Mid-February, I was inspired to consider pet therapy as part of the Spiritual Care I provide to patients, families and colleagues as a hospital chaplain

With the support of hospital management I moved forward to get our Labrador retriever, Daisy, tested and certified as a therapy dog, and began bringing her to work in April

/        /        /

Providing spiritual care to patients and families for about a year

caused me to think that I had a handle on the idea of the Holy Spirit,

Spirit is “pneuma” in Greek

Which literally translates to “wind-breath”

So when I hear “Holy Spirit”

I think about God’s holy and sacred wind-breath

Moving and flowing… blowing through our lives

         /        /        /

As a hospital chaplain I regularly encounter unpredictable and unique situations with illness, tragedy and death

I believe that God’s holy and sacred wind-breath nudges, guides and inspires me

to provide compassionate care to individuals and families

I’ve become accustomed to the support and guidance I believe I receive from the Holy Spirit

I rely upon it

I count on it

Maybe I had even come to think I can predict, manage, or control it

Pentecost is a day when scripture cracks open what we think we can predict, manage and control

And leaves us with more questions than answers

/        /        /

Working with Daisy has opened up a fresh perspective to me

Equipped with my masters degree, 12 months of specialized chaplain training and immersed in an anthropocentric society… I expected Daisy to be a side-car to the work I’m trained to do

I expected to be in charge

I expected to lead Daisy

I expected the Holy Spirit to remain in the box that I had put her in      /        /       

I was completely unprepared to witness Daisy engage her own work   /        /

In spite of my absolute belief in the power of the Holy Spirit, I expected the Holy Spirit to stay in her lane – the lane I had assigned her to

I share this with humility,

as I wonder if many of us have settled into living that compartmentalizes God and the Holy Spirit

to special places and times it feels more “appropriate” to bring God in…

Maybe at church on Sunday

Or when we’re really hoping the test result will go a particular way

Or when we finally acknowledge reaching the limits of our control

After exhausting every possible action we can take

and throw our hands up, releasing our concern to “God’s hands”

But otherwise we operate like the popular phrase…

“We got this!”

/        /        /

So, on Daisy’s first day of work,

One of the first rooms we were called to held a young woman in her 20’s, surrounded by several family members as they waited for biopsy results to tell her if she has cancer

The anxiety and tension were palpable as Daisy sliced through it all, bringing joy and comfort where no human words could

The young woman wished for Daisy to stay and wait with her, but needing to move on, we promised to return later

Upon our return the room had cleared out, with the young woman in bed on her phone and her mom, in tears, hanging up her phone in the doorway

Her mom shook her head no at me and said “we just received really bad news”

When I asked her if she wanted to talk about it she said no. 

But then she moved out into the hallway to Daisy, who stood still with her own sense of awareness and purpose

The mom, with tears rolling down her cheeks, bent over and hug-petted Daisy, saying “this is why you’re here… you make it better…”

I stood there, with my masters degree and specialized training,

after this mom said no to me,

just holding the end of the leash,

witnessing a sacred moment between her and Daisy         /        /

After some time, the mom looked up and said to me,

“thank you for bringing her back”

and went to notify other family members of this really bad news /        /

I was awe-struck and dumbfounded

Not that I was turned down – it happens

But that Daisy was able to provide the spiritual care in that moment that I could not

That I became the side-car to her work

That the Holy Spirit swooped in as a sacred wind-breath…

so free and powerful

inspiring and using a dog to do God’s work in a moment of crisis

Spreading love, comfort and peace

Assuring this mom that she is not alone in her despair       /        /        /

As Daisy and I have continued to work together I’m learning to see and trust the Holy Spirit working through her

Occasionally we will be walking down a hallway and she will stop in front of a room and look at me, unmoving

Somehow she knows her work is in there

– so I knock –

and welcome awe and wonder as I witness the power of the Holy Spirit at work

/        /        /

Pentecost can be an awkward Sunday for us

We are like “the others” in Acts who sneer and think that those inspired by the Holy Spirit must be drunk

We’ve become accustomed to neat and orderly, predictable ways of living and interacting

With one another

And even with God

We assure ourselves and one another

“We got this!”               /        /        /

When Peter reminds the crowd – and us – about the words from Joel that “God declares that I will pour out my (wind-breath) Spirit upon all flesh”

It’s hard enough to consider that the Holy Spirit is for all people

people who think, act and believe differently from me

But what about all animals, birds, fish, bees, butterflies… even dogs?

