When the last days come, I will give my Spirit to everyone.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will have dreams. In those days I will give my Spirit to my servants, both men and women, and they will prophesy. This was a part of the reading this past Sunday. On the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit fell upon the apostles and all those in worship, Peter stood up and said the above passage. He was quoting the prophet Joel. This passage was written probably 700 years before. (2,700 years ago for us) The prophet saw something and declared it. Peter and thus the Church believes Joel saw what was happening during Peter’s time. I see this happening in our day and time. Young men and women have aspirations (dreams) of the future. They dream about what life will be like and what they can and will do in life. Older men and women have wisdom (visions) of what the future will look like based on what they have experienced in life. They also may have visions of the afterlife. Joel and Peter saw that the Holy Spirit will inspire young men and women to have thoughts of heaven and will receive wisdom, not from experience, but from God. In the same way, older people will have aspirations like the youth. The Holy Spirit will breathe new life into older people and give them hope, dreams, love and joy like they felt when they were young. I am seeing this happen today. I have seen new life at Saint John’s in our so-called “older people.” There are folks who are finding new love. They are dreaming of a new and different life. There are others who are finding their spiritual gifts. They are dreaming about what God is calling them to do. And there are others that are finding energy, joy, and strength in donating their time in causes in Chula Vista. We have many others who have found healing and are dreaming of a better life with a better functioning body. Others who have let go of pain and disappointment the Holy Spirit is breathing in restoration. They are dreaming of their new life free from guilt and resentment. The Day of Pentecost is here! The Spirit is making all things new. -Fr. Dave I have mentioned gambling addictions in sermons. While gambling does not have a hold on me, I do know people who suffer from it. The father of a friend of mine helped me see the problem more clearly. “Barry” has a condo in Las Vegas and a home in the Los Angeles area. The condo is simply to enable him to gamble. He told me that he’d love to stay in LA but gambling is not legal here so he needed a place in Vegas. He explained he makes enough gambling to pay for the condo. At the time, we were staying at Barry’s place for the yearly football match of UCLA versus USC. Barry bets on the number of first downs in the second quarter, the number of fumbles, who will receive the kick in the second half, and, the long shot, that USC’s defense will get a “safety” in the third quarter (they didn’t). His $10 bet could have won him a hefty sum. Barry is addicted to gambling. You can’t tell by looking at him. Gambling doesn’t smell or leave tracks on the arm or even cause one to lose control of their car.
Gambling cost Barry his marriage and my friend grew up with a distracted father. From what I’ve heard, gambling debts made Barry rent out the condo, sell his home and live with his son until he gets his life turned around. Because of the Supreme Court decision allowing states to legalize sports gambling, I’ve been thinking about Barry, and others I know who struggle with their addiction. The libertarian side of me is just fine with this decision. I don’t like the Federal government regulating morality. Americans should be free to choose how to live their lives. Plus, I am a states’ rights advocate because I think the states are more responsive to their local electorate. The other side of me is concerned. California will probably be one of the first to legalize sports gambling. And, whatever happens here tends to spread across the other states. I hope we pass legislation that funds rehab centers for gambling addiction. A greater concern is that professional sports will probably be able to promote gambling. I know that one can gamble on-line. There are probably underground gambling networks too. But, legalization allows for more promotion. There is gambling in the Bible. The soldiers cast lots for Jesus’ tunic as he hung on the cross. This act fulfilled Psalm 22:18, “They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” Casting lots is similar to rolling dice. In the Bible, many important decisions were determined by casting lots which was to determine the will of God. This past Sunday, we heard about the eleven apostles casting lots to see who the twelfth apostle should be. That practice ended on the Day of Pentecost. After then, the Church believed that praying in community is a better option for discerning the will of God. Simply because some are addicted to alcohol doesn’t mean the state should ban it. We learned that lesson during Prohibition. Christianity has decided that casting lots is not an acceptable way to discern the will of God. Gambling is coming to a state near you; as followers of God, we must devise strategies by which the fate of Barry and others like him will not befall us. There are many dangers to the Christian family and many of them involve addictions. Let us practice both vigilance and compassion as we face a new challenge. -Fr. Dave Austin Perine is a four-year old who once weekly turns into a superhero. His super power lies in his ability to feed the homeless and give hope to all. Donning a red cape and bright blue shirt (under close supervision by his father, TJ), Austin roams the streets of Birmingham, Alabama, handing out chicken sandwiches and cans of soda to the homeless.
