May 20, 2018 (Pentecost) – “Wonderfully Made for an Amazing Purpose: Teaching” by Rev. Cody Sandahl

Lay Readers = Acts 2:1-8, 12-21
2When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
5Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.7Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?
12All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”
14But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 16No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 17‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 18Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.19And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. 20The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. 21Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
Introduction
We are still in our series looking at our spiritual gifts, or our spiritual DNA – the ways God has designed us for certain ministry roles that we will find life-giving, not life-draining. Last week we looked at the spiritual DNA for encouraging, which is seeing past the outer shell to what really matters to a person, and speaking comfort or peace or even admonishment to that deeper motivation.
This week for Pentecost we are looking at the spiritual DNA for teaching. I have defined teaching as the spiritual DNA to communicate information relevant to a ministry’s health in a way that others are excited to learn (REPEAT). Our text today is from the Gospel of Luke, and we know that Luke had the spiritual DNA for teaching. How do we know this? Well let’s just rewind to how he starts his telling of the Gospel in Luke 1:
“Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, 2 just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. 3 With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.”
Doesn’t that just sound like a teacher? “I carefully investigated,” here’s an “orderly account,” “so that you may know certainty.” If those phrases push your happy button, you might have some spiritual DNA for teaching inside you. As I shared to start this series, teaching is one of my top types of spiritual DNA.
So I make sure I know what I’m talking about. If I think I remember a story I’m going to use in a sermon, I research it to get the details right. If it’s a memory from my family, I’ll double-check with my parents or my brother.
Now don’t get me wrong – I come from a family that is gifted in the arts of making things up that sound good. With my family, you sometimes have to invoke the Texas aphorism – put on your boots, folks, cuz it’s gettin’ deep around here. And I have that gene, too. I once wrote a paper in English Literature class in college, and I was too busy reading a humongous series of fantasy novels to be bothered with my assigned reading for the class. So I read about 12 random pages in the book and wrote a paper on it. And it was graded on a scale of one to five, but the professor wrote on my paper, “If I could have give this a 6+ I would have! This was the greatest paper I’ve ever read on this assignment. Thank you!”
Or my crowning achievement was taking the Spanish placement test and, even though I only had two years of high school Spanish, and nothing in the last year, I tested out of 16 hours of college credit, 10 with an A, because I am a rather gifted taker of multiple choice tests.
But while those are good stories, those aren’t moments I’m actually proud of. I’m more proud of a project in world religions class in seminary when my friend Patrick and I put together a video game to demonstrate the afterlife views of multiple religions. It was creative. It embedded the ideas in a format our classmates actually remembered. And the professor didn’t actually like it so we only got an OK grade. But I bet our classmates remember that video game and none of the other projects. That was good teaching!
So someone with the spiritual DNA for teaching desires to communicate good, useful, relevant information…in a way that others are excited to learn.
Our text today is the end of the Gospel of Luke. This is after Jesus’ crucifixion. After his resurrection. After a few of his resurrected appearances to the disciples. And since today is Pentecost, this text is also the build up to what we heard to start the service. This is what Jesus said to his disciples before the Holy Spirit came on Pentecost. This was his final teaching.
Luke 24:36-53
36While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 37They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. 38He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” 40And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43and he took it and ate in their presence. 44Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” 45Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures,46and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48You are witnesses of these things. 49And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” 50Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. 51While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. 52And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; 53and they were continually in the temple blessing God.
People Matter
I have been known by a few nicknames in my time. Let’s see if you can pick up on a theme. I have been called “the machine.” I have been accused of being a “chess master” – and they weren’t talking about chess and it wasn’t a compliment. I have been called “the rock” and “stone-faced.”
Now maybe you’re picking up on the theme, but just in case you’re missing it, let me highlight what I’ve never been called. I’ve never been told that I’m like a “big teddy bear.” In fact, pick any warm and fuzzy image – and that’s never been applied to me.
And so I’ll let you in on a secret. When I’m running a meeting, I have to make an internal checklist. And the first item on that list is – “relational time.” Yes, I have to have that on a checklist in my head. But it’s on the checklist because it used to be on my “things to avoid in a meeting” list. I used to think that “relational time” in a meeting was equivalent to “wasted time.” And “wasted time” is one of my least favorite categories.
But a leadership development expert I respect told me that people aren’t machines – my nickname notwithstanding. We are emotional and relational beings. So whatever emotions someone is experiencing when they come to the meeting, they need some way to express those before they can actually focus on the topic at hand. If someone’s stewing after a road rage incident on their way to work, letting them share it allows them to get it off their brain and actually think about the meeting topic.
So “relational time” is on my meeting checklist. But I never know how long people actually need to spend on this, because anything greater than zero is more than I would prefer. In my previous church I had a nice bellwether for this in the form of one of my coworkers. He was fine with the relational time – to a point. But whenever we crossed that line he would involuntarily start tapping his fingers together as he tried to control his impatience. It actually became a joke in our team – “I see finger tapping. It must be time to move on to the topic of the day!”
There’s a very important point here. Because someone with the spiritual DNA for teaching isn’t just a person who conveys information. You’re conveying that information to actual, living, breathing, emoting, relating human beings. I could write a computer program to spit out the correct answers to a all kinds of theological questions, but I don’t think that’s what Jesus had in mind. The Holy Spirit didn’t come on Pentecost to create a bunch of machines with correct answers. The Holy Spirit came to transform people.
People matter. That’s one of the most important things for anyone who is teaching to remember. People matter. The people are the point.
