So Moses went out  and told the people what the Lord had said. He brought together seventy of their elders and had them stand around the Tent. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke with him, and he took of the Spirit that was on him and put the Spirit on the seventy elders. When the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied, but they did not do so again. However, two men, whose names were Eldad and Medad, had remained in the camp. They were listed among the elders, but did not go out to the Tent. Yet the Spirit also rested on them, and they prophesied in the camp. A young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.” Joshua son of Nun, who had been Moses' aide since youth, spoke up and said, “Moses, my lord, stop them!” But Moses replied, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit on them!” Then Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp.

 

 

     It was quite a few years ago now – long before I was ordained – but I remember the evening well. Lynn and I decided to attend a service that was being led by a controversial and what you might call hyper-charismatic Christian group. We were interested. We were curious. We had heard a lot about this group; we had friends who had been involved with it and everyone spoke very highly of the experience they had enjoyed. I decided that night that I must be a “mainline” Christian! As the service progressed with the worship leaders encouraging (or perhaps manipulating, depending on your point of view I suppose) people into opening themselves to the presence of the Holy Spirit (a laudable goal, by the way, with which I have no argument and of which I'd like to see more evidence in the mainline Christian community) I started to become concerned when a few of the teenagers present started to demonstrate that they “had” the Holy Spirit by hitting their heads (rather hard I might add) on the top of the pew in front of them. How exactly that was glorifying God or bearing witness to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit I wasn't sure, since I'm quite convinced that the Holy Spirit doesn't encourage us to give ourselves concussions any more than the Holy Spirit moved Aaron Rome to send Nathan Horton into another universe for a few minutes a few days ago in Boston. In any event the service continued, with this and other rather bizarre things apparently representing the Holy Spirit's presence until the service finally reached its climax. Members of the worship leadership team began walking into the congregation shaking their hands out in front of them and insisting that only if we allowed them to pray over us while they were doing this would we actually receive the Holy Spirit and be truly Spirit-filled Christians. In other words, they “had” the Spirit and we “needed” the Spirit and the only way we could “get” the Spirit was through them. If by chance that group is right, then I'm not a Spirit-filled Christian because Lynn and I walked out of that service and chose never again to experience a service led by that particular group. The point of the story is that there are a lot of charlatans out there who will try to convince you that their way is the only way and that unless you do what they say you're in some sort of spiritual trouble and God is plenty upset with you and you most certainly don't have the Spirit. 

 

     When I was reflecting on what I might offer you today as we have this confluence of events – the celebration of the first Christian Pentecost (the day on which the church was empowered by the Holy Spirit) and the celebration of new members of our church through baptism and confirmation and the celebration of Holy Communion – I chose to set aside the traditional reading about the sending of the Holy Spirit with its dramatic signs and wonders in Acts 2, and to look instead at this much lesser known passage in the Book of Numbers. God's Spirit, you see, isn't exclusively Christian. Applying the name “Holy Spirit” to God's Spirit is Christian, but God's Spirit is everywhere, and certainly was present to Israel in the stories we read in the Old Testament. Indeed, one of the first things we read in the Old Testament is that as the account of Creation begins in Genesis 1, “the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” The Spirit of God or the Holy Spirit (sometimes called “the angel of the Lord” in the Old Testament) was a constant traveling companion of those early Israelites, who struggled to find their way in a hostile environment. The church today exists in a hostile environment – not persecuted, but marginalized, ignored, criticized, ridiculed, etc. -  and when such things happen there's a danger of “circling the wagons.” As we get increasingly concerned about our plight, we latch onto what might be called “magic” and we condemn anyone who rejects the “magic” and tries to find their own way. One thing for those in established communities of faith to remember is that throughout the Scriptures there's a sense that God doesn't have much time for established communities of faith – God wants to work through Spirit-filled people and the established communities of faith are only helpful if we acknowledge that the Spirit works as the Spirit will. Speaking of the work of the Holy Spirit in John 3, Jesus says “the wind” (or the Spirit, because the word we translate as “Spirit” also means “wind”) “blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” The United Church – whatever faults our denomination may have – is at least not so arrogant as to try to suggest that only we have the “Spirit”, which is why our Creed says that “We believe in God: … Who works in us and others by the Spirit.”  We have no monopoly on God's Spirit. recognize that we're called not to claim God's Spirit only for ourselves but to the far more portant task of discerning the Spirit's presence “in us and others.” Today's reading helps us understand the importance of remembering that we have no monopoly on  the Spirit of God.

 

     Moses was having a meeting with the elders. There were seventy of them. They stood at the Tent (which was where the Ark of the Covenant was kept in the days before there was a Temple, and where the presence of God was believed to dwell) and while they were meeting together some of them felt the presence of God's Spirit and they offered prophesy. That's all well and good. From the point of view of the church today it reminds us that the leadership of the church has to be Spirit-filled; open to the guidance of the Spirit of God, and it reminds us that a community of faith not led by God's Spirit isn't going anywhere fast. I mentioned a few weeks ago the appearance of a movement called the “post-theistic” church movement, which is essentially a movement saying that God is at the most an option and at the least unnecessary. Well, the problem with that is that a church without God by definition can't be led by God's Spirit. It's a building where people meet and little more. A church empowered by the Spirit and led by the Spirit may struggle – Jews and Christians have struggled on and off since the beginning, so “success” (however defined) is not the sign of the presence of God's Spirit – but it will be a community of faith, rich in diversity and rich in experience but held together by the unity granted by the Holy Spirit. For Israel, that started in Numbers 11 with the Spirit empowering the elders of the nation – but it didn't end there.

 

     Two of the elders – Eldad and Medad – stayed away from the meeting of elders. Why we don't know. They just didn't go. They stayed among the people in the camp, away from the Tent, away from the Ark of the Covenant, away from where the presence of God was believed to dwell. And the most amazing thing happened. They were moved by the Spirit. They spoke words of prophesy openly among the people and the response of the leaders was all too predictable: “Moses, my lord, stop them!” How dare they do this thing that we don't give them permission to do! The point is that the Spirit of God wasn't restricted to one time and place. The Spirit of God appears anywhere as the Spirit of God chooses. Here was the Spirit of God – not abandoning the leadership, but appearing in an unexpected place. And Moses replied to the complaint: “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit on them!” Moses understood. The Spirit of God is for all God's people – and woe to us if we start thinking otherwise; woe to us if we start thinking that there's only one way to do things; woe to us if we start thinking that everything must be done according to the rules and traditions; woe to us if we start thinking that everything must be done in good order.

 

     The story is about empowerment – the empowerment of God's people to be God's people, and a reminder to all of God's people to let God's people be God's people. Don't box people in; let people loose. Don't bind people with the chains of tradition; free people with the bonds of love. Don't expect everything to be done your way; do expect that things will be done God's way – and that we might not always like God's way, just as Joshua didn't like the way the Spirit worked through Eldad and Medad in the camp among the people. As of today we now have several more people who have publicly committed themselves to faith in Jesus Christ. To them I say: You belong to God, let God work through you as God chooses to do. To the rest of us I say: Let them loose to be what God calls them to be. The church might never be the same – and that wouldn't be a bad thing!