His transformation from mild-mannered 4-year old to superhero began one day when he and his dad were watching a television show about pandas. One baby panda, who had been abandoned, was being cared for by an adoptive panda mother. TJ said, “That cub was homeless.” Austin asked, “What is homeless?” The dad replied, “It's when a cub doesn’t have a home and doesn't have a mom or dad around.” As soon as TJ said that he was able to anticipate what his compassionate-beyond-his-years son would ask. “Are people homeless?” asked Austin, predictably. His dad replied resignedly,” Yes,” with an inkling of what was to come. Austin soon concluded that they needed to show some love and do something to help the homeless people. How a four year old was able to transfer the panda information to people is beyond me but he did. He traded in his allowance for Burger King chicken sandwiches. He took cans of soda and became a one boy soup kitchen, handing out the sandwiches to homeless people in his area. Each time he hands out a sandwich, he says, “Remember to show love.” The disciples gathered around Jesus and asked him who will be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus said nothing to the adults; instead, he called one of the children over and asked that the child stand in their midst, where the teacher would stand when giving a lesson. He said some things after that but the visual imagery is the most important thing for me. Children know the Kingdom. They know compassion. They know what it is to give and to serve. They know what it is to show love. Austin Perine has taken the role of the teacher in the center of the circle. His acts of kindness teach the rest of us what is possible and, frankly, what we should be doing. We need not only to care for homeless people, but to show love. - Fr. Dave For more information about Austin, go to his Facebook site, facebook.com/presidentperine . Thank God for the Book of Acts. I mean that quite literally. In the New Testament, Acts of the Apostles follows the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Written by the same author as the Gospel of Luke, it picks up where the Gospel left off. In Luke, at the end of chapter 24 (the last chapter), Jesus, post-crucifixion, said that everything written about him in the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms had to be fulfilled. Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures and that he had to die and rise again; he also taught that repentance and forgiveness of sins were to be proclaimed in his name to all nations. Finally, he “withdrew” (literally stood apart) from them and ascended into heaven. Acts overlaps Luke with Jesus ascending into heaven in verse ten.
Acts follows the development of the disciples as they turn into apostles. It describes the development of the early Church and introduces Saul who turned into St. Paul, our greatest evangelist. I love history so having a living history book is great though that is only part of why I give thanks for it. Acts reveals the incredible wideness of God’s grace and the unfathomable depth of God’s love. Jesus began a movement of love for God. He showed how to turn our hearts from established and exclusionary rules of religion to freely loving God and one’s neighbor with our whole heart. Humans systematically turn themselves into gods and, as such, turn against their neighbors. Jesus and his movement stand in stark contrast. I thank God because if we didn’t have Acts, we might well have shrunk back into our primary nature and morphed Jesus’ movement into something with barriers and rules governing involvement and worship. We would have created wars against our neighbors based on misinterpretations of Jesus’ sayings. At this point, you might be saying, wait, don’t we do that, anyway? Yes, we do, unfortunately, but it took the Movement a while to get there. The first Christian group to kill other Christians over the “orthodox faith” took more than 300 years to happen. That’s a mighty long time considering our nature. And, I believe that Acts constrains our nature even today. In other words, we’d be a lot worse off without it. We can be a lot better if we adhere to the Grace revealed in its pages. Acts shows us that Peter and the apostles originally thought this was a Jewish-only movement. They had no idea the Jesus movement would be for gentiles, or non-Jewish people, too. Acts illustrates how they discovered God shows no partiality and offers his grace to all people. This past Sunday, Acts showed us the story of the Ethiopian eunuch who asked the question, “What would stop me from being baptized?” Absolutely nothing, was the answer. This Sunday, we will hear of the first non-Jewish household that was baptized because Peter saw and felt the Holy Spirit descend upon the family. Additionally, Acts shows us that this is not a men-led-only movement. Readers will see why St. Paul wrote, “In Christ there is no male or female.” Acts was vital for the development of the Church in the first century. Now, in our 21st century, when we are prone to fight over power, authority and who is included in the Church and who is not, Acts again is important for us. It stands as a living witness to the magnificence and breadth of God’s grace. Acts shows us the depth of God’s love for all of God’s creation.… if we decide to read it and follow the radicalness of Christ in our lives and churches. -Fr. Dave |