Is everybody cool? Is everybody cool? I am not referring to the temperature in the building, but to the climate in your soul! Are you cool? “Cool” is an all-purpose word, used to describe a certain attitude. Instead of defining it, let me illustrate it.
I was attending a repast at a family home, having completed the funeral service and the burial. When I arrived, the immediate family, the people I knew, had all retreated to the kitchen to get the food ready. That left the rest of us, their friends and neighbors and I, all standing around in the living room, waiting.
Well, you don’t just stand around, you know. You try to be friendly. You strike up a conversation. I turned to a young man on my right and made small talk. He just looked at me and nodded his head, and said not a word. Not much happening over there.
So I turned to my left and asked one of those who-are-you- and-how-are-you-doing questions to a woman. “I’m just a neighbor. Just live across the street.” Her hands went up, and she turned and looked out of the window. Her body language clearly said, “I am not dealing with you.”
I don’t give up easily. I tried again. I floated over to two men who were standing next to one another but who were not actually talking. I nodded, I smiled, I said something about the weather, and guess what? They both nodded, and then each turned away. No response at all!
So what’s guy to do? Three strikes and you are definitely out. So I adopted a strategy that has been tested from time immemorial. It is a strategy that works in all kinds of socially awkward settings. It is a technique that will get you through, no matter how uncomfortable you are. I decided I would stand around looking cool.
Standing around looking cool. Do I need to describe for you what that looks like? Standing around looking cool is a pose of studied nonchalance. Standing around looking cool is folding your arms, leaning against the wall, hiding your eyes behind sunglasses if possible, and acting like you own the place. Standing around looking cool is a posture that says, “I don’t need you and don’t you bother me.” It is a manner that communicates, without saying a mumblin’ word, “I know who I am; don’t care who you are” Standing around looking cool is a way of getting through a socially unpleasant scene just by acting as though you know what’s going on and who’s who.
In fact, I can even show you the look. I came equipped this morning. One of you brought me a prop. This shirt says on the front, “Joe Cool”. Given my first name, it’s right on target. The real message is back here. Snoopy as Joe Cool. Behind the shades, the very picture of posed confidence, studied nonchalance, standing around looking cool. I’m hanging it right here so that you can see the sermon!
Comedian Bill Cosby does a routine in which he describes a little old lady. This little old lady just can’t keep up with this modern world. She hasn’t got a clue as to what her grandchildren are talking about. She has listened to all the pop songs and has not understood one single word. But she is not about to let you know that. So she smiles, she nods, she projects this air of worldly wisdom. She stands around looking cool. In fact, says Bill Cosby, he has figured out that that’s how you get to be a little old lady. You get to be a little old lady by standing around looking cool, and nobody will mess with you.
Well, you know, the trouble is, that’s not what we really want out of life. Standing around looking cool is not much of a goal. What we really want is a deeply satisfying, emotionally enriching experience. We don’t want just to stand off on the sidelines pretending to be cool. We want to be passionate. We don’t want is to be little old ladies; we want to be alive and vital and strong. Even little old ladies don’t want to be little old ladies. They want some zest in life! We want excitement, we want power, we want something that rewards us. We want fulfillment, we want connection; we want more than emptiness and distance.
But still, when we really don’t feel comfortable, we stand around looking cool.
I
Actually, that’s a defense mechanism. It’s something people do when they feel insecure. They think they have to pose as strong and tough when they are not. The first thing I want you to see is that when God gets involved in your life, God nudges you away from looking cool. God does this by assuring you of His love and power. When God gets involved in our lives, He takes away the need to standing around looking cool; He assures us that He has claimed us as His own and has made us somebody. We don’t need to pretend any more.
Jesus had just ascended into heaven. He had given His final instructions to His disciples, and then He had just lifted off into the skies. They watched as long as they could watch, and after He was out of sight, they just stood there, still looking, still staring.
Two angels appeared. I love this line from the angels, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” Fellows, I know you don’t know what to do with what you just saw; I know you feel awkward. But can’t you do better than this? Why do you stand looking up toward heaven? Why are you just standing around looking cool?
Because we want you to know, disciples, “that this same Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” This same Jesus will come again. The message is, Christians, Jesus Christ has won the victory. Jesus Christ is Lord. And Jesus Christ has claimed you. So you don’t have to pose, you don’t have to posture, you don’t have to convince anybody, that you are OK. Jesus Christ, by the purchase of His blood, has made you OK. He has made you righteous. He has justified you. You don’t have to pretend anymore.
“Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” Why are you standing around looking cool? It is not necessary to remain confused or insecure. Christians ought to be the most confident people in the world! We ought to be confident, because we know to whom we belong. We don’t have to standing around looking cool to impress anybody. We are made complete in Him. The same Jesus who saved us will come again. His victory is our victory, and we can drop the pretenses. There is no more need to be confused or insecure. There is no more need to stand around looking cool
II
But what there is is power. Power. And a particular kind of power. Holy Spirit power. And witness power.
The ascending Jesus said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses.” If the Christian life is a whole lot more than standing around looking cool, because, after all, we don’t need that any more, what is it then? What is it? It is the power, given by the Holy Spirit, to witness. The power to do something for the Kingdom.
Now I want to dwell on this a little while, because there are some mistaken ideas going around concerning what it is to receive the Holy Spirit.
Some folks will tell you that if you have the Holy Spirit you will sort of jump out of your skin and speak in strange tongues and get carried away. But the Bible warns us about that and says that it would be a whole lot better to say a few words that someone can understand than to shout out a lot of words that nobody can grasp. The emphasis is on making a witness, an intelligible witness. That’s having the Holy Spirit.
