The truth, of course, is that we all wish God was a little more obvious. We, like Elijah, are looking for big signs and clear signals. But God’s love is not like the over-bearing parent who wants to do every little thing for their child to the degree that the child never does anything on their own. No, instead God shows up and speaks up and gets super quiet in ways that we can scarcely imagine but make all the difference. God’s silence and God's speech both speak volumes into our lives because, as Elijah learned, God is always with us. Elijah’s talking got in the way of his listening. Trust me, if you talk long enough and loud enough you can convince yourself that your words are more important than the Word made flesh. He had to get quiet and hear the silence before he could truly respond to God’s question, a question that set him firmly on the foundation of God’s grace. And God’s grace is fundamentally strange. It is everything for nothing. It is life to the lifeless, hope to the hopeless, and joy to the joyless. It is quiet in a world that has grown too loud. It is stillness when the world moves too quickly. It is amazing precisely because it comes to us as a gift...

Listen, says the Lord, listen so that you may live. I am making a promise, an everlasting covenant; behold the one who comes from the line of David. Because of the one who makes a way where there is no way, people will come to you who you would otherwise never know, they will flock to you because I am doing a new thing, I am filling you with life and delight. Here, in the strange and wonderful place of grace called church, you can find what you’re looking for because I, says the Lord, I am looking for you. The mysterious and strange truth of the Gospel is this: There’s something deeper, longer-lasting, and more insatiable than our hunger, and it’s God’s hunger for us...

Paul says that Abraham is righteous not because of his goodness or virtue or morality, but because God reckons him righteous. God makes Abraham righteous by grace. This is why, to quote Paul again, the Law brings wrath but the Gospel sets free. Doing all of the right things and knowing all the right people and making all the right choices can’t make us right. We all fall short of the glory of God, we all waver, we all mess up, we all neglect to do the things we should and we tend to do a bunch of things we know we shouldn’t. We’re not a bunch of good people getting gooder all the time. We’re actually a bunch of humans (who by definition make mistakes) who just happen to have the good fortune of a community that says we are welcome simply because we are who we are. It never ceases to amaze me how weird and wonderful the church is. There is nowhere else you can find a more truthful community of people who are willing to see more than the world sees, who are willing to put our trust in the only One who can actually do anything about anything...

Now what? That’s what the disciples must be asking themselves when they gather with Jesus on the mountain in Galilee. Perhaps that’s the question you’re asking now that you’ve made it to the end of your confirmation adventure. Here’s the answer: no matter where life takes you, no matter what mountaintops or valleys you experience, no matter what you do or leave undone, whether you have blessed assurance or devastating doubts, so long as there is a church, there is a community of grace for you. And for all of us.

The theologian Willie Jennings says, “This is the beginning of a community broken open by the sheer act of God, and we are still yet to comprehend the extent to which God acts and is acting to break us open.” This is important. It’s important because, despite all of our best efforts, we tend to consider Pentecost only in the past tense, something that happened way back when never to happen again. It’s all just a little too perfect isn't it? I mean, a whole group of individuals living together in harmony, and no one has any need? Have you ever met people before? This doesn’t work. Or what about thousands getting added from just one sermon. It’s impossible. And that’s not even mentioning the miracle of speaking new languages! This is such a beguiling image: twelve disciples, with no exceptional credentials, no advanced degrees, no capital resources to draw upon, all standing in front of the crowds, standing in front of the world, with nothing more than a message, nothing more than a story. Who would believe such a remarkable word coming from such unremarkable witnesses? Well, if it were up to them alone it would be impossible. But that’s the power of the Pentecost story because it’s not all up to them, and it’s not all up to us. The Spirit makes the impossible possible, giving life to the dead and bringing into existence the things that do not exist. The truth, the staggering out of the upper room truth of Pentecost, is that the fire that landed in Jerusalem is still blazing through the church today.

Have you listened to the birds recently? Or considered the lilies? Jesus asks us to do so not just because it’s nice, and it is nice, but it also helps to give us perspective. It opens our eyes to something more than whatever is currently weighing us down. The Gospel is a promise. Jesus cares about you, desires your welfare and your gladness. You can give him your worries, by prayer, by exhaustion, by friendship, by worship, by any and all means necessary because he cares for you. Jesus is for you and with you no matter what. If you’ve ever been made to think you’re somehow not worthy of Jesus’ attention or affection, if the world has ever worked to diminish you or belittle you, just remember that the accusation lobbed against Jesus the most is that he spent too much time with the wrong people. People just like you and me. Jesus is the friend of sinners and the Savior of the world. There is no one outside the power of his grace, because Jesus is never done with anyone...

Forming the church, a community that is sustained by the wily Lord named Jesus, is as challenging as any endeavor we will encounter. It looks like a group of people who willfully gather with nearly nothing in common save for the fact that Jesus calls us his friends. It looks like people who are willing to pray for things they wouldn’t pray for on their own, like our enemies. It looks like people who believe that water is thicker than blood, that we are bound to one another in baptism in a way that is somehow more concrete than with the people who are part of our family trees. It looks like people who believe their allegiance is first and foremost to Jesus, not a country, not a flag, and not a holiday...

For God’s sake, what do you suppose we are going to be, you and I? When we grow up? That may fall a bit flat, of course. Some of us here are no longer children, though we may act like it online. Surely many of us have all of our growing up behind us. We’re responsible, committed, and decisive. We’ve already seen enough to know we’ve seen enough. Perhaps the question isn’t “What are we going to do?”, but “What are we now and how well are we doing it?” Maybe the time has come for a performance review? Whether we’re doctors, drivers, or designers; electricians, pediatricians, or morticians; teachers, preachers, or in-betweeners; recently hired, fired, or retired; we all like to think that, one way or another, we’ve already figured it all out and we just have to keep doing what we’re doing they way we’re doing it. And yet, this ancient apostle, the right hand man of the Son of Man, the paradoxical Peter pens an epistle to the likes of those who follow Jesus then, now, and forever. And he has the nerve to call us babies. Like little infants, long for the spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation; for you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. In other words, no one’s story is finished. It does not matter how old or young you are, what you’ve done or left undone, God isn’t done with you because God is never done with anyone, and we all have some growing up to do...

The apostle Peter pens an epistle to the early church in large part because they are trying to navigate what it means to be faithful and political in the world. They are contending against the Powers and Principalities and Politics of their day and they want to know which way to go. In chapter 2 Peter is in the middle of exhorting the faithful community to resist the empire by imitating the Lord who became Servant of all. He writes of how servants and slaves are free, right now, to imitate the cruciform way of Jesus. He describes the call to remember that Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not. Peter is preaching politics. A politics that was preached to him by Jesus. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” What could be more political than that? And so, having received a particular political witness, Peter punctuates his epistle with the claim that the church will have to live as strangers in a strange land. In order to follow Jesus they/we will necessarily look very different from the world...

Paul and Silas travel to Thessalonica and they proclaim the Good News of the Gospel to any who will listen. But a band of ruffians, that’s the Greek for you, a band of ruffians form a mob and they send the city into an uproar. They try to find Paul and Silas in order to bring them before the authorities, and when they can’t find them they drag some other believers before the city rulers and they say, “The people who have been turning the world upside down have come to our city!” Before the church was called the church, and before Christians were called Christians, the first descriptor that the world used to describe those people was, “World-Turners.” Yes, they will know we are Christians by our love, as the old song goes. But they will also know we are Christians because we turn the world upside down. In other words, the church is a revolution...