RVCC Pastor's Sermon

Sermon - May 11, 2008

“Watch Out!”

By Rev. Nancy Foran
Acts 2:1-21

Have you ever been in one of those big old cavernous downtown churches? I grew up in one like that, and the building looked as if it had stood there forever. They are imposing structures – often cathedral like - made of stone with Gothic archways, stained glass windows, and bronze plaques commemorating all sorts of important people in that particular church community.

In such a church, one Sunday, before the worship service began, a small boy was carefully reading each of the several plaques which hung on the walls in the narthex outside the sanctuary. He paused before a particularly large rectangular one that had a long list of names on it. Turning to the elderly and somber usher, he queried, "What are all those names up there?"

“Oh,” the usher replied knowingly. "Those are the names of people who died in the service."

The boy’s eyes got as big as saucers, and he whispered, "Which service, the 9:30 or the 11 o'clock?"

Needless-to-say, we are not about death here this morning – particularly not on this glorious morning of Pentecost. Rather, we are about birth and life – the birth of the church itself and the life of the Holy Spirit within each one of us.

Today we are about tongues of fire and rushing winds as the Holy Spirit swirls about us – even us, cajoling us to let that Spirit in, so that it might fill us up with courage and strength; prodding us into celebrating our gifts – gifts of the Spirit, so that it might send us out, out into the world to communicate in our most effective way the Gospel message of love, justice, and reconciliation that Jesus himself preached two millennia ago.

It happened like this, according to Luke, whom we believe authored the Book of the Acts of the Apostles….

The setting is, once again, the Holy City of Jerusalem. Fifty days they had been waiting for something to happen. Fifty days since Jesus had come back to life. Fifty days since he had first appeared to the women. Fifty days that had started out as days of fear and hiding but somewhere along the way had morphed into days of waiting, waiting, waiting for they knew not exactly what. Jesus had recently bid his final farewell and instructed them to simply wait for something extraordinary to happen.

And so, on this day of an ancient Jewish festival of harvest, they waited – once again, in a house on a Jerusalem side street. Luke tells us that there were 120 of them this time.

And suddenly it happened. All hell – or was it heaven – broke loose around them. It filled their hearts and souls. It was like the rushing of the wind blowing into the core of their very beings. It was like little tongues of fire above them and below them and inside of them.

As Edward Marquart describes it, it was like “a prairie fire blowing across the Midwest (feeding) on parched dry fields of grass. It was like a forest fire rushing up the (mountain side)…being driven by the wind, in a very dry forest with tinder wood. It was like a fire on an oil slick on the ocean, flames leaping across the water.”

So this is what Jesus meant when he told them that the Holy Spirit would come into their lives, they thought. So this is what it feels like to have the power of God inside of you, they figured, as they rushed out of that old hiding place of a building into the sparkling and brilliant sunshine of the streets.

One hundred and twenty strong - they were crazy, and people thought they were drunk – tut, tut, imagine – too much wine – and well before noon no less.

“But, no, we are not drunk,” they shouted in holy glee, “or if we are, we are drunk on the Spirit.”

And just to be sure they everyone really did understand, Peter stood up on the balcony in front of the assembled crowd and preached a sermon. Peter? Can you believe it?

As William Willamon notes: Yes, Peter who, when the going got rough, ran away into the darkness - just as the other disciples did. Remember? When a maid questioned him, “Weren’t you with the Galilean, weren’t you one of his followers?” he could not find in himself the words to say, “Yes, I was with Jesus.” – and instead mumbled a save-my-own-skin denial – three times even.

Peter, the one who never seemed to get the answer right when Jesus asked the question, Peter, the one who could only say, “I didn’t even know the man.” Now Peter preaches the word of God.

And so with the whooshing wind and the bedazzling tongues of fire, everything changed for the followers. Cowards became preachers. Uneducated fishermen spoke with power and authority. And when all was said and done, the spirit-filled passel of converted Jews went from street to street and home to home and neighbor to neighbor and family to family and nation to nation. (Marquart)

And so on and so on even down through the ages to us because, you see, Pentecost was never intended to be a one time only affair – over and done with two thousand years ago. Our 100 red geraniums are not just decorating the sanctuary to commemorate some ancient and quaint religious event that we dust off once a year. Oh, no!

Pentecost is one of the big three celebrations we have in the church – right up there with Christmas and Easter. In fact, Pentecost is what makes Christmas and Easter meaningful for us because the Holy Spirit is our connection to the Baby Jesus and the Resurrected Christ. The Holy Spirit is what opens the hearts of our old ones to see visions of a Peaceable Kingdom and the young among us to dream dreams of justice and compassion.

