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Pentecost Prayer for Illumination: O
God of Wind and Spirit and Holy Breath, help us to collectively simulate the
rush of the wind and the force of the spirit and your breath of life through
this time with your word. Be
near, we pray, Amen.
When we tune in to our favorite tv dramas each week,
each show usually begins with: “Last
week on ____________________”. That
way if we have missed an episode, we can quickly get back on board with the
key details and plot lines.
To follow suit I will begin by saying:
last week on our show…..the disciples had been directed by Jesus to
go back to Jerusalem and the upper room where they had participated in the
Last Supper with him before his death….and wait for the power of the Holy
Spirit to come and enable their witness to the gospel to the ends of the
earth. And so they went.
Dutiful disciples and some certain women who stayed in this room and
prayed. We don’t get
any idea how long they waited, just that they were obedient and purposeful
in following Jesus’ directions.
And for their faithfulness they are rewarded with this Pentecost
experience that can only really be described as “high drama”.
Tongues of fire, flames of the spirit, a rushing wind,
the gift of universal language, the diverse, multi-racial crowd that
gathered to witness, Peter’s first impressive speech…..it’s a lot for
one episode. Hollywood,
would no doubt, break it into more manageable bites. Perhaps
a whole season. But
we’ll tackle it all today. Pentecost…..the
episode we call: the one
where the disciples start the church.
For all our ambivalence about the institutional church, this moment
in Scripture gives us some practical insight into our humble beginnings.
On a good Sunday, we have nearly 200 people here across two services.
At Pentecost, Scripture tells us, 3000 people were gathered and they
were gathered from the corners of the earth….all present presumably
because of the Jewish festival that would have drawn them to Jerusalem
anyway at that time of year. 3000
people were converted on that first day of the church.
It’s no wonder, then, that they had to get organized, that they had
to be clear about message and the bullet points of the faith, that they had
to articulate what it meant to be called Christian, and what it meant to
follow a new way. 3000
people forced the hand of the first church to organize.
And today we celebrate their dramatic beginnings.
Of all of our sacred stories, this one is hard.
Especially for people who find themselves rooted in the protestant
traditions of the mainline. We
like order. We like a modicum of decency.
We like an agenda we can follow and that does not go over the
allotted timeline. And so last
Sunday night when the Katrina Task Force gathered at my house to process
their trip I was struck by words from Liam, a carpenter on the trip, who
gave a thoughtful analysis of New Orleans as our country’s “antidote to
our Puritan roots.” Pentecost
could have happened in New Orleans and everyone would have just taken it in
stride, I think.
Think about our classic art that captures this Biblical moment:
it has been scrolling for you to look at it.
I’m fascinated by the different ways this is represented.
Some have these dainty little drops of fire, neatly sitting on top of
the disciples’ heads. Some are wildly abstract suggesting an event chaotic
and out of control. I
think the neat drops of fire, lined up like the ones on your bulletin front
are the kind we like….because we can get our mind around this, and it
doesn’t push us too hard to consider the real power of the event.
But I wonder if Pentecost isn’t actually more like New Orleans,
more like the antidote to our Puritan roots that would try to contain
God’s power, like ducks in a
row.
The art on the bulletin belongs to Jan Richardson, artist, pastor and
writer and she tells a wonderful story about Pentecost that I want to
re-tell to you today. When she was a teenager, she discovered that she had a
genetic predisposition that caused her lung to collapse. Periodically she had to be admitted to the hospital to
have her lung re-inflated. She
talked about her initial belief that this would be an easy procedure, like
pumping up a flat tire….only to discover that it was much more complicated
than that. When it became
apparent that simply re-inflating her lung was not going to be a permanent
fix they took a step that was more drastic.
They inserted a chest tube into her lung and poured tetracycline down
it. “Tetracycline served to form scar tissue to keep the lung
intact and prevent it from collapsing again.
Painkillers and local anesthesia, she writes, only do so much
to dull the sensation of acid flowing over your innards. Mostly I remember unbelievable pressure on my chest, the
sensation that I could not breathe, would never do it again, that my body
would not remember how. But
in the wake of the fire came breath; breath that came without assistance,
breath that sustained itself and did not seep out.
In time I came to understand the experience as a gift, one marked by
the presence of God, who did not inflict it upon me but used it as an
occasion of transformation, an experience of initiation.
With the fire and the breath came knowledge: I would never be in my body in the same way.
It altered how I experienced by own body, and it changed how I would
engage people whose bodies are vulnerable.”(the painted prayerbook—Jan
Richardson)
From that experience, Jan reflects and then produces this orderly set
of flames, rich in intensity and color, but contained all the same. The
fiery power of the acid made it possible for her to breathe.
And breathing, by definition, has a rhythm and a regularity to it
that is captured in her piece of art.
Somewhere there lies the middle ground between rigid, unforgiving
dogma and chaotic, out-of-control expressions of faith.
