Early in the morning, there was the rush of a mighty wind.   Straight line, hurricane force winds were so strong the large white pine tree in our front yard was knocked down and one very large branch abruptly crashed through our roof, landing on our living room floor.  Trees were toppled throughout the city, hundreds of buildings and vehicles were damaged and power was down throughout most of Muskegon county.  It was Sunday morning, May 31, 1998.  I will always remember worship on that day.  Without electricity, we sang hymns by candlelight.  And, most memorably, accompanied by piano and not organ, the choir sang one of the great choral pieces from The Creation, by Franz Joseph Haydn. That Sunday, May 31, 1998, will be forever etched in my memory because it was also Pentecost Sunday, a celebration of the outpouring of God’s Spirit in the world.  And, the Spirit of God was very present as we gathered for worship on that extraordinary morning.

Today, on this Sunday, May 31, 2020, we again celebrate Pentecost, and I am reminded of that morning twenty-two years ago. I am reminded of the great, destructive, mighty winds, that blew through our community.  Powerful wind, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunami waves – they all fascinate us.  But, nothing really prepares us for the degree of power displayed in these forces of nature as they tear apart our lives.  Destructive power of this magnitude leaves behind unrecognizable landscapes and devastated communities.  And, when we experience such power, life changes.  In an instant the world is turned upside down by a tremendous release of energy through wind, water, air, fire, or earth. 

Another power, a creative, life-giving power of a very different dimension and magnitude informs our faith.  It is also a power that changes lives, but in a very different way.  This is the power the disciples experienced on the day of Pentecost.  This is the power that was received by a small, insignificant group of men and women gathered in Jerusalem as they waited for a promise to be fulfilled.  During that time of waiting, nothing could have prepared them for the strength and power that was about to hit them.  Nothing could have prepared them for the magnitude of their enlightenment as they responded to the world-shattering, transforming, creative Spirit of God.  You see, to stand in its path was to catch fire with divine love.  In an instant, the disciples’ world was turned inside out by a tremendous rush of creative power released into their hearts and minds, souls and bodies – a power the writer of Luke/Acts describes as manifesting itself in tongues of fire upon their heads.

The creative energy that rushed in and was poured out among them was more powerful than any of the natural powers and forces that tear apart.  When this happened, the eyes of their hearts were opened to a world that was previously unknown, an experience that did not fit any of their previous experiences or categories.  They saw a new world through new eyes.  The many differences of culture and language that separated one from another crumbled under the force of this unifying power.  Suddenly, in an instant, each could speak and hear with the same understanding.. 

While the power of nature opens us to the enormity of its ability to destroy, the power of the Spirit opens our hearts and creates.  This is a power that creates new relationships among people and a new intimacy with God.  Bridges that are made by human hands crumble by the force of natural disaster.  But, the Spirit builds bridges beyond time and space, bridges that bind the slave and the free, men and women, Jew and Gentile. This is the power of the Spirit of God, the power that changes lives, the power that sustains creation, the power that reunites what has been torn apart, the power that reconciles the alienated.  This Spirit of Pentecost is the power that rushes into the world as out of nowhere and even breathes life into the place of death. 

Friends, we are presently seeing two pandemics, the pandemic of systemic racism that plagues our culture and the COVID-19 pandemic. We are experiencing not only the divisive, destructive nature of both, but also the resulting grief and pain of both. We grieve George Floyd’s horrific death and we grieve the death of hundreds of thousands to COVID-19. Racism and this virus are like destructive winds blowing throughout the country as they annihilate lives.  Last Sunday evening, I watched the United Council of Churches online Memorial Service for all who have died.  In the depth of pain and death, the creative, life-giving, Spirit was so very present during that service as clergy leaders from multiple denominations participated sharing words of remembrance, grief, faith, and hope.  Some read scripture and prayed in their native languages – Korean, Spanish, French, and the native language of the Navajo tribe.  In the depth of diversity, the oneness of God’s Spirit was remarkably present, the oneness that only God’s Spirit creates.  It was healing and life-giving.  Bishop Michael Curry gave the sermon and he observed that as Jesus was dying on the cross, he said, “Into your hands, I commend my spirit.”  Bishop Curry noted that, at that very moment when Jesus commended his spirit to God’s care as he died, that was also the very moment that marked the beginning of resurrection!  Friends, we, too, commend the spirits and lives of all who have died to God’s care.  And, we commend our very lives to God’s ever-present care, God’s unfathomable love, and God’s ever living, ever creating Spirit. 

