Pastor John, St John's UCC Owosso

Dear sister and brother in Christ: it is with joy that I write these words to you. Joy because of the presence of God in my life and the knowledge that God blesses you with that very same presence; the indwelling, abiding presence of God’s Holy Spirit!

This month we disciples of Jesus Christ celebrate the gift and blessing of God’s presence on Pentecost Sunday. However, before becoming a Christian holiday Pentecost was a celebration of the Hebrews, our forbearers in faith.

“Pentecost, a term derived from the Greek word, pentekostos, meaning fiftieth, which was applied to the fiftieth day after the Passover.”[i] In the Jewish faith Pentecost was the culmination of the feast of weeks. “You shall observe the festival of weeks, the first fruits of wheat harvest …. The best of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the LORD your God” (Exodus 34:22, 26).

And in Deuteronomy 16:10-11 we read, “Then you shall keep the festival of weeks for the LORD your God, contributing a freewill offering in proportion to the blessing that you have received from the LORD your God. Rejoice before the LORD your God––you and your sons and your daughters, your male and female slaves, the Levites resident in your towns, as well as the strangers, the orphans, and the widows who are among you – at the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name.”

Many biblical commentaries have been written making a connection between the “first fruits” of the ground and the “first fruits” of the Spirit. I encourage you to read and study these wonderful books, there are many in your church library. But the Still Speaking God has yet much more to reveal to God’s people who search for a new understanding of ancient truths. God has spoken to every generation and continues to speak this day. God speaks and reveals God’s will by the Spirit given in Jesus’ name.

When we love like Jesus; love everyone, completely, without condition, God fulfills God’s promise in Jesus and blesses us with the Holy Spirit. We experience anew Pentecost! One blessing of God’s Spirit is; a new understanding of God’s truth revealed in ancient words. Ancient words like those found in the Deuteronomy text cited above.

Please bear with me and forgive my simpleness. I am sure you already understand this, but to me it is new (as is everyday in Christ) and such new understanding excites me.

What do I find new? Well, my understanding of the 11^th verse from the Deuteronomy Pentecost passage. “Rejoice before the LORD your God––you and your sons and your daughters, your male and female slaves, the Levites resident in your towns, as well as the strangers, the orphans, and the widows who are among you – at the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name.”

Rejoice “at the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name.” The place where God will choose to dwell is within we who in Jesus’ name love as Jesus loved!

The Spirit foretold this truth long ago through Moses and said, “Rejoice!” Who should rejoice? Everyone! Not only the chosen sons and daughters of Abraham, but even the undesirable, the oppressed and the forgotten: male and female slaves, Levites, strangers, orphans and widows. Everyone who chooses to love as God loves shall rejoice! In Jesus God chooses to dwell within even those whom the world rejects.

This is also revealed in the story of the first gentile convert to Christianity, the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26-39). Even though this eunuch was a man of great wealth and power he was rejected by the church where he chose to worship. This was because of the Law of Moses (Deut. 23:1). Something over which he probably had no control, his condition as a eunuch, banned him from the assembly. Yet, the Holy Spirit of God given in Jesus’ name did not reject this man. The Spirit led a disciple of Jesus to proclaim the gospel to and baptize this eunuch. Upon experiencing the Holy Spirit in Christ the eunuch went his way rejoicing in the presence of Love. In Jesus, God called and blessed a man the world rejected.

Oh, my sister and brother, at a time when the world is highlighting differences between people and using those differences to promote and justify violence between God’s children. God in Jesus in you is sharing the way of peace and reconciliation between all peoples. Peter proclaimed in his Pentecost message, “the promise [of the Spirit] is for everyone whom the LORD our God calls to him” (Acts 2:39). “At the place that the LORD your God will choose as a dwelling for his name.” The “everyone” is whom God calls, not everyone whom man calls, or everyone who man thinks God should call. And yes, God loves completely and enables those whom God calls.

Living apart from God limits us to the world’s understanding of love. When we choose to love as Jesus loved God blesses us with a longing to love everyone as God loves everyone regardless of age, sex, economic status, education, race, sexual identity, nationality or religious faith. We can love this way for in Jesus we are no longer apart from God!

In this age either we will learn to accept one another and get along, or as we see illustrated every day in the news, we will kill one another. The teaching of Jesus Christ can and will lead us to accept and love one another for just who we are and not for who we would like someone to be. When we love without placing conditions on our love then we witness and testify in action to the great love of God.

In so doing we fulfill God’s command in Deuteronomy to give the best of our first fruits as a freewill offering and we are blessed even more with the joy of God’s presence which brings about Pentecost Peace, the peace of Christ: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid” (John 14:27).

[i] Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed., Walter A. Elwell,(Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI. 1984), 835.