all God’s children, to make the promise a reality.

You are no longer just a follower. You are an apostle. A sent one. The Triune God’s life in you fills you with the same gut-wrenching compassion God has, and gives you the courage and strength to walk with all who are in pain and, as signs of God’s reign coming near, partner with all to bring about today’s step toward God’s promised justice and mercy and peace.

But know this: God surely will do this. And then all creatures will be able to laugh with joy.

In the name of Jesus.  Amen

God’s Spirit is poured out on all flesh, all people. That is our challenge to embrace and to end where this truth is denied. It is also the only hope for our world.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen
The Day of Pentecost, year A
Texts: Numbers 11:24-30; Acts 2:1-21; Psalm 104: 24-34, 35b

Beloved in Christ, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

God spoke through the prophet Joel, saying, “I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.”

That’s what’s happening here, Peter proclaimed at Pentecost. The psalmist sings today, “the eyes of all look to you, O God, . . . you send forth your Spirit, and they are created, and so you renew the face of the earth.”

Meanwhile, when God desires to help Moses bear the burden of leadership, sending the Spirit upon seventy elders, something goes wrong. 68 do as they’re told, and gather at the Tabernacle. Two remain in the camp. God’s Spirit pours out on all 70, and the two in the camp prophesy there, instead of at the Tabernacle with the others. Joshua urges Moses to shut them down. Moses speaks well before Joel, before the Psalmist, before Simon Peter, and longs for what they all claim: “Would that all God’s people were prophets,” Moses says, “and that God would put the Spirit on all of them!”

Moses longs for it; Joel declares it; the Psalmist celebrates it; Peter witnesses to it: the Holy Spirit of the one, true God is poured out on all people, all flesh, all God’s children. Without exception. Every single person breathes in and out with the Spirit of God.

So the horror we have seen this week asks this: how can one who breathes the Holy Spirit choke the breath out of another who breathes the Holy Spirit?

How did Derek not see a brother in George? How did he not recognize the God-given breath they both shared, and how could he, minute after terrifying minute, squeeze it from his brother? Cain stopped seeing Abel as his brother, and so was able to kill him.

When I wrote to you Wednesday about George’s murder, the email came in the form we use when one of our community has died. I called George our brother, without qualification or explanation. Some of you were confused by this, because you’ve reached out to me, asking “was he a member of Mount Olive?”

But that’s our problem. If I call him our brother, but say, “he wasn’t a member,” I separate him from me, from you. I don’t know what his faith was. But the identity that matters to Moses, to Joel, to the Psalmist, to Peter, and to the loving and Triune God, is that George and I are are filled with God’s Holy Spirit. God breathed life into George’s body and into mine. Into yours. He is our brother in the only way that matters.

But the society we’ve built, the structures we’ve created, systematically exclude many of God’s Spirit-filled children from breathing freely and justly.

Our society kills people of color with impunity and all are not equal. Our city is burning outside these very windows as proof of this, led by agitators, including white supremacy groups, many from outside our state, who seek to stop any reform or change that will allow all to live and breathe with justice in our city. Every group protesting George’s murder has decried the violence and destruction (which has harmed our most marginalized neighbors more than any) and pled for peaceful, non-violent protests to bring about change. But the resistance to true justice is deep and hateful. Denying Spirit-filled children of God the right to live and breathe freely with justice is embedded in our structures and systems.

Pentecost’s grace and the Scripture’s witness give us only one option: to see God’s Spirit in everyone.

This is not saying, “God doesn’t see color,” or “all lives matter,” hoping to make this not about the racism that it is. This is all about color, and all lives don’t matter in our society.

God sees color. God loves color – look at the rich diversity of skin tones among God’s human creatures! Then look at the rest of the resplendent, kaleidoscopic creation. Diversity isn’t God’s problem, it is God’s joy.

Diversity is our problem. We live in a culture and a society that systematically work to kill God’s delightful diversity. George’s murder was no accident, nor was it isolated. For four hundred years people of color in our country have been tortured, maimed, lynched, often with the participation and support of law enforcement.

And this is only the beginning of the list. We have so many Spirit-filled siblings who also are systematically denied the ability to breathe freely as God’s children: women – all our sisters, and those whose gender isn’t either male or female, those who have immigrated here for a better life and look and speak differently from white people, those who are poor and work their lives to the bone and can’t earn enough to feed their family or keep a roof over their heads, and so many more. The identity that matters in all of these to God and to all God’s witnesses today is that the Spirit of God is in all of our siblings.

Will you see this? Not reluctantly, like Joshua, but longingly, like Moses? And seek to live as you see?

Joshua was concerned about controlling who was authorized to be Spirit-filled. Moses listened. He heard Eldad and Medad prophesying in the camp. He recognized God’s Spirit in them, and sighed deeply his hope that all would receive this gift.

Those of us who are white cannot imagine we know what our siblings of color experience or need changed. We need to ask, listen, and then act as they invite, not believe we have answers.

And if in our siblings we encounter anger, impatience with delay, frustration, grief, we must find the empathy of Christ to love our Spirit-filled siblings in their pain.

God said: “I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.”

This is the great hope of Pentecost for the world, that the Spirit breathes in every single child of God on this earth. Because if God’s Spirit is indeed in all of God’s children, then the Spirit is with us in our dialogue, and we also know what our prayer needs to be:

“Holy Spirit, stir in us, in all of your children, every person on this planet, and change what needs to be changed so all your children breathe freely and justly. Be in our dialogue. Give us ears to listen and humble hearts to receive. Give birth in each of us to the longing and courage to be a part of God’s life and justice and hope for all.”

Amen