As I look at the church today during these challenging times, I do believe God is doing something new among us.  God is transforming the church in ways we do not presently understand, and it is happening before our very eyes.  You see, God’s Spirit is not restricted by human will, desire, thinking or even chaotic circumstances.  We cannot drive its wind or stop its force, any more than we can control hurricane force winds or the devastation of this COVID-19 virus.  We cannot seem to catch it, contain it, control it, or confine it.  As we celebrate this day and remember Pentecost, we celebrate the certain and sure promise that wherever the fire burns, wherever the wind blows, wherever chaos and life intersect, the Spirit of God is there, blowing where it will and driving God’s people into the heart of mission, God’s mission in this world. 

This is the power of Pentecost, the outpouring of God’s Spirit upon the disciples, not only two thousand years ago, but also right here and right now.  And, both then and now, the Spirit rushes in and transforms our experience.  Both then and now, the Spirit breaks open the old to reveal the magnitude of God’s connecting power and there is no returning to the old frame of reference.  Both then and now, lives are changed forever.  Both then and now, hearts are broken open to a dimension of relationship newly reconciled through the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Both then and now, there is no end to the horizon of God’s loving embrace. 

Yes, as I think back and remember that Pentecost morning when a large tree branch broke through the ceiling onto our living room floor, I am always reminded that the creative energy of God overwhelms even the most destructive powers of human beings and nature.  The creative Spirit of God that transformed Jesus’ death on a cross into the greatest act of love the world has ever seen, the creative Spirit of God that raised Christ from the dead, is the same creative Spirit that rushes in and through our own world and is reconciling and reuniting all of creation through us, within us and for us – for the life of the world.

I know that one of the things we deeply grieve during this pandemic time is our inability to gather as people of faith.  We are made to live in relationship with others and we grieve not being able to physically be together in community.  One major theme throughout the gospel of John is relationships.  John’s gospel is all about the relationship of God with the person of Jesus Christ, and God’s relationship with humanity.  In fact, we can say John’s gospel is about God’s relationship with all of creation, with the cosmos.  The gospel of John is all about God revealing God’s glory, the very nature of God’s self, and God’s love for the cosmos as seen through the relationship of love shown to us in the person of Jesus.  If you recall the first words of John’s gospel, you will remember it begins by revealing something about relationship.  We read:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.  What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.

Did you hear all the words that reveal a sense of relationship?  The Word was with God!  Everything that is created came into being because of God’s desire for relationship.  And, this relationship brings life, life that truly matters.  It is about relationship that is life-giving. 

In John, while the imagery varies like the different instruments of an orchestral piece, the same theme regarding relationship is repeated throughout the gospel, and the melody of that theme is clearly heard in today’s account of Jesus’ final prayer.  The Son came to bring life.  That life consists of living in a knowing relationship with God.  Relationship is what we were created for and that is the dominant melody of this gospel.  Throughout his ministry, Jesus invited people into relationship with God.  And then, after his departure, the Spirit through the disciples will take that offer of life and relationship to the whole world.

