The Day of Pentecost
May 11, 2008
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104;25-35, 37
1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
John 20:19-23
Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday to all of us who belong to the body of Christ we call the Church, because today is our birthday. Today we celebrate the Day of Pentecost, the day when God sent his Holy Spirit to Jesus’ disciples so that they might continue his ministry in the world. And while I’m at it, Happy Birthday to each one of us who celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit to us at our baptism. And for the same reason: so that we might continue in the apostle’s teaching and by their example.
So, Happy Birthday to us. This is our red-letter day, and it shows. I can see a sea of red as I look out among you today. And what a show of spirit. The Spirit. Red is the appropriate color for Pentecost, because red is the color of passion. It is the color of a burning flame and the heat which comes from it. Red represents the Spirit’s power to put a fire in our belly. A fire which generates energy, an energy which empowers us to live our life after the example of Christ. A life which is not easy to live because it is so countercultural to the life the world would have us live.
But you and I have made a countercultural statement this morning by the very fact that we made the decision go to church. Our decision to set aside this time on a Sunday for worship places us in a minority among people who have made different decisions. But at least we do not have to suffer for our decision, because we live in the United States and we are free to worship as we please anywhere we like, or not at all. We do not live in a time or in a place where attending church is dangerous, a subversive act with serious and even deadly consequences. It takes little strength or courage on our part to attend worship; we only need to decide whether or not we will do the countercultural thing on a Sunday morning and go to church.
However, there are other consequences we suffer in today’s world for being persons of faith. I would not be surprised to hear a story (or many stories) from each of you about people who held you up to ridicule or scorn, mockery or contempt, or any other kind of derogatory judgment for practicing your faith by attending regular worship. I know I have suffered from such judgment. And I still do. I get it from family and friends and even strangers who read religious comments on my T-shirts. Such people cannot imagine how a reasonably intelligent, very productive, fun-loving, self-respecting person (and on and on) would willingly believe in God, no less be a faithful member of a church. And quite honestly, I have learned not to try to explain it to them. Because, in the end, I can’t really explain it. There is no rational explanation for my faith. At least not that the kind of explanation that will satisfy rational proof. Because a person of faith is living with different categories from the ones this world is living by. And the language of faith is only understandable to a people of faith; if you don’t have faith, if the Spirit has not awakened in you, you are not likely to understand, or accept, or even respect people who speak the language of faith, and any attempt at communication will sound much like Babel.
Christians may not be able to explain our faith by the rational categories of this world, but we can give you good reason why we are a people of faith and why we faithfully practice it. It is because of the Holy Spirit. That same Spirit who came to us at our baptism. That Spirit which awakened in us at some point in our life and began urging us into a life of faith. It begins as a spark and grows into a flame, until the fire in our belly fills us with the desire to belong to something larger than ourselves; something which can empower us to live our life differently in this world, and we began to follow its lead.
It’s not easy for a person of faith explain the Holy Spirit to people who have not yet awakened to the Spirit, especially people who actively resist such an awakening. It’s difficult enough to explain to other Christians how the Holy Spirit is working in us and through us, and how that is making a difference in our life and in the lives of others. But we really don’t have to explain it. Because as Christians we already know. We know that it takes something more than our own will and human preferences to choose this way of life. It takes something greater than ourselves; something which is capable of moving us beyond the self-limiting and self-serving purposes of our life to serve God’s greater purpose for it. We need simply to be open and receptive to the Spirit when it awakens in us; we need to be aware of the ways the Spirit is moving us, urging us to follow where it leads. And for that we need to be able to surrender our self-will to God’s greater will so that the Spirit can guide us into the life God would have us live.
This might not have been so difficult for Jesus’ disciples as it is for us. Jesus’ disciples already had all that it takes to receive the Spirit and to follow its lead. Because unlike us, they had Jesus. Jesus promised his disciples that he would not abandon them when he ascended to God. Jesus told them that God would send his Spirit, so they expected the Spirit to come to them. They were already open to receive the Spirit. And we know that they surrendered their own will to the Spirit because they took up Jesus’ ministry in the world, and that resulted in the establishment of faith communities which came to be called the Church. It is a testament to the power of the Spirit that the Church becomes the most countercultural institution in the ancient world. People were compelled by the Spirit to live after the example of Jesus, and they were willing to suffer and die for the good they did in Jesus’ name. And it is a testament to the power of the Spirit that in every age and in every generation, people have been empowered by the Spirit and encouraged by faith communities to make a difference for good in the world.
