Clean and Green Power -- FPC sermon excerpt

The world needs power.

We know this, which is why the U.S. government is supporting solar-power projects, Exxon-Mobil is exploring algae oil, and wind farms are popping up all over the place. Turn on the news, and it seems that everyone today is talking about alternative energy. We have had some truly energetic discussions this spring in our adult class, “Being a Green Presbyterian.”

But sun, algae and wind is not enough, which is why the race for even more innovative technologies is heating up. According to mental_floss magazine (November-December 2009), three of the cleanest and greenest ideas include:

First, launching solar panels into space. Solar panels in orbit can soak up the sun’s energy 24 hours a day, and microwave transmitters can beam the energy down to earth.

Second, gathering methane bricks from the bottom of the sea. You know about methane, don’t you? It’s the combustible gas that emerges from volcanoes, garbage heaps, and cows. But it is also found deep under the ocean floor and in the Arctic permafrost, just waiting to be collected.

Third, harnessing the power of nuclear fusion. This is the process that powers the sun, pretty much the best energy source ever. It is also quite clean, since it can eat up the nasty radioactive waste that comes out of today’s nuclear fission plants. Although the technology still has a long way to go, it promises to be clean and green.

But it’s not just the world that needs more power — the church does, too. We feel powerless in the face of chronic hunger and homelessness in our communities … powerless to speak the many languages of our increasingly diverse neighborhoods … powerless to shape our children and youths with the grace, love, and guidance of the Christian gospel.

The church needs power.

God knows this, which is why the cleanest and greenest form of alternative energy came to a powerless church on the day of Pentecost. “Suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting” (Acts 2:2).

Was this wind power? Well, not exactly.

“Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them” (v. 3).

Was this the burning of methane? No, this was not that kind of combustion.

“All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability” (v. 4). Then Peter raised his voice and addressed a crowd, saying, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. … This is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh …. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved’” (vv. 14, 16, 21).

The first followers of Jesus were not energized by wind or sunlight or methane or nuclear fusion. No, their power came from the Holy Spirit of God, a force which enabled them to speak in diverse languages and offer a word of gospel hope.

Their power came from God, and it was a force that could — and did — change the world.

It’s clean and it’s green. And available to us today.

Stick-On Love -- FPC sermon excerpt

Many years ago, advertisers discovered an important truth: Emotion sells products. Back in 1921, Palmolive asked women the question, “Would your husband marry you again?”

With this ad, the soap-maker was tapping into a fear of isolation and loneliness. The hidden message was, “Without Palmolive, you are going to be all alone.”

Today, we see ads for Axe deodorant reflecting a desire that most young men have — they want to be irresistible to women. We watch ads for Heineken beer that make a connection with our longing for world peace. How else can you explain the heart-warming commercial that shows Heineken beers being handed from mountain men … to Indians … to ballerinas?

It makes no sense. Except that emotion sells products.

When we take a step back and think about these ads, we realize that we are being manipulated. “It’s all stick-on emotion,” write Dan and Chip Heath in Fast Company magazine (October 2009). I like that expression, because it communicates how thin and artificial the emotion is. Take some fear of isolation, and stick it on Palmolive soap. Take some sexual desire, and stick it on Axe deodorant. Take some longing for world peace, and stick it on Heineken beer.

On Mother’s Day, I’m reminded of how advertisers are especially good at using stick-on love against mothers. Most fabric softeners, for instance, sell their product by convincing moms that they are not really softening their family’s clothes — they are telling their children, “I love you.” A bottle of Downy is a bottle of love.

Dan and Chip Heath know the truth, however. Moms, if you really want to show your love, give your kids unlimited texting.

What’s really important is that we find ways to replace stick-on love with authentic love. That is exactly what Jesus is calling us to do in the Gospel of John. Jesus doesn’t want us to practice stick-on love, love that is only a word to be slapped on something. He wants us to replace this fake and manipulative emotion with a real one; he wants us to go deep and show our love in action by really keeping his word (John 14:23).

Iron Man -- FPC sermon excerpt

I’m a big fan of Iron Man, the superhero played by Robert Downey, Jr. As far as I know, he’s the only action hero played by a middle aged man.

I have to find some hope somewhere.

The original Iron Man film was released two years ago, and a sequel opens this Friday. Downey plays a billionaire inventor and arms dealer named Tony Stark, who is captured in the Middle East and held captive, when one of his own bombs is used against him. While a prisoner, he creates a suit of armor and escapes. Later, he upgrades the technology and becomes Iron Man, with a mission of fighting evil and making the world a better place.

In the new movie, he will face pressure to share his Iron Man technology with the government. But he resists, fearing that it will fall into the wrong hands.

The attractive thing about Tony Stark is that he is a vulnerable human being who makes discoveries and allows himself to change. He starts the first movie as an arms dealer, but sees the error of his ways — he witnesses young Americans being killed by the very weapons he created to defend and protect them. Stark is a true Iron Man because he is willing to learn and grow, not because he is covered in a suit of armor.

He kind of reminds me of the apostle Peter. Both Tony Stark and Peter have some serious character defects, and they wouldn’t be comfortable with anyone calling them superheroes. But they are Iron Men in the face of criticism, and are willing to bend in new directions as they make discoveries about what is true.

Back in the first century, there was conflict between the Christians in Jerusalem and the residents of the Greek world known as Gentiles. The Christians in Jerusalem had grown up Jewish, and they had been taught never to associate with uncircumcised, unclean people like the Gentiles. After the apostle Peter allows a number of Gentiles to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, he finds himself on the hot seat in Jerusalem.

“Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” ask the Christians in Jerusalem (Acts 11:3). It is unthinkable for a good Jewish Christian to break God’s purity laws and sit down to share a meal with an unclean Gentile. But Peter stands up to them like an Iron Man and reports to them that he had received a vision from God. In this vision the Lord said, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane” (v. 9). Peter understood this to mean that God was doing a new thing, and making the unclean clean. He was like Tony Stark, suddenly seeing that his old approach to life — making weapons — was doing more evil than good.

By making this change, God was enabling the Gentiles to hear the gospel and join the church — something that Jewish purity laws had previously prohibited. Peter tells his fellow Christians that he was hit by the full significance of this shift when three Gentiles arrived at the place he was staying, and invited him to visit a centurion named Cornelius. The Holy Spirit told Peter to go with them, and not to make a distinction between Gentiles and Jews. Then, when Peter met face to face with Cornelius, he saw the Holy Spirit fall on the Gentiles, just as it had fallen on the apostles. Peter concludes his report to the Christians in Jerusalem by asking the question, “If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” (v. 17).

That’s a great question. Religious purity is the main business of the Christians in Jerusalem, but Iron Man Peter sees that it is doing more evil than good. We have to ask ourselves: If God wants us to change and do a new thing, who are we to hinder God?