Imagine the Holy Spirit’s power living and moving through,

inspiring all of creation?! 

The prophet Joel’s use of opposites

Sons and daughters

Young men and old men

Slaves and free

Above and below

Sun and moon

Is intended to demonstrate ALL

/        /        /

Can you believe this wild, untamed God uses ALL living things for God’s glory?

Can you believe this holy, sacred wind-breath blows everywhere

Touching even places we deem profane?

How might this unruly infusion of God impact your beliefs

About where God is and isn’t

about how God is present within your life?

/        /        /

Pentecost challenges us to move beyond our comfortable spaces

Those spaces we close and lock

Making them more reliable for ourselves

Our family

Our friends

This congregation of Faith Lutheran Church

The ELCA

Even our own hearts and minds     /        /        /

Pentecost challenges us to consider that in spite of Artificial Intelligence technology, world-class medicine, specialized training, and our big brains…

There’s a mystery in God, that we cannot understand

We cannot know it

We cannot figure it out

We cannot predict it

We cannot control, confine, direct, or manage it

We cannot contain the mystery of God!

         /        /        /

But we can feel it

We can experience it

We can witness it

We can be awe-struck and dumbfounded by it

We can participate in it

/        /        /

So today, we may find ourselves, like the disciples in the gospel of John

Closed and Locked

Closed and Locked in fear

Closed and Locked in assumptions

Closed and Locked in the ways we’ve always believed or acted or thought

/        /        /

And in spite of our locks

Jesus the Christ, The Holy Spirit, God almighty

Enters                 /        /        /

God breaks through our closed and locked places

With holy and sacred wind-breath

And says to us: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” 

Christ breathes on us and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

/        /        /

We gather here today

In the midst of our own locks

And are reminded on Pentecost

That God’s Holy Spirit is for us

For us and for ALL

We are assured that God will go to great lengths to remind us of this power and promise

Speaking to us in a language only we can understand

Giving us a variety of gifts to recognize and share

Even showing us a dog who has her own work to do

All for the glory of God

Amen

This past Thursday was Ascension Day.  The Ascension refers to the claim of the church that the risen Jesus has “gone up” to share power and honor and glory and majesty with God. It is a claim made in our creed that “he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.” Now, if you want to, you can vex about this prescientific formulation. But you can also, as I do, take the claim as a majestic poetic affirmation that makes a claim for Jesus, that Jesus now is “high and lifted up” in majesty, that the one crucified and risen is now the one who shares God’s power and rules over all the earth.

The disciples witnessed this departure of Jesus. They have been summoned ss witnesses. They have been promised power. They have been instructed to wait. And they have been assured of God’s rule.  In the second part of the reading from Acts today, they then go to Jerusalem and gather in the upstairs room where they were staying. They are there with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as Jesus’ brothers; They are gathered to pray and wait. 

I find it significant that there are women disciples here with the men. This is more than a footnote.  Women are an integral part of the early church. Although, as Gale O’Day writes in the Women’s Bible Commentary, the women do not yet have equal standing with the men: only Mary is named and the other women are anonymous; and when they have an election a few verses later, only a male can be elected to replace Judas as the twelfth apostle. 

But something else caught my attention this week. I counted the number of male disciples in verse 13 and came up with 11. Do you sense something strange about this? We instinctively want to read “the twelve disciples.” In his story of the Great Commission, Matthew says, “Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.” Matthew, and Luke, have used the term “the twelve” so frequently that it has become a catch phrase. We are reminded here at the beginning of the Book of Acts that this is a broken community.

Judas is no longer with them. He will commit suicide a few verses after today’s reading. Of course, that isn’t the only brokenness this community has experienced. Peter has denied Jesus. The others, all the followers except some faithful women, had fled. Luke reminds us: this is a broken community. 

I think it is a lot like us because we know brokenness too.  What are some of the broken communities we experience? 

