Growing up is...

Birth-pains didn’t end at the delivery room. Love created, love pushed, and after you popped your ugly warped head out, love continued to love you. Your cone-heads rounded out. You learned how to walk. (Oh boy, was that a mistake.) And you learned to talk. (Oh boy was that ever a mistake!)  While not at first, you eventually felt it’s time to get out of the diapers, and into the big-kid potty. On that day, do you remember who your biggest fan was? On all days, big and small, I trust you remember love fulfilling its promise.

Today is Mother’s Day. It is fitting to reserve one day of the year to acknowledge what God has done, through your mothers. So treasure your mothers for life just doesn’t start and there end. It’s an on-going work of love. She received life, to take care of those given to her.

Moses went through the desert thirsting, a man alone, trying to father a family. In this text, it is a family of families, numbering over 600,000 emerging adults. Taking care of adult-babies is far harder than taking care of little-babies. The Israelites were given a new life, set free from Egyptian slavery. But has the gift become a curse? So, he felt the pain, cried out to God that indeed it is not good to be alone. So God answered him and sent help.

Hear again the text of today’s meditation that comes from our Old Testament reading, Numbers chapter 11:
Moses gathered seventy men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tent. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. And as soon as the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied.
Now 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. And a young man (the tattletale) ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”

This is where it gets interesting:

And Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant to Moses from his youth, said, “My Lord Moses, stop them.”
But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put His Spirit on them!”

Clearly Rev. Pastor Mark is much more welcoming than Joshua in our appointed text. “My Lord Moses, stop them.” If Joshua served at this church, he wouldn’t have welcomed me half as warmly as you have.

This is my first time to talk with you here (at the UW campus, in downtown Madison, Calvary Chapel.) Yet some of you have heard me speak before. One month ago the International Friendship Center traveled 40 minutes north to Arlington, for a weekend in the country. Hopefully you remember me. I still remember you, fondly.

Now I’m not from Arlington. I was raised in Los Angeles, California. Yep, a big city, not a little town in the country-side. So it was a surprise for dozens of us when we visited a farm, with real… live… baaaa… sheep. I’ve learned a thing or two during my one year vicarage-internship which is now almost over. With the school year ending, the Pentecost story continues the ongoing actions of God which we have just heard in the Old Testament.

After hearing that 2 elders were prophesying, Joshua says, “My Lord Moses, stop them.” Such loyalty a supervisor only wishes he could deserve, even Moses. So also Peter tried to do right by stopping Jesus from marching onward to the cross. Indeed these assistants, these interns, are granted a margin of error, breathing room to make mistakes, as I have. Hopefully we learn from them. … Do we want to learn from our mistakes? Not, do you learn from your mistakes, but do you want to?

Case in point: After we get a mid-term scored, a final, or even a pop-quiz graded, we’re just glad to get a satisfactory grade. With multiple classes demanding more and more of your free time, with friends and family missing those who put education a priority, re-examining my answers (to learn from them) is not a priority, especially when I already got a satisfactory score. Friends, life is more than our scores, we are more than our letter grades.

The farmers out in the country have learned their lessons through the school of lost crops. Over-water and you drown your harvest. Not enough time with the sheep, and diseases grow unnoticed. Even when you do things just right, failure finds a way. Don’t freak. You were never that much in control as you’d like to believe. You can aim for your goals; just know who’s got control. It’s not us.

God provided for Moses 70 elders to serve. God provided for Peter not just the crucifixion, but also the resurrection. Last week we heard of the ascension’s promise that God would send power from on high to clothe them. God’s been providing. From clothes that did not wear out, food from above, (and despite the desert,) rivers of living water, God provides. Yet young Joshua talked like Moses was the show.

But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake?
Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets,
that the Lord would put His Spirit on them!”

Moses educated Joshua that it’s not about the self; rather it’s about loving God by serving others. God divided up his Spirit into 70 men, 70 ways, and even still it was more than their mouths could contain. They’d burst out in words, praising God on their lips and in their life. That’s what any parents wants.

Thousands of years later, along with Joel’s, Moses’ prophecy was fulfilled. Rising to His Ascension, Jesus sent forth the Spirit to clothe God’s people with power from on high. This Spirit is Holy, being of the Holy One Himself. In that unity, the distinction serves the whole. You see, the Spirit is far more than the self. It is the community of God speaking as one. And still thousands of years after the first Pentecost happened, here we are.

Years ago, I’d visit my friend Felix Seo’s apartment, in Los Angeles, and I’d hear all the time, “Hajime.” In my friend’s Ken Takahashi’s house I’d hear, “Ja-Neh.” I bet that a lot of us here can say we’ve heard people “speak in tongues,” the blessing of understanding a foreign tongue. Communicating, understanding what each other is saying, just like right now. But are our tongues on fire? Are our tongues a light in the darkness? …shedding light in this world of ashes?

The harvest is hard work, filled with birth-pain. In Wisconsin, we haven’t had to worry about water too much. Water’s all around. I pray for you all that the gift doesn’t become a curse. Wandering around does that.

The gift that happened and continues to happen is this, that they may hear the Word and believe that the Holy Gospel is calling out to people. It’s not about us climbing up a mountain, walking a path. Moses would say, “Joshua, it’s not about us. You don’t need to play power anymore.” You’ve been given power, power that serves and loves. The gifts of God enlighten us, sanctify, and keep us. He’s working through us, for us. He’s done it all, from beginning to end.

Not just for me, but for everyone. He gives us a unified voice, distinctly full of beautiful accents, joined together like a choir. Now we God’s children hear and believe that we aren’t in it alone, not as our own spiritual gurus browsing in our religious cafeteria. No, we are joined into His Spirit that Jesus breathed out on the cross and gives down to all His people. By that breathy voice we are bought with a price, where Christ was glorified up high. [cross] See not us, up there’s the source, where living water flows out and down, so out of our heart flows the river of living water. Such a family. Such unity in distinction! 

From such infinite and  outpoured love, living waters pour out that filled us first from the cross. We receive the promise in the water of Holy Baptism that flows from Jesus’ never ending fount of forgiveness. Remember that fount, that source, where true Love gave you life to live and love. It’s not always easy to love one another, especially when we mess all over our selves.  While we cry aloud in this birthing-pain, God continues to bring us to our new beginning.

[Blessing]
May the love of God that does transcend all understanding,
keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.