Sermon for Sunday, May 27, 2007A Promised Presenceby Rev. Cindy Bates |
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Acts 2:1-21
This is a holiday weekend, which traditionally means family and friends gather together for cook-outs or picnics. If your family is anything like mine when we get together invariably we start telling stories. Someone will say, “Do you remember the time….?” A story that has been told often in the Bates family has to do with a little vacation we took one weekend to my grandparents’ cabin in northern Michigan. Our grandparents let various family members use the cabin for family get-a-ways throughout the year. We kids loved going up there, being near a lake and a woods, there was always something to do. When Mom and Dad announced it was time to pack up and head home, it was always way too soon for us. Closing up the cabin meant there was a checklist of things to remember to do because you had to turn the heat down and turn the water off, clean out the refrigerator, make sure the fishing gear was out of the boat…you get the picture. This was back in the time when we were not as ecologically aware as we should have been. There was no recycling or garbage pick-up, so one of the things on the check list was to take out the brown paper sacks of accumulated trash and bury them in the compost area out back. After all the flurry of activity, the car would be loaded up, all the kids accounted for and we would be making the four hour drive back home. On one particular homeward bound trip we were about two hours into our travel when there was a peculiar odor that began to waft through our car. It was quite unpleasant, so Dad pulled over and opened the trunk to investigate. What he discovered was, in our haste to remember everything we had to do, we buried two sacks of groceries and were taking home two sacks of garbage. I think of that story sometimes when I am trying to pay attention to what all goes on the “to do” list of my life. I want to get things done, but I don’t want to rush through life so hurriedly that I miss the good stuff. I want to be paying attention to what I really need to remember. I thought of that story this week when I realized as we gathered today, there were several things we are being asked to remember. First, this is a weekend when we celebrate Memorial Day, a national holiday that has been observed since shortly after the Civil War. It began as persons wanted to honor those who had died fighting for their country. Originally, it was called Decoration Day, for persons went to the cemeteries to decorate the graves of fallen soldiers. (Thinking about the origin of Memorial Day makes the presence of our “Prayers for Peace Bowl” that sits on our altar table, an even more poignant reminder of the sacrifice and the casualties of war. That bowl contains the names of persons who have died or been wounded or who are still fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan.) Over the years, Memorial Day has evolved into being more than a patriotic observance, and in many parts of the country graves are “decorated” for all who have died. If I could, today I would walk through that little cemetery in Michigan where my parents are buried and I would see an array of flags and markers, flowers and wreaths that attempt to say, “We have not forgotten.” So, that is part of what we are remembering today. And please know our remembering of loved ones who have died will always be remembered in this congregation, especially when we celebrate All Saint’s Day, or when we honor our military on Veteran’s Day. What we are also remembering today, is one of the most significant events in the light of our faith. Today is Pentecost and as one of your pastors, I would be very remiss if I did not help us remember and celebrate the significance of this day. This morning’s scripture tells us the story. There was a big Jewish Festival happening in Jerusalem. People from all over had gathered to celebrate Pentecost, a festival celebrated 50 days after Passover. “Pentecost” means “fifty.” The Jewish people have always been very good about celebrations that help them remember their sacred history. Passover was the celebration that helped them remember the Exodus when God brought them out of Egypt and Pentecost became the festival that was associated with God renewing the covenant with Israel by the giving of the Law or the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai. So, on this particular holy day, there was a lot going on in Jerusalem. The streets were crowded, there was lots of celebrating, the people were together to worship and rejoice before God. But Jesus’ disciples were no where to be found. They were gathered together behind closed doors. Jesus had told them that even though he was no longer going to be with them in a physical presence, they would be empowered by God’s Spirit to do great things. Well, on this particular day they were not doing great things. They were probably fearful of being discovered and they were still trying to figure out what Jesus wanted them to do. Then, according to Luke, the writer of Acts, they heard something like a great wind, and then they saw something like flames of fire and then they not only heard something and saw something but they started speaking in other languages other than their own. And the people out in the street heard the commotion and could not believe they were hearing this group of Galileans speaking in several different languages, representing the many different countries from which the crowds had come. They responded with a mixture of amazement and disbelief. What was happening was so strange they tried to explain it by saying, “These people from Galilee have been drinking too much wine.” And then another strange thing happened, Peter stood up and started to preach. (The poor guy, it was his first sermon and he didn’t even have a friendly congregation.) This was Peter, the disciple who just 50 days prior to this scene had been apart of another scene, in a courtyard, where people accused him of being one of Jesus’ followers and he was so afraid that he denied he ever knew Jesus. But on this day, Peter is empowered by the presence of the Holy Spirit, that Spirit that Jesus promised would be with them, and powerful things began to happen. This was truly the birth of the Church. The story goes on to say that they baptized about 3000 that day and the teaching and the preaching of the Good News of Jesus Christ spread around the world from that Spirit filled, ragtag little band of fishermen and tax collectors and housewives from Galilee. That is what we are asked to remember today. God showed up, in a really big, dramatic way and empowered