(1)               We all know the pain and separation that comes when people graduate, or change jobs, when children leave home, when old people die.  We feel the sadness and grief.  But we anticipate this type of broken community, we expect it, and in some sense, we plan for the separation. 

(2)               There is another kind of broken community which is more difficult for us—the one we did not anticipate or choose. We have all experienced the unexpected death of people we love who die before they have fully lived.  We grieve over our loss for a long time.  This community broken by tragic death is difficult for us to understand.  We have all been touched directly or indirectly by such tragedies. 

(3)               Many of us also know the pain and anguish and despair which comes when the community of the family is broken—by unfaithfulness, betrayal, separation, or divorce.

(4)               In our own congregation we know that struggles, conflicts, hurt feelings and disagreements sometimes arise. 

(5)               We face a time in the life of our church where many congregations, especially smaller ones, are closing or struggling to keep their ministry going.

For the evangelist Luke, the author of Acts, it is a broken, imperfect community that receives the Commission “You will be my witnesses.”.  I find this to be good news. I am often deeply aware of my own faults and weaknesses.  As we are in touch with our own brokenness and the brokenness of the communities of which we are a part, then we’re ready to hear the words of the risen Christ.

Without this awareness of the disciples’ broken community, we could easily mistake Jesus’ word as a triumphalistic church growth slogan. Form the mission task forces! Unfurl the banners! “You will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth.” “Like a mighty army, moves the church of God!” But the reader now knows better. We are painfully aware that the church, embodied in these disciples, possesses no resources to mobilize and has no troop strength to send into the fray.  By itself, the church has nothing of what it takes to perform Christ’s mission. 

It is to a broken community of disciples, to the group that has shrunk from twelve to eleven, that Jesus says, “You will be my witnesses.” Where will they get the strength for this?  They have nothing!  Jesus has already told them.  “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”  In this promise, the church, having nothing, is given everything.  The call to be Jesus’ witnesses isn’t given to great people, but to ordinary people, broken people, sometimes doubting people—people who are recipients of Gods’ grace in Jesus Christ, people who are loved by God, people who are empowered by the Holy Spirit. 

Don’t be afraid. Jesus is alive. Go. Those of are the words of the first Easter sermon from the angels at the empty tomb.  Go into all the world with the Good News of the resurrection.  You shall be my witnesses. I am with you always. 

This is a special musical presentation of the Parting Blessing by Chris Lewis, Deb Borton, Ryan Thompson and Addie Thompson at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

“Honesty and love”…foundational words that came to me during my junior year in college in 1963 and ’64.  Years marked by JFK’s assassination… by George Wallace declaring “segregation forever”… by the reawakening of the women’s movement (Betty Friedan)…by MLK’s arrest in Birmingham –“Parading without a permit”…  by the cruel tactics of Bull Connor… by the Supreme Court ruled that state mandated Bible reading in schools was unconstitutional….by an attack on American journalists in South Vietnam…by our entrance into the war in Viet Nam after North Vietnamese torpedo boats attacked a US destroyer ship in the Gulf of Tonkin…  by MLK’s “I have a dream” speech and his letter from the Birmingham Jail, by the bombing at 16^th St. Baptist Church in Birmingham killing four young children, by a mock election to protest systematic disenfranchisement of blacks in Mississippi, by the killing Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby, …by Nelson Mandela sentenced to life in prison….by President Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act.  A tumultuous both deeply troubling and hope-filled time in so many ways, affecting so many lives…

“Honesty and love”…   One day in my sophomore year while working in the chemistry lab (pursuing a major in chemistry), it came to me that this was not to be my profession.  My grades were fine, though calculus was a struggle.  But my really difficult, deeper struggle was about discerning what God was calling me to be and do with my life.  My father, grandfather, and great grandfather were all pastors.  I was determined not just to follow in their footsteps.

This past week my brother, Jim, and I drove to Dubuque, Iowa to visit folks at Wartburg Seminary where my dad, grandpa, and great grandpa had all studied to become pastors.   Jim and I, together with Phylis and Jim’s wife, Livvy, were supporting a new program intended to equip men and women especially in Latinx faith communities to become pastors through study and practice in their home place, honoring each person’s learning pace and style (rather than having to move themselves and their families to the seminary, to try to conform to a more traditional educational model).  We’ve been giving gifts for this new initiative to honor the memory of our forebears who set high bars for commitment and diligence and often, creativity in their ministries.  We wanted to see how this new way of forming leaders for the mission of the church was progressing.  

