Numbers 11.16,24-29, Mark 9.38-41
Contrary to popular understanding Christianity is about empowerment and not encumbrance.
To live with Jesus is to live free from burdens in the power of the Spirit. That’s what catches people!
It’s a baptismal Eucharist and we celebrate with Sean, Kathryn and Antonia the gift of Rupert empowering him for life in the Spirit.
Today’s scriptures are all about the release of the Holy Spirit.
In the passage from Numbers we have the greatest Old Testament passage on Holy Spirit empowerment. Moses appoints seventy elders and God gives them also his Spirit. Up to this point in the Bible the Holy Spirit has only been given to selected individuals and not to groups of people.
This anointing showed itself as a real empowerment so that when the spirit rested on them, they prophesied. God spoke words of wisdom through them. The point of the exercise was to empower more leaders for the Israelites. Moses was finding the going hard and needed help.
After this charismatic manifestation ceased we read. Two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the spirit rested on them; they were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. Somehow they were seen as outsiders and that they seemed to have got the Spirit was too much for Joshua. ‘My lord, Moses, stop them!’ He wouldn’t though. This was his response: Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them’.
I think we’ve all met Joshua’s. Over careful folk on the eye out for untidiness! I’ve got a bit of the Joshua in me! Moses’ response was to say the Spirit can’t be confined to the regularly appointed in the church. He’s free to blow where he wills.
Move on 1300 years from this incident to today’s Gospel incident that’s got the same chemistry about it. Now God has come on earth in Jesus to bring a greater deliverance than he brought his people through Moses. People were finding, not just his immediate followers, that those bound by all sorts of conditions could be freed by invoking the name of Jesus. John, his beloved disciple, like Joshua checks his boss. Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us. Jesus answers just like Moses. Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterwards to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us.
3,300 years on what are we to make of God’s word in our situation?
When God comes to earth and into lives there are no holds barred! Yes, he uses his prophets and his priests, but his aim is the empowerment of all his people and that empowerment even spills outside the church. Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets! …Do not stop them…Whoever is not against us is for us.
My goodness there’s wisdom for us here this morning whether we’re regular church goers or not! Whether we’re priest or lay member!
Contrary to popular opinion, the God of Judaeo-Christian tradition isn’t a heavy handed restrictive encumbering God but a light handed, permission giving, empowering God.
Contrary to popular opinion, to be baptised isn’t to take second place in a hierarchy under priests but to take first place in a ministry that priests serve.
To be baptised is to be empowered by the Spirit to be a priestly people.
Break off your fetters, people of God – recognise your dignity and your empowerment!
A King of France said he thought more of his baptism than his coronation because it gave him the greater dignity. All the baptised are anointed princes and princesses in their Lord’s family.
Today is in a sense Rupert’s naming. Jesus was also named at his baptism. He received the name ‘Christ’ meaning Jesus the anointed One. Why? Because at his baptism the Holy Spirit was seen to come upon him with a voice and a dove from heaven making him Jesus the Anointed, Jesus Christ.
We probably won’t see a dove or hear a heavenly voice at the font this morning but we should believe this. Jesus who passed from sight after his death and rising has by his Spirit passed into the sacraments.
This morning through the outward and visible signs of water and bread and wine an inward and spiritual grace will be given by the invisible Christ through his Spirit.
As Jesus was anointed Christ at his baptism Christians come at their baptism to be empowered by the same Spirit through sharing their Lord’s anointing.
How can a sprinkling of water be so important? Of course its importance links to faith. So many people are baptised and forget it. It’s as if the present they’ve received from God stays wrapped up.
By contrast Christians like Martin Luther saw baptism as the be-all and end-all. When tempted or depressed Luther would mutter Baptisatus sum: I am baptised. I belong to God – God has claimed me as his own.
At times when Christians feel down the remembrance of baptism can rekindle their faith in the empowerment that’s in their life from God.
St Paul once reminded his associate Timothy to fan into flame the gift of God he had been given (2 Timothy 1:6a). Let Rupert’s baptism be a reminder to all of us who are baptised of the gift of empowerment that we need to be fired up with if we’re going to be believers who set the world on fire.
This will come back to mind at the end of the service this morning when Sean, Kathryn and Rupert will be given a lighted candle to carry out in the procession.
Empowered, fired up by the Spirit they will be made a reminder to us all that we Christians are called not to encumbrance but to empowerment.
A last point. The scriptures today warn us to be on the look out for the work of the Spirit outside church walls. Remember Eldad and Medad! Keep humble as God’s people knowing that even if God is in our lives we can’t tie him down to our own world or the world of the church. As it says in the book of Wisdom The Spirit of the Lord fills the whole world. It holds all things together and knows every word spoken by man.
Life in the Spirit is a life that’s together. It’s an empowered life of freedom and it’s full of surprises because our God is a God of surprises! Let’s take a moment of quiet to open ourselves to that God.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment