Our Vision Begins with God's Breath
Pentecost Sunday
June 11, 2000
Our Vision Begins with God's Breath Pentecost Sunday |
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Read through the sermon, and then answer the questions at end, or ask and answer questions of your own.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Philanthropy and the Threat of Diversity
In almost every community there are many people who have a very acute desire to make their world a better place in which to live. During the course of my ministry, I have worked with these people both inside and outside the church. Brush and Morgan County are no exceptions. In the two years that I have been here, I have become active in different philanthropic [1] groups at the state, county and local levels. In this work, I have encountered many wonderful people whose intentions are just exactly that – they wish to make the world just a little bit better place in which to live.
Since I have moved here, I have worked with the Brush School District on a School Safety Committee whose purpose was twofold. The committee was supposed to work out policies concerning a whole host of crisis issues that would prepare students, teachers, administrators and city officials in the event of an emergency. And second, the committee was supposed to evaluate the issue of school violence [For more information on violence in public schools, click here.], the reasons for school violence and whether or not the School District was doing what it needed to make our schools safer places for our children and youth. The committee was comprised of representatives from Thomson, Beaver Valley, Brush Middle School, and Brush High School. It was also comprised of people representing the city, the police department and the faith community. Why did the School Board want to put together this committee, and why would these volunteers work so hard in accomplishing these tasks? Because these people were philanthropists, and no matter how good our schools presently are, they want to make them a much better and safer place for study and education.
I have been a member of the United Way Board of Directors. United Way’s sole purpose is to raise money for different nonprofit groups whose activity is essential to the overall well-being of our community. United Way raises money for Boy and Girl Scouts, for different child care groups, and for groups such as the Morgan County Arts Council. This Board raises funds for all types of groups whose purposes range from aiding teenagers who are pregnant to at-risk kids who so desperately need good role models if they are to have hope for a more meaningful future. Literally hundreds of people throughout Morgan County, and indeed, thousands throughout the United States, work very hard each year to raise these funds. Why? Because they know that by contributing their time and efforts to nonprofit organizations in any community they are contributing to a more meaningful future. These people are philanthropists who want to make their world a better place in which to live.
I am presently a member of the Family Center Board of Directors, a center established to help raise the quality of existence for families and their children throughout Morgan County. My work on this Board has brought me into contact with many other nonprofit groups such as Build a Generation, Baby Bear Hugs, and Parents as Teachers along with CORRA, a child care referral organization designed to help parents find affordable and quality child care for their children.
I found my way onto the Family Center Board through my work with the Morgan County Local Board of Early Childhood Care and Education, of which I am the president. This groups seeks to coordinate and collaborate efforts of organizations, groups and nonprofits throughout Morgan County in an effort to increase the quality and availability of early childhood care and education. In all of this, I work daily with hundreds of people who either volunteer or work for an extremely low – one might say ridiculously low – wage to help shape future generations. Why? Because they love children and they care about the environment that will play such an important role upon the success of their development. These people are indeed philanthropists.
And finally, I am actively involved in our own Head Start program and its Board of Directors. I have learned that Head Start is not simply an "inadequate and poorly run baby-sitting service," as some politicians hold. Rather, it is an amazing organization designed to help at-risk 3-5 year old children. It teaches them many of the things that we take for granted. It teaches them about hygiene and how to do simple things like brush their teeth and wash their hands. It teaches them how to get along with each other. Head Start provides these children and their parents with the opportunity to get a head start on life and in so doing, seeks to break the horrible cycle of poverty that threatens tomorrow’s world. These people don’t get paid much at all. Why do they do it, then? Because they are truly philanthropists who want to make our world a better place in which to live.
There is a common thread that runs through all of these groups, and it is this common thread that gives me hope for the future. The common thread is that all of these people are philanthropists, they want to make our world a better place in which to live. They give of their time, their service and their abilities to help infants, children, youth and parents have a better, higher quality and more meaningful form of existence. Because of their efforts, our world, Colorado and indeed, Morgan County will face a happier tomorrow. They are not in this for the money; they are in it because they love people, all people.
But through my work I have also discovered something else that makes it interesting to work with these groups and all of these people. In every committee, on every board, there are people who are very diverse. They share the common interest of helping whatever group they are dealing with, but they have very different ideas of what is actually helpful, and what a "better" society actually looks like.
It is important, when working on a philanthropic endeavor, that each person is able to acknowledge and work with the diversity represented by the people with whom he or she is working. Put differently, in light of all their differences, it is absolutely fundamental that each member of the philanthropic group remember and keep before them the common vision that unites them in the first place, whether it be to help children, at-risk youth, or whatever the group plans to do. If anyone in the group, or if the group itself forgets this common goal and begins to base their efforts upon their differences rather than their common vision, then the differences – no matter how well-intentioned they may be – will thwart their philanthropy and render their work useless. When differences rather than a common vision become a group’s focus, then the seeds of that group’s demise have been sown.
