Grant us your
peace, we pray, as justice and love pour down upon the yearning earth. Amen.
I
want everyone to sit tall in your seats, as you are able. Feet flat on the
ground. Hands on your lap. Close your eyes, think about the readings you’ve
heard today, and open your mind to any imagery that might show up.
Now,
take a deep breath in….and let it out.
And
again, deep breath in….and let it out.
Let’s
do that one more time,
deep
breath in….and out.
Excellent!
How do you feel after that? What kind of images came to you?
Those
deep breaths in and out? That’s what the church year is like. We spend six
months of the year, hurrying about in high holiday mode as we muscle our way
through Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, and Eastertide, taking deep breaths
and holding them in as we come into each holy season, praying that we get
everything right. And then the other half of the year we get to sit in Ordinary
time. And I don’t mean “humdrum” time. I mean a time to exhale, a time to
reflect on all that happened in the other six months, a time to grow into the
lessons we heard and learned.
Next
week we will celebrate Trinity Sunday as the final day before we exhale and
head into Ordinary time. But first, there is today, Pentecost, the fiftieth and
the last day of Eastertide. You will hear some people call this the birthday of
the church. But a friend of mine has a different take on it that I really like.
Celebrating Pentecost as a birthday lead us to self-congratulatory reflections
of “yay us!” causing us to turn inward. Pentecost is more than that. Pentecost
is the “empowerment of the church. Recognizing this helps us reflect on what we
are empowered for. We turn outward; we celebrate not our existence but our
calling.” Which I think is an excellent way of looking at what’s going on
around us, especially as we consider the baptisms we will be celebrating
shortly.
Luke
tells us that the community of disciples is gathered because of the Festival of
Weeks. Jesus had promised the arrival of the Holy Spirit not long after his
departure and sure enough, on the festival day itself, the Holy Spirit arrives.
The scene is spectacular and chaotic: a violent, rushing sound like wind,
evoking imagery of the creation in Genesis 1; and then “divided tongues, as of
fire” – not a fire that destroys, but rather like the fire that Moses
encountered at the burning bush, which was “blazing, yet it was not consumed”
in Exodus 3.
You
see in these verses wind (or spirit) and fire, and as each person was touched
by these, we are reminded of the waters of baptism. Air, fire, water. Three of
the four ancient elements. But where is earth? Well, we are earth! Human
beings, the “adam”, the dust from which we are all created. We, as earth, are
incomplete without the other three elements. God as Holy Spirit comes as fire,
air, and water so that the dust can be moistened, the air breathed in, and the
divine spark put into us so that we can become who we fully are – the
messengers of God.
The
Spirit’s immediate effect is linguistic: many are empowered “to speak in other
languages,” and at the same time, each person hears each testimony in their
native tongue. Think of a meeting at the United Nations, in which everyone
hears the proceedings (through a headset) translated into their language.
The
upshot of all of this is a sense of togetherness and unity: diverse as they
are, everyone understands and can communicate. Accordingly, they’re dazzled,
bewildered, and taken aback: “What does this mean?” (Acts 2:12).
As
if to answer this question, Peter stands and speaks. He cites the prophet Joel,
adapting those ancient words to illuminate the present: the final and decisive
chapter of history has arrived, the dawn of God’s joyous Jubilee that Jesus
declared early in his ministry, and now comes the long-promised “pouring out”
of the Holy Spirit upon “all flesh”. Jesus both heralded and inaugurated this
new era, and the Spirit will empower a community through whom the movement’s
message of healing, liberation, and joy will go out to the ends of the earth.
In
other words, the church is born and the people within it are empowered! The
church is more than the building, more than a gathering in a specific location.
The church is God’s empowered people. All of them. And the first act of God’s
Spirit at Pentecost honors the diversity and individuality of the believers. God
wants the Good News to be heard by all people and in all languages, especially
in God’s mother tongue, which is love!
This
radical new community about which Joel speaks and which Peter says is realized
in the earliest Christian community is remarkably inclusive. It is gender
inclusive: “your sons” and “your daughters” (2:17); “servants – both male and
female” (2:18). It is age inclusive: “your young people” and “your old people”
(2:17). And if we are to take seriously the opening (“all people”) of this
citation, then this community is also destined to be ethnically inclusive. Diversity
is a blessed feature of the Christian life.
And
we have all been joined by our Baptism into communities of faith that look for
– and expect! – the Holy Spirit to come along side us and shake things up, preparing
and equipping each and all of us to share the disruptive, surprising, and
life-giving words of grace of the God who will not rest until all people enjoy
abundant life.
Breath
means new life; new life means growth and change. The Spirit is breathed onto
us to protect, to challenge, to provoke, to push, and to call us into action. The
church is on a mission, God’s mission, to love and protect our neighbours as
much as God loves and protects us. The church’s ministry begins with the gift
of the spirit, not for the sake simply of the church, but for the whole world. The
Spirit mobilizes us and opens up new horizons for ministry. The Spirit makes
visible and tangible God’s promise to be present, to empower, and to compel
testimony. We, as witnesses, testify about God who interjects God’s self into
diverse cultures, languages, and life situations making God’s presence felt,
heard, and seen, and compelling us to interpret, as best we can, what we have
felt, heard, and seen. This is what we will spend “ordinary” time doing.
Amen.
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