1. Pentecost: Acts 2:1-13: Pentecost:  7 weeks after Passover and 50 days after the first Easter, the day when Jews gathered to celebrate the giving of the Law. Jesus’ friends are gathered “in one place” in Jerusalem. There came upon them “a sound like the rush of a violent wind” and tongues as of fire and they were filled with the Holy Spirit talking “in other languages”. With the city filled with devout Jews from “every nation under heaven”, they hear the friends speaking “in the native language of each.” “How is it we can understand these Galileans in our own native language” about God’s deeds of power? The language of love? Whatever else the story may mean, the Spirit was addressing these foreigners from far and wide with words of God’s presence and activity affecting their lives. When people from diverse cultures and languages gather, the language of love is universal. The principal sign of the Spirit’s presence is love spoken and enacted for the well-being of the human family.

2. Life among believers – in common: Acts2:43-47:  The earliest friends and companions of Jesus had a deep sense of community – a spirit, the Spirit - which drew them closer to each other for prayer in the temple, and, “they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.” “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.” 

 The Spirit moves people to generous community, where at its core people share and respond freely to the need of others. Generosity is a sign of the presence of the divine whose boundless goodness moves people to care for their neighbour near and far sacrificially and compassionately. Communism? Certainly not of the malignant type that the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have seen too much of. Nor libertarian individualism, where the focus is my freedom and my well-being. 

This communal generosity stands as a model of the possible and as a judgement against other models where domination, greed, and self-interest dominate – wherever it rears its egocentric head. This is the type of community worthy of the label: the church or the ecclesial community where Christ’s Spirit is noticeably present.

3. The Transformation of Saul, who becomes Paul. Acts 9:1-9: Early Christians had opponents. Saul was a religious fanatic who permitted himself to persecute friends of Jesus because they no longer conformed to the faith of Jewish ancestors and teachers. He was actively present when Stephen was stoned to death – the first martyr among Jesus’ friends. He was on the road Damascus to root out the Jesus contagion when suddenly he experienced a life-changing vision. He heard Jesus calling him out, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” It was a moment to transform his hate and begin to embrace the Spirit of Jesus.  

Christ's Spirit reaches into peoples’ lives to awaken them to the gifts emanating from divine love experienced and shared wherever on the road of life they may find themselves. Paul became a great interpreter of the Good News of Jesus and his Way, calling all to learn and nurture the gifts of humility, compassion, justice and love – the fullness of their humanity.  

4. Philip and the Ethiopian court official – Acts 8:26-40:   Philip is an early “evangelist” – a word in our time corrupted by televangelists’ manipulative and often self-interested ways. An “evangelist” is really anyone who tries to live the “Way” and the good news of Jesus. When asked about “the Way” they simply tell the truth and leave it to the other and to the Spirit to respond in their own manner. In this story the man from Numibia, now Ethiopia, a court official, is obviously a searcher – trying to discover divine truth. He had worshipped in Jerusalem’s temple, he reads aloud to himself the scriptures (of the Older Testament, namely Isaiah 53:7-8), and he wonders what it all means. 

He needs an interpreter of the text. The interpreter, Philip, is so convincing that the official is led to ask to be baptized, a sign that truth has come to him and he has embraced it with his whole life. Philip doesn’t hesitate, in spite of religious law that would have constrained him from responding to the request to be included among the friends and companion of Jesus. 

The Hebrew law as stated in Deuteronomy 23:1 would have excluded this man from “being admitted to the assembly of JHWH” because of his race and his emasculation (eunuch). But Philip goes beyond the surface and recognizes a member of the human family loved by God and gifted by the Spirit. Ethiopian tradition claims the official as the country’s first evangelist to share “the Way” of Jesus.

5. God shows no partiality – Cornelius, the centurion of the Roman army. Acts 10:1-34:   Cornelius was a “god-fearer”, a gentile who, like the Ethiopean official, in their own way lived in awe of the divine “praying to God constantly and giving charitable gifts to the needy”. He demonstrated being led by the gifts of the divine Spirit. The story brackets another story of Peter having a vision that freed him from the religious regulation of “clean” and “unclean”, distinguishing the Jewish world from the “gentile” world. “God has made it clear to me not to call anyone unclean or impure.” So, Peter is enabled and now willing to meet with gentiles and understand that “any person of any nationality who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to God.” Not even the uncircumcised (men) are beyond God’s affirmation. Peter shares with Cornelis and his household the sacred story of Jesus. Then the Spirit “descended upon all who were listening to the message” – including alien gentiles – and they are baptized.   