3000 initial converts had to find that place in order to follow
Jesus’ instructions to witness to the ends of the earth…..and we have to
do it today. The antidote
to a church that is so rigidly caught in the past that it cannot breathe, is
the one who is willing to feel the heat of the fire in order for breath to
be restored.
I try to picture what kind of experience I’ve had in my life that
remotely resembles something like the first Pentecost.
It’s tough to make the real-life connection to this.
When we have our emotions and our actions and our lives tightly
reined in…..the opportunities for the spirit to wiggle in are scarce. On the other end of the spectrum is a life continually
lived in a bar…..the only place we experience ourselves loosening up from
the personal demands of keeping ourselves in check all the time…….but as
most AA participants will tell you…. the bottle is the place…”.you can
never get enough ….of that which will not satisfy.”
So, again, some balance point is key……
I remember our experience of the Gay Pride Parade in Paris, which
I’ve told you about before. You
all know that I am mildly claustrophobic.
Taste of Chicago is really not my idea of fun unless I can sit apart
from it and have someone else go get me the food!
And the Taste of Chicago draws 10,000 people a day!…but the Gay
Pride Parade in Paris put me right over the top with being in the midst of a
massive, moving crowd. 600,000
people took to the streets. This
isn’t a parade where people come to get drunk and watch others march…but
to be in the parade.
I’m not saying there wasn’t some alcohol involved, but it was
clearly not required… 600,000
people all marching. We almost
felt conspicuous because we were watching, not walking!
Not really all that many people dressed up.
They weren’t carrying signs really, just demonstrating the raw
power of a massive, collective witness to gay rights!
I wonder if that isn’t what Pentecost was like….that moment when
a community of the faithful all get on the same page and experience in some
powerful way an alternative vision of the future!
Pentecost, 50 days after Easter, began in the Jewish tradition as the
Feast of Weeks, which was celebrated 50 days after Passover.
Passover, the annual, solemn
commemoration of the Jews release from captivity in Egypt is followed 50
days later by a celebration of the harvest, an expectation to bring before
God an offering of praise and sacrifice and celebrate release from slavery.
Pentecost in a Christian context, functions similarly…..Easter
marks the point in our church year where we acknowledge that God in Jesus
Christ has delivered us from all the ways we are held captive to oppression
and sin…..and 50 days later we celebrate the fact that God’s Spirit
enables the church to move from the joy of being liberated, to the joy of
the life we are blessed to live after the liberation!
And with that comes some responsibility and some actions.
God’s spirit lights a fire under these first disciples and sets an
agenda of liberation for the church for all ages.
It is our agenda if we choose to claim it.
Paul’s letter to the Corinthians says it another way…..to each is
given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good…..one spirit,
activating one agenda, working in the world for one common good.
How do we feel a part of that I wonder?
By waving red streamers once a year on Pentecost?
By singing spirit filled hymns that talk about God’s breath moving
through each one of us? The
first church heard it clear…..in their own language…..the message about
God’s deeds of power. What is
the language that will enable us to hear?
To feel unified and empowered to work for the common good?
To take on the big issues of our day today….before we take on a
cyclone and its aftermath, we
have to be empowered by the holy spirit.
Before we take on oppressive governments, even our own, we have to be
empowered by the holy spirit and inspired to work for the common good.
Before we take on the violence in our own city, we have to be fired
up, empowered by the holy spirit and inspired to work for the common good.
Before we take on the abusive, oppressive experiences in our own
families and in our own neighborhoods, we have to be fired up and empowered
by the Holy Spirit to work for the common good?
What is the language that enable us to take the next leg of the race
that the disciples started all these years ago? Maybe
it’s the language of song…..breathe on me breath of God,
til I am wholly thine, until this earthly part of me …glows with
thy fire divine.
Maybe it’s not the language of song that does it for you, but the
language of story, or the language of science, or the language of logic.
Pentecost would have us believe that God will find the language we need to comprehend and will speak to us in that language until we
are bound up in the liberating message that works for the common good. Jan
Richardson talked about the learning that came from acid being poured into
her lungs. She says,
I would never be in my body in the same way.
That’s the goal of Pentecost….not that we would physically be
burned…..but that we might let the Holy Spirit speak to us in our own
language and powerfully transform our understanding of our life’s work so
that we can never be in our body in the same way again.
It might be hot. It
might make scars. It
might be uncomfortable, but it will allow us to feel God’s breath and then
in turn breathe ourselves…..ready, equipped, on common ground with sisters
and brothers who have embodied the church for more than 2000 years! Captured
in the last verse of our closing hymn are these words…. Teach
me to love Thee, as Thine angels love
One holy passion filling all my frame
The baptism of the heaven-descended dove,
My heart an altar, and Thy love the flame. May
it be so for all of us on this Pentecost Sunday and all our days going
forward. Amen… |
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