Pour Out Upon All Flesh

The scriptures referred to are Acts 2:1-21 and John 20:19-23.

What would you think if they dramatized the life of Jesus but his mission involved shooting a lot of people, including innocent people taken over by bad guys? Well, they already did. It's the first Matrix movie and just to underscore what they were doing, they have a John the Baptist figure; the Jesus character goes by the name Anderson, which means “son of man;” he dies and comes back to life with the help of his love named Trinity and he ascends into the sky at the end. There is even a character at the very beginning who calls the hero “my own personal Jesus.” I hesitate to say it's the weirdest take on Jesus—there are probably weirder ones on the internet—but I think we can agree that this version, however popular, totally missed the real Spirit of Jesus.

If words were enough to change humanity, God would not have had to go beyond the Old Testament. Jesus took his 2 greatest commandments from the Torah. (Deuteronomy 6:4-5; Leviticus 19:18) His critics knew them. They knew all the scriptures he quoted. But it's evident that they didn't know the Spirit behind them or they wouldn't have given Jesus such a hard time about things like healing people on the Sabbath.

Some so-called Christians don't seem to know the Spirit either. Recently a Christian blogger said she thought one of the reasons God sent the pandemic was to cancel public gay pride parades! As one commentator noted, then God must have lousy aim, because the pandemic is killing a lot of heterosexuals! No virus inquires about the politics or social policies of its victims. It is an equal opportunity killer. To portray it as a surgical strike from God is to misunderstand the nature of viruses, to misrepresent the nature of God, and to do an injustice to the victims and those who mourn them.

Jesus is the God who is Love Incarnate and as Paul says, “[Love] is not glad about injustice, but rejoices in the truth.” (1 Corinthians 13:6) And the truth is, as we saw a few Sundays ago, Jesus did not look at disasters as punishments for sin. He saw them as opportunities to help people. And it is in that Spirit that we should follow Jesus.

The problem is that some people, while not exactly endorsing the pseudo-Jesus in The Matrix, prefer the idea of a God who is all about meting out justice and punishing bad people. They are less enthusiastic about a Jesus who is primarily interested in healing and forgiving people. They are not on board with a Jesus whose idea of getting rid of bad people is to turn them into good people. There's not as much catharsis in that. And some people think it blurs the line between us, the "good guys," and them, the "bad guys."

But offering mercy is precisely the point of what we read in our account of the first Pentecost after Jesus' resurrection. Sure, the miracle of the disciples speaking in the languages of the pilgrims to Jerusalem grabs everyone's attention but the point is, as Peter says, “Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” And in our reading from John, Jesus says to the Eleven, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” So again coupled with the giving of the Spirit is the good news of God forgiving people.

In Jesus' lifetime, people misunderstood his mission. When a Samaritan village wouldn't welcome Jesus, James and John wanted to call down fire from heaven to consume them. Jesus rebuked the disciples for suggesting this. (Luke 9:51-56) When John the Baptist, whose preaching focused on judgment, sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus if he really was the Messiah, Jesus said, “Go tell John what you see and hear: the blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news proclaimed to them.” (Matthew 11:4-5) It seems that John, like most of the Jews of his time, expected the Messiah to be a holy warrior like David. But Jesus points to his healing and to his preaching the good news of God's love and forgiveness.

Human beings tend to classify almost everyone as friend or foe. And those we see as foes, we view as less deserving of humane treatment, or really, as less than human. That justifies our neglecting or even harming them. That's at the heart of racism and antisemitism. That's why African Americans were enslaved, why Native Americans were continually moved from their lands, why Japanese Americans, and not German or Italian Americans, were put in interment camps during World War 2, and why in 1939 more than 900 Jewish refugees were not allowed to disembark from an ocean liner in either Cuba, Canada or the United States but were sent back to Germany where a quarter of them died in Nazi death camps. Would Jesus have countenanced that? Was that done in his Spirit?

How did Jesus look at those who were different from him? He offered eternal life to the much married Samaritan woman, though he saw divorce and remarriage as adultery, and though Samaritans were considered heretic half-breeds by the Jews of his day. (John 4) He looked with love upon the rich man, who nevertheless could not give up his wealth and follow Jesus. (Mark 10:17-23) He did not flinch when a notoriously sinful woman washed his feet with her tears and hair but forgave her whatever it was she had done. (Luke 7:36-50) He healed the slave of a high-ranking member of the force occupying his country. (Matthew 8:5-13) He ate with tax collectors and sinners and even Pharisees, though his bitterest enemies came from that religious group. (Matthew 11:19) Jesus told his disciples not to stop an outsider healing people in his name. (Luke 9:49-50) He prayed for the forgiveness of those who crucified him and promised paradise to a criminal and probable murderer dying on the cross next to him. (Luke 23:32-43)

This is because Jesus knew that people are created in the image of God. In John 10, his critics are about to stone Jesus for claiming to be God. “Jesus answered, 'Is it not written in your Law, “I have said you were gods?” If he called them “gods,” to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken—what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent him into the world?'” (John 10:34-36) Jesus is referring to Psalm 82. It depicts God standing in judgment of those called by a name which can be translated "gods" or "angels" or "judges and rulers." The psalm could be a critique of the pagan gods of Canaan or of rulers and judges who are considered agents of the divine. Here Jesus seems to be interpreting them as humans. So it is interesting that God's criticism of them goes like this: “He says, 'How long will you make unjust legal decisions and show favoritism to the wicked? (Selah) Defend the cause of the poor and the fatherless! Vindicate the oppressed and suffering! Rescue the poor and needy! Deliver them from the power of the wicked!'” (Psalm 82:2-4) What God is focused on here is not a lack of punishment for the wicked but the lack of justice and mercy for those who need it. No doubt this came to Jesus' mind because he was helping the poor and suffering and yet those in power wanted to kill him.