Today, we hear John’s version of Jesus’ prayer on the night before his death. Jesus is facing his hour of glory which, in this gospel, means his crucifixion. This is the time for which the “Word of God” was born.  And, Jesus is concerned about something:  disunity and division.  You see, disunity and division destroy relationship.  So, Jesus prays that the disciples will be one.  He desires unity for his followers.  This unity is not a cleverly ambiguous declaration which papers over differences among people.  It is rather an extension of John’s understanding of what eternal life or salvation mean.  In John’s gospel, eternal life is not about a place or a gift or a certificate of acquittal for life after death so much as it is about a relationship. That relationship is one of love and oneness, just like the relationship which exists between the Father and the Son.  So, it must also include such a relationship of love among disciples; otherwise something is simply not being properly understood. If the focus in understanding salvation is not on this relationship, but, say, primarily on a place or a certificate of acquittal for life after death, then the horizontal dimension of mutual love as it is to be lived among people of faith will likely to be the casualty.  For far too long, Christianity has been plagued with thinking of eternal life as a commodity we possess that ensures life after death.  Such an interpretation bankrupts this gospel’s meaning of eternal life and what relationship with God are all about.  John’s gospel is about living eternal life, right here and right now.  John’s gospel invites us into an awareness and understanding of being and living the good news by being the community in which and through which self-giving love is lived out.   

In today’s reading as Jesus faces his impending death, we find that he has needs, just like we do. Jesus states that he wants the closest relationship with God that is possible. That is what he is asking for, and that is what we long for.  Jesus seeks a hope, a hope for communion, for relationship, for life together. John’s gospel is pointing us to that as our hope.  Yes, it is about a future hope.  However, it has a future because it has a present which we already, right here and now, share and delight in as we live in relationship to God and each other.  It is living the life of God’s in-breaking reign right here and right now, living in an interactive relationship with God, a relationship of self-giving love. This is life that truly matters, it is living connected to others as we bear God’s self-giving love in this world. That is the oneness and unity of which Jesus is speaking.

This unity for which Jesus prays is not some ethereal concept.  It is not a unity that sugarcoats the challenges and differences we experience within the life of community, pretending they do not exist.  No, the unity of which this prayer speaks is the oneness of the human with the divine that has been the constant theme of this gospel. This unity is found in understanding God, not as an external being, but as the essence of life itself.  And, this is a unity in which our differences and the diversity among us are celebrated and affirmed. 

Friends, as we look at the world and our communities while thinking about unity, one of the remarkable aspects of unity is that there can be NO unity without accepting and appreciating the wondrous diversity of who we are as people.  Such unity needs diversity.  Such unity means receiving and incorporating the richness of diversity among us.  This understanding of unity gifts us with a sense of wholeness because we need rich diversity so that we can become whole. 

In our western culture we are so deeply rooted in individualism that the communal aspect and appreciation of diversity seems progressively lost.  Increasingly in our culture, we are shaped by dualistic thinking which makes us take positions of us versus them, mine versus yours, etc., to the point in which we as people often seem unable to function.  We see that dangerously present in our culture today.  However, the oneness and unity of which Jesus speaks moves us beyond such thinking.  It moves us to live so that we truly care for and love others. This is about a oneness and unity of mission and purpose.

Friends, even though we cannot gather as we used to, we are living this self-giving love and living this God given unity as we continue to do things like support our Parish House/Samaritas Project.  We are living this self-giving love and God given unity by means of the new ministries we are developing through our Caring Committee.  We are living this unity as we gather for online worship.  We are living this unity as we continue to care for each other. And, we are even living this unity as together we grieve the death of 100,000 people whose lives were lost over the last 110 days.  We live the love of Christ as we grieve and acknowledge that each one of those lives must be remembered.

          Today, we hear Jesus pray for all his followers, for each one of us, and his prayer is all about his desire that we continue to live in a relationship of self-giving love with God and each other.  That is God’s desire for us and for this world. I pray that we continue to live into that kind of love, even during these challenging times.

The known God in whom we live and move and have our being opens us to understanding the love of God. God’s salvation is intended to embrace all creation. The gift that enables us to truly define reality, is the loving relationship that is God’s very nature.  That God of love who abides in us even crosses our limits and breaks through the boxes in which we try to place God.  This known God has infinite love for the world and for all people.  And, like Paul, we are commanded to live this message by living God’s love and sharing the good news of God’s love with others.