As Vince Gerhardy describes the Holy Spirit, it is “like a breath that blows away the dust and makes everything clean…like refreshing cool water to a parched throat…a cleansing bush fire that burns away all the thick undergrowth so that something new can rise out of the ashes…a potter who starts with an odd-shaped lump and moulds and shapes it into something beautiful…a renovator who uses what is already there and strengthens, refreshes and revitalizes…a loving spouse whispering reassurances of love and support…a parent guiding a confused child…a tour guide who points us in the right direction to see things that we would otherwise have missed…that gentle tap on the shoulder that makes us realize, "Hey, that’s me that needs a new beginning and new direction,"…that fierce shaking that wakes us up (when God’s world is passing us by).

The Holy Spirit is to the church what air is to every human being and is what binds us together as Christians. Without the Holy Spirit, there would be no church. There would be no Gospel message. Jesus, though the Son of God, would have receded into history, for there would be nothing to connect him to us, to the present.

“The Spirit binds us together…to care for one another, love one another, pray for one another, encourage one another, help one another as we share the Good News about Jesus with others… and when life in the church is drab, when our need to reach out to others with the comfort of God's Word is lackluster, when telling others about Jesus loses its urgency or when our own lives face hardship, we need to be reminded that God has sent us (the) Spirit.

We need to be reminded that God has provided us the help we need to be channels of (holy) love and grace to a…self-absorbed… culture.” (Gerhardy). That is what is behind the Festival of Pentecost. It is an opportunity to celebrate and renew the Holy Spirit within our churches and within ourselves.

However, as Mark Harris writes, “Pentecost…is not an event to be wished for lightly. The Spirit is somewhat cranky and given to its own thing."

If we – you and I - have the Spirit (and surely we do!), who knows where it will lead us, except I think we do know that in this day and age and in this American culture, it will not be to easy places. Surely we agree that it is a changing and challenging time for us as Christians, especially for us in a mainline church.

Face it - things are not as they used to be. Though people crave a sense of spirituality and hunger for community, they do not necessarily turn to the church – and so we compete for family time as much as any organization – Sunday soccer practices, musical rehearsals, and parental down time.

In addition, the world is not a black and white place where the answers are clear. Can we really hate the war and fully support the troops? Where do we draw the line between what we need and what we hoard?

Difficult as they are, these are questions for the church. They are deeply spiritual questions. Certainly, we could avoid these thorny and divisive issues. We could pretend that our culture has not changed – and so just drift along. A lot of congregations do that. Or we could struggle openly and honestly with such questions. Put in another way, we could take Pentecost seriously. We could believe that the tongues of fire really are burning in our hearts. We could believe that the voice of God still comes through the mighty wind swirling within this very place. We could believe that being here on Sunday morning is a most important part of belonging to this Christian community. We could believe that ethical dialogue and discourse among us will strengthen, not weaken, our faith: will fan, not extinguish the Spirit.

As James Lemler wrote, “The primary question for the Church (today) is precisely the question as it was for the Church…in the 1st century. Will we become alive and aflame with the Spirit of God? Will we let the Spirit…transform us into the church of vitality and service, prayer and praise, evangelism and welcome, advocacy and witness that God intends us to be? There was no way the Church in the 1st century could do it itself, and there is no way that the Church in the 21st century can do it itself. It is the Spirit. It is the Spirit.”

Now – I think you know me well enough to realize that I would not be standing here this morning if I did not believe that we do need the Spirit – but that I also trust that the Spirit burns within this place.

I would not be standing here if I did not believe that each one of you has gifts – gifts of the Spirit – like Peter – gifts of prose and poetry, gifts of wonder and dreams, gifts of grit and commitment, gifts of compassion and community.

I would not be standing here if I did not believe that your gifts have value and that God calls upon you to use them – even in the most ordinary ways – because you are the church, because you are the Body of Christ. As Neil Young, the singer and songwriter, said, "No one song can change the world. But that doesn't mean it's time to stop singing."

And so I say to you on this Festival of Pentecost: breathe in – and let the Spirit come into your life. Breathe out – and let your gifts change this church and the world that it touches. Sing a song of the Spirit as you feel the wind on your face and at your back – pushing you forward, forever deeper into the waters of faith. Sing a song of the Spirit as you feel the fire in your heart – burning your soul into life. O People of God, the Holy Spirit is with you. Watch out!

Sermon - May 11, 2008

“Watch Out!”

By Rev. Nancy Foran Acts 2:1-21

By Rev. Nancy Foran
Acts 2:1-21