Caution - Unavoidable Urge to Move May Follow

So, this post is a little out of order. This is the sermon from Pentecost, June 4, 2017.

Pentecost 2017

            This week, I attended the 30^th annual Delaware-Maryland Synod Assembly along with delegates from our church. In addition to the plenary sessions where between two and three hundred of our sisters and brothers in Christ from throughout the synod met, where we shared in bible study and heard from dynamic speakers and where the business of the church was conducted, we also gathered at least once each day for worship in the auditorium of the Convention Center in Ocean City.

As you can imagine in a facility like that, an effort was taken to set up a space conducive for worship. So, at the front of the auditorium, upon the large stage that took up most of the width of the room, a large altar was created from several tables drawn together. This altar was then covered with white tablecloths and bunting. Next to the altar stood a large banner with a matching, smaller piece of fabric draped over the white clothes covering the constructed altar, serving as the frontal, much like these red paraments here do today.

When we see these colors in use in the church, we are in fact celebrating the fire of the Holy Spirit of God alive and work in the church. Here in the Lutheran church the standard occasions when we pull out and put our red tend to be Pentecost Sunday, Reformation Sunday, and for ordinations and consecrations in the church. That’s pretty much it. Really? Really!

And yet, it is our understanding, as a church, that the Holy Spirit gives life to the church, inspires, blesses, and makes holy the work of the church. The Holy Spirit is responsible for giving us faith; grants a variety of gifts for the good of the church, like the ones listed in the passage from Corinthians today – gifts like wisdom, and knowledge, and healing, and prophecy, and discernment, and so on. Like I said, the Holy Spirit, in fact, gives LIFE to the church. And fortunately, God is color-blind, because God sends the Holy Spirit to abide with us constantly, and not just when we are wearing our red.

But as I sat in the final worship service of the synod assembly yesterday, it was these pieces of fabric that caught my attention and my imagination; Because, in keeping with the theme that underlies any such gathering of the church, and in light of the upcoming Pentecost Sunday, the silk-screened pieces of cloth that made up the banner and frontal were covered with images of huge flames – the interplay of large tongues of bright yellow, and shades of orange and red blended together conjuring a fiery scene.

As I gazed at these images of fire and flame, I thought about our relationship with fire, and how the image of flame is used to evoke our relationship with the Holy Spirit. Just look at our own paraments and banners and at the images upon the stole I wear today. What do you see? The red of fire, the shape of flame.

How many of us have ever been mesmerized, staring into the flames of a fire? Perhaps you’ve found yourself staring in a hypnotic trance at the flames in a fireplace, fire pit or even a bonfire. Flames draw us in – hopefully not too close, or your hypnotic trance may be rudely interrupted by the odor of singed hair or burning clothing.

Fire, of course, has been an essential element in the lives of human beings from the dawn of time. Once, in the history of the human race, we discovered how to make fire, the flames of fire were harnessed to provide light and heat, to cook food, to create tools, to clear land, to shape communications, and for so many other essential uses.

Place a flame under a pot of water and before long that water is moving, then bubbling, then boiling over. Flames under the frypan will have your meat or vegetables soon popping and sizzling nicely. Build a big fire in a cold room and before long, you’ll find yourself cozy and warm.

Fire contains what is a sometimes overwhelming power. It inspires both fear and awe. If you’ve ever experienced the uncontrollable, unquenchable hunger of a house, grass or forest fire, or suffered even a minor burn, you probably understand the fear part.

What does it mean, then, that a major symbol for the Holy Spirit is the image of flame and fire? What message does the text from the Acts of the Apostles today tell us about our relationship with this advocate, the Holy Spirit, who was promised by Jesus and who powerfully enters the place where the apostles were gathered on that Pentecost day? Why does Luke, the author of this text, include in the telling of this story of the early church the detail about tongues of fire not consuming, but dancing over the heads of the apostles, and finally, resting on them?

The story we have in our first reading today occurs on the fiftieth day of Easter – the fiftieth day after Jesus rose from the grave. In the intervening forty-nine days, Jesus has met many times with his fearful, hesitant, doubting disciples.

When they weren’t doubting Jesus, these vulnerable, very human disciples often doubted themselves – doubted that they were good enough – doubted that they had the right words or that people would listen to them if they told them about Jesus. They perhaps doubted that they could ever go out and do the ministry Jesus was sending them out to do. Perhaps they doubted they could withstand the danger.

No wonder we hear the calming, comforting words from a loving Jesus so many times during this final training period, “Peace be with you.”

