The Same Spirit (Psalm 27 and Acts 4:13-31)

Sermon by Rev. Deborah Hannay Sunoo

We’re making our way through “The Brief Statement of Faith” this summer, a creed or confession of the Presbyterian Church.  Last week we began the section on the Holy Spirit, and this week we continue it.  So please pull out your bulletin inserts and let’s all read aloud together lines 65-71 which you’ll find on the back of that page.  Beginning with “in a broken and fearful world” and just going up to the line that ends with “justice, freedom, and peace:”

In a broken and fearful world
The Spirit gives us courage
To pray without ceasing,
To witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior,
To unmask idolatries in Church and culture,
To hear the voices of peoples long silenced,
And to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.

In a broken and fearful world, the Spirit gives us courage.  I find myself coming back to this line often. In a broken and fearful world, the Spirit gives us courage.  In fact, I remember invoking it in a sermon just last summer, after the tragic shooting on the nearby campus of Seattle Pacific University, and I don’t need to tell you just how often events like one that have unfolded in the months since.  Ours is a broken and fearful world, there is no question about that.

But then so has every age of human history been, really.  The names and players change, our technology and weaponry advances, but sadly the game remains very much the same.  Violence, injustice, oppression, racial prejudice… these have been part of humanity’s story from the earliest days.  Perhaps that’s why the language of “a broken and fearful world” is just the subordinate clause there, in the creed.  That we live “in a broken and fearful world” is a given.  That much we already know.  Now tell us the good news.

The good news follows immediately on its heels, in that very next line: the Spirit gives us courage.  In a broken and fearful world, the Spirit gives us courage.  And notice: it’s not simply courage to sit tight in our own homes and believe all shall be well.  It’s courage to be actively involved in the struggle to make things right.  That’s a powerful series of verbs there - Courage to pray, to witness, to listen, to work. Courage to pray in the confidence that God will meet us in this mess, and offer us help.  Courage to speak the good news of God’s grace in a world that desperately needs that grace.  Courage to unmask idolatries in Church and culture – that’s an interesting line, isn’t it?  Idolatry being anything that pulls the focus of our worship from God, and directs it elsewhere – toward money, power, status, glamour, success… temptations that affect the Church too, as well as those outside the Church.  And the list continues.  Courage to listen and really to hear the voices of those who for far too long have remained unheard.  Courage to get to work and take the steps that are needed to bring justice, and freedom, and peace for all God’s children. In a broken and fearful world, the Spirit gives us courage, to do what needs to be done.

Our reading from Acts this morning never fails to impress me.  Peter and John have been in prison, and are now being hauled in front of the authorities, who are trying to silence them:  “Stop speaking about this Jesus you keep going on about.  Stop healing people in his name.  Enough already!”  When they are finally released, Peter and John rush home to their friends and pray with them – not a simple prayer of thanks for their safety, not even a prayer for protection in the face of further dangers.  They pray that the Holy Spirit would help them speak God’s word “with boldness.” And as the rest of the book of Acts unfolds it’s clear enough that their prayer was answered.  There’s no question the Holy Spirit grants them boldness.  And the story of Jesus spreads like wildfire.  In a broken and fearful world, the Spirit gives us courage.

The psalmist put it this way: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? … Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” (Psalm 27: 1, 14)

Even just on a personal level, think for a moment of the kinds of situations in life that require great courage.

It takes courage, for instance, simply to be your own person when the culture demands conformity.  Courage to know yourself, and act like yourself, when the world (your neighbors, your classmates at school, your colleagues at work, the advertising industry) asks you to be someone else.

It takes courage to start something brand new – whether moving to a new home, a new school, or a new job.

It takes courage to get up in the morning and face another day of work at a job that might drain you, or another day of looking for work in an economy that might not be helping one bit, or another day of loneliness or boredom when life might sometimes feel a bit too empty instead of too busy and too full. 