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II. Acts and the Unifying Vision of Christocentric Philanthropy.
In the 2nd chapter of Acts, Luke introduces us to a large group of philanthropists. These people are people who want their world to be a better place in which to live, but they are unlike the philanthropists I have spoken of so far in that they are "christocentric" [2] philanthropists. They are looking, hoping and willing to strive to make the world a better place in which to live, but they believe that the common denominator of such a world is the work of Jesus as the Christ, and the vision that empowered his ministry. They believe that God has given them the gift of grace and power, and they think that it is this gift that will identify their common purpose (or goal/vision) and provide them with the motivation and power to attain it.
But the christocentric philanthropists gathered together in that "one place" were facing a number of rather formidable challenges. First, some of them had known Jesus and had participated in his ministry, some of them had heard Jesus speak and had learned from his teaching, and some of them did not know Jesus at all except through his reputation and what they had heard. While they had a fairly good idea of what Jesus was up to while he fulfilled his earthly ministry, because of their diversity they were somewhat confused at what came next. Now that Jesus was dead and was no longer available to them in a human form, what were they to do? Where were they to go? What was the common vision that was meant to unite them? Second, the first task was a perilous one because the christocentric philanthropists were a diverse lot who lived in a very diverse culture.
As I said, their experience of Jesus was diverse. Some knew Jesus as a man, some knew him as a teacher, and some knew him as their mentor. Some did not know Jesus at all except from what they had heard about him. How are these differences to be embraced so that a common goal can be determined?
Different ethnic groups were represented. Even though the leaders – i.e., Jesus’ disciples – were all Jews and Galileans, Jesus’ followers were comprised of all types of different ethnic groups. There were Jews and Gentiles, as Paul conveniently yet simplistically separated the people. More realistically, they faced the same type of ethnic diversity that we face in our country today.
The christocentric philanthropists, their friends and neighbors spoke a number of different languages. Jesus and his followers probably spoke Aramaic and understood and read Hebrew, but others would have understood and spoke Greek or Latin, not to mention languages common to the Middle East and Northern Africa as well as the different tongues of Southern Europe.
They had to deal with cultural differences as well. They were comprised of people from the overall Hellenistic culture of that period, Roman culture, Greek culture, Jewish culture, Arabic cultures, and Coptic culture to name only a few. While the christocentric philanthropists were gathered there in that one place to honor Jesus, how they did so was filtered through the values and hopes of their respective cultural differences.
There were religious differences. The Middle East was a part of the Roman Empire and so the Roman cult of Emperor worship [Gaius (Caligula) was one of the early founders of the Emperor cultus] would have had a powerful influence upon their thinking. The so-called "Pagan Religions," originating to the North, were beginning to make their presence known. Mystery religions that laid the foundation of Gnosticism [for an interesting article on defining Gnosticism, see Stephan A. Hoeller, "What is a Gnostic?"], from which the Early Church had to distinguish itself, was a powerful religious influence at that time. And so too did the Jewish and Persian religions play a formative role upon the religious sensibilities of people who lived in that area and gathered in that "one place."
And finally, there were profound philosophical differences that these early christocentric philanthropists had to address. Greek philosophy emphasized the importance of the "One," later to be associated with the Christian God in medieval theology. Roman Stoics were also monists, but emphasized the universal importance of law and the deterministic will of God, and the Epicureans thought that desire and pleasure were the most important goals of humanity.
All of these differences and more made up the culture out of which the christocentric philanthropists came, and it defined the world into which the yet-to-be-established Christian Church would proclaim its vision of a better place in which to live, a vision dominated by its understanding of Christ and God’s salvation of the world. But before it could proclaim that message, before it could work towards a common vision of salvation, God had to do something. Before the christocentric philanthropists could do anything, a powerful act of God was necessary to help them look past their differences, utilize their diversity as a strength, and define a common goal. This was a watershed time in the life of those early followers of Christ. If they could define a common vision, a vision placed before them by God, then this common vision would sow the seeds of their success. But if they were to focus upon the many and stubborn differences that marked them as a culture and as a group, then that would sow the seeds of their demise. What were they to do?
As they pondered this question, they heard something that sounded like "the rush of a violent wind" filling the place in which they waited. This sound, this experience, was not an experience that concentrated upon their diversity, but was a sound of unity. It was a sound that would bring them a common vision. As the divided tongues of flame signified, it was not a denial of their differences, but embodied their differences in a common goal or purpose.
