Pentecost

Daniel Hutchison

Dan Hutchison

Re-calibrate • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago

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Recalibrate

Prayer

Lord, thank-you that we can gather today to hear your word. May it be your words we hear, guided by the Holy Spirit. May we each humble ourselves to learn what it is in this moment you want to teach us. May todays message spur us on to be bold to declare Your good news to the people you put on our hearts. AmenShavuot/Feast of Weeks/Pentecost

Calibration is hugely important in getting consistent results. Calibration is also not usually a one-off thing, it’s something that has to be checked regularly. To Recalibrate

Guy with his diabetes

When it comes to our celebrations we are out of calibration. Our two core celebrations are Easter and Christmas, and those are somewhat seasonal holidays that we celebrate out of season. While the Christian basis for those holidays is not dependent on season many of the components and practices involved, like the foods we eat and the decorations we use, are. So we celebrate a mid-winter festival in summer, a spring festival in autumn, and we don’t really do a harvest festival, midwinter festival, or spring festival that are actually seasonally appropriate.

A great example right now is Holloween.

Quick history - Holloween is actually Hallowed eve, the day before all saints day. But before this, the festival originated among the Celtics called Samhain which in those ancient times was on the 1st of November which was the start of the new year and winter. During the Samhain festival, the souls of those who had died were believed to return to visit their homes, and those who had died during the year were believed to journey to the other world. People set bonfires on hilltops for relighting their fires for the winter and to frighten away evil spirits, and they sometimes wore masks and other disguises to avoid being recognized by the ghosts thought to be present.

The Catholics took this festival and added a Christian covering calling it All Saints day, the feast of all saints or all hallows day - a day commemorating all the saints of the church, both known and unknown, who have attained heaven. It is celebrated on November 1 in the Western Catholic churches and on the first Sunday after Pentecost in the Eastern Catholic churches.

What we see of Halloween now is more of a secular holiday again out of season, it is a fall/autumn holiday which is when things die and the winter comes on.

We will talk more about this season from a Christian perspective next week with the festival of Tents - which will be outside.

All this to say, in Australia all large and small festivals we regularly practice at this stage are disconnected from the natural rhythms of the land where we live. And I believe this is a major disconnect for us. Having rhythms in life where we regularly revisit ideas, where we recalibrate by looking back over God’s word, can be a hugely helpful tool for keeping us grounded and refocusing on the right things.

Festival of... Currently Celebrated in Australia

unleavened bread 5 - 13 April 4-12 October

Weeks 28 May 26 November

Tents 9 -16 October 9 - 16 April

Continuing on from talking about the Passover last week, today we will be looking at Shavuot, or the Feast of Weeks which comes 50 days after the first Sabbath following Passover. Because of this 50-day period, it was also known as Pentecost to the Hellenistic Jews. That can be a little confusing because we also recognise Pentecost as a Christian celebration of when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples. They are the same day, and they have some similarities, but they are not the same event. The Pentecost we usually talk about happened to Jesus' disciples when they were meeting together for their Pentecost. Now, this is the 3rd time this year that I am talking about this festival, we discussed it at Pentecost in May and in June when we did the series that Holy Spirit glow. These notes are a different take as my good friend Renata Carmichael prepared them when we did this series 2 years ago. But a recap

Shavuot is a harvest festival, at the end of a 7-week grain harvesting season which begins during the Passover. Shavuot is actually a plural form of shavua meaning “week” or sheva meaning “seven”, so it’s a week of weeks or seven sevens after Passover. It was also the first-day people could bring their first fruits of wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates to the temple.

In addition to being the end of the grain harvest, Shavuot is the day that Israel was given the Torah on Mt Sinai and set aside as a nation for God. It is the day that Israel formally entered into a relationship with God. Torah, for those not familiar with it, is also called the Pentateuch and is the first five books in our Bible. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It covers the origins of the nation of Israel and the laws God set out for them.

Comment on my time with the Torah this year

In the post-temple era this festival doesn’t have the same set rules and traditions other ordained Jewish have other than avoiding work, so what is practiced varies depending on where you are and who you’re with. In Israel Shavuot is a one-day celebration, in the diaspora, that is the Jews who were dispersed from Israel, it is a two-day event. On the first day of Shavuot people go to the synagogue to hear the reading of the ten commandments. One of the traditions of Shavuot is to do an all-night study session of Torah. Another is reading the book of Ruth, where Ruth converted to join God’s people (more on that later). For many people eating dairy is a tradition. Another is decorating with greenery and flowers, believing that there was a sudden blooming of plants and flowers on Mt Sinai in anticipation of the Torah being given.

Last week we looked at the significance moment Jesus connected Passover with himself and now we have communion. Last Pentecost I did something similar with how the moment of Pentecost imitated the giving of the Torah with the giving of the spirit and again Jesus fulfillment of OT scripture. And this is the beauty and wonder of the bible it is multilayered and each time we can see God revealing something new, or we need to hear it again.

So today is not a test if you can remember what was previously said:

Today we’re going to focus on going back to the word – why being given the Torah was important, why regularly going back over well-known parts is important, and the significance of Ruth’s story.

After God called the people who would become the nation of Israel out of Egypt, having sent the plagues which resulted in the first Passover so that the Pharaoh would allow the people to leave, they traveled for seven weeks to reach the base of Mt Sinai. Once there Moses instructs them to prepare for being given God’s laws to consecrate them as his chosen people and God gives them the Ten Commandments

And as tradition let's read them:

Exodus 20:1–21 NIV

And God spoke all these words: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments. “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy. “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. “You shall not murder. “You shall not commit adultery. “You shall not steal. “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.” Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.” The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was.