But this is not so easy for Christians like us in a world like this to be receptive to the Spirit and to engage the Spirit in the ways we live our life, especially in the Western world where man has become the measure of all things; where God is replaced by the worship of this material life and its material things, and the Spirit doesn’t stand a chance of even becoming a spark in a people whose needs and wants and desires are primarily self-serving and well-served. People who think they have no need of the Spirit, no need of the body of Christ, and no need of the church. Even those of us who are believers and are faithful to God in his church are so far removed from the story of Pentecost we often doubt our own understanding and experience of the Spirit. We wonder how can we know even if the Spirit is alive in us and how the Spirit might be moving in us. Our scripture lessons today give us a pretty good indication of the ways we can know the Spirit is alive and working in us and how we can observe the Spirit alive and working in others.
Our readings from the Book of Acts and John’s Gospel give us quite different accounts of the how we receive the Spirit and both of them are accurate descriptions of how we can know the spirit is alive and moving in us. In both accounts the Spirit comes to Jesus’ disciples by way of wind or breath, but with quite different results. In Paul’s account, the Spirit comes in a sudden rush of violent wind. And in John’s gospel, Jesus simply breathes on his disciples and the Spirit enters into them. In Paul’s account there is an immediate frenzy of activity; people speak to each other in their own language, and yet they all understand in the same way what has just happened to them. In John’s gospel, Jesus’ disciples receive a quiet strength and a deep courage which enable them to overcome their fear of Jesus’ leaving them and their fear of leaving the safety of their dwelling. In Paul’s account we are given to believe that the disciples go into the world immediately with the power and energy of the rushing wind to transform its people and bring them to the faith. In John’s gospel we sense that the disciples quietly leave the Upper Room they have been hiding in to engage in the simple, quiet acts of daily living which transform people’s lives by the love and forgiveness, the peace and assurance which comes from the Spirit within them.
But isn’t this the way. Haven’t we seen these very different manifestations of the Spirit working in our world? Haven’t we experienced the Spirit working in us in these very different ways? We know that the Spirit can awaken in people in a powerful moment of conversion. We know that the Spirit can simply appear to someone in a quiet moment of awareness. And we know that the Spirit can emerge in people gradually, over time. The fact is that the Spirit can be awakened in us in many ways, but the Spirit can only manifest itself to us and to the world by the observable ways it makes a difference for good in our life and in the life of others.
There is good reason why the original word for Spirit in all three languages, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, means “wind,” a word which can also be translated as “breath.” (The notion that the Spirit is a “ghost” is simply not accurate. The Spirit is not a holy “ghost.”) The Spirit comes in the wind, and wind is observable energy. So is breath. We can see, hear, touch taste and smell both wind and breath. Wind has an impact on us. Wind moves things and changes things, and breathing in and out keeps us alive and moving through our life. In our lesson from the Book of Acts, the Holy Spirit comes in the wind, but unlike the winds of nature which can be destructive of people and property, the Spirit is an observable energy and a power for good; the Holy Spirit is a power working within us which produces an observable good for the purpose of serving God’s good in the world. Those of you who saw the movie “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” based on the book written by C.S. Lewis, will remember the lion, Aslan, a character who seems to me to represent each members of the Trinity—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Near the end of the movie, much like our lesson from the Gospel of John, Aslan returns from the dead and brings back to life all the creatures of the forest who have been turned into stone by the wicked witch. He simply breathes on them and they gradually come to life, to the life God gave them to live for the good purpose of his creation.
Today we celebrate that life that was breathed into us by the Holy Spirit at our baptism. The life which awakened in us the desire to become an active member of the church and an active participant in the body of Christ in the world. And while people will continue to tease us and mock us and scorn us, abuse us and even dismiss us as being out of touch with their world, they will continue to rely on us for the many ways we serve them in this world. Because even though they do not support the church by their prayers, their presence, their gifts or their service, they know that the Church will be there for them. We will be there for them when they want their babies baptized and their children confirmed; we will be there to marry them and bury them and attend to their crises and illnesses in between. We will be the first ones to arrive on the scene of a tragedy or disaster and the last ones to leave. We will willingly give our time and talent and share our money and material resources with others in any kind of need. And we can always expect that officials of governments, clans and nations will call on us to care for people who become victims of their wars and their social and economic policies.
Frankly, I don’t know what our world would do without church. And I don’t even want to imagine what that would look like. But I know one thing; the Church is not going away anytime soon. Not as long as the Spirit is alive in us and moving us to bring Jesus’ mission and ministry to the world. And God willing, we will have an eternity of birthdays to celebrate. But today, this is the one that matters. Because we are in the moment. This is our Day of Pentecost. So, Happy Birthday to the Church. Happy Birthday to the body of Christ in the world. And Happy Birthday to each of us, we who are faithful members of the body of Christ in this Church of St. George.