I guest preached (remotely) for First Christian Church of Fayetteville, NC, on Pentecost Sunday, the same weekend as protests broke out nationally after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Mr. Floyd was born in Fayetteville.
While we read the story of Pentecost as recorded in Acts 2, I was drawn to preach on the passage from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians about the gifts of the Spirit.
I hope this sermon may be a helpful resource for folks looking to engage spiritually with the work of anti-racism, social justice, and systemic change. With that said, I think it’s really important right now to be listening to, centering, and amplifying the voices of people most impacted by systemic racism. So if you’re going to listen to my sermon, please first take the time to listen to this sermon from friend and colleague, the Rev. Rondesia Jarrett-Schell, titled "We Say 'I Can't Breathe,' Jesus Answers 'Receive My Breath.'"
Also, the text of my sermon is included below the audio file, and includes a number of additional voices who I’d encourage you to listen to. Here are some of the relevant references form the sermon for you to follow-up with:
- Definition of white supremacy from Alicia T. Crosby: patheos.com/blogs/aliciacrosby/2016/10/whitewashed-christian-space
- Rev. Dr. William Barber II differentiating between “cultural racism” and “systemic and policy racism” at the 34:30 mark of this video:
c-span.org/video/?c4804117/user-clip&start=2032
- Video message from the Rev. Terri Hord Owens, General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ):
facebook.com/christianchurchdoc/videos/245137780079570
- Morning Devotion from the Rev. Bishop Valerie Melvin, Regional Minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in North Carolina: facebook.com/CCinNC/videos/2771894283047822
With that said, here is audio and text of my sermon, entitled “Except by the Holy Spirit”:
“Except By the Holy Spirit”
Sermon for FCC Fayetteville – May 31, 2020
Well, we come to the celebration of Pentecost, one of the sacred holy days of the church. You can’t see me but I’m wearing my bright red shoes, and I don’t really have a red shirt so I’ve got kind of a pink-ish shirt on, because red is the color of Pentecost, the color or Spirit and Wind, of Breath and Flame.
Now Pentecost comes from an old word that just means “Fiftieth,” and originally referred to the fiftieth day after Passover, the Jewish celebration of liberation and freedom from Pharoah’s rule in Egypt. This fiftieth day after Passover is itself a Jewish Holy Day, the Feast of Weeks, which marks the giving of the Torah to God’s people at Sinai, similar to how, for Christians, this day marks the giving of the Holy Spirit. And unless you are a relatively recent member of the Christian community – which, if you are, welcome welcome welcome! – you have probably read and heard read the story of Pentecost as told in the Book of Acts, and which I just read to you again, many times. You may have had occasion to reflect on the many wonderful aspects of this story – the fact that all of those gathered can understand each other even as they continue to speak in their native tongues, for example; or the way that this story explicitly names that God’s Spirit brings about an intergenerational community, where the young see visions and the old dream dreams; or the funny part where the disciples get accused of being drunk and Peter defends them by saying, “No, they’re not drunk, it’s only 9 o’clock in the morning!,” Peter having obviously never served for any length of time as a campus minister.
It’s a wonderful story, and always worth the re-telling. But this week, it wasn’t the reading from Acts that caught my attention, but rather another passage, this one from Paul’s Epistle to the Church in Corinth. In it, Paul writes about the Holy Spirit, and the gifts of the Spirit which each of us is given in order to work for the common good. And this passage begins with one of those great Apostle Paul lines that seems so simple, so stark, but which opens a door into the depths of our faith. Let me read it for you:
1 Corinthians 12:3b-13: No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free-and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
“No one,” writes Paul. “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” Except by the Holy Spirit, none of us can say that Jesus is Lord.
And Church?
We need the Holy Spirit today.
I don’t want to preach today about the Holy Spirit coming to the disciples 2,000 years ago, because Church? We need the Holy Spirit. Today.
We need the Holy Spirit, today, because no one, no one, no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ without it. And we need to say ‘Jesus is Lord today,’ Church, because there are a whooole lot of other forces and powers and spirits out there right now trying real hard to convince us that they, and not Jesus, is Lord.
Now remember, Church – ‘cuz I know you know this, I know I am not the first preacher you’ve endured saying this to you – remember that statement, “Jesus is Lord,” was some dangerous, revolutionary stuff when the early Church made it their primary proclamation of faith. Because unlike us in the 21st century United States of America, who don’t really go around calling people “Lord Such-and-Such” or “Sir Such-and-Such,” Jesus’s contemporaries were pretty used to calling someone “Lord.” But it wasn’t Jesus that they were used to calling Lord, it was Caesar. The Emperor. The Guy in Charge. The guy who had the heavily armed and armored Legions at his disposal. Caesar was in charge, and you called him Lord. In fact, saying “Caesar is Lord” was the loyalty oath you took to be a citizen of the Roman Empire. It was how you pledged your allegiance to Empire. And when you said, “Caesar is Lord,” one thing you were saying is that you didn’t have any other Lords. There could only be one Lord, and the Emperor was it. So it wasn’t easy to say, “Jesus is Lord.” It was a scary thing to do. A risky thing to do. So risky and scary that there was, according to Paul, absolutely no human way to do so….EXCEPT. By the Holy Spirit.