These ten laws are the first rules God gave his people to follow. Other laws were given to Moses to relay to Israel, but these are the foundation of God’s people. These were the conditions for them to enter into the covenant with God. Regularly going over them keeps them fresh in people's minds. It gave people a chance to recalibrate their views.

Calibration, and recalibration, are hugely important when you are doing something that will involve multiple people. If you are doing things by yourself you can use whatever standards or units of measurement you like. If you want to quickly check a measurement of whether a piece of furniture will fit in a space I will often do the measurements in relation to my phone or steps. It’s quite effective if you measure space and then measure the furniture. But if I measure a space and then call Maria to check something in a store it’s not going to work so well because our phones won’t be the same size. If we want to work together on that we need to use a correctly calibrated measuring tape. That ensures we are using the same standard and should be getting the same results.

Similarly, for our music team to play together we actually have to ensure our instruments are calibrated correctly. Usually, we just call that tuning. But there are different ways of tuning. If you have one guitar on its own, you can just tune it to itself without using a separate tuner. It will sound fine, as long as you don’t try to play with other instruments. To play together instruments have to be tuned to the same standard, usually what is referred to as concert pitch.

If you understand how a standard works you can use it to address new situations or concepts. If you know the standard is “do not steal” you don’t need to know specific rules about whether you should steal a car or food or cash or plants or wages. There’s no question about whether stealing a computer is ok because the bible doesn’t mention them. The standard is, do not steal, therefore you shouldn’t steal one. But you have to be familiar with the basic rules to do that, and you need to maintain familiarity with those standards. You can’t just read them once and assume that you remember them correctly, you need to keep going back to the source just like you can’t tune a guitar once and assume it’s staying tuned forever. If you’re using it you need to be tuning it.

The next thing we are going to look at is the story of Ruth. Ruth was a Moabite, she married one of Naomi’s sons when the family went to Moab during a famine in order to find food. Her sister Orpah married the other son. Naomi’s husband and sons both died, and she decided to return to Israel. Her daughters-in-law both tried to go with her, but Naomi tried to talk them into staying in their own country where they had family who could support them and find new husbands where she had nothing to offer. Orpah went home, but Ruth refused and stayed with Naomi going to Israel.

That's where we pick up on today's reading in Ruth 2

The story is about Ruth going and gleaning food for the two of them. Gleaning isn’t something we really do now. A friend of mine knows of a family, many years ago, that owned the paddock in Boat harbor sometimes used to plant peas there and told them that his harvester couldn’t go into the corners so once it had been through they could pick anything left, but that’s not common. The Torah outlines rules around harvesting produce that the workers and the property owner were not to harvest the corners of the field and were not to go back to pick up any stalks of grain they had dropped. Those were to be left for the poor, like widows and orphans, to be able to go and pick up so they could eat.

So Ruth goes to glean, and she goes to the field of a bloke called Boaz, who is actually a relative of Naomi’s late husband. He notices her and finds out her story, and is impressed. He tells her to stick to his fields and makes sure his workers won’t cause her problems. After reaching an arrangement with the next heir in line, Boaz marries Ruth and it’s from their family line that King David and Jesus come.

There are a few reasons looking at Ruth for Shavuot. One, the story happens during the grain harvest so the whole thing happened around Shavuot. The second is that the core themes of the storyline up with the core themes of the Torah – love, kindness, and taking care of the poor. Ruth sticks with Naomi even though it’s unlikely to be in her best interests. She loves her mother-in-law so much that she puts her own future at risk to help her. Boaz demonstrates how Israel is called to care for the poor in their nation.

For us, there is significance in Ruth, who was not Jewish, choosing and becoming part of Israel, and part of a significant family line. We’re not part of God’s people by our ancestry, or because of our parents. We are part of God’s people because we choose to be, we choose to follow, and we choose to learn and become part of something bigger than us and our immediate family connections.

Earlier I mentioned that Pentecost, or Shavuot, was what Jesus' disciples would have been together for the day the Holy Spirit came upon them which is what we usually talk about when we mention Pentecost. There are a few parallels between these stories. In the original exodus when Israel became God’s people, they were given the Torah. When this came, it came via Moses, and the people needed to have priests as intercessors between them and God. At Pentecost, when people were filled with the Holy Spirit, they were given more direct access to God’s word. The Holy Spirit allowed the disciples to speak in foreign languages so that many people could hear about God directly in their native tongue rather than having to learn a different language to access that knowledge.

Shavuot gave the Torah to Israel, and the later Pentecost opened that access to other peoples.

Shavuot brought people into relationship with God, and the later Pentecost allowed that relationship to be deeper and more direct.

So what do we do with this?

Well, you could pick up the all-night bible study session. If you want to do that you probably also need to pick up the Jewish way of calculating days from sunset to sunset so your study session comes at the start of the holiday, not at the end when you have work the next day.

More important is recognising the importance of going back and reading your bible regularly. Not books, blogs, or articles about it. Not listening to other people having opinions on it. Reading the bible directly. Because it’s only when you know the basics that you will be able to tell whether what someone is saying is a good understanding or whether it has missed the mark.

Understand the core rules and themes. There are over 600 rules in the Torah, and you don’t need to know them all by heart. You don’t need to know how to deal with mold in ancient middle-eastern style houses. But you need to know the underlying principles. Love God, love people, don’t cause harm to people, be just and merciful, and take care of the poor. You probably don’t need to build a parapet around the roof of your house as per biblical building codes. But you may be required to have anchor points by current building codes, and they serve the same purpose of keeping people safe.

And finally, think about traditions as you follow them and what these traditions mean in Australia. If you say grace before every meal, think about what you are saying and why you are thankful, even if it’s the same 10-word prayer every time.