Our scripture today is Psalm 126. I read this as a Psalm about time -- the past, the present, and the future. 

“When the Lord gave the riches back to Jerusalem,
    it seemed as if we were dreaming.
Then we were filled with laughter,
    and we sang happy songs.
Then the other nations said
    “The Lord has done great things for them.”
The Lord has done great things for us,
    and we are very glad.”

“Then…, then…, then…,” The people are reflecting. God, you were with us -- then. 

These last few months have been a time of wondering God, where are you? Is God only in our church? Was God only with us then? Is God with us here? Is God with us now? 

Psalm 126 shifts from remembering God in the past, to weeping about the struggle in the present.  

“Those who cry as they plant crops…” 
“Those who cry and carry out the seeds…” 
They weep as they sow a garden. 

It’s strange asking people how they’re doing. You no longer hear the response, “Good, how are you?” 

If you listen closely enough, when we ask one another, “How are you?” we hear the weeping. 

Weeping of small business owners not knowing how they will financially recover.

Weeping of exhausted parents trying to work from home and be with their children without any break.

Weeping of elders who are separated from their loved ones. 

Weeping of families of people who work in law enforcement worrying about their safety. 

Weeping of people whose income is insecure as they watch their bills pile and wonder if they will be evicted. 

Weeping of teachers who poured out so much work last semester and frustratingly wondering how they will teach this semester.

Weeping of Black and brown people wondering if their names would be memorialized as a hashtag like Breonna Taylor, Dresjon Reed, Elijah McClain, Tamir Rice? 

Weeping of people sitting behind screens while they argue with their relatives, friends, and coworkers on social media. 

Weeping of people who are single or widowed feeling the weight of isolation 

Weeping of students missing milestones -- graduations, proms, competitions, tournaments.  

I wonder what has caused your weeping? 

I wept at the seemingly acceptance of 120,000 Americans dying.

I wept thinking about George Floyd’s last moments on the concrete as he was desperately searching for help in a crowd of people, but only seeing cell phones recording his death.

I wept last Friday night after volunteering in a tent city in Indy. A little girl I’d been playing with asked, “Are you sleeping here tonight too?” That night I slept in my bed, in my house, while her and her mom were on that park bench.

I am not a person who cries, but my eyes have begun welcoming kleenexes as their new friend.

A lot of people have been shouting, “The apocalypse is near!” And they’re kind of right. Actually, very wrong, but unintentionally right. In Biblical studies, the word apocalypse means “to unmask” and “reveal hidden truths.” In a way, 2020 is a kind of apocalypse. No, it’s not the end of the world. But it is the year that everything is being unmasked and the hidden truths of our broken and oppressive systems are being revealed. 

Psalm 126 shifts from remembering God in the past, to weeping about the struggle in the present, to doing the work for a different future -- planting a garden.

“Those who cry as they plant crops
    will sing at harvest time.
Those who cry
    as they carry out the seeds
will return singing and carrying bundles of grain.”

I read this passage and think, “Oh, God. I love gardening, but I am tired, my eyes are burning, and my face is puffy. Did you miss the last part where we’re all weeping?”

Our weeping about systemic racism, bankrupting health care, and fractured housing? Our weeping for the values and idols that have been placed on pedestals, but that we don’t see the reflection of Jesus in?

God is with us in our weeping. God doesn’t avoid our cries. God doesn’t ask us to quiet down. No, the tears of our weeping are the seeds for God’s restorative creation -- and we help by carrying seeds, planting crops, and imagining a new garden. 

And if 2020 is a garden, it’s one that has recently been tilled. It’s a garden where the weeds can no longer hide, and the soil is raw and exposed. 2020 is a garden ready for some seeds. 

Even with our stuffed up noses, pockets full of used kleenexes, and a good after-crying-headache, let us keep sowing the seeds of God’s kingdom. 

Dig a hole for love, peace, compassion and empathy. Bury deeply the seeds of self-control, gentleness, critical thinking and contemplation. Nourish the seeds of joy, and play, and kindness. Plant seeds of dialogue instead of debate. Scatter seeds that grow conversations centered around listening and understanding rather than winning and diminishing opponents.

Thomas King, an indigenious author, said this about listening to the stories of others: “It’s yours now. Do with it what you will. Tell it to friends. Turn it into a television movie. Forget it. But don’t say in the years to come that you would have lived your life differently if only you had heard this story. You’ve heard it now.”  