Some of you know my youngest son and his family live on Grand Cayman Island. I visited them early in March of this year and, as I said goodbye on March 13, I suspected it would be a very long time before I would see them again. The following Monday the island indefinitely suspended all flights and travel to and from the island. In Michigan, everything began to close, and I began to realize the magnitude of this growing pandemic and the fact that it would truly be a very long time before I could again spend time with any of our kids and grandkids. Every time I say goodbye to our kids, especially those who are so far away, I feel this breaking or tearing in my heart and, when I left on March 13, that tearing apart was much more intense. My heart was very troubled as I was becoming deeply aware that we don’t know what the future holds. And, I felt a real sense of grief as I realized we were experiencing the death of life as we have known it.

As we enter today’s gospel reading, we find ourselves in community with the disciples as we hear Jesus saying goodbye.  Jesus and the disciples had gathered for an evening meal, and he is sharing with them his farewell words.  He has told the disciples he will be leaving them, and they simply do not understand.  Their hearts are very troubled as they sense their time with Jesus is coming to an end.  They have no idea what is going to happen next, no idea that Jesus will be arrested.  They do not understand that Jesus’ crucifixion and death loom on the horizon. It is in this setting that we hear Jesus’ words as he prepares them for his departure. 

I can only imagine the emotion in that room.  Jesus knows the political climate is heating up.  He knows trouble lies ahead.  He also sees the disciples’ anxiety levels rise when they hear him speak words of goodbye.  You see, their vision of the Messiah included trusting a strong leader who would liberate them from Roman occupation.  It did not include a Messiah who would be leaving them. And, they had no idea they were about to experience horror beyond their wildest imagination.  While their hearts were presently troubled, they were about to experience anxiety so intense it would blind them, causing them to flee as their Messiah is crucified.

Knowing the disciples’ hearts are troubled and torn, Jesus says, “Believe in God, believe also in me.”  It is important to know that the words “believe in” would be better translated as “trust into.”  The Greek tense used for this word implies ongoing or continuous relationship.  The use of “into” implies intimate relationship and long-term solidarity with Jesus.  It infers becoming embedded in relationship to God, embedded into the very life of God and into Jesus who is God’s representative.   

As the disciples hear Jesus’ words, they want to know where he is going.  They want to cling to the safety found in location.  They want to know where he is going and how they can go with him.  So, Jesus offers them a metaphor.  He gives them a metaphor for place, a place where they will be able to find him.  He calls it a dwelling. 

Throughout the gospel of John, location is used as a metaphor for intimacy and for relationship.  The words Jesus speaks about dwelling are not simply about a future place where the disciples will be able to find Jesus.  They are about a very present reality, about the place of God’s presence in their lives as they travel their life journeys.  Jesus’ words about dwelling express the reality that God is already present to them, God already dwells here, God already dwells with them and with us on this earth.  

It is also interesting to note the meaning of Greek word used for dwelling means a temporary resting place for a traveler.  This word was associated with caravans.  “In those days, there would be a contingent of folks who would go ahead of the caravan to ‘prepare a place’ so that when the caravan arrived there, the camp ground had been organized, the water supply located, and food was ready.  The travelers in the caravan would have a place of comfort to spend the night.” (John Petty) So, the Greek word used for dwelling or habitation implies a place that is all about welcome, hospitality, and community for people traveling on a journey. 

Well, pragmatic Thomas, the one who is always the realist, wants to get this right.  He hears words about place and dwelling and he wants Jesus to give him a road map!  He wants to get to the place Jesus is talking about.  What Thomas and the others don’t get, is that Jesus is not talking about geography!  So, Jesus responds saying that he is the Way, he is the real and living way.  He does not say, “Here is a list of things you must do to get to God, here is a list of beliefs and you must sign on the bottom line, here is a recipe, a confession, a creed.”  No.  He says, “I am the Road, also the Truth, also the Life.  You know me, you’ve been living this way, this road, with me.  And, you already know God. The place where I am going is all about God.  I go to the future where God is already present, and I go to prepare that future for you. You see, the present and the future are both saturated and permeated with God and I go to draw you into that future where I will already be. It is all about life with God, now and in the future.  So, trust into me.”