Other folks will tell you that the Holy Spirit is present when God’s people come together and they sing and they shout and they praise and they clap hands and they get royally wound up in worship. And I don’t deny that there is truth in that. I’ve felt the Spirit’s presence under those circumstances. I’ve heard the Lord’s voice on those Sundays when the choir just can’t stop singing and some applaud and some even weep. That’s all right. But that’s not the ultimate criterion, that’s not the real measuring rod. The real measuring rod is whether you are empowered to witness. The standard is whether you are encouraged to help somebody know the Lord.
Check it out: everywhere in the Book of Acts you read about somebody being filled with the Spirit, you find somebody who was able to go and help and teach and heal. Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, stands up to preach and then heals a lame man at the Temple. Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, breathes his last words as a prayer of love for those who stoned him. Philip, filled with the Holy Spirit, hitches a ride with an Ethiopian man and explains the Scriptures. Do you see what I am saying? Being filled with the Holy Spirit is a whole lot more than the singing or shouting or hand clapping we do. Being filled with the Spirit is measured by our willingness to witness and by the power of our testimony.
Do not tell me about some service and how spirited and warm it was. Tell me whether it led you to the marketplace to bear your witness. Do not tell me about another service and how peaceful and reverent it was, how standing around looking cool it was. Tell me if it empowered you to heal somebody’s hurts. Then I’ll tell you whether the Spirit was present or not.
You’ve seen those bumper stickers that say, “Honk if you love Jesus”? Well, I’ll give you a better one. Somebody ought to print a bumper sticker that says, “Witness if you love Jesus; anybody can honk.”
“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses.” It’s not about jumping around looking hot or about standing around looking cool. It’s about being empowered for witness.
III
And, finally, it’s about being empowered for a witness to the whole world. To the whole world, beginning at home but extending well beyond home. Living in the Spirit, empowered by the Spirit, means having a witness, yes. But it doesn’t mean that I can just keep my witness right here, in a safe place. It means I have to go somewhere. It means I have to step out of my comfort zone. I can’t bear my witness by just standing around looking cool. I have to go out to a wider world.
I wonder if you know just how much is packed into these few words of the Lord? Do you know how much they are freighted down with meaning? “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” There’s so much in that.
You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem. Right here at home, among the people we know best. Oh, do you know that sometimes the people we know best are the hardest ones to witness to? Why? Because they know us too well! They know our faults, and they say, if that’s what a Christian is, I can do without that. Some of us find it easier to go teach somewhere else rather than at home, somewhere else where we can look cool. But our first responsibility is to be a witness for Christ at home, in our own families, on our own streets, in our own Takoma community. If we don’t do this, nobody else will do it for us.
And you will be my witnesses in Judea. That means the larger community. That means this city, this region. One of the greatest places to live in all the world, but a place of tremendous needs as well. Oh, how nice it is to sit in the armchair and criticize. Oh, how cheap it is to complain about the District government: to mumble about Marion, to jaw about Jarvis, and to nay-say Norton! Oh, how much fun it is to lay the blame at the feet of the feds: Clinton is the culprit and Newt is the nemesis! But look: complaining is just another form of standing around looking cool. We are not called to gripe. We are called to be redemptive. And when your church organizes an after-school program; when your church plans activities for seniors; when your church brings in mental patients every week for well over twenty years; when your church looks for young people on the streets; then you can know that we have not surrendered to the temptation to stand around looking cool! We have begun, but only just begun, to be witnesses in Judea, in this city.
More: you will be my witnesses in Samaria. What does the Lord mean by Samaria? If you know your Bible history you know that the Samaritans were the people who were the wrong race and the wrong religion, at least in the minds of the Jews. They were racially different and they had the wrong theology, and that made them outcasts. Good folk didn’t deal with them. They’re not like us.
Takoma, can you guess where I’m going with this one? Witness to Samaria? We are a church that prides itself on being multiracial for thirty-three years, but we are less and less multiracial every year. What is the message? You shall be my witnesses to all kinds of folks, not just to African-Americans and a few liberated whites. But you shall be my witnesses to Hispanics and to Asians, to Indians and to Middle Easterners. You shall not, when you see a family from another culture, decide to stand around looking cool and aloof. You shall be my witnesses in Samaria, among all kinds of people.
And you shall be my witnesses to the ends of the earth. Yes, I do still pray that somebody will come out of this congregation as a volunteer for missions. I still pray for the time when we will teach such a global vision that our young people will not be thinking about big bucks but about big blessings. I still pray for the moment when the heart-cries of the world will be more than headlines in The Washington Post but will be prayer lines in Takoma’s worship. Missions to the ends of the earth. God is calling us, this church and her people, to go, to go to a world in need and there to be His witnesses.
This morning I tell you, as surely as I know anything at all, that if you are looking for excitement, you will find it not only in the moment of worship but in the days and weeks of ministry and service. If you are looking for passion, you will find it not only in Bible study or prayer meeting or choir rehearsal, but you will find it in taking the Gospel to somebody else. If you are looking for fulfillment and connection, it will not come just sitting in the pews, daring the Holy Spirit to strike you. That’s just another form of standing around looking cool. It will come when you take Christ at His promise, when you accept His lordship, and receive power to be His witnesses in Takoma, in all DC and all cultures, and to the very ends of the earth.
I need to get rid of this Joe Cool shirt. Right initials, wrong name. Not Joe Cool, distracted and aloof, but Jesus Christ, warm and compassionate. Not Joe Cool, hiding behind shades, but Jesus Christ, the very sunshine of my soul. Not Joe Cool, standing around looking cool, but Jesus Christ, hanging on a cross for a lost world. Jesus Christ is Lord. You will receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be His witnesses.