some very ordinary people like you and me to do some very life-changing work in the world. If it had not been for that day, you and I would not be gathered here today to celebrate Memorial Day or any other day. There would not have been the Church if Jesus’ followers had not experienced the presence of the risen Christ and then the promised coming of the Holy Spirit. On that day, so much more was happening than just a series of events. When writer and mystic Simone Weil would talk about something beyond human understanding that seemed larger or deeper than the human mind could comprehend she would use a phrase referring to “events of a different order.” What happened at Pentecost was definitely an “event of a different order.” Today is a day of remembrance. What about the Day of Pentecost do you want to remember? I want to remember that God intended the promise of the Holy Spirit not just for that little band of disciples. There was something very significant about the disciples speaking in languages that could be heard around the world. The Good News of God’s indwelling presence was not meant for only those who could speak a specific language or lived in a certain country or had a particular faith. The Church was not meant to be an exclusive community but an inclusive community transcending language and culture and ethnicity. God’s indwelling presence was meant to reconcile persons and nations. No particular group was to hold the “keys to the kingdom”, God was opening God’s heart to all. It was a real “Spirit” thing. I want to remember that there was a lot of passion for what God was calling and empowering the disciples to do on the day of Pentecost. There was no room for mediocrity or lukewarm commitments. God’s recognized, experienced presence changed things…meant something…got something happening. They didn’t say, “I think God is asking us to form a committee.” They came out of the meeting house and took their faith out into the streets. In the lesson on Pentecost in the Disciple One Study Manual it says, “Every community needs to remember its beginning for that, in part, defines what the community becomes.” If we forget how grounded, how committed, how passionate were those who made up the early Church, we will lose the meaning of Pentecost and the Church of today will be a watered down ineffective version of what God intended. I think in some ways it is unfortunate that the word “Pentecostal” has become an adjective for only a certain type of church or congregation. Pentecostal usually refers to a charismatic, theologically conservative branch of Christianity where people speak in tongues and worship God in such emotional ways that most of us more staid folks find it hard to understand. But what if “pentecostal” could be an adjective that could describe all Christians who embodied living their faith with passion, with feeling. I saw a card the other day that had a quote from Maya Angelou that said, “People who face life with passion encourage others to live their lives with spirit.” That’s what those first disciples did after Pentecost. They lived their lives with such passion that they demonstrated to others what it meant to truly live filled with “the Spirit.” Peter in his sermon that day quoted the prophet Joel, about God’s Spirit indwelling in persons giving them ability to proclaim God’s message …see visions and dream dreams…even perform miracles! It is that kind of passion I want to remember about Pentecost. Another thing I want to receive from this story is the courage to claim and name my faith. Peter wasn’t the only disciple who found his voice. Again I am afraid those of us in the more liberal, less evangelistic traditions have lost our ability to speak about our faith, our spirituality. Now, I admit, even as someone who is supposedly trained to talk about my faith and preach “the Gospel” I have always been uncomfortable with the concept of testimony or “witnessing for Jesus.” Part of that prejudice came from attending a conservative Christian college where “testifying” to your faith often meant someone was telling someone else that they needed to follow a certain faith formula or have a particular experience to be a true Christian. Testimony for me meant something, scary, self-righteous and judgmental…not something I was drawn to practice. So, consequently I don’t believe I have always been very good at helping others express their faith. It is a lot easier to preach that “our actions speak louder than our words.” When is it appropriate to say who we are and what we believe? When Diana Butler Bass was here with us, talking about her book, Christianity for the Rest of Us, she told how mainline churches were reclaiming personal testimony as a tool for transforming lives. She said, “Unlike the stories of Puritans and revivalists, mainline testimony is not a spirituality of arrival, of the certainty of securing eternal life…it is the act of getting there….Testimony is not a formula of salvation; rather it is a way of being, a map to an undiscovered country. And, in telling the stories of our lives, we find we are not alone on the journey.” I was reminded of that kind of testimony several times this week as I shared Communion with some of our Disciple classes. It was obvious to me that there was a lot of community that had been established over the months as persons felt there was a place to share stories and struggles and questions and doubts. Again, in the words of Butler Bass, “Testimony is not about God fixing people. Rather, it speaks of God making wholeness out of human woundedness, human incompleteness.” If Pentecost was God’s example of what the Church is to be about, we need to find a voice that speaks about our faith…a voice that witnesses to who we are because God in our life has made a difference. As United Methodists we think it is so important to remember Pentecost that we have even incorporated a red flame in our logo. It is a reminder we have been given that promised presence. It is meant to put a little fire under us…a little fire within in us. It’s a Spirit thing! As you entered the sanctuary you should have received a small piece of red ribbon. It is meant to be a reminder to you, not only of what we are celebrating today, but what is vital to our faith each and every day…God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is with us! I would invite you to place this ribbon somewhere so that each time you see it, you can claim that “promised presence.” And if you are really feeling the Spirit, wear this ribbon this week and see what happens. Someone may ask you what it means…and I believe you will be able to tell them. It might be a way to begin to share this Spirit thing! |