And when Jesus says that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is the only unforgivable sin, what was he doing? He had just healed a man who was both blind and unable to speak. This is undeniably a good work and yet the Pharisees there said he was doing this by the power of Beelzebub, the prince of demons. (Matthew 12:22-32) Jesus may have been thinking of the passage from Isaiah that says, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” (Isaiah 5:20) If you are so messed up that you say that what is good is evil and vice versa, you will not trust the God who is good, and his Spirit cannot work with you and save you, the way a person who doesn't trust doctors and medical experts will not let them save him. That's why seeing the Spirit as evil is unforgivable. Because such a person won't let God the Spirit forgive him.

So we have seen the mark of the Spirit is healing and mercy and doing good and preaching the good news. Which is in harmony with what Paul says about what the Spirit produces in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23) He contrasts that with what our natural inclinations produce: things like “hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition” and so on. So on one side, there are aggression, division and other destructive qualities. On the other there are caring and peace-making and other constructive qualities. Because the Spirit is the giver of life and of all the things that make life good.

In our passage from Acts the Spirit enables the disciples to bridge the gap between people of different nations by speaking to each in his or her own language. And Peter quotes the prophet Joel about the Spirit of God being poured out on people of every age, gender and class. The Spirit brings people together and heals our human divisions.

This world doesn't need more warriors nor more violence nor more rage. It doesn't need more division based on superficial differences but rather accommodation of differences that matter while simultaneously remembering our overwhelming commonalities. We have the same organs and bones. We have the same physical and emotional and spiritual needs. We have the same God-given rights to be treated fairly and equally because we are all created in the image of God, who is, as Jesus pointed out, not material but Spirit. And Jesus died to save us all, even though some do not know or acknowledge that. But we are still commanded to love everyone, friend and foe alike.

The work of the Spirit didn't end at Pentecost. We see it in the early Christians. At the end of the chapter of Acts we are reading it says, “They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, the breaking of bread and to prayer....All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.” (Acts 2:42, 44-45) They learned and prayed and came up with creative ways to deal with the inequality among them.

The other way we see the Spirit at work is in bringing new groups into the kingdom of God. Not only Jews who were dispersed throughout the empire but also Samaritans and Ethiopians (Acts 8:5-8, 26-39) and followers of John the Baptist (Acts 19:1-7) and Gentiles come to Christ, usually signaled by an initial outburst of speaking in tongues. And even though Peter in our passage speaks about the Spirit being poured out on “all flesh,” he doesn't truly realize the implications until he is given a trio of visions to prepare him to preach to a household of Gentiles. (Acts 10) And this process is to continue until at last, as John sees in his vision in Revelation, “...there was before me a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.” (Revelation 7:9)

Our part is to further the spread of this polyglot, multicultural, multi-ethnic kingdom of God. And we can't do this if we look at others as radically different or as inferior to us. The image of God in humanity has nothing to do with how we appear but is rooted in the intangible part of us, our spirit, given by God's Spirit. One way to show this is by considering the fact that great thoughts and ideas know no nationality or race or class or language or degree of ability. St. Augustine, whose theology still influences the church, was African. St. Patrick was a runaway slave. St. Hildegard of Bingen is considered the founder of scientific natural history in Germany. Helen Keller was an author who campaigned for women's right to vote, human rights and helped found the ACLU. And when introduced to Christianity by Episcopal clergyman Phillips Brooks, Keller said, “I always knew He was there, but I didn't know His name.”

As Paul said, quoting the pagan poet-philosopher Epimenides, “For in him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28) Our job is to open people's eyes to the Spirit of life and love and healing and forgiveness and restoration and reconciliation who is there and has been there all along and to encourage them to open their hearts to the Spirit of Christ and to follow him.

Portraying Jesus as if he is in favor of harming and killing people is done in the wrong Spirit. Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.” (John 10:10) And we must exhibit that same Spirit in our thoughts, words and deeds. And we can't do that on our own. We must rely on the Spirit to empower us to overcome our natural tendency to see people as either friends or foes so that instead we see everyone as either our brothers and sisters in Christ or as our potential brothers and sisters in Christ. They may be infected by the evil that spreads throughout this world but it is not for us to write anyone off as incurable. Instead we seek to expose them to the “good infection,” so to speak, of the Holy Spirit.

Now I know at this time, we miss being able to get together physically and worship God together. But as Jesus said, in response to which temple should folks worship God in, “God is spirit, and the people who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24) And that's our advantage: unlike the coronavirus which needs proximity to spread, physical distance cannot stop God's Spirit. We can share and spread the Spirit through our phones, our emails, our videos, our posts on social media and doubtless in numerous other ways if we just get creative about it. The limitations are only in our minds. As Jesus said, “The wind blows where it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) Let's not fight where the Spirit is taking us. Let us take a deep breath, unfurl our sails, hold onto our hats and enjoy the adventure.