In identifying with “the Way” of Jesus. the “god-fearers” strike me as recognition that their passion for God and their ways of generosity and kindness are fruits of the spiritual gifts the Divine pours out on all humanity.  Baptism, in this story, is the formal and informed response within the Christian community of friends and companions indicating that a “god-fearer” has committed her/himself to  “the Way” of Jesus. Many of Jesus’ friends and companions are not baptized, but welcome “the Way” as inspired and informed by the divine Spirit.

6. Sent out to the Jewish diaspora. Acts 13:1-4:   Barnabas and Saul aka Paul are commissioned by the community of the Way to proclaim “the word of God.” Paul’s first “mission” trip reveals that the tension between the synagogue and the Jesus community is substantial. It reveals that the Way of love can be a challenge and threat to people of other faiths and can generate less than loving and gracious responses by advocates of the Way. It is a story to assess the means whereby friends and companions of Jesus tell his story. (Cf. Paul’s aggressive personality in Acts 9:13ff, Acts 16:18)   

7. Paul at the Areopagus in Athens. Acts 17:16-34:   On his mission trip through Greece, Paul lands in Athens, where new ideas and religious icons were topics of many conversations. Given the chance to tell the story of Jesus life, death, and resurrection, Paul acknowledges “How extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, [the One] who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is [God] served by human hands, as though [God] needed anything, since [God] gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for and find [God] – though indeed [God] is not far from each one of us. For ‘in [God] we live and move and have our being’….”  

Paul acknowledges the diversity of religious observance and recognizes that it is a searching for the divine who is present to each and all wherever they find themselves. No tribal God, only the universal Divine. The God of all who gives the breath of life to all is the One Paul proclaims and points to Jesus’ resurrection as the evidence for the authority of the One.

It is hard to find a text in Judaeo-Christian  Scripture that is clearer about the omnipresence of the Divine in earth’s entire human family.    Once the Athenians hear Paul talk about “resurrection” they scoff and become give vent to their skeptical side.

8. What can separate us from God. Romans 8:18-39 (see also Psalm 139)

In life there is so much that speaks of futility, suffering, death, and loss. “We know that the whole Creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.” 

The entire human family is gifted with the “first fruits of the Spirit” the outward evidence of the Spirit’s gifts within each. These gifts demand cultivation by one and all so that the fruits of the Spirit will fill the earth. Believing and acting on this is the vocation of the entire human family, knowing that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

9. All one – chains that divide are broken. Galatians 3:26-28: The challenge in the Newer Testament is that often it seems to generalize only about those who have chosen to be part of the Christian faith community, i.e. the church. But this shrinks the goodness of God contradicting or constraining the covenant love of God for the entire human family and for all Creation. This limitation is contrary to the Way of Jesus as depicted in the Gospels. It triggers a kind of works theology that says, unless you have the right beliefs about Jesus and have fulfilled proper procedures in advance (e.g. baptism and profession of faith), don’t count yourself included among the friends and companions of Jesus. 

This passage refutes this and I believe this passage has universal validity:  “there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Jesus Christ” – all heirs of the love of God as revealed in Jesus the Beloved.

10. Spiritual Gifts. 1Corinthians 12:1-11: ”Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;” “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” Again, these gifts are distributed by the Spirit at birth and the global human challenge is to cultivate those gifts that contribute “to the common good.” Jesus’ life and work reveals how these gifts are made real in their maturity – how they are employed when they are centred and rooted in the fertile soil of divine love. Not everyone has the same gifts – the Spirit distributes a diversity of gifts. But everyone is invited to grow the gifts received and to use them faithfully and fruitfully so that both the individual and the community (small or large, local or global) can thrive and flourish – “for the common good.”

11. Fruits of the Spirit. Galatians 5:22, 25; 2 Corinthians 6:6-10:   “The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. … If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.” The fruits or outcomes are summarized, but the list is not an exhaustive catalogue of virtues and character traits. The passage in 2Corinthians adds: endurance, purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God, with weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left, honor, good repute, true, well known, alive, rejoicing, making many rich, having nothing but possessing everything….and open hearts. (see also my Pilgrim Praxis blog post: http://www.minister.ca/recognizing-the-presence-of-the-spirit).