Then, at the right time, Jesus sends these believers the Holy Spirit with flourish and pizzazz. Perhaps those licks of fire mesmerized the apostles at first, but not for long. Infused by the Holy Spirit, they are now sent out, burning with energy, desire, and a sudden new ability to share the good news of Jesus Christ. Just like that, God gives the Holy Spirit to the church on the occasion of her birth.

On that day, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit was illustrated in part through the sudden ability of the disciples to speak to people from many  and different places, in the languages that spoke most clearly to their hearts. By speaking to so many people from so many places, the Holy Spirit invited diversity into the church from its inception.

The thing about fire is that it never stops moving. It can be neither contained, nor still. The other thing about fire as any student of science will tell you, is that it changes the substance and nature of the thing it affects: Water turns to steam, raw meat turns to edible food, structures in fruits and vegetables are altered changing their consistency and taste, in some cases making them more easily digestible. Wood turns to ash. And the fire of the apostles’ speech witness to the power of God to change the world through the diversity of the nations.

The thing about the this constantly stirring, moving, dancing Holy Spirit is that it, too, changes everything it touches. Jesus infuses the church by sending his Spirit to abide in, with and around his disciples, changing them forever.

The Spirit sends us out into the world to bring about the fiery change that Jesus calls us to in the ministry and mission

We are used to thinking about the Holy Spirit as the one who inspires heals, unites and guides us. We often speak of the Holy Spirit as the one who comforts. As your pastor I count on the Holy Spirit to guide not only my actions, but my words – so, when my preaching seems “off” – you can blame the Holy Spirit – maybe she was just too busy to inspire my preaching, or your hearing that week.

The thing is, that the Spirit is given to the church as this energizing, fiery, inspiring, constantly moving force for the gospel of Jesus Christ. While each of us is blessed with and by the Holy Spirit in our Baptism, this Holy Spirit is given not for our individual benefit, but for the sake of the world – God’s world – the place where we are sent out, from Baptismal font then nurtured and fed at the table, and sent out as the Spirit-driven firy breath of God’s justice, hope, healing, compassion, care, and love alive and active in the world; constantly moving, constantly agitating, constantly alive in faith in Jesus Christ.

God’s Holy Spirit, never idle in our lives is constantly moving us outward – like the disciples, no longer content to remain within the four walls of the upper room, nor even within the gates of Jerusalem, we shall not be content to remain within the four walls of this sanctuary.

Don’t get me wrong. This is a vital place for us, for it is here that we hear God’s Word read and the gospel good news proclaimed in community; it is here that we are reminded who God is and whose we are. It is in this place as we gather together in the name of Jesus Christ each week that we gather around the table, where we receive the body and blood of Our Lord, and where, blessed by the Holy Spirit we receive grace upon grace for our own dance of faith in mission and ministry for Jesus.

It is the Holy Spirit’s agitating that inspires us to care for God’s good creation, an important ministry now, perhaps more than ever before. It is the Holy Spirit’s bubbling energy that calls us to gather food each month to be delivered to the local food banks, and that this year alone has inspired us to give over $2400 dollars in coins, checks and cash to ELCA World Hunger alone. Thanks be to God!

It is at the Holy Spirit’s sending that members of Grace serve each month at the Talbot Interfaith Shelter, that Thanksgiving meals and Christmas projects are provided for the good of our neighbors right here in Easton; that several times each month lunches are provided for the homeless and for low income seniors in our area. The Holy Spirit inspires us and moves us to share this God-given building with two other groups -  an AA group and a newly formed Hispanic congregation each week, so that every single day of the week, through the blessings we have received, we are blessing others in the name of Christ.

On this Pentecost Sunday, as on every day as we invoke the name of God’s Holy Spirit in our prayers and in our daily walk, let’s remember the dancing, moving, invigorating nature of God’s Spirit. Let’s remember how God reaches down into our world and into our lives and inspires movement and dance, speech we never thought ourselves capable of, and grants us gifts and abilities for the purpose of God’s mission and ministry lived out each day for the sake of the God’s kingdom here on earth.

So inspired, let us join the dance of the trinity, the movement to share God’s truth and love in the world.

Amen.

Blessing and Challenge of the Promise

Sermon on texts from Acts 2:1-21 and John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15

Creator Spirit, heavenly dove, descend upon us from above;

                With graces manifold restore your creatures as they were before.   

         

To you, the Comforter, we cry; to you, the gift of God most high,

                True fount of life, the fire of love, the soul’s anointing from above.

(Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymnal, #577, verses 1&2)

Beautiful words, yes? Inspiring words. Comforting words.

With its evocative melody, this chant, Creator Spirit, Heavenly Dove is frequently sung during  ordinations, consecrations and commissionings of individuals set apart to serve in specific ministries in the church.

This chant is selected in part, I am sure, as a means to inspire the newly commissioned, consecrated, or ordained, as well as to remind us all of what God is doing in our midst- calling us together, equipping us for ministry, teaching us the ways of God, feeding us, and then sending us out in mission and service to the gospel. 

I clearly remember hearing this hymn chanted at my own ordination – some of you were even there. Referred to as the Hymn of Invocation, the entire assembly sang that day as many pastors surrounded me and prepared to lay their hands upon me.

Hearing these words and then feeling those hands upon my head, my shoulders, my back, my arms - was a powerful experience, and not only for me personally, but for all present; each hand, each voice presenting the Church at large, united by the Holy Spirit.

In you, with graces sevenfold, we God’s almighty hand behold;

                While you with tongues of fire proclaim to all the world

                                God’s holy name.

(Evangelical Lutheran Worship hymnal, #577, verse 3)

Perhaps these words are meant to comfort and inspire, since these are part of the work of the Holy Spirit. But I know that on that day, I felt the weight of those hands, too.

For while the ministry of God is an important and life-giving ministry in which we all have a share, the truth is that there are also forces in the world which oppose God’s purpose and will. As Jesus points out in our gospel lesson, these forces do not believe in Jesus, or in his message of grace and love. They – those forces – those voices – can sometimes weigh us down, calling us to hate when we know we should love. They can create confusion, beseeching us to doubt, when we want so badly to believe. They can tear at our fabric of our faith, attempting to drown out the message of God’s grace and mercy.

They can cause despair to creep in. They can discourage. They can sometime lead us down the path of least resistance – the path of denial not only of God’s existence, but of God’s supremacy in our lives.

Come Holy Spirit!

Perhaps, we are all in need of a little soothing, inspiring and comforting from time to time, as we come up against those forces, and feel or witness their impact in the world. At those times it is good to know that God’s Holy Spirit is walking beside us each day in all ways encouraging us, inspiring us, and yes, comforting us. But these are not the only things that the Holy Spirit of God does.

If we look at the reading that we have from the book of Acts this morning, we see some words that do not evoke the sweet scenes of a gently descending dove sent to lull us back to peaceful reverie when we become disturbed by the cacophony of worldly sound and voice. Instead, in this reading, we get images of confusion and are reminded that in the beginning, God’s spirit hovered over the waters and did what? – Stirred them up.           

Those in attendance on that Pentecost day are described as being perplexed. The Holy Spirit is a rushing wind, stirring things up, filling the place where they were staying–

The text describes it as a violent wind – powerful, perhaps even relentless. Fire appeared among the people gathered there; divided tongues of fire rested on each one of them.

After checking for singed hair, the disciples start babbling to one another, even more startled and confused, because low and behold, suddenly, these friends who formerly spoke only Aramaic or maybe, a little Greek, were speaking in many other tongues!

Imagine this scene with me, if you will:

Look! There is our friend, John, is that Persian coming out of his mouth?

And what about James – he has never been to Babylonia, how can he be speaking their language, and so clearly, too!                                      

Bartholomew? Is that you? But it sounds like Elamite coming from your lips!

And is that really Nathaniel – speaking Egyptian, of all things? How? How can this be?

And people from throughout Jerusalem gather in the street outside the place they are staying, drawn by all the noise and captivated by what they see – by what they hear.

I’ll bet comfort isn’t a feeling that was much felt in that moment. Bewilderment, yes; maybe, fear; and amazement, surely. I’ll bet there was astonishment, excitement - and confusion.  

And then, there were those other voices too,

                the ones speaking in opposition to God’s powerful,

                                miraculous work on that Pentecost Day.

                                                “They are filled with new wine,” they sneered.

As I reflected on these scriptures this week, I began to wonder how this reading of the text might affect the way we understand the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives, beginning at our Baptism. Most of us present today were baptized as infants, as were our confirmands, who will each affirm her baptism in a few moments during the Rite of Confirmation. As babies, we might have missed the rushing wind and astonishing feeling of the Holy Spirit descending upon us – or perhaps we didn’t miss it – we just didn’t know what it was. We were babies, after all.

