You know, when I talk with my fellow pastors and we compare notes about our congregations, I have been struck by how often I hear this one common phrase “This is the way we’ve always done it.”
Ok, I bet some of you snickered when I said that phrase. It’s probably something you’ve said yourself. And in the church it is so easy to rely on “the way we’ve always done it” because we rightly value tradition. And so, year after year, we do the same things. We put up the same decorations, we sing the same songs, we read the same Scripture passages, we teach the kids the same lessons we learned.
Now sometimes this is a good and right thing to do. Take for examples the great tenets of the faith like this things found in the Apostle’s and Nicene Creed. Those are truths that you can take to the bank. Those are things that haven’t changed as culture has changed around us.
But most things in church are not like that. Most things in church eventually have to change with the tide of culture. And we’ve seen this battle play out especially in things like music and Bible versions. For many people up until the late 1960’s, the only music that was “church music” was hymns. And most of them were nearly a century old if not older back then. So they carried the weight of tradition.
But in the 60’s some folks felt that those hymns were stodgy, that the music was stiff and lifeless. They wanted music that sounded more like rock and roll or at least something you’d hear on secular radio. And so, over the years, some churches began to add guitars, basses, backup singers, and more to their worship. And yet others refused to acknowledge a change.
And failing to acknowledge a change in culture or in the era in which we are living can have significant consequences. Take for example the country of Switzerland. For quite a long time, the people of Switzerland could be quite proud of their watch-making tradition. Some of the finest timepieces ever constructed have their origin in places like Basel, Geneva, and Zurich. Think of brands like Tag Heuer, Omega, Cartier, and of course the prestigious Rolex. And these watches are exquisitely made and quite accurate.
But these watches are based on what now has become obsolete technology: springs and dials, escapements and jeweled movements. Simply put, these watches, no matter how finely crafted, are no match for the accuracy and power of a Quartz movement.
Quartz movements are what most of us have in our watches. It’s a tiny crystal of the second hardest mineral on earth that regulates the watch with an astonishing accuracy.
And what is more, quartz movements are not only accurate, but they’re much cheaper to make than mechanical movements. But the watchmakers of Switzerland were stubborn. They didn’t want to take on this new technology. Their pride in their product kept them from looking at the possibility that the new technology had something to offer.
And so, in a short period of time, Switzerland went from being the acknowledged world leader in timekeeping to a nostalgia brand, and one reserved for luxury clients. For everyone else, the Timex, Armitron, Casio, or Benrus watch we picked up at the local department store had a movement that didn’t come from Switzerland, but rather from Japan who are now the acknowledged leaders in quartz watchmaking. Brands like Seiko (my favorite) and Citizen now feature these ultra-precise movements.
And all this because the Swiss didn’t take the time to look around and notice how the world was changing. How a new technology was going to usher in a digital era in which the pace of progress was going to increase exponentially.
Friends, today the church universal celebrates the Day of Pentecost. Pentecost was originally a Jewish festival that occurred fifty days after Passover. It was a celebration that brought people together to joyfully worship. And in the time of Jesus and the Disciples, it was a requirement for all Jewish males within a reasonable distance to head towards Jerusalem to worship. It was a pilgrim festival, one of the three mandatory ones that include Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles or Sukkot.
And wouldn’t you know it, God chose one of the traditional festivals of contemporary Jewish faith to usher in something entirely new. God was about to show the people of Jerusalem, but then eventually the whole world, that a new era had dawned on the world and things would never be the same.
For on the Day of Pentecost, the people in the Upper Room had a remarkable experience. Jesus had told his followers to wait in this upper room until he would give them the gift of the Spirit. In the meantime the disciples learned more and grew in anticipation for what might happen next.
And I think we’re all familiar with this part, right? We know that at Pentecost the Disciples got filled with the Holy Spirit. That others thought they were drunk because they were acting differently from how they normally acted. They were bold and passionate. It seemed like they had a little too much to drink and that the booze had loosened their lips.
So that’s the part we’re familiar with. But what we normally just sort of gloss over in this long extended passage that we’ve read today is the substance of what was being said by Peter and later the other disciples.
You see, the gift of the Holy Spirit was not primarily to be used for manifesting signs and wonders. It wasn’t the ability to do some Holy Hocus Pocus to attract converts. No. Instead, the Holy Spirit was there to inspire holy boldness in Jesus’ followers so that they could tell the story.
The story. You remember before I got sick that we spent a long time talking about the Story of God and God’s People, right? How God worked through people like Eve and Adam, Noah, Abraham, David and more to form a people. How that people sometimes did well but mostly fell into idolatry. And how the Old Testament ended on a note of hope for one that would come.
We, as Christians, know that the one that was to come was Jesus. And after Memorial Day we’ll pick up that sermon series and start with the New Testament.
But today, I want to focus on Pentecost. The boldness that the Spirit gave was not for slick miracles alone but for displays of power and wonder that pointed to the story of God and God’s people.
It was the story that needed an ending. And that ending was found in the person of Jesus the Messiah, the one who fulfilled Israel’s destiny to become faithful to God, to image God perfectly, to demonstrate God’s love to a world in need.
But things on the other side of Pentecost looked different. Worship looked different. It wasn’t confined to the Temple anymore, it could happen anywhere.
And the people of God themselves didn’t look the same. No longer were they confined to a line of purely ethnic descent. You did not need to be physically born into God’s people or undergo a painful conversion experience. Instead, through the same Holy Spirit anyone could be adopted into God’s family. And by anyone, I mean anyone. Just look at Acts! Israelites followed Jesus, it’s true. But not long after came Samaritans, the enemies of the Jews. And then the Romans, the persecutors of the Jews followed Christ, and then other formally pagan Gentiles.
The purity of God’s people was now broken by an influx of spiritual newcomers who flooded in to receive the good news of the Gospel.
Some people did not like this new thing. Some people resisted the advance of God’s Spirit. They even persecuted the disciples up to and including death. Some wanted to drive this upstart movement back to where it came from. How dare they corrupt our Old Time Religion?
But God was in this thing, and so it succeeded.
So many times we look down on things that are new or unexpected. We raise our eyebrows if the least thing changes in church. He did THAT with the bulletin? I liked it better when. Back when I was a kid in Sunday school the pastor used to…
Folks, there is nothing wrong with looking back fondly on the past. But we can’t let the past be the definitive guide to the present or the future.
In each era of the church God through the Spirit continues to do new things. And so we, as God’s people need to keep in step with the Spirit and look around for what God is already doing in the world and go and join in that.
Today much of that might mean harnessing technology to advance the gospel. It might mean more Zoom meetings and virtual revivals. It might mean multicultural and multiethnic churches. It might even mean a global church where regional differences are respected for the sake of the main mission.
As you go about your week ask yourself this question. What do you like about church? What things bring you joy? And then ask yourself how that expression of your faith might speak to someone of a different generation. Would it be as powerful or would it not connect. That doesn’t mean we give it up, but it might mean we diversify the way we present the message.
The Gospel remains the same today and tomorrow into forever. But the way we worship and proclaim has always changed as the Spirit moves in the Body of Christ. Let us pray that we would be diligent in our attention and not stand in the way of where God is leading. Amen.