We sow this garden by listening to our weeping community. We rip up the weeds that may not be hurting us, but are crushing our neighbors. We replace weeds with crops that will nourish our neighborhoods. We grow a garden that is not overrun with ugliness but is blooming with beauty. We sow this garden by listening to our weeping community. 

There are gardeners ready to dig their hands in some soil sitting in these pews and worshipping at home.

God was with us then last year at VBS weekend. God is with us now in our time of weeping. And God is ready to get on their hands and knees and dig into some soil alongside us.
Angela Richie

In Acts 9:36-42, we read about a woman named Dorcas, a disciple and follower of Jesus Christ. It is a very interesting text of Scripture, as it comes just after the conversion of Paul in Chapter 9 and right before the conversion of Cornelius, a Gentile, in Chapter 10. Peter is the apostle at the center of the story, but on closer inspection, it is not really a story about Peter, but about the love and witness of Dorcas, whose work from home made a difference among the most vulnerable people of society at that time: widows.

Apparently, Dorcas was a person who made all kinds of things for other people. She was a woman who sold and gave these things to others, helping them out (v. 39). She must have been an extraordinary leader as well, because, as Luke writes, when she died, all the widows came and stood at the side of the bed weeping (v. 39). She must have had a profound impact on the community.

What is interesting, though, when we read this passage, is that we don’t hear anything from Dorcas herself. Instead, we hear about Dorcas. All Luke tells us is that she was a person “devoted to good works and acts of charity” (v. 36). He goes on to say words about the widows who had gathered in grief over the great loss they had experienced and the kinds of crafts she had made. But when we read the passage, we don’t hear what Dorcas said or thought.

Maybe that is because the “good works and acts of charity” that we read about were not about her! Dorcas was not interested in receiving applause. She was not interested in receiving “kudos.” She was simply interested in serving Christ! She was a person who knew her passion, her gifts, her talents, her mission, and she desired no more than to do her thing: “good works and acts of charity.” [By the way, she is also the first woman in the New Testament to be called a disciple (v. 36)]. 

No wonder the widows were upset. They realized deeply whom they had lost. Here was a true disciple and leader in the church. Maybe this is also why Peter stayed over in Joppa because he wanted to learn more from Dorcas about leadership (v. 43). Dorcas had lived a Spirit-filled life.

How may we celebrate people like Dorcas in our lives? How may we seek to lead Dorcas-like lives in our families and communities? Where is the Lord calling us to use our talents and gifts to help others? How may our homes be mission posts for the gospel?
​
Pastor Andy Kinsey

​In Acts 6:1-7, we learn about the importance of family living in the early church. Luke, the author of Acts, wants to tell us about the way the apostles dealt with problems in the church and with matters pertaining to food distribution at the table. What is interesting about this passage, though, is that it comes just a few chapters after Pentecost, when the Spirit was poured out on the disciples (Acts 2:1-10) and when the apostles shared “all things in common” (Acts 2:42-45).

But the church was growing, and family living was changing, and with the new growth came new problems, with many people coming to faith from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. They spoke different languages; they had different outlooks on life (Acts 6:1-3). This is the setting of this text: a problem occurs when widows of Greek-speaking Christians are not receiving what the Hebrew-speaking Christians are receiving when the food was being allocated (Acts 6:1-4). It was as if some of the widows were not being allowed to come to the family dinner table.

Now remember that the apostles had been working on sharing their resources with everyone as anyone had need (Acts 2:45). Remember, too, that the early church had adopted many of the practices from the synagogue, assisting widows and caring for the needs of the most vulnerable, for instance, just as the Law had commanded and as Jesus had done in his ministry (Deut 14:28-29; Lk 14:12-14). 

But what we see in this passage is also how the apostles found a creative way of addressing the problem. To be sure, we don’t know how the problem arose. It may have been the result of racial prejudice. Or it may have happened as a result of greed on the part of one of the groups. Maybe the food was running out. Or maybe the apostles had just neglected the process of distribution. Maybe they just were failing to keep up with all the growth that was taking place. Or maybe it was good intentions run amuck. Whatever it was, it created an opportunity to demonstrate the gospel. After all, this would not be the last time the church would have to deal with tensions between Jews and Greeks, between “haves and have-nots.”