At 20+ years old in those early ‘60’s, I couldn’t see myself measuring up to the gifts and contributions of my forebears.  But now realizing that being a chemist was probably not the best path for my future, I started to pray:  Okay, God, I haven’t experienced a clear call from you to follow in my family’s footsteps, but [in the words of the anthem the choir sang last Sunday] I’ll take “one step” toward becoming a pastor.  I’ll continue to pursue a degree in chemistry (just in case) but also take classes like Greek and world religions to prepare for seminary.   At least bless me, God, by clearly closing the door to this path if this is not what you want for me to be and do.   

And now some 60 years later, while more than once I have struggled with doubts and feelings of inadequacy for this calling, I realize that God never shut the door.  To paraphrase the words of the psalmist, God heard me.  God did not reject my prayer.  God did not withhold unfailing love for me.  God did not leave me alone.  And in the language of the Gospel, Jesus did not leave me orphaned.  I was never not God’s child, never not a member of God’s family, never not with Jesus and the Holy Spirit at my side

Surely the times we live in now are no less tumultuous than in 1963.  All I knew then and more fully know now was that, is that, honesty and love are all that matters.  Now I can say more confidently from whence that honesty and love comes.  Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.  This is the Spirit of truth [honesty]…I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you…because I live, you also will live.”

This is the gospel, the good news I proclaim to you this morning.  In what ever ways you struggle, in what ever ways you worry about what’s happening in our world, however befuddled and discouraged you may be by the plethora of lies and hate, Jesus, risen from the dead, asks only that we love him and that we love one another.   Jesus, risen from the dead, promises to plant in our hearts the Spirit of truth.  Through this Holy Spirit Jesus will never not walk with us, never not stand up with us and for us. 

Then, living lives of God-given honesty and love, whether as a chemist or a pastor, a teacher or a line worker, whether single or married, whether working full time or semi-retired, whether a mother or father, daughter or son, we can live boldly and humbly and reverently and gently and graciously in this world too often filled with broken promises, with fear, harshness and ill will.

For to us, through Jesus’ suffering and death and resurrection, is given the Spirit of truth and of love.  One day we will all be judged by this One who died for us, who daily forgives all our sins, forgives all our deceptions, forgives all our failures to love as we ought.  We will be judged by the One who raises us up every day to try again to be honest and loving. On that day that One who judges us will also stand with us and for us. This judge is the One who heard our cries, listened to our prayers, and never, never stopped loving us.

Amen.

This is a special musical presentation of There Is a Redeemer by the Faith Lutheran Chancel Choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

This is a special musical presentation of One Step, He Leads by the Faith Lutheran Chancel Choir at Faith Lutheran Church in Okemos, Michigan.

If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.     

This bold, seemingly audacious promise of Jesus is given to his disciples and to the infant church in the first century and even now to us who would follow him in this 21^st century.  “If in my name…”  

If we are troubled in mind or heart, we need only ask Jesus for comfort and he will give it.  If we are overcome by shame or self-loathing, we need only ask Jesus for the assurance that we are beautiful in his sight and he will give it.

If we have nightmares of being lost and alone as I often do, we need only to ask Jesus to walk with us and he will do it…  It is in his name, in his nature to save us from falsehoods, from dead ends, from paths that lead nowhere.  Our risen Lord is with us on this fifth Sunday of Easter, this first Sunday after we said “goodbye” to Pastor Ellen.  If only we ask in his name, he is right here, right now, holding our hands, gently but firmly, assuring us that all will be well. 

I talked yesterday morning with the son of a good friend who shared with me that his father was near death.  In the course of the conversation I asked him if he had a sense, even palpably, that Christ was with him and his family in this difficult moment.  His response was to me profound:  “Jesus has been there most clearly in the way my brother and my mother and I have been there to lift each other up when any one of us was exhausted or very down.”