Jesus’ metaphor provides words of assurance and promise that the relationship is going to continue, even as it changes, and life continues. For the disciples and for us, this journey with Jesus is affirmed.  Jesus will always be present.  Life with Jesus is not a destination, it is a way of being and becoming.  The disciples, and each one of us, will not be forgotten.

Jesus is not talking about a destination or about location, he is really talking about where we place our trust and our hearts. In the large catechism, Luther asks what it means to have a God and he essentially answers by saying that God is what you hang your heart upon. The heart that is troubled is a heart that does not hang upon God but hangs rather on all the things the world peddles to soothe a troubled heart.  In a time of deep uncertainty, Jesus tells the disciples, “Hang your hearts on God; hang your hearts on me.  That is where your home really is.”  And, he tells them that the God on whom they may hang their hearts “has room for them.”  Theologian Robert Jenson writes about God’s roominess in relation, not to space, but to the time God has for us.  He writes:

What is time?  My answer is created time is room in God’s own life.  If creation is God’s making room in himself, then God must be roomy….this roominess of God should be thought of as God’s ‘time,’ that God’s eternity is not immunity to time but God’s having all the time God needs.” 

Friends, that metaphor of God’s roominess is so meaningful for troubled hearts.  What has troubled the disciples’ hearts is a very real sense that their time with Jesus has come to an end. Each one of us have the same kind of relationship with time because we, too, experience the way time robs us of time with those we love.  But, we hang our hearts on the God who has all the time God needs for each one of us and for those we love.  The place Jesus is preparing in God’s own life is eternal life, which, as Robert Jenson often says, is simply another name for God.  And, in Christ, we already dwell in that place, in the very life of God, now and for all eternity.  That is our true home.

As we miss those we love and as we live in these challenging times when our hearts may be troubled, listen again to Jesus’ words to us as he says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Trust into God, trust also into me.  This God in whom we trust is a God who is always with us, a God who loves us so much that this God has chosen not to be God without us.  Your future is secure. The future of your loved ones is secure. A way is being made for you. It is true, that way will entail death. But, death will give way to life, life abundant, life that truly matters.”

I know that, as we continue to live our lives within the context of this pandemic, there is a soundtrack of fear playing in the background of our minds. Many of us are experiencing an element of fear. I know I do. I fear for the health and well-being of all my kids and their spouses, my grandkids, my extended family, my friends and all of you. I pray everyone makes it through this pandemic, coming out healthy and whole on the other side once a vaccine is discovered. So, as I am honest and acknowledge that sense of fear, it is comforting to me that our readings today focus on God as our shepherd, the Good Shepherd. It is reassuring because I know I can place my trust in the Good Shepherd, regardless of what happens and what the future brings.

We just heard the words of Psalm 23.  This is probably one of the best known, best loved poems in scripture.  It is known by people around the world.  In fact, I am sure many of you know Psalm 23 by heart.  As we live these present days, this psalm tells each one of you that God is like a Good Shepherd, caring for you, protecting you and guiding you.  God is the Good Shepherd who walks with you through all of life and provides you with what you need, even in dark valleys when we experience the shadow of death, even in trying times like those we now are experiencing.

          In today’s gospel reading from John we hear more about the one we call the Good Shepherd. For the community to which John was writing, living with fear was a familiar aspect of daily existence. John’s community lived with the reality of persecution and the threat of extinction. Their first-century Mediterranean world was a scary place. Persecutions were heating up, and the followers of Jesus were, in the eyes of Rome, just more lambs for the lions. The Jesus movement was still new, struggling to define itself against the threat of Rome and the threat of competing philosophies and counter claims to truth.