12. After this life. 1 Corinthians 15:35-44, 51-52: When officiating at funerals, my hand and heart  frequently found its way to this text and image answering the questions: “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” The seed has to die before it can come to life. So our lives are but seeds and the Creator enlivens the perishable to become imperishable: “It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body…. Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of any eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” For Christians, this faith conviction is anchored  in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The one given “for the world” reveals to the world the marvelous mystery of God’s steadfast love for all – in life and in death, we are God’s.

13. Imitating Christ’s humility - as stars in the world: Philippians 2:1-8, 15.   Humility is a core “gift” of the Spirit because it was modelled for human well-being in the life and work of Jesus. “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus. …It is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for God’s good pleasure.” Humility counters the sense of superiority and the urge to dominate that has been so much part of the socio-cultural way of Christendom. In Earth’s “small village” – God's pluralistic world – humility is a key virtue and wisdom for any engagement with people of other faiths and none.

14. By faith: Abraham (& Sarah, Hagar, Keturah and others) – Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-10, 13-16; 12:1, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” The scriptures witness to the faith and hope of many ancestors who sensed the call and promise of God and pursued its direction by faith! They did not in their lifetime experience the fulfillment of the promise but by faith persevered in the Way of Jesus and since then have experienced something better: a homeland, a better country, a city for them and for all. 

Nothing can separate the human family and all Creation from the eternal and steadfast love of the Holy One, the Creator, Source, Giver, and Sustainer of life in its fullness. Those faithful ancestors who embraced the gifts of the Spirit are now “the cloud of witnesses” who surround the global family as it “sees to it that no one falls short of God’s grace”. 

15. Hearers and Doers of the Word. James 1:19-26:   The gifts of the Spirit and the faith that God loves unconditionally and eternally are one side of truly human life and the other is to be an agent of those gifts and of that love mending and healing  the world humans inhabit. Faithful living is summarized as “caring for orphans and widows in their distress and keeping oneself unstained by the world.” The spiritual gifts and their fruits, the Way of Jesus, the Great Commandment, the Golden Rule, Micah’s summary - all are keys to the response of faith to God’s prevenient grace – amazing grace – to which the Judaeo-Christian scriptures witness. The person of faith knows what is expected of them, but none is able to attain the perfection of God. But God’s grace abounds.

16. God is love: 1John 4:13-21

The principal sign of the divine presence is love. “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. … No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us and (God’s) love is perfected in us.” “Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from (God) is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”    

The entire human family is called to live by this commandment – we are all sisters and brothers in God’s one human family and the relationship extends beyond people to Earth itself and its creatures, and beyond.

17. God will dwell with mortals and make all things new: Revelation 21:3-6; Isaiah 65:17, 43:18f; 2Cor.5:17; John 4:13.   “I am making all things new” is the message of these texts as the Jewish and Christian communities have experienced the Holy One. Christians by faith trust this declaration to be for the whole human family. This trust is awakened as the fulfillment of the Covenant promise of Genesis 9. It is revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and is confirmed in the persistent witness of people of faith – for the one human family. The old exile, sufferings, and death will no longer be remembered, but there will be joy and delight because the one God is present to all Creation.   The thirst for life in its fullness will be quenched.

18. The River of Life.  Revelation 22:1-6: “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life; bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be found there anymore.”

The scriptures of the Judaeo-Christian heritage emerge from the Jewish and the Christian communities as a witness to the divine experienced in times past. Inevitably the addressees of these scriptures are the communities from which they originated. But thanks be to God there are so many testimonies that call the separate communities to transcend their own self-focussed interests and recognize JHWH/God’s abiding and ubiquitous steadfast love and concern for the well-being and salvation of all the world’s peoples.

   

Logic and my faith in JHWH/God compel me to recognize that JHWH/God is no tribal deity, but the Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of all Creation – its people, creatures, the Earth, and heavens beyond. Through the Spirit, I believe and can’t imagine otherwise, that God’s love and redeeming goodness has been experienced and reflected on by people of other religious practices and that the Spirit has endowed them also with all the gifts necessary for observing in all their fullness the essences of the  Golden Rule and the Great Commandment – however they may be labelled in other traditions.

These convictions warrant, in my judgement, the ongoing pursuit of respectful and informed conversation with people of other faith traditions – recognizing that no one person of faith or faith community can represent entire religious traditions or comprehend them. The result of these conversations may not be an actual global theology, but it may cultivate deeper understanding, greater appreciation, and honourable respect for both differences to explore and common values to celebrate.   It might even lead to a more peaceful world, something dear to the Divine heart.

Thanks be to God!