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First Church of SquantumAccepting the Holy Spirit
June 12, 2011Michael S. Robertson
Acts 2: 1, 2, 4, 14-18, 21
Pentecost Sunday has been celebrated by Christians for centuries and yet it is not atraditional Congregational religious holiday. Pentecost is the 50
th
day after the Sabbath of Passover week so it always falls on the first day of the week, Sunday. We celebrate because this is the day when, as the scripture reading tells us, “All of them were filledwith the Holy Spirit.” This fulfills the promise Jesus made when he told his disciples hewould not leave them as orphans but would empower them. “I will pour out my spirit onall people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.” According to this we are all empowered by the Holy Spirit.It is not limited to men to the exclusion of women but given to all people.In our hymn of preparation we sang, “Breathe on me, breath of God, fill me with lifeanew, that I might love what Thou dost love, and do what thou wouldst do.” Note howwe are asking God to fill us with a new life so that we can love and perform like Jesus.Only Jesus was able to live a sinless life, we are all sinners, but Jesus will take our sinsaway if we will accept his divinity. How can we do this? Quite simply we do this bycalling on the name of the Lord. I do not believe merely stating that Jesus is your Lordand Savior can save anyone. However, it is an important first step because when we believe Jesus is God we can then believe what he says is the truth. When we actuallyaccept the Holy Spirit we can prophesize, see visions and dream dreams. Change is onething in life we can count on because every day brings new opportunities and we cangreet these changes with excitement or with dread. The one thing we can not preventfrom happening is change. Therefore, we all need to accept the promised gift of the HolySpirit and then use that power to change the world for the better.Just this past week we have seen some extraordinary changes in some prominent peoples’lives. Representative Weiner was considered to be a future New York City mayoralcandidate before he admitted he did send inappropriate electronic messages after he flatlydenied he had sent them. Newt Gingrich had his entire presidential campaign staff resigneffectively ending his campaign. Tournedos in Massachusetts changed lives and entirecommunities in a moment while floods and fires are doing the same in other parts of thiscountry. In the Middle East governments are being overthrown forcing thousands to leavetheir homes and flee for their lives. Walking in Boston last week I noticed that the OldCorner Bookstore space was vacant with a for lease sign in the window. Just across thestreet was the giant Borders bookstore that may have caused it to close and it has justannounced it is closing. Perhaps not as dramatic as other changes that are taking place, but significant none the less.However this morning I do not want to focus my message on the inevitability of changeor even on the changes that involve politicians, foreign countries or businesses. Therewere three articles I read last week I want to mention. The first was the release of the
 
report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy that declared the war on drugs to be afailure and called for a paradigm shift in global drug policy. The head line in the Wallstreet Journal was, “
More Calls for a Drug War Cease-Fire
.” It mentioned that 79years ago, in 1932, John D. Rockefeller Jr. called for the repeal of the 18
th
amendment.He had been one of the strongest supporters of the passage of that amendment and hadspent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying for the constitutional prohibition onalcohol. In his letter he said he had not changed his views on the destructiveness of drink  but insisted that, “lifting prohibition was essential if America was to restore publicrespect for the law.” He recognized that the attempt to use force to halt consumption has been disastrous. He had hoped that the 18
th
Amendment would be generally supported by public opinion. He wrote that, “This has not been the case, drinking has increased, a vastarmy of law-breakers has been recruited and financed, many of our best citizens upset bywhat they regarded as an infringement of their private rights, have openly andunabashedly disregarded the 18
th
Amendment; respect for all law has greatly lessened andcrime has increased to an unprecedented degree.” Sound familiar? Today our jails aretaking in record numbers of young minorities and converting them into hardenedcriminals; gang violence is on the rise; organized crime is undermining U.S. interests inMexico, Central America and Afghanistan.The second article was about the National Association for the Advancement of ColoredPeople, (the NAACP) joining with the United Federation of Teachers to sue the city of  New York to stop the city from closing about two dozen of its worst schools and openingcharters. That decision sent thousands of black moms and dads out to protest the NAACPin Harlem on May 26 because for these parents, charter schools provide one of the fewsources of hope for better education for their children. The decision by the NACCC is to protect teachers and administrators at the expense of students. As teacher union leader Albert Shanker said years ago, “When school children start paying union dues, that’swhen I’ll start representing the interests of school children.”The third article was entitled, “