To say “Jesus is Lord” was, and is, subversive stuff. It’s subversive in the historical-political dimension. It’s subversive in the theological dimension. And it’s subversive in the spiritual dimension. Historically-politically, it subverts the proclamation that “Caesar is Lord,” and should continue to have that same subversive effect in our contemporary contexts. Theologically, saying “Jesus is Lord” subverts our understandings of God, emphasizing vulnerability and solidarity rather than coercive power and dominance. And spiritually, saying “Jesus is Lord” speaks to the unity of the church in the power of the Holy Spirit, subverting the tendency of Christian communities to model their lives on the powers of the world rather than the vulnerable love of God. It would be easy to read Paul’s words as saying that anyone who just says the words “Jesus is Lord” is therefore moved by the Holy Spirit and thus, naturally, is in the right. But that’s not what Paul is saying here. Paul is saying that it is only when we are open to the work of the Spirit in our lives that we are able to properly claim Jesus as Lord.[1] To proclaim “Jesus Christ is Lord” is to proclaim that the Church, with its many diverse gifts, is brought together by the Spirit for the common good. This understanding of Christ’s Lordship subverts our human tendency, even within the church, to organize our common life based on dominance or self-justifying rightness rather than the unifying and other-empowering Spirit of God.
So it wasn’t easy to say, “Jesus is Lord,” and it still isn’t. It was a scary thing to do, and it still is. A risky thing to do. So risky and scary that there is seemingly no human way to do it….EXCEPT. By the Holy Spirit.
Now today, Church, there might not be anyone saying that we have to call them “Lord,” literally. We’ve left that kind of language in the past, at least outside of the walls of the Church. But there are plenty of things that are demanding our allegiance and our loyalty that aren’t Jesus. And they are powerful forces, powerful voices. And their lure is hard to resist. In fact, you might even say that it is humanly impossible to resist them….EXCEPT. By the Holy Spirit.
There are forces demanding our allegiance, forces like racism which subtly lure some of us with false promises of supremacy and security. But Church, white supremacy is not Lord. Jesus is Lord. And if we’re going to proclaim that, to be the anti-racist and pro-reconciliation Church that we are called to be as Disciples of Christ, then we are going to need the Holy Spirit today.
Now I just used some charged terms, terms like “white supremacy” and “racism.” And sometimes when we hear those words, maybe we think of really specific things, things we don’t associate with ourselves at all, things like the KKK or lynch mobs or certain offensive slurs. But here’s a definition of white supremacy from my friend and colleague and justice educator Alicia T. Crosby. She says, “White supremacy establishes whiteness as superior to other racial identities through the elevation of the needs, wants, concerns, perspectives, feelings, and desires of white people over that of people of color. This includes the centering of the theological, rhetorical, aesthetic, and economic priorities and preferences rooted in whiteness as well as the appropriation and rebranding of cultural expressions sourced from people of color.” Now that’s a bit more subtle, isn’t it? Maybe a bit more insidious. Maybe hits a bit closer to home for some of us. And that makes it even harder, even scarier, to deconstruct and to stand up against. So we are going to need the Holy Spirit.
Fellow North Carolinian and Disciples of Christ clergy, the Rev. Dr. William Barber, draws a contrast between what he calls "cultural racism,” those overt words and symbols which we most often associate with racism, and “systemic and policy racism like voter suppression, mass incarceration, resegregation of high poverty schools, attacks on immigrants, attacks on native people,” things which reinscribe racism with the structures and systems of power. Those things and structures are powerful things. They are hard to deconstruct. We’re going to need the Holy Spirit today.
This week, our Disciples of Christ General Minister and President, the Reverend Terri Hord Owens, shared a message with all of our churches, reminding us, “Disciples, If we say that we are a pro-reconciliation, anti-racism church, we must choose every day to do the things that are necessary to be who we say we are. That means not only standing up, but speaking up and acting in solidarity without fear.” And let me tell you, Church, if we are going to do what we need to do, if we are going to speak up and act in solidarity without fear, we are going to need the Holy Spirit. This week as well, our Regional Minister, the Reverend Bishop Valerie Melvin, shared in one of her morning prayers, “Race is a spiritual disease in this country. It is a construct of humanity, not God. Race is a system that was built by humanity, and not God.” But Church, that construct, that system? It’s gonna try really hard to convince us that is of God. So if we are going to deconstruct that construct, we are going to need the Holy Spirit today.