It takes courage sometimes to keep hope alive, to simply keep on keeping on, if you or someone you love is battling a serious illness.

It takes courage for a young couple these days to get married, and mean it, when our culture says lifelong commitment is so passé, and really it’s only worth sticking together when everything feels all rosy and romantic; you might as well pack it in at the first sign of trouble.

But it also takes tremendous courage to leave an abusive relationship, especially if that is the only life you know and it is hard to imagine another.

Certainly it takes courage to sit with a sick child or a dying parent or spouse in the hospital and not absolutely implode.  Courage to be able to offer your support in every possible way, as your loved one suffers.  Just as it takes courage to leave that bedside now and then to come up for air, knowing that no matter how much you love your dear one you cannot offer them strength you do not have.

And these are just some of the moments in life that call forth courage on an individual, personal level.

Again, “the Brief Statement of Faith” reminds us of the larger scale situations that call for courage, too.  Situations that call us to say “No!  I won’t stand for it!”  It’s not ok that kids are bullied in school.  It’s not ok that families go hungry in a wealthy nation.  It’s not ok that war takes innocent lives.  It’s not ok that black men and black women in our country are made to feel less than their white counterparts.  No!  It shouldn’t be like this!  It’s not right!  And of course we could come up with countless more examples.  Situations that are going to require people of faith to move from simply thinking it’s wrong to bravely speaking and acting as if it’s wrong.

We don’t, as individuals, have to take on every fight in the world.  But certainly we can each find one.  One particular evil, one awful situation in our world that makes our hearts cry out, “NO!”  And then pour our lives passionately into saying so, and trying to make things right.  Whether it’s speaking out against human trafficking, or the proliferation of guns, or standing up for those in dire need of help for their mental illness, or standing up for the outcast in the school lunchroom.  There are so very many battles worth fighting.  Every one of us can take a stand and try to make something right.  But it takes courage.

And let’s be honest, sometimes it can take courage simply to stand up and be counted as a person of faith.  Certainly it takes courage to be people of compassionate, thoughtful, stable, nuanced faith in a world where the media frenzy loves to feed on the latest church scandal or act of religious extremism.

And then to pick Jesus in particular as our Lord and Savior?  How brave is that?  I mean, have you heard this guy?  The kinds of demands he makes on his disciples?  The kind of life he asks us to lead?  Surely turning toward Christ, really and truly trying to live as his faithful disciple can take as much courage as any of the things we would stand boldly against.  Taking biblical teaching seriously is really tough sometimes.  But again, the Spirit gives us courage.

The need for such courage, and the ability to demonstrate it, knows no age limit.  I’ve known 9 year olds and 90 year olds who are passionate about social justice, passionate about articulating their faith in Jesus, who have such courage in speaking and acting on what they believe.

I suspect it’s the Spirit’s fault they do.

Want to join them?  The prophet Joel saw it coming in that verse I quoted last week: “In the last days I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.” As it turns out, we in the Church have all the Holy Spirit we require.  So be one of the young men seeing visions, one of the old men dreaming dreams.  Be one of the sons and daughters speaking the truth.

Pick just one area, one single thing you can say a passionate no to, and turn away, renounce it, let the world hear you insisting: “This is not ok!”  Or find something your heart is passionately turning toward, saying “Yes! This is the way it should be”– and make it your personal mission to speak and serve and act in that area of ministry with all your heart.

In a broken and fearful world, the Spirit gives us the courage.  Whether you need it today to help you tackle an area of ministry you are passionate about, or do fight a far more personal battle, I invite you to claim that courage. And even you will be amazed at what God’s Spirit enables you to do. 

Let’s stand and affirm our faith again together, reading aloud lines 65-71, from “The Brief Statement of Faith:"

In a broken and fearful world
The Spirit gives us courage
To pray without ceasing,
To witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior,
To unmask idolatries in Church and culture,
To hear the voices of peoples long silenced,
And to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.
Amen!