Sermon — The Day of Pentecost — June 5, 2022
The Rev. Greg Johnston
“All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” (Romans 8:14)
Today is the Day of Pentecost, when we celebrate the arrival of the Holy Spirit among the disciples gathered long ago. The Spirit makes a splashy appearance: with violent wind, (Acts 1:2) and tongues of fire, (1:3) and such linguistic fluency in such unknown tongues that the disciples seem to some to be “filled with new wine,” although it is only nine o’clock in the morning. (1:13, 15) The Spirit, Peter says, is doing what the prophet Joel said the Spirit would do when God poured it out on them: they will prophesy, and see visions, and dream dreams. (Acts 2:17-18; Joel 2:28) And this is all very dramatic.
But the Spirit works in quieter and subtler ways, as well; you might even say lawyerly ways. It’s not just a spirit of mighty wind and intoxicating fire. It’s an “Advocate,” says John, the one who guides you through a court of law. (John 14:26) And it’s a “spirit of adoption,” writes Paul, a Spirit who “bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” (8:15-16) There’s a lot in that image: God is our adoptive mother and father, the one into whose family we are being incorporated. Jesus is our brother, the one whose siblings we become. And the Holy Spirit is the one who bears witness to our adoption, the one whose presence brings us into that family and seals that moment, really making us members of a new family, really making us children of God.
“Children of God” is one of those phrases that often say without really thinking about. So you’ll hear someone say, for example, “well, we’re all God’s children” when what they really mean is something like, “we should treat people well, no matter who they are.” But we don’t often go much deeper than that.
Paul goes deeper, though. (No surprise.) He wants to draw out what this metaphor means. The Holy Spirit, he writes, makes us children of God—“and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.” (Romans 8:16-17) We are truly children of God, a parent whose love is beyond anything any imperfect human parent has ever shown. God is the infinitely loving, patient, understanding One whose only concern is for our flourishing and growth. And as children, Paul points out, we are heirs of God. Everything that God has, God wants to be ours. Everything that Jesus has, is going to be ours to share. All the glory of heaven is ours by right’ we are joint-heir with Christ. “If, in fact, we suffer with him”—and we will suffer, and we will be with him—we will “also be glorified with him.” (8:17) God loves no matter what, and God promises us a future beyond our most wonderful imaginings.
But note, too, that we are children of God. At our best we are child-like; more often we are childish. Children grow and learn and change and make mistakes. That’s childhood is for. And we are all still children. After all, what are eighty or ninety years of life, set beside the eternal wisdom of the One who created a universe that’s more than 13 billion years old? We are all still children in God’s sight, and what a gift: God knows we are still children, however grown-up we may seem; God knows that we are still learning and changing and growing up into the shape of Christ, and God doesn’t leave us alone to learn: God sends “the Advocate, the Holy Spirit,” to “teach [us] everything and remind [us] of all that [he has] said to [us].” (14:26)
And there’s one more thing. To say that we are “children of God” does not just mean that we are loved by God, or that we’re heirs of God, or that we are still trying to learn and grow. It also means that we’re one another’s siblings. Our religion is not just an individual relationship with God. It’s life in a family of God. And that family is not just this church. It’s The Church. It isn’t just the people in this room. It’s the raucous Pentecost crowd of people “from every nation under heaven,” (Acts 2:5) young and old; sons and daughters; “Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs…” townies and toonies and bears, oh my!
You probably don’t need me to tell you that siblings don’t always get along. No family is perfect, right? Some people have decades-long quarrels with their families; others have more recent hurts. Some have left their families behind altogether, and that’s been the healthiest thing. Other lost their families, long ago, and wish they still have them. But the Holy Spirit has adopted us all into this one family of God, a family that breaks through every boundary of language and nation, race and class, and we are obligated to love and serve and try to reconcile with one another within this human family, across any barriers that may divide us.
We may not see tongues of fire. We may not hear a violent wind. But to really listen to one another, when we don’t come from the same place—to really understand one another, when we don’t seem to speak the same language—that is the heart of the Holy Spirit’s work on Pentecost, and that is work in which we can participate every day. For “all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” (Romans 8:14) Amen.