Jesus showed that in our text today. The disciples want to ask him a million questions, and he pauses to sit down and eat with them – a very human thing to do. He led them out to Bethany and blessed them – can you imagine how uplifting it was to them as they struggled to start the early church to be able to look back and say, “I was personally blessed by Jesus?” That addressed them as people, not just as containers of knowledge. People matter. The people are the point of teaching, not the information itself.
Living Consistently
I also love what Jesus shows us in v44 – “these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you.” In other words – this is all happening as I already taught. You’ve already seen this. You’ve already known this. Now you’re experiencing it, but it’s consistent with what you already saw from me.
This reminds me of my leadership class in seminary, taught by one of my favorite professors who was a recently retired pastor – Louis Zbinden. On this day we had a guest speaker, which makes people more hesitant to answer questions lest they look foolish in front of the new leadership guru. So Louis didn’t receive any volunteers to ask his question about what’s required of leaders and teachers in the church. What’s expected of them?
So Louis says, “Mr. Sandahl? What do you think?” And Louis and the guest speaker and a bunch of relieved faces on my classmates turn toward me. Gulp.
I told him, “I think there’s a higher standard for teachers – both in terms of how much we’re supposed to know and how we’re supposed to live.”
“Do you think that’s fair?”
“Well it’s certainly Biblical. James says teachers will be judged more strictly, so beware becoming a teacher!”
He didn’t ask me anything else, so either I got it right or I got it so wrong it wasn’t even worth correcting. Hopefully it’s the former, because I’m re-teaching it now!
Basically the point is that there’s no such thing as “do as I say, not as I do.” Can you imagine Jesus saying that? No way! He said, “these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you.” Jesus lived and taught consistently. If you are in a teaching role – whether that’s in a church, or a volunteer role, or a school, or at work – if you are in a teaching role, no one will listen to you if you’re inconsistent.
If your words and actions don’t line up, you’re just blowing smoke. People will be rolling their eyes either overtly or inside their head. That’s what you’re all trying to hide while I’m preaching, right?
So if you’re habitually five minutes late, I wouldn’t recommend teaching on punctuality. If you’re habitually angry, a word of warning to a teammate who has an outburst won’t really hit home. If you bite people’s heads off when they tell you something’s wrong, you’re not going to be able to convince people that they should come to you directly with a problem. A teacher must live consistently with their teaching.
Transformation
Finally, Jesus says in v47, “repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations.” Repentance means turning your life around. And forgiveness of sins is what allows someone to turn their life around. How would your life be different if someone paid off all your credit cards, and your car payment, and your home mortgage, or if you’re renting what if you got a year of rent for free? What would that allow you to do? How would things be different? That’s what Jesus says our lives are to be like – once God decides to forgive the debt we owe to him, it allows us to repent – to turn our lives around – to be new people.
In other words, the end goal of faith and of teaching is transformation, not information. We are aiming for transformation, not information.
There are some parts of the Bible that I find to be…funny for lack of a better term. Sometimes it’s because God gets a little salty. Sometimes it’s just ironic. One of those funny moments comes in Acts 19. The early church is going strong, and word starts getting around that miracles are being done in the name of Jesus. So some Jewish leaders tried to use Jesus’ name to do their own miracles. So they said, “In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command [the evil spirit] to come out!” And then one of the evil spirits answers them, saying, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?” And then the text says the evil spirit jumped on them, overpowered them, and sent them running out of the house naked. Come on – that’s funny!
A few interesting observations here, though. The Jewish leaders knew Jesus’ name, and they knew Paul was doing miracles. But that information wasn’t enough to make a difference. Also, note that the evil spirit knew Jesus and Paul as well. So if an evil spirit knows who Jesus is…can we all agree that knowing about Jesus clearly can’t be the end game? Can we all agree that we should all aspire to living better than an evil spirit? So information isn’t enough – even the evil spirits know about Jesus. Jesus asks for repentance – turning our lives around – transformation.
So for someone in a teaching role, think about the end game. Think about the goal. For example, we have another New Member Interest class coming up. But for me, the goal isn’t to increase our membership numbers. That’s of very little interest to me. My goal is to help people make this their church home. My goal is to get them connected with other people in the church so they want to keep coming. My goal is to get them connected with activities or groups that will promote their spiritual growth so coming here is worth their time. I care about the transformation, not adding a few numbers to our membership count.
Or the spiritual gifts class we started – it picks back up next week, by the way. The goal isn’t for a bunch of people to take an assessment and be able to tick off their top three spiritual gifts. The goal is for the participants to find how they are designed to serve because of their faith, and that the participants will actually try serving in some way that resonates with their spiritual DNA, and that serving in that way actually is life-giving and exciting, not draining. The success of that class will be determined by how many people find fertile ground for serving and report back that they are energetic and excited after serving for a few months. It’s about the transformation, not information.
Summary
If you are in a teaching role in any area of life, look to Jesus’ example. People matter – and make sure they know they matter. The teacher must live consistently with their teachings. And the goal is transformation, not information. That applies to any teaching role.
And if you do have the spiritual DNA for teaching, it’s not just about being a youth leader or Sunday school teacher or Bible study discussion leader – although those are certainly teaching roles. But if that’s you, look for ministries you care about. How can you help the ministry get better? How can you help the people in the ministry be energized and effective? Think “trainer” instead of “teacher.”
Where are we stifling the Holy Spirit in our midst? Where could we do better or be better? If you have answers to those questions, you might have the spiritual DNA for teaching. Don’t just sit on that information. How could you share that teaching in a way that others are excited to learn? The Holy Spirit is ready to use your spiritual DNA to help this church do and be better. Amen.