Into the midst of this diverse group came something like "divided tongues of fire" and "a tongue rested on each of them." At the beginning of this experience, the people gathered in that "one place" were all individuals. After the wind and the fire, their individuality was overcome and they identified themselves not in terms of their individuality, but in terms of their common goal. They did not concentrate upon their differences, but looked past their differences to the purpose that God was dramatically placing before them. Like the diversity represented in that room, the tongues were diverse, yet they were all of a common origin, God, and it was this common origin that allowed them to see their differences not as problems, but as solutions. Diversity, under the influence and grace of God, is not the seeds of destruction, but becomes the seeds of the newly established Church’s success. Diversity, when controlled by the common vision of God’s salvation that comes through his son, Jesus as the Christ, is something that gave all the christocentric philanthropists gathered in that one place a more complete idea of how God was at work in the world through them. Their diversity was not their seeds of demise. Rather, their diversity as interpreted by God’s Spirit defined the way that they would be able to work successfully in their world, and being filled by the Spirit, this diverse group of christocentric philanthropists were the birth of the Christian Church.
"All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. [And all the different people were amazed] and astonished, [and] they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? [3] And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?’" The birth of the Church was founded in what surely seemed to be the seeds of its demise – radical and complex diversity – yet this diversity was unified through a common vision of God’s work for the betterment of humanity through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as the Christ. Since then, this same vision has become the common goal that has unified millions of diverse people throughout the world. It is a common vision that unifies christocentric philanthropists the world over and indeed, makes our world a better place in which to live.
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III. Conclusion: Brush UMC, Diversity and the Unity of Vision.
We, as members and friends of Brush United Methodist Church, have inherited the vision that unified all the christocentric philanthropists gathering in that one place so long ago. We too must define ourselves as lovers of humanity because we also love and embrace Jesus as the Christ and his teachings. We too must embrace our diversity, allow it to be embodied in God’s common purpose found in Jesus as the Christ, and reach out into our world and community with the power imbued in us as those who are filled with God’s Spirit. We must become so intoxicated with God’s presence that we join with Christians throughout history and throughout our world to influence our world so radically that we join with them in making it a better place in which to live.
But, like the early christocentric philanthropists gathered in that one place, we too are threatened by our diversity. If any one of us dares to believe that his or her vision of the church is the vision, then one person could jeopardize our common purpose. If any of us begins to believe that our differences define God’s truth, then we deny the unifying power of God’s Spirit and drive wedges of division into the fabric of God’s unifying vision that leads to salvation. If any of us refuse to be open to the change that inevitably comes through the discourse of the Saints, then we pour cold water upon the flames of diversity that is the continuous birth of our church.
In everything that we dream, in everything that we prophecy, our dreams, our actions, and our words matter little unless they grow out of a commitment to the common vision that God placed before the disciples of Jesus so long ago. In the last days, the Scripture tells us, the prophets predicted that God’s Spirit will birth in our sons and daughters a new prophecy, a prophecy of salvation that will deliver all people from their seeds of destruction. In the last days, young men will see visions of justice and righteousness that promise to possess our land and deliver us from evil. In the last days, the elderly will dream dreams of unity and peace characterizing the reality of all who bow in allegiance to the God of Jesus as our Christ. In the last days, the diviners of God’s will prophesied that we will all be intoxicated with God’s Spirit so that the world will be turned upside down, its present structures will be redeemed, and God’s righteousness will no longer be simply a dream, but a powerful reality. In those last days, intoxicated with God’s Spirit, everyone who then calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, and our world will be redeemed. It will have become a better place in which to live.
My dear friends, we are in those last days just as surely as the disciples through whom the Church was birthed were in the last days. We live in the time of salvation. We are in a time when the tongues of flame will once again descend upon the heads of individuals and transform them into a people with a common vision unified with the common purpose of salvation. We are in a time when our young people are experiencing visions of justice and righteousness, and our elderly are dreaming dreams of peace. Have you seen these visions, have you heard of these dreams? If you have, call upon the name of the Lord and these visions, these dreams, will become our reality, and our community, our city, our people will indeed be saved.
But it begins with you. Listen to the Spirit’s calling. Hear the violent wind that promises to revolutionize our world. Feel the power of the divided tongues that seek to unify us with a common vision, and call upon the name of the Lord. You will be saved. Your diversity will become a part of God’s solution and you will be transformed into a christocentric philanthropist – someone working to make our world a better place in which to live. Amen.
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Questions to Reflect Upon:
- I suggest that many people throughout our world and throughout our community are indeed philanthropists. They want to make the world a better place in which to live. What do you think is the source of their philanthropy? Is there any difference between their efforts and the work of our church?
- What are some examples of the diversity that defines our community? How is it that we as a community should respond to this diversity? How is it that you as a Christian should respond to it?
- I argue that when our vision is concentrated upon our diversity rather than a common vision, then we sow the seeds of our community, our group or our church’s demise. Do you agree? What do you think is the role of diversity within any group?
- The coming of the Holy Spirit transformed the diversity of the early christocentric philanthropists from the seeds of demise to the seeds for success? What is the nature of this common vision?
- How do you think the common vision given by the Holy Spirit translates into the ministry of our church? What is the vision that God has set before us, the attainment of which will make our world a better place in which to live?
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