I thought about how it is here at Faith, about the way we are with each other when we grieve or are anxious.  I think about Jesus’ words:  I am the way, and the truth, and the life…  The risen Lord Jesus is palpably with us when his great love for us and in us is expressed in our doing our best to listen carefully to each other and maybe, at some level of consciousness, asking the Holy Spirit to guide and prompt us to be as fully present as possible in those moments when another troubled soul shares something of their heart with us, whether in spoken words or in body language. 

Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  Probably too often those words of Jesus are used to pronounce condemnation on those who do not believe in Jesus as their Lord and Savior…Like our Muslim sisters and brothers who dined and visited with us Friday evening.  Those words can be used to coerce people to make that confession of faith in the triune God out of fear of damnation, of going to hell.

But that is to miss the whole point of what Jesus said and to whom he said it.  It was spoken to his disciples who would soon lose their wonderful leader to an ugly, shameful death on the cross.  Jesus spoke these words to people whose dreams of a wonderful, messianic kingdom led by Jesus were already shattering when he shared with them that he would soon be condemned, suffer and die.  It is spoken to us whenever our hopes and dreams have been or, we fear, are about to be shattered.

But knowing their fears and their grief at the impending loss of their friend, Jesus said to his disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Believe in God, believe also in me.  In my Father’s house….I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.  And you know the way to the place where I am going.”    As Pastor Ellen taught us in a recent sermon, Thomas, the one we tend to denigrate because of his doubts, is the brave one, brave enough to be totally honest:  “Lord, we do not know where you are going.  How can we know the way?”  And to him, and to us who would be his disciples:  “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  

These words are not meant to be a weapon to frighten or convince people to become Christians.  They are meant to assure us that when we are baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus, when day after day the Holy Spirit kindles within us even a flicker of faith in God, Jesus thereby claims us as his own.  Whenever life goes horribly wrong, when we get the s___ kicked out of us, whenever we feel lost or confused or desolate, exactly in those hard, scary moments, Jesus takes us by the hand and gently leads us to his Father’s house.

Of course this is picture language.  It is Jesus’ frequent way of helping us to see that there will always be room for us, always a place for us, a safe place where he will always patiently hear our cries, always understand us, always comfort us, and, I think importantly, always challenge us, always invite us to do wonderful work for him. 

After the Friday evening dinner and presentations by the iman and myself, and the thoughtful questions we were asked, a young man came up to me with one more question.  Coming from India, he told me there were many religions  and many gods.  It was not uncommon, he said, for various people to pronounce themselves to be god.  So, he asked me, “How do you know what is true?  How do you define or describe God?  Really good questions.  I shared with him what Martin Luther once said:  Your god is whatever or whomever you ultimately trust.

After I said this, I was thinking, one’s God could be one’s investments, one’s hard work, one’s intelligence, one’s friendships, one’s influence on or over others.  But it was clear to me, especially as I was thinking about this sermon, that for me it was Jesus.  For me he is the way, the truth, and the life.  He alone together with the Father and the Holy Spirit is worthy of my ultimate trust.  I didn’t try to convince my new Muslim friend of this.  But I do think Jesus was in our conversation, in the way we talked to each other, in the honesty we shared, in our understandings of what matters, what life is all about.

Often this Gospel text is read and preached at funerals.  I have done so many times.  We think of the Father’s house in heaven where there are many dwelling places [“many mansions”] Jesus has prepared for us after we die.  But I think this text is just as much about life here on earth.  Because Jesus went away for awhile, temporarily leaving his disciples; because Jesus left us all for awhile, dying on the cross, he thereby took away and into his body all of our sins, all of our broken relationships, all of our failures to be merciful and compassionate.  Then on the third day Jesus rose from death to take us to a safe place, to sit with us and listen to our sorrows, to take our hands and lead us on his way through the pain and darkness of this life to a place with enough light and insight and truth and courage to live each day by faith, to live each day by grace, to live each day in a growing love for and with God and for and with each other.

I don’t know this morning if my good friend has already died and is now face to face with Jesus.  I do know that, in the words of his son, Jesus was, for him and his family, the very present way and truth and life with a loving God, with a loving Father.

“If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”  Jesus, sit by us today, walk with us today, listen to us today, then lead us this very day to do whatever will make this world a little less anxious, a little more honest, and most of all, a lot more in love with you.

Amen.