Now yesterday, I learned that George Floyd, the man who was killed in Minneapolis this past week, was born in Fayetteville, NC. What does it look like to mourn the death of a native son, whose life was taken from him by violence? What does it look like as a nation to mourn, to mourn all that has been on our conscience to mourn this week? Church, I spend a lot of my time as a chaplain and a minister reminding folks that Breath and Spirit are the same word, across languages and across centuries; that when we breathe in we are breathing in the breath of the Holy Spirit; that our spirituality begins with our breath. So when the breath of sacred children of God is stolen from their lungs, by violence or by disease or by environmental degradation, than that is a Spirit concern. When more than 100,000 people in this country – that’s more Americans than died in the Vietnam War, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, combined – and more than 370,000 people around the world die in just a few months of a virus that takes the breath from their lungs, that is a Spirit concern. And when we learn that the deaths from coronavirus in the United States disproportionately impact black communities and communities of color, that is a Spirit concern. When tear gas, which attacks the breath in the lungs, replaces, listening, that is a Spirit concern. When George Floyd cried out, “I can’t breathe,” that is a Spirit matter. That is a concern of the Holy Spirit.
So the Holy Spirit wants to be here in our midst today, Church. Because nobody can say “Jesus is Lord,” without it . There are forces demanding our allegiance, forces like greed and fear which tell us that we must make a false choice between the economic and physical and spiritual well-being of ourselves and those neighbors whom we are called to love and care for. But Church? We can’t serve both God and Mammon. Because Greed is not Lord. Jesus is Lord. And if we’re going to proclaim that, then we are going to need the Holy Spirit today.
There are forces demanding our allegiance, Church, forces that want to steal the breath out of the lungs of precious children of God – which is blasphemy against Holy Spirit, because according to the ancient Church the Spirit is the breath of God and the Lord of Life. There are forces demanding our allegiance, so many forces, like hatred and division, violence and injustice, forces that are out to trick and seduce God’s children into diminishing the image of God which is indelibly imprinted in each and every one of us. But not a single one of those forces is Lord. Jesus is Lord. And it’s hard, hard, hard to resist those forces, so hard that Paul seems to think that it’s humanly impossible. But everything is possible with God. It’s humanly impossible EXCEPT. By the Holy Spirit.
So Church, I want us to call on that Holy Spirit today. I want us to call on the Holy Spirit to enable us and empower us to proclaim, today, that Jesus is Lord. And not just to proclaim that in word but to proclaim it with our hearts, with our souls, with our bodies. With. Our. Very. Lives. We need you, Holy Spirit. We need you here, today. Transform us. Give us new life. Make us whole.
Now I don’t know about you, Church, but for me, in these times we are living in, it is easy to feel overwhelmed. It is easy to feel disempowered. It is easy to feel like there’s nothing I can do, that I’m too small, that I’m too unimportant, that there can’t possibly be anything I can contribute to the work that the Spirit is trying to do in this hard, scary world of ours. But as Paul’s words remind us today, that kind of thinking is a subtle kind of temptation. For each of us, each and every one of us, is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. Each and every one of us. We are each gifted, each called, each empowered by the Spirit. Each of us has the ability to live out, in our own, unique, God-given ways, the Spirit-empowered reality that Jesus is Lord, and that we are made in the image of God, that we are saved by grace for those good works which God prepared to be our way of life from time immemorial. We are baptized in the Spirit and, no matter where we are, no matter how far away we may be from one another, we are gathered together in that one Spirit which activates our gifts so that we may all do and be what God has called us to do and to be.
And so Church? I don’t want you to be afraid.
I know you’ve got some tough decisions to make. And I’m just a guest, so I’m certainly not going to tell you what to do or what to think. But I don’t want you to be afraid. And when I say I don’t want you to be afraid, I don’t mean that I don’t want you to be cautious, that I don’t want you to be wise, that I don’t want you to allow for complexity and discernment and care. I mean I don’t want you to be afraid. Because the Spirit of God that gifts us and calls us and empowers us to proclaim Jesus is Lord? Can I say something hard, Church? That Spirit has never had much regard for our buildings. That Spirit has never had much regard for private property. That Spirit hasn’t ever been able to be contained by any of the boxes or big box stores that we’ve tried to shove Her into, because the Spirit is a Fire and a Wind and no matter what that Spirit is going to come if we ask for it. That Spirit is going to come to us if we pray for it. That Spirit is going to pour out on us, young and old, and make us see visions and dream dreams, and open our mouths and loosen our tongues and get us saying, Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord, not race, not class, not gender, not greed, not politicized divisions, no, Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord, and thank you God that you have given us the Spirit because there’d be no way to say it, there’d be no way to tell the truth, there’d be no way for us to do the kind of work that is in front of us, the kind of work that needs to be done, there’d be no way, there’d be no way, there’d be no way…..EXCEPT. By the Holy Spirit.
But the Holy Spirit is no exception. The Spirit truly has come to us. The Spirit truly calls us into being and into community. And that means there’s a way. That means there’s a way. That means there’s a way. A way to live in the Way of Jesus.
And that’s the Day of Pentecost.
And that’s some good news.
Amen.
[1] James Alison, Faith Beyond Resentment: Fragments Catholic and Gay (New York: Crossroad, 2001), 147ff.