Each Sunday as Christians, we gather around a table that is ultimately a table of abundance, not scarcity. It is a table where we seek to share, not neglect – a table where, when God abides, people receive and are fed – a place where we welcome and, in doing so, proclaim the gospel! As Christians, we seek to find ways of meeting the needs of others on the one hand and share the gospel on the other. It is the special calling of the church to do so – to offer hope to a broken and hurting world. Amen.
​
Pastor Andy Kinsey

How is it we can read or hear the same words and yet have very different responses?  How can we hear the same words and they impact us differently.  It is a mystery I am sure, answered only with long drawn out responses, in depth theological perspectives, and highly trained academicians.  Or is it? 

The heavy hitting, yet soft hearted pastor, poet, musician, and legend Mr. Rogers discovered the answer while in New England one weekend when he and some friends decided to visit the church of a well-known and well-respected preacher.  After the service began however, they discovered the presiding minister was away and a supply preacher, an aged one at that, would be speaking in his place. 

That was, of course, disappointing, but Fred Rogers had heard good supply preachers before, as well as meaningful messages from older preachers.  Unfortunately, this man apparently was neither good nor meaningful.  Fred suffered through the sermon, mentally checking off every homiletic rule the man was bending, breaking, or completely disregarding.  

The sermon went against everything Fred was learning in seminary.  When it ended (mercifully) he turned to the friend beside him to commiserate.  But before he could say anything, his words were muted by the tears he saw streaming down her face. 

“He said exactly what I needed to hear,” she whispered.  

That bungle of a sermon was exactly what she needed to hear?  Fred didn’t know what to say.  But as he began to ponder the gulf between their reactions, he realized that the essential difference lay within:  she had come in need and he had come in judgement.  And because of her need, and the sincerity of the old preacher, the Holy Spirit created a pentecost moment and was able to translate the words, poorly constructed as they were, into exactly what she needed to hear.  (The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers pg. 34-35).

Mystery solved.  Thank you Mr. Rogers. 

The mystery of the presence, movement, and power of the Holy Spirit has a long history, dating back to the day it happened and the utter bewilderment of some of the witnesses. 

What happened to Mr. Roger’s and his friend in England was beyond what he could imagine.  What happened to the disciples was beyond any expectation they could have imagined!  

But hold that thought, because while they (the disciples) were gathered and waiting in Jerusalem, Jews from around the known world gathered for the festival of weeks, a harvest festival; a time when Jews would celebrate God giving Moses the Torah, or the book of Law (first five books of the Bible) on Mt. Sanai. There would have been Jews from what is now modern day Turkey, Libya, Palestine, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria, Greece, and Saudi Arabia.  These would have been devout Jews; meaning they Torah keeping (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy); law abiding, and ritual honoring Jewish believers.  They did not ignore or deny the presence or life of Jesus, but they did not believe him to be the son of God.  

Both groups gathered in the same place.  Both for different reasons but perhaps both needing the same thing - the assurance of God and truth of Jesus. 

The first followers of Jesus waiting in Jerusalem would not have known the mother languages of all those Jews gathered there for the festival.  Scholars say they would have had to travel to those regions, studied the languages in meticulous ways, learning the culture and politics and nuances.  They had not done all that in all those places in a matter of three years while with Jesus.  

It was and is one of the most incredible miracles ever to happen to this band of believers.  They spoke the same words to all those around them, and by God’s Holy Spirit, as promised by Jesus, all of them, from all those different places, heard and understood in their own language the “mighty works of God” through Jesus.” (vs. 11)

What is offered in faith by one person, or in this case, a group of people, can be translated by the Holy Spirit into what the other person (or people) need to hear and see.  The space between them, as Mr. Rogers declares, “is holy ground and the Holy Spirit uses that space in ways that not only translate, but transcend” and I would add transform! (The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers pg. 34-35).  What was said was translated into what they would know and recognize and the perceived limitations were transcended by God’s presence and all were transformed.  Pentecost!

The difference is a matter of need or judgement.  Just like when Mr Rogers went with friends to hear the supply preacher.  Do we hear words that are spoken and receive them from a place of openness, vulnerability, and honesty or a place of anger, intolerance, and frustration?   Do we hear words that are spoken or even the words we speak from places of bitterness, criticism, and impatience or do we hear and speak them from places of hope, positive action, and empathy.

Now more than ever church, we need pentecost - we need to listen for the rushing wind of the Spirit; we need to recognize a power greater than our own rests in the hands of God and it is by the Holy Spirit we are bound one to another in moments like these.  We need to know there is something at work in, around and through us.  We need to hold on to the same promise those early followers did and trust that the space between us is holy ground touched by God’s Holy Spirit - something that has the power and ability to transcend our understanding, translate what we do not comprehend, and transform our situation and circumstance into that which brings us closer to God and one another...a defining moment then and a defining moment now, led by the Holy Spirit if we but come in openness, seeing the hope-filled moments rather than the pain-filled circumstances.

