DELIBERATELY DIVERSE | Rev. Terry Pierce
“Deliberately Diverse” represents the opinions of Taylor friends who never completely agree about anything but enjoy diverse discussions.
We have been reading The Acts of the Apostles, a sequel to the Gospel of Luke. Likely written by a physician and companion of the Apostle Paul, it is generally dated to the years 80-90 CE or about 50 years after Jesus’ death.
In the first chapter, we encounter the disciples looking for the restoration of the kingdom of Israel to its place of power in the world, a return to the “good old days” of sorts. Jesus has a different plan. Jesus is about restoring the kingdom of heaven on Earth, in the here and now.
We encounter the disciples as they have been continually together, grieving the absence of Jesus and at the same time, becoming a community. It is to this community that Jesus promised to send an advocate, the Holy Spirit, “to help you and be with you forever” (John 14:16).
In Chapter 2:2 of Acts, “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.” The Spirit comes literally as an echo. The Greek word translated as violent is used to describe the wind blowing back the waters during Exodus.
It is the same word used in classical Greek to describe the power of Hercules.
It is fitting, I think, to imagine the echo of the Spirit, the violent wind, reverberating across the centuries, into these troubled times. Jesus’ project was never to show us the way to get to heaven at the time of our death. It was instead to show us how to create the kingdom of heaven on Earth.
Perhaps some of the difficulty of our time stems from our inability to reach any common understanding of what heaven on Earth might look like. For some, it looks like power – the power to make everyone agree or to make everyone do what some of us think is proper.
For some, it looks like wealth – the wealth to be comfortable or the wealth to make others conform to our will.
I would like to think that for all of us, it looks like love. Yet even that gains no consensus.
For Jesus, the kingdom of heaven was not a physical place, not a political empire. The kingdom of heaven was God breaking into the world. It was a reality you can experience now as well as a movement toward eternity. It is an upside-down system where the poor, the meek and the persecuted are blessed.
Jesus tried to show us the way, a simple way. A way in which we focused on caring for one another rather than getting ahead. A way in which we listened to one another rather than telling each other what to do. A way of living that focused on building relationships rather than overpowering others.
A way of loving one another for the sake of love.
Pierce is the vicar of St. James’ Episcopal Church in Taylor and can be reached by email at ministry@ stjamestaylor.org.
Adobe Stock photo
