Sermon
May 10 and 11, 2008
Pentecost
20th Anniversary
John 7:37-39

About 20 years ago,
some of you had a vision,
an idea,
a sense of where God was leading us.
(Some of us, like me, weren’t around yet,
but many of you were.)

It was a time when the LCA, ALC and AELC
were preparing to merge and form the ELCA.
And as Lutherans talked about working together on a national scale,
you had the idea that we could work together locally.
And not only work together,
but come together—merge—
--become one.

And with a lot of hard work
and God’s grace,
that’s what happened.
Mt. Tabor and St. Luke’s came together
and formed Good Shepherd.
That was 20 years ago this month.
May 1988.

This weekend we come together
to celebrate our 20th anniversary as a congregation
and to give thanks to God
for our shared ministry.

We received a letter from Bishop Gerald Mansholt,
Bishop of the Central States Synod.
Here’s what he writes:

I thank God for you, as well.
God has blessed us.
God has given us a wonderful gift
of this community of faith.
By no means perfect.
But gifted to serve.
To care for one another.
To reach out in love.

As our mission statement reminds us,
we are people who are:

Following Christ,
Growing in Faith,
Sharing God’s Love

And so we celebrate 20 years of shared mission.
And we look ahead to many, many more.

When we started thinking about this 20th anniversary,
in the midst of brainstorming ideas about what we might do,
someone suggested developing a 20/20 vision.
And we developed that idea into
looking back 20 years—giving thanks for what God has given;
and looking ahead 20 years—thinking about where God is taking us next.

We’re still working on that.
It’s not neatly finished for this celebration.
I hoped it would be.
But it’s not.
But we have developed the mission statement—
What is that again?

Following Christ,
Growing in Faith,
Sharing God’s Love

We’ve developed a list of core values.
(Do you know what those are?
You can check them out on our website.)

And we’re developing a more complete vision.
Next step on that process is in June.

So, by looking back and remembering,
we’ve also been moved forward in God’s mission.

And today,
we celebrate by looking back
and looking ahead.

Today is Pentecost.
Which is cool,
because Pentecost is often thought of
as the birthday of the church.
It’s a day
when the Holy Spirit came
in a special way.

We’ve heard the same Scripture readings today
that were read on the merger service 20 years ago.
And they’re Pentecost readings.

The Gospel is from John 7:37-39,
and in those 3 verses
we have a great message of what God does for us
and what we’re called to do.

Would you look at that reading with me:

On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out (and would you read Jesus’ words with me, please):

Let anyone who is thirsty come to me,
and let the one who believes in me drink.
As the Scripture has said,
‘Out of the believer’s heart
shall flow rivers of living water.’”

Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

What would we do without water?
We wouldn’t be alive.
We couldn’t survive.

What would we do without Jesus?
Jesus is the living water.
Jesus is life.
Jesus gives us life.
It all starts with him.

But then,
once we are given life by God,
what then?
Then, out of us
flows the living water we have been given.

What we have received from God
is not meant to stay within us,
but is to flow out of us.

Or let’s take it a step further.
As I’ve mentioned before,
the words in Greek (pneuma)
and in Hebrew (ruach)
that are translated Spirit,
can also be translated as wind or breath.

Pastor Brian Stoffregen puts it this way:

Neither living water nor wind are stale (or boring).
Shouldn’t the same be true of Spirit-filled believers and congregations.
Both living water and wind are images of power.
I think that’s what Pentecost is all about.
We, the followers of Jesus,
have been empowered by God
to carry on Jesus’ witness and ministry in the world

God’s Spirit isn’t just something to be studied.
It is God’s Spirit that powers our life.
My life.
Your life.

We talked about this at our Monday night Bible Study.
And as we discussed it,
someone said:
“Aren’t all gifts of the Spirit
meant to be shared?”

And that led us to look at 1 Corinthians 12 (about Spiritual Gifts)—
--and then chapter 13,
which is about….
Love.

Where is it you hear 1 Corinthians 13
more than anywhere else?
Weddings.
It’s a great passage for weddings.

20 years ago,
there was a wedding of sorts—
--a marriage of 2 congregations.
Okay, maybe that’s a stretch—
--but I think 1 Corinthians 13 means a lot for us
as a congregation,
just like it does for a couple getting married.

For one thing,
it gives us a picture of what love looks like.
Do you remember?
Love is patient.
Love is kind.
Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way;
it is not irritable or resentful.
It does not rejoice in wrongdoing,
but rejoices in the truth.
It bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things.
Love never ends.

Isn’t that a wonderful picture
of life together?
That description of love points us
to what we are called to be.
But it also reminds us of what we’re not.
We’re not always patient.
We’re not always kind.
We want things our own way.
We get irritable.

What then?

And there’s more.

The beginning of 1 Corinthians 13 says this:

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels,
but do not have love,
I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
If I have prophetic powers,
and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith,
so as to remove mountains,
but do not have love,
I am nothing.
If I give away all my possessions,
and if I hand over my body so that I may boast,
but do not have love,
I gain nothing.

What is central?
Love.
Without love, nothing else means a thing.

And here’s the struggle.
We can’t produce this love on our own.

That’s why:
We confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.

But the good news
is that we don’t need to free ourselves.
Which is really good news—since we can’t.
We are set free by the love of God,
given to us in so many ways,
and especially through Jesus—
--who lived and died and rose again for you and for me.

And God’s Holy Spirit
comes to you and to me.
And lives in you and in me.
And gives us love.
Love to give us life.
And love to share.
Like streams of living water.
Like the blowing wind.

20 years ago,
the wind of God’s Spirit was blowing in our midst.
Shaping us.
Changing us.
Loving us.

That wind blows still today.
And tomorrow.
And forever.

We’ve been given a wonderful gift.
A gift to share.

In Jesus’ name,
Amen