It doesn’t take the bad news away.  It doesn’t give us all the answers.  It doesn’t necessarily make facing tomorrow easier, but it does make it bearable.  It does make it endurable.  It does somehow, in a way that only the spirit of God can, make it more tolerable. 

How will you let the Spirit Lessons of Pentecost translate, transcend, and transform your life right now, today and in the days ahead.  May God be with us all and make it so.   

Come Holy Spirit come, bind us together in ways that cannot be broken.
Come Holy Spirit come, fill us with wisdom, unity, and truth.

Pastor Jenothy

It is in the very nature of Christian hope to keep on hoping and longing for that day when there will be no more suffering, even when there is suffering amongst us. It is in the nature of Christ hope to yearn for that day when there will be no more crying, even when there are tears on our faces (Revelation 21:4).

As Christians, we continue to hope against hope, even when we confront the impossible. We continue to believe in God’s good purposes, even when all the evidence runs contrary to it. 

Now, to be sure, the skeptic may scoff, and if so, that’s fine. Skeptics will be skeptics! But as Christians we continue to believe and have hope, and the reason we do so is because of what God has done in Christ, of how God himself took on evil and defeated it on the cross, entering our darkness and lighting the way, taking the bad and transforming it into the good. 

Such is the source of our hope! Such is the reason we can have hope; for even amidst suffering and death, there is the evidence of God’s life and goodness and grace. There are people whose extraordinary lives, even now, are bearing witness to such a source of hope, to the truth of God’s love and compassion, as they display courage each and every day, despite the odds; their lives convey hope, even when there appears to be no hope. 

Again, if such people can live in such hope, we can take comfort and live in such hope too, for we can live with the assurance that “God is working for good for those love him and who are called according to God’s purpose” (Romans 8:28). We can live in the hope that the future is not pointless: that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory about to be revealed to us; that God is able to take our pain and transform it; God is able to take whatever is facing us and bring about something we had not anticipated – a life filled with hope and light: the very goal of creation itself, the very the hope in which we are saved. 

How may we continue to endure in hope?
Pastor Andy Kinsey

​Let me ask you a question: have you ever inherited anything? It doesn’t have to be money. Land? Personal keepsakes? Family customs, traditions? Bad temper?

Rich Gotshall, our historian at Grace Church, is working on a history of the church, as we move toward celebrating 200 years in Franklin. It is a history that contains a rich inheritance! 

And yet, an inheritance is a complex matter. I know some of the worst conflicts I have witnessed as a pastor are arguments about “who gets to inherit what” in a family. Jesus speaks of this dynamic in his parable on the prodigal son in Luke’s Gospel: how do we receive an inheritance (Luke 15)? Because receiving an inheritance says something about who we are and how we are to act. For example, if we receive an inheritance, how will we exercise responsibility toward what we have been given? Will we bless others with it, or will we squander it? Will we utilize our inheritance to benefit others through a matching grant, or a loan, or a charitable foundation, let’s say, or, will we simply keep it to ourselves?[1]

In Romans, the apostle Paul writes that, as children adopted into the family of God, we have also received an inheritance, although it’s an inheritance we have not earned, but have been given in Christ. In fact, it’s an inheritance that calls forth further sharing, for we don’t receive this inheritance alone, only for ourselves, but with Christ, who is our co-heir (Rom. 8:17); and because Christ is our co-heir, in both suffering and glory, we find ourselves in debt to the One who loved us and saved us.

That’s what we have inherited – the very grace that leads us from bondage to life, giving us the Spirit, who brings us into a relationship with God as children of God.  

It’s a picture of intimacy, with all the markings of love, of being adopted by the Father in the Spirit and then inheriting the gift of Christ’s sacrifice. It’s an amazing gift, leaving us in debt, yes, but in debt to God, and not to our own selfish devices. That’s what life in the Spirit looks like: the Spirit testifying to our spirits that we are children of God!

How may we live with the assurance of God’s grace as children? How does the inheritance we receive in Christ mark us? How may we now share it with others?

Pastor Andy Kinsey

[1]Fleming Rutledge, Not Ashamed of the Gospel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2007), 246.