Others of us came to faith, or at least to the font of living waters, at an age of discretion – either as teens or adults. But, distracted by the human words that surrounded us that day, the music, perhaps even our own nervousness, we, too, may have missed the immediate feeling of God’s Spirit covering us and filling us up – although I have to tell you that the adults I have baptized describe an experience of amazing and powerful clarity and the power of the Holy Spirit palpably present on that day.

At our Baptism, the pastor said these or similar words, while tracing the sign of the cross, perhaps in oil, on their forehead: “(Your name, Child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.”

My friends, rather than words of comfort and consolation, these are words of invocation.

They are a declaration not of who you are but whose you are:

They claim us, Child of God, and they challenge us, Child of God!; they charge us – You are a Child of God and they send us out – Go forth, Child of God!

It occurs to me that at the moment of our Baptism, these words do anything but comfort us.

The good news however, is that while they do all of those things – claim, challenge, charge, and send, those words – “child of God” - come with the promise that in faith God’s Holy Spirit goes with us. God’s Holy Spirit walks with, in, and beside us. God’s Spirit is there to inspire us when we soar   and to brush us off, heal our wounds, and send us back out when we fail.

Jesus makes the promise that he will send his Spirit upon us. A Spirit who will guide us in all we do and say, that in the vast experience of our lives, we might glorify God.

On this Day of Pentecost, the fiftieth day of Easter, we stand with all the faithful to proclaim that the powers of evil have been vanquished through the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ.

We proclaim that through his victory over sin and death, Jesus has claimed the victory and that as he promised, Jesus sends the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to ensure that God’s vision and determination for the world will come to fruition.

As our young people are confirmed today, we celebrate with them and with all those in other places similarly being confirmed, together with the whole church, the power of God’s Holy Spirit to be present in every circumstance, providing exactly what we need to be God’s people.

We accept the Spirit’s challenge to be the church which acclaims the power and presence of God’s Holy Spirit as alive, present and active, constantly inspiring, leading, challenging, teaching, feeding, and sending us forth to be the hands and feet and heart of God in the world. We invite the Spirit’s stirring us up and renewing us to live the Way of Christ.

                                 

               

Dive-bombing Pigeons and loads of Hot Air

There is an indelible image that I carry with me. It comes from a description of the Holy Spirit which one of my seminary professors shared with my class early in my seminary career that has forever changed the way I think of the Holy Spirit. It is inspired by Greek vocabulary, the biblical witness, and our understanding of the character and nature of the Spirit of God. And here it is:

While we often think of the Holy Spirit in images of a soft white dove, lightly descending onto a scene, blessing its inhabitants with grace and peace as when the dove descended on Jesus at his baptism, and while we visualize the Holy Spirit as many artists have imagined and portrayed her in countless works of art, again as a rather sweet, radiant white, harmless-looking dove, there is another image that is likely far more likely in tune with the nature of the Holy Spirit.

So, when I read this account of Pentecost Day and what it was like in that upper room where the disciples were all gathered, what comes to my mind is the voice of Dr. Carlson, in Intro to New Testament Greek, translating this text and rendering this image of the Holy Spirit, now imprinted forever in my mind. Rather than a white dove sweetly descending on the disciples that day, the Holy Spirit enters that room as a dive-bombing pigeon, swooping into the room with force, accompanied by deafening sound and a powerful, hot wind, blowing new energy and vitality into these followers of Christ. This Holy Spirit with its power and force is able to do what disciples of Christ cannot do on their own – equip them for mission they can’t even imagine they are destined for.

While he was still with them, Jesus promised his disciples that he would send an advocate. He promised that he would NOT leave them alone. He promised that he will, through his spirit, equip, accompany and empower them for mission in the world. Those are promises that can only be kept through the powerful intervention and presence of God through the Holy Spirit.

When you come to think about it the dive-bombing pigeon may truly be the best way to come to full realization of how the Holy Spirit can inspire, empower and thrust us into the world and into the true mission of God as God intends it.

Debbie Blue, in her book, Consider the Birds, A Provocative Guide to Birds of the Bible, makes this distinction: “The dove has come to seem banal and bland and cutesy as far as Christian symbols go. It has come to represent something polite and petite and pure. Maybe this has worked to deprive us of a more robust view of the Holy Spirit. Isn’t it sort of limiting to imagine the spirit of God as something dainty and white?” Blue continues, “We are made of dirt, according to the creation account in Genesis. We are full of bacteria. We each carry two to five pounds of bacteria in our bodies – two to five POUNDS. We could kill a dove with one or two blows from the back of our hand. We need a spirit that can handle us.”[i]

We read Luke’s account from in the Book of Acts: Suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them the ability.” And the people who witnessed this, people of many tongues, who could suddenly each understand the disciples’ speech? What was their reaction? They were amazed and perplexed – everyone was. And why shouldn’t they be?

