|
God's
Breath Sermon by Brigid A. Boyle June 8, 2003, Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill Joel 2:21-32 Today is the third biggest day of the Christian year. Coming right behind Easter and Christmas, there is the Day of Pentecost, when a mighty wind blew through a house in Jerusalem and God's breath blew on the disciples. The Day of Pentecost was when the disciples received the Holy Spirit, what one theologian calls "the most elusive and least typecast person of the Trinity, the muse and soul of Christ's church." I'm not exactly sure why it is that Pentecost runs such a distant third to Christmas and Easter. It is, after all, not as though we gather round the table with family and friends to celebrate Pentecost dinner. It is not as though culture has picked up on Pentecost and has a cartoon critter to deliver the goods to children on Pentecost morn. And God knows that there are plenty of "C and E people" on the membership rolls of just about every church, but why there aren't "C, E and P people" I really don't know. It could be that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, or pneumatology, its formal study, is, some say, an underdeveloped doctrine, one George Hendry once called "the slipshod doctrine of the church." Part of the reason for this has to do with the history of the church. Things like Christology, trying to understand who we believe Jesus was and what he did, and questions about the authority of scripture have so much been a part of the struggle to articulate the faith, particularly the Reformed faith, that the Holy spirit has not received that much attention. But more, I suspect that Pentecost has fallen so far behind because the Holy Spirit generally spooks us. We Word- centered and thought-driven Presbyterians have a hard time taking in something that we cannot see or touch but that might be acting yet. For goodness sake, writes Barbara Brown Taylor, "some of us are old enough to remember when we spoke of the Holy Ghost, which wasn't exactly what you wanted to think about before you went to bed!" But I also think Pentecost's low spot on the rungs of the church calendar has to do with the word Pentecost and our limited knowledge of what goes on in churches that call themselves Pentecostal- hand clapping, tongue speaking, Spirit caught. The temptation, as least for us, is to leave Pentecost to the Pentecostals. But nevertheless, even as a distant third, this story is our story. I don't ever really expect that our telling of it year after year might suddenly push it into popularity, but I do expect that it, as God's word to us this day, has the power to change us. So imagine the scene. The town of Jerusalem bustling with people from lands near and far to celebrate Pentecost, an ancient festival first rooted in the harvest and later in the giving of the law. The disciples, whose feet had taken them from the foot of the cross to the road where the risen Lord would meet them, were waiting on his parting promise, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you." And they were gathered in one place, waiting. Suddenly, they heard a sound. A storm coming? Was it thunder? The there was a wind in the room, a strong, violent wind filling the space. And then there was fire, flames resting on each one without burn or harm. Can you imagine? No, you probably can't, but stick with it here. They all began to speak different languages. The crowd outside couldn't help but notice the commotion and began to gather around the house and peek in the windows where all this was happening, listening to languages they recognized from their own lands, hearing the wind, seeing the fire. Bewildered amazed, and perplexed, probably not unlike those who inside the house, they wondered what on earth, or under heaven, this might mean. Though some would say it was simply inebriated disciples, Peter and others knew that this could only be the Holy Spirit promised by the One who had left them not long before. It seems too unreasonable, too unbelievable, too supernatural to be true. But if our inquiry on this day is not into truth as facticity- truth as to what happened- but into truth as to what is claimed, truth contained in this story is relevant and indeed critical for the lives you and I lead. In this story is a clue, at least one, for us as to how to the Holy Spirit, this breath of God, might work and what it might be up to in our lives and in the world. There is, of course, a lot of talk about "spirit" these days, a lot of talk which gives the word "spirit" any number of connotations and adds to the challenges preachers face. Addressing this Christopher Morse writes, "We speak of team spirit, school spirit, national spirit, the spirit of the electorate, or the human spirit … Tourist bureaus advertise with such slogans as 'The spirit of Massachusetts is the spirit of America,' or a bit less assertively, 'Discover the Spirit in North Dakota, then keep it a secret.' Even programs of church denominations, to take the United Methodists as one example, are sometimes promoted with a byline such as 'Catch the Spirit.' The ambiguity of this last phase for a church pronouncement," he continues, "is most curious. Does one 'catch' the Holy Spirit? If so, is this more like catching a ball, or a cold, or a plane?" The challenges are indeed manifold. So where do we begin? With this story as guide and the lives you and I lead as reference, I would have us consider the Spirit, like the breath of God blown onto each one of us and us together, not as something we might catch or as something to possess, not as something which one might have yet not another, but as something our hands cannot hold, something not to be contained within, but something entirely from without. What strikes me most about this story is the dramatic entrance the Spirit makes and the disturbance it creates. With the disciples we ask, "What does this mean? Why a violent wind and no gentle breeze? Bright flames and no descending dove? Tongues of fire and no soothing light? Different languages uttered by each, no still small voice? What might this mean? I think at least a part of the answer is hidden in what this story reveals about the function of the Spirit itself, its function to disorient and disturb. Looking to the biblical witness, we can trace the Spirit as it disturbs. From the Spirit brooding over creation and swirling water