So, within that social context, these early Christians told stories. Often, meeting under cover of darkness, hidden from the authorities, huddled in some secret spot while listening for the sound of Roman boots, they told stories to counter the fear. They told stories that helped to remind them of their identity, to remind them to whom they belonged, and remind them where they could place their trust. When they heard the story of the shepherd and the sheep, it helped them remember who they were and whose they were.  It reminded them of their identity as Christians.

The metaphor of sheep and shepherd made sense to John’s community. In ancient Palestine, multiple shepherds brought their sheep into a common sheepfold for the night. In the morning, in order to take their sheep out to the fields for grazing, each shepherd had to separate his sheep from the common flock. Each sheep had a name, and each shepherd had a unique manner or way of calling his sheep, so each sheep would respond only to its own shepherd. Even if another shepherd called the sheep by its own name it would not respond. It was the knowing that counted.

Yes, John’s community knew about good shepherds. And they also knew about bad shepherds, the thieves of the story who taxed the poor into poverty, the ones who starved the people and fed only themselves, the ones who traded the shalom of their tradition for the Pax Romana of empire. No doubt they longed for a good shepherd. In John’s telling of the Jesus story, they hear that Jesus is the Good Shepherd, the way of comfort and sustenance, abundance and strength, even in the face of death.

I can also imagine that, in their social context, there were times when the people’s fear got the best of them, and they became more concerned about the identity of the stranger than their own identity. But the story of the shepherd helped them to remember a better way. They knew about the way of the Good Shepherd, and that was the way of love, not fear. They became the people of the Good Shepherd. In fact, we know that early Christians began to scratch the image of the Good Shepherd with a lamb slung over his shoulders on catacomb walls; they painted frescoes onto baptismal fonts to mark the beginning of life and they carved the Good Shepherd into tombs, to mark the end of life. They belonged to the Good Shepherd, from the beginning of their lives to end of their lives. The term Good Shepherd was much more than words, much more than an idea. This understanding of Jesus as their Good Shepherd deeply shaped their very identity and way of life. They understood they were to live the Good Shepherd way. The early Christians in John’s community knew they belonged.  And, it did not stop there.  The way of the Good Shepherd was the way of wide-reaching embrace.  Just as each one of them had found a safe place belonging on the inside of their faith community, so were they to include those at the far edge, those in the margins, the least of these and the most vulnerable.  Just as they had been given hope in dark and violent times, so were they to encourage one another.  Just as they were held close in the comfort of the loving shepherd, so were they to reach out, hold others close, comfort others and care for others.  And, those early followers of Jesus became known for their generosity, for the way they cared for the very least and the lost, and truly cared for the common good.  They became known for their love as they became the Beloved Community.

Isn’t that how we want to be known? Should we not be people who deeply care for the common good of all people and not just our own interests?  Is that not why we have been following theses orders to stay and home and practicing social distancing? It is about the common good and not just each one of us as individuals. In fact, that is the reason we will follow guidelines when we can finally begin to gather for in-person worship.  And, as we live into a new normal for some time, we want to be known as the beloved community.  Friends, even as we live in this present climate of fear, we can live as the beloved community, caring for each other and for the most vulnerable around us.  And, we do this because we know who we are and whose we are.  We belong to the Good Shepherd who is all about love. The opposite of fear, after all, is love. And, that kind of love is not some sweet sentimental kind of love. No. It is the heavy lifting love of the Good Shepherd. As I have said before, loving is hard work and loving our neighbor can be very hard work. But, when we remember our identity and to whom we belong, we are then able to live love. And, the practice of love does change the soundtrack of fear, even within our own lives. It enables us to trust the Good Shepherd, the one who calls us by name and has made us his own, even as we walk through the darkest valleys of life.  We can trust the Good Shepherd who holds all of us in love for all eternity.  That is our story, the story we tell.