Sermon For June 8, 2025
Sermon for Pentecost Sunday
Sunday in and Sunday out, we have gathered as a church. And this happens throughout the world. Sunday in and Sunday out. People from around the world gather. They worship God. They give thanks and (hopefully) hear a message of hope and love. Whether that church is named as a Lutheran church, or a Roman Catholic Church, or a Baptist church, or something else altogether, this pattern has repeated itself Sunday in and Sunday out globally. It has also repeated itself for two thousand years of Christian history. It may not have always taken place on a Sunday, but Christians have been gathering for worship for all that time. Sometimes that gathering has been in a church or cathedral, which is dedicated and sanctified space marked for such activities. Other times, it has taken place in school gyms, or business spaces or at a person’s home. Our Christian progenitors started off in their homes and even now, especially in places where Christianity is under threat or restricted in some fashion, home churches still exist, allowing the faithful to gather and worship.
Two thousand years. That number boggles the mind. In this part of the world, if a church reaches their 100-year milestone as a church, it is considered quite an achievement. My home congregation is hovering around 125 year mark. Yet, in other parts of the world, churches are over a thousand years old. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to preach from a pulpit that had hosted a thousand years of pastors. It would be rather intimidating.
In those two thousand years, our history has been… checkered. It would be nice to say that the church has always been a force for good in this world. However, as we all know, that is not the truth. In fact, there have been times when the church has been an agent of destruction, even evil. It’s hard to say that about something I love so much, but it is true. Residential schools, the churches part in slavery, the churches compliance with regimes like the Nazis or even more recently, with Putin’s regime or with ideologies like White Nationalism, show that the church is far from perfect. But how could it be, when it is populated by imperfect humans. The church often wields enormous power and power can corrupt. We might want to think that wouldn’t be the case, but it is.
But we all know the blemishes of the church. We know what it’s like to defend our church and our faith from people who only see the bad and have come to conflate the bad we do as humans with God, as if it was God who was at fault for all our institutional sins. We can get bogged down in those past transgressions and forget to see the good that comes with being part of a church community. And there is a lot of good that comes from being here and worshipping together and recognizing God at work in our midst.
The obvious piece is how our faith connects us to God. Through song, prayer, scripture reading, preaching, and the other component parts of our gathering as a church, we come to better connect with God. We also begin to see that God has always wanted a relationship with us. This isn’t a question of earning God’s affection. Rather, when we come to worship and pray and study together, we come to know a God of love who is only waiting for us to stop running away. God longs to take us and be part of our life so that we will know what it is like to be loved absolutely and unconditionally. Our encounters in our church family will, I hope, point to that enduring truth. No matter who you are, you are loved. There is no caveat on that statement. You are loved, now and always.
The second piece is that it is a place of community. We come to gather here as a church family from all walks of life. We don’t all agree on politics or economics or other such topics. But we still gather here. We gather and we worship, and we have fellowship, and we support one another. That is what church has always been about. The disciples, as they followed Christ through the years of his ministry, became like a family, a group of fellow believers who came together to do something marvelous alongside of their rabbi. Church is not about proclaiming the Gospel in a vacuum. It is about proclaiming God’s word, knowing that it will be lived out in the most profound ways through the community that has formed up around that Word.
The third piece is that the church is something through which good can be done. Yes, a lot of great pain has been inflicted on the world through the church. But the church has also been a living paragon of God’s love in the world. Models of welfare that many nation states employ through the world which ensure that people are not left to starve found their genesis in the Christian church. We have been a voice for the voiceless and a champion for those who have often been downtrodden in our society. Do we always do this? Not as well as we should, or as often, but when we do, it is a moment when we are living out God’s call and it is a wonder to behold. In those moments, the world has changed for the better. When we can become an instrument of love and care for all people, then we are living into who we are meant to be. We can be the voices that stand against oppressive regimes, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the confessing church, as they stood against the evils of Nazism. We can be the one’s who make sure that there is a voice for those who face the realities of homelessness. We can speak for the earth. We can speak for the youth and allow them to know they are loved and that we stand with them in this often-scary world. We can be so many things and if we do as God would guide us, then the world is better off.
These are the things that we can celebrate this Pentecost Sunday. This was the day that the church came to life, as the Spirit descended on those gathered from various parts of the world and offered a vision of a united humanity, working for the common cause of God’s great love and for one another. As we celebrate the beginning of the church, we can still acknowledge the wrong we have done, while at the same time, looking to the future with hope that we can be better and more trusting in God and in each other.
In this liminal time that we live in, when so many question whether God even exists, I find real comfort in the fact that in the church, as imperfect as it is, I can see God at work. I can see God at work in all that makes us who we are and in all the pieces that I named earlier. When a hymn begins to play and it hits a particular chord and all of our voices are inspired to sing a little louder and a little fuller than they normally would, I know God to be present. I know it in the words of comfort and prayer we offer to each other. I know it in the words of Scripture that speak to me in moments when I need them the most. I know it as the Gospel is proclaimed and the sacraments offered, because after two thousand years, those things are still changing lives. I know that God is, because I am, and you are, and the world is. I know that God is because we, as a church are still here and we are still making a difference. I know that God is because love is, and it is that love which guides us and helps us be our best selves. I know God is because beauty is. For all of that I say thanks be to God, which is simply another reminder that God is.
So, let us celebrate. Let us give thanks. The church is still here. We are still here. God will always be here and for that we give a resounding AMEN.