The dive-bombing pigeon image appeals to me because it truly is how the Holy Spirit has worked throughout the history of the church and especially on that day – amazing individuals with abilities they never thought they could possess, surprising the world with unexpected gifts, disturbing structures of complacency and division, and always, disrupting the status quo, serving as God’s presence breaking into the here and now in and through the Spirit’s impassioned work, through inspired acts of love, dramatic acts of faithfulness and devotion, and encounters of grace and mercy with unparalleled promise. Jesus spoke at the beginning of his ministry, saying, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor,” the dive-bombing pigeon demonstrates to us that what God promises, God, in God’s abundance pours out, for the sake of the world.

Jesus came and stirred the fear and wrath and even hatred of those who were absorbed within the structures of human power and sin. But Jesus also showed us a new way to live – a new vision of the kingdom of heaven to focus our dreams upon – and a new covenant that included all people everywhere, a new commandment, to love as Christ loves, and a call to feed, clothe, shelter, forgive, pray for, accompany, and protect those who are placed along our path.

In his homily for Pentecost last year, Pope Francis, stated, “Only the Spirit can awaken diversity, plurality and multiplicity, while at the same time building unity. Here too, when we are the ones who try to create diversity and close ourselves up in what makes us different and other, we bring division. When we are the ones who want to build unity in accordance with our human plans, we end up creating uniformity, standardization. But if instead we let ourselves be guided by the Spirit, richness, variety and diversity never become a source of conflict, because he impels us to experience variety within the communion of the Church….. The Holy Spirit is the soul of mission. The events that took place in Jerusalem almost two thousand years ago are not something far removed from us; they are events which affect us and become a lived experience in each of us. The Pentecost of the Upper Room in Jerusalem is the beginning, a beginning which endures. The Holy Spirit is the supreme gift of the risen Christ to his apostles, yet he wants that gift to reach everyone.” 

Today we celebrate Pentecost, and the reality that through the gifts of the Holy Spirit, unity is not the same as uniformity, and diversity does not need to bring division. The spirit that was poured out on the day of Pentecost as the disciples huddled in the upper room, came swooping in, burst through the walls of fear and limitation to be seen, felt and heard beyond those walls. That same spirit is still at work in the church today, is still meant to be seen, and felt and heard well beyond our walls and beyond those of us sitting here today. God’s presence is breaking into the now through the Holy Spirit, and the ongoing work of the spirit takes place through us.

And yet we acknowledge that the work is long and hard and it is far from easy. We look at the state of the church today, and we wonder, how can this little church, how can I make a difference? How can my voice be heard? We look around and we see a pretty homogeneous gathering in this room. How do we welcome and embrace the kind of diversity that the spirit calls us to?

So, I invite you today to read the faith papers of our confirmands, printed in the back of your worship bulletin and you will see the spirit at work. More than one of them state that they certainly feel the tension created by an increasingly unchurched society and pool of peers. They feel it, perhaps more than many of us who grew up in what we now affectionately call the “glory years” of the church – when religious activities and commitment were held in esteem by our society rather than being judged by it.

These young adults feel that tension yet are committed to claiming for themselves the gifts of the Holy Spirit of God in order to live lives of faithfulness and to work for the good of God’s holy church in the world.  In a short while they will stand up and affirm their baptisms and claim for themselves the faith of this church that is calling them - and each of us - to mission and ministry. They will stand here and lead us all in reciting the creed that confesses faith in the God who works through adversity, in unexpected ways, redeeming us fr

om our sin, and granting us new life. They will lead us as we profess our confidence in the Holy Spirit who grants us identity, who accompanies, empowers and unites us in our work and makes it a holy offering to God.

This Holy Spirit of God blurs the walls of difference we create for ourselves. Then she opens the door and lets in the unfit, the sinner, the blind, the lame, the poor, the sick, the weak and the meek. Rather than pure white innocence and gentleness, this dive-bombing spirit of God in fact makes of us a fuller, richer, more varied and blessed body of Christ, equipped for sharing our individual gifts, working together for the benefit of the church and the good of the kingdom of God, for God’s sake.

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[i] (Debbie Blue, p. 6)