So when we read this prophecy from Joel 2, I think it’s easy for us to read it about ourselves. I want each of us to stop and think of situations in our lives that feel desperate, where there is ruin or devastation. Maybe it’s in our personal lives. Maybe it’s as a church. I mean if we’re honest it might feel a bit like the wilderness for Monroe Free Methodist seeing as how we’ve been in a long season of financial struggle, rarely having enough to pay the bills let alone to tend to larger maintenance or fund ministries within and outside. And we’re 50 people in a sanctuary that seats 180. Maybe this feels a lot like famine and hopelessness, if we’re honest. Where do you find yourself or our church in the words of Joel’s prophecy?

2:23 O children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the LORD your God; for he has given the early rain for your vindication, he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the later rain, as before.
2:24 The threshing floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil.
2:25 I will repay you for the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the hopper, the destroyer, and the cutter, my great army, which I sent against you.
2:26 You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people shall never again be put to shame.
2:27 You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I, the LORD, am your God and there is no other. And my people shall never again be put to shame.

Joel 2

When a prophecy involves looking back on a season of hardship or despair and tells of the great things to come, we’re thinking, “Yes, Lord! This is us! Let it be so.” But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Consider the prophecy that follows. 

28 Then afterward
I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.
29 Even on the male and female slaves,
in those days, I will pour out my spirit.

30 I will show portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. 31 The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. 32 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved;

Joel 2

Friends, with the blessing and abundance of the Lord comes some great and terrible responsibilities. To be living in the very center of God’s goodness means living like Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit empowered to prophesy, to see visions and dream dreams. Are you prepared for that? Are you willing to be obedient when the Holy Spirit gives you a word of prophecy or a vision or a dream even when the truth is terribly uncomfortable, when it will surely cause people to turn their backs on you, when it means changing everything you hold dear in order to usher in the Kingdom of God? Because that’s how Jesus lived isn’t it? Willing to speak prophetic truths to people not yet prepared to hear them…who got so upset they formed an operation to take Jesus down and disband his subversive kingdom ways. That’s the life we’re signing up for when we agree to be Jesus’s disciples. 

To be filled with the Holy Spirit, open to receiving truths from Scripture, through prayer, and yes through dreams and visions, is kind of like being a midwife, someone participating in the intense laboring in order to birth a new thing. In our case, we’re laboring together to birth God’s Kingdom. And you remember that the ways of God’s Kingdom are often (maybe always?) upside down from our ways? Often leading us to do hard things? Often inviting us to be courageous even when we’re afraid?

Are you willing to be filled with THIS Holy Spirit? 

And then there’s the other part of this prophecy that might cause an equal measure of discomfort. This Holy-Spirit-power isn’t just for the priest or the pastor. It isn’t just for the white middle class folk who go to church every Sunday. The Spirit of God is for all people. The charismatic power found in living like Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, is for all people. Do you believe that? 

It’s easy to say ‘yes or amen” to that. 

But let’s look again at the story Jesus tells in Luke 18 to some who (as The Message puts it) “were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people.” 

“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

So on one hand we read this and we think, “Cool, God is good to the sinner who repents.” I mean, I’m grateful for that. But this passage isn’t just about the plot twist moment when a tax collector went home justified. Let’s not miss the other plot twist, the part where Jesus describes the Pharisee goes away humbled. This church-going man was like the best of the best in religious piety – giving a 10th of his income and fasting twice each week. But he was a total judgmental jerk, the farthest thing from embodying the welcoming love of Jesus. And so because of his attitude, he was humiliated, brought low because of the way he elevated his worth above those he reviled. 

So here we are, a gathering of a good church-going people. Let’s think to ourselves for a minute. Can we honest about who we revile, who we criticize and insult (whether outwardly or in our heads)? Is it the illegal immigrant you disdain? The biracial or bisexual? The woman who chooses abortion? The divorced man? The person who’s overweight? The smoker? The unemployed? The progressive? The lazy? 

Who would you be shocked or even disgusted to think they could be filled with the Holy Spirit? 

Friends, I ask you to consider this, not to shame you, but because being honest about our biases is a really important place to start. It’s the first step toward confession, toward healing and wholeness, toward joining Jesus in building his Kingdom. So yeah, be completely honest with yourself and with God and maybe, just maybe with someone else. Dredge up the thoughts that make you feel gross about yourself and confess. Bring those deeply held judgments into the Light of Jesus, for when we confess our sins to each other, we will be healed. 

May we look at ourselves with honesty and humbly repent for the way we have exalted ourselves over others. Ask for faith to believe Joel’s prophecy that “Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” And, while we’re at it, I pray we would each be we be courageous enough to receive the empowerment that comes from the Holy Spirit, because it’s for you and for me and for everyone who calls on the name of the Lord. And it’s going to disrupt us and call us out and lead us to build more of the Kingdom that Jesus began. 

And may we very soon be able to mean every word of this prayer: 
Pour out your Spirit
on young and old alike,
that our dreams and visions may bring
justice and peace to the world. Amen.