How Kindness Built Civilization
” and begins with, “It’sabout time the dog got a little more respect.” Professor Brian Hare, who heads the CanineCognition Center at Duke University has developed a new theory. In some ways dogscan be more intelligent than chimpanzees and this remarkable gift reveals something profound about the origins of intelligence. Although chimps are considered sociallysophisticated creatures, they struggle to understand even basic human gestures like pointing. Children follow a pointed finger and know the thing being pointed to isimportant. This requires tremendous cognitive leaps, knowing another animal hasthoughts of its own that knows something I don’t and that it is trying to communicatewith me. Dogs can do that and Hare wondered where these abilities came from. In 1959Russian scientist Dmitry Belyaev gathered wild foxes and separated them into twogroups. One group he bread randomly as a control and the second group he bread for kindness. In the second group only the foxes that were nicest to humans got a chance tomate. By 2003 this selection process had been repeated over many generations and thenice foxes understood pointing, they had leapt past chimps. Dogs went throughessentially the same process over a much longer period as wolves began to approachhuman settlements looking for scraps. The less fearful wolves were rewarded with more
 
food and over time these wolves became our dogs. The foxes and early dogs were notselected for intelligence, but for niceness and as the animals became nicer the intelligencefollowed naturally. Human intelligence is often described as a steady accumulation of new kinds of smarts, as the brain expanded. Hare believes this would not have been possible unless our species made an emotional breakthrough. Specifically the ability totolerate each other, to be kind enough, and patient enough, that we could cooperate moredeeply, leading to language, tools and civilization. This is an insight he would not havewere it not for dogs: “to be smart, first be nice.”I believe these three articles tell us much about our present situation and reinforce justwhat Jesus tells us is important. It is really important to always treat others as you want to be treated and this especially applies to those who may appear to be less gifted. Beingkind is the first step to living a happy and productive life and may even lead to anincrease in intelligence. Look what happened when all those people at Pentecost receivedthe Holy Spirit. Others observed but failed to believe or understand what was happening.There is a great difference between being an observer and actually participating. If youare willing to ask God to fill you with life anew, understand what you are asking for, because when you receive the Holy Spirit, your life will never again be the same. Whenwe begin to, “love what Jesus loved,” we are then able to focus our attention on doingwhat Jesus tells us we are to live.
Emmy speaks here.
Today we can acknowledge the Holy Spirit that exists in each of us as a gift we havereceived from God as promised by Jesus. That is why I have been talking all year aboutthe acts of kindness that we are doing right here as a congregation of believers. It allstarts here and it begins with us. Now we know that change is inevitable so it would seemlogical that we would embrace change and make certain that we are part of what happensrather than just looking back at what we may fondly remember as being the, “Good oldDays.” We have it in our hands and minds to assure that the best is yet to come. We donot have to sit quietly on the sidelines and complain. We can live with the confidence thatas long as we follow Jesus command we can not fail. This will surprise many who havenot accepted this behavior as being the proper way to live but that surprise will turn toadmiration as they see how much happiness you are able to bring to others. Jesus says, “Itell you this so that my Joy may be in you.”Let us pray. Lord, we thank you for the message of God’s love that you tell us is ever  present. When we are tempted to pass judgement on others, remind us of the love wehave received from so many during our lives. When we find the violent news depressingus and getting in the way of your universal love for us, awaken us to the Holy Spiritwithin us. When we observe children joyfully playing with each other let that remind usthat this is the way you want us to live. We thank you for your love and for the exampleyou have set for us. Help us to receive the Holy Spirit so that we can begin to love eachother in the same unconditional way that God loves us. All this we ask in Jesus’ name.AMEN
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