Great Gifts, Great Responsibilities

Great Gifts, Great Responsibilities

John 15:26-27[1]

I’ve mentioned before that I have a reason for the things I say every week in worship. I’m sure most of you are aware that I begin every sermon with the prayer, “Holy Spirit, breath of the living God, renew us all, along with your whole creation.” What you may not know is the reason why I do that. There are a couple of them. First, that kind of prayer is called a “bidding prayer.” I’m asking God to be among us, to help me speak words that will be helpful to you, and to use those words to inspire us all to find new ways of following Christ in our daily lives. I recognize that I’m just a man, and that the only way anything I say can make a difference in your life is for God to use my words by his Spirit working in your heart.

That’s the practical reason. As you may suspect, there is also a theological reason for my prayer. You may have noticed that I frame every sermon with a reference to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I open my sermon with a prayer asking the Spirit to continue to carry out his work of renewing all things among us. I humbly conclude my sermons “in the name of Jesus the Christ our Savior and Lord.” Again, that’s a kind of prayer, that the risen Christ who lives among us would take my fallible words and use them to speak his word to you all. Finally, I conclude my sermon with a prayer asking God the Father to continue bringing his kingdom of peace, justice, and freedom in our lives and through us into the lives of others.

On this Pentecost Sunday, I want to focus on the part about the Holy Spirit. We celebrate Pentecost to remember that, just as the Spirit of God breathed life into God’s human creatures in the beginning, it was on the day of Pentecost that the Spirit of God breathed life into the early church, enabling them to do amazing things, and to bear witness to all that Jesus had done for them and meant to them. It was an amazing transformation, because before that day, we find the first Christians typically gathered behind locked doors out of fear of being caught and arrested. But when the Spirit came upon them, they seemed to lose their fear and became bold witnesses to Jesus Christ.

This is precisely what Jesus says the Spirit would do for the disciples according to John’s Gospel. In our lesson for today, Jesus promises that the Spirit would bear witness to him, and that would enable them to bear witness as well. Our lesson from the Good News Translation puts it this way: “The Helper will come—the Spirit, who reveals the truth about God and who comes from the Father. I will send him to you from the Father, and he will speak about me. And you, too, will speak about me” (Jn. 15:26-27). The Spirit comes to enable Jesus’ disciples to carry on the work the Father had sent him to do.

That follows a pattern in John’s Gospel. Jesus said that he was only doing and saying what God had sent him to do and say. In that same way, Jesus sent the Spirit “from the Father” to his disciples to help them  understand of all that Jesus had done and taught. And the Spirit would in turn send them to continue the work Jesus began. That’s the pattern: Jesus did the work God sent him to do, and they were sent to do the same work (Jn. 14:12). Just as Jesus taught what God had given him to teach, so the Spirit would continue to teach them. And in turn they would teach others (Jn. 16:13). And the whole point is to continue the work of sharing the good news of God’s love for all people in Jesus Christ.[2]

In some ways, this is about our task. We’re called to follow Jesus, and following Jesus means being sent into the world to share God’s love. But in some ways, it’s about who God is. The fact that God sent his son Jesus Christ into the world as a demonstration of his love for us makes it clear that God’s very being from all eternity was one of love reaching out.[3] We see it in creation. We see it in God’s dealings with Abraham and his family. We see it in the life of Jesus. And we see that same essential love in the sending of the Spirit to us. The Spirit not only teaches us, but also enables us to continue the work of sharing God’s love.[4]

As I’ve mentioned before, President John F. Kennedy was known for something he said right before he officially took office: “For of those to whom much is given, much is required.”[5] Of course the original form of this was spoken by Jesus: “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required” (Lk. 12:48). It’s a statement that Jesus made about the importance of faithfully carrying out our calling. I like the way the Contemporary English Version puts it: “If God has been generous with you, he will expect you to serve him well. But if he has been more than generous, he will expect you to serve him even better.” I like The Message translation even more: “Great gifts mean great responsibilities; greater gifts, greater responsibilities!”

We live in a time when there is so much talk about privilege and rights. Many of us think primarily about what is “due” to us by right, and we set about seeking to claim that. But Jesus was one who set aside his privileges and rights to serve others. Just as he was sent to carry out God’s work in this world, so also all of us have been sent. More than that we’ve been given great gifts. And the greatest gift is the Spirit, who leads us and empowers us to use our gifts in the service of others.

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[1] © 2024 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm, PhD on 5/19/2024 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

[2] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 1.1, 455: “The Holy Spirit is the authorization [sic] to speak about Christ; He is the equipment of the prophet and apostle; He is the summons to the Church to minister the Word.”

[3] Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 56 “A Christian doctrine of the Trinity which is bound to the history of Christ and the history of the Spirit must conceive the Trinity as the Trinity of the sending and seeking love of God which is open from its very origin. The triune God is the God who is open to man, open to the world and open to time.”

[4] Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out: Three Movements in the Spiritual Life, 125: “In Jesus Christ, God has entered our lives in the most intimate way, so that we could enter into his life through the Spirit. … By giving us his Spirit, his breath, he became closer to us than we are to ourselves. … Praying in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, therefore, means participating in the intimate life of God himself. … We receive a new breath, a new freedom, a new life. This new life is the divine life of God himself.”

[5] John F. Kennedy, “Address to a Joint Convention of the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” January 9, 1961. Accessed at https://www.jfklibrary.org/archives/other-resources/john-f-kennedy-speeches/massachusetts-general-court-19610109 .