and wind into mountains and seas, to the Spirit falling like a mantle on the shoulders over prophets of old, to the Spirit upon one who spoke good news to the poor and release to the captive, to the Spirit which came upon the gathered disciples with wind and fire, always it works to challenge our claims, implicit or explicit, to have mastered the ways of the world of even the mind of God. I imagine the comments not of the disciples but of the crowd that Pentecost day. I think not of those who asked what it might mean or what they were to do, but of those who responded with a cynical and sneering word, "They are filled with new wine." And I imagine that the ones who spoke such words, who hurled such accusations, were the ones who had things all figured out and who knew the commands and restrictions of Torah (remember that they were there to celebrate its being given on a mountaintop long ago). I imagine that they knew how God had acted with his people in days past and surely how he would act again, concluding that this ruckus could not be anything divine but simply was a motley crew of drunks. But immediately Peter stood with sermon and recitation of prophet's word and by story's end "about three thousand persons," and I suspect a few of those who had sneered early on, "were added." People were disturbed, long held understandings were rent asunder, and a radical re-ordering was brought about, all by the work of this Holy Spirit. Still God's Spirit works in the world, and in the church, in such a way. Consider, for a moment, if you will, the work the Holy Spirit works change in the church. Of course, change in the church rarely comes easily and mostly it is accompanying by a well tuned choir singing strains of "We've never done it this way before," "This doesn't seem reasonable," "This doesn't seem sensible," "We've never done it this way before," "She wants us to do what?" "What was wrong with what we were doing?" "We were just fine before," "They are out of their minds!" "Surely they must be filled with new wine (or good Scotch!)" "This won't work, ""We've never done it this way before." Even so, even with such songs being lifted up, there are times in the church's life and there have been times in this church's life when grace is granted that assures us that going out in risk is the only path of hope, even when instinct tells us otherwise. Maybe the illustration is too close or too pointed, but even so, there are those who would sneer because their understanding of what and who we ought to be has been disturbed over the years, probably since this church was born some 150 years ago, because our sense of what and who we have been before, along with their ideas about what and who seems most sensible and most right, has been challenged. But, and here is the fruit of Spirit, there are those, many, many of you in these pews, who, having once stood at a distance and sneered, have now seen and heard the Spirit that is in this place and so, in Luke's words, "been cut to the heart and said …'What should we do?.' I mean not to say we have it right and the cynics have it wrong, but to bear witness to the Spirit's activity in the church, turning hearts and minds as it did on that Pentecost Day so long ago. But more than challenging our preset understandings and more than turning critics into converts, the Spirit, I think, also disturbs us by hurling us into doing exactly that which we think we cannot. Consider Peter, preacher extraordinaire from this days' story. Peter's history is not spectacular. He denied Jesus three times on the way to the cross. He stood at a distance rather than beside his Lord. His words seemed to cause more trouble than conversion. But yet Peter, of all people, was moved to stand us and preach. I do believe that it was only by Spirit's power, by courage thereby granted, that Peter's pattern was disturbed, that he was thrown into what he probably never thought he could do, and a word was proclaimed. Examples of the church receiving such power and doing with boldness what it deemed undoable come in abundance. From three thousand converted to an empire built, to 95 theses more consequential than anyone ever dreamed they would be, to voices raised in defense of German Jews, the church has born witness to the Spirit throughout all its days. And there are those lives that have been marked by the same. I think of the recovering alcoholic who is able to turn away his only elixir, her only comfort, of the one who is able to walk away from a violent and abusive partner even though her life so seems to depend on him, of the one who daily and silently does battle with death but manages to endure with grace, of the one whose family left them with more scars than anything else but who survives even so. All bear witness to the breath of God still blowing through human lives. But more, and in the end, the Spirit disturbs us most profoundly because is it "for you, for your children, and for all who are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call," because it is poured out upon all flesh, young and old, male and female, rich and poor. It is not just for those who strive diligently to earn it. It is not only for those who lead lives worthy of such a gift. It is not only for those whose reverence and humility, whose obedience and faithfulness have marked each facet of their life. But it is for those who are weary and heavy laden, for those who are broken and needy. What is most disturbing then, is that this Spirit is for us. So for the one who would convince himself that he cannot possible be loved by a God and gracious God, for the one who would resign herself as being are utterly alone in the universe and so without help or power, for the one who believes that the most secret of wrongs done are enough for the Almighty to turn away, the promise is for you. It is for us. The Spirit is perhaps the most elusive and least typecast person of the Trinity. It is not something we catch like a cold or a ball or a plan, but something that catches us, that has the power to blow with a mighty wind and upset our overconfident understandings or with soft blow fan the fire in the soul calling us to do what seems most impossible yet most right. May we know, by God's grace, the Holy Spirit breathing on us and breathing on this his church, and may we be made to ask, "What shall we do?" for Christ's sake. Amen. |