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Happy
birthday, Church! Happy birthday! Turn to those sitting next
to you and wish someone a happy birthday. That’s right,
today we are holding one big birthday party. We are
celebrating Pentecost, the retelling of how, after the
crucifixion, an otherwise rag-tag, mixed up, and uncertain
group of followers of the slain, but then resurrected, Jesus
of Nazareth was transformed and brought together in a new and
powerful way. On that first Pentecost, these disciples
realized that God was calling them into a new way of being,
and that new thing is what we have been calling the Church
ever since. So Pentecost is a birthday party to celebrate the
birth of the Church. So one more time, just for good measure,
turn to somebody else and wish them a happy birthday!
Birthdays.
As I thought about it, birthdays are one of the things that
all of us—every single one of us—have in common. The very
fact that we are here—the very fact that we exist in this
place and in this time—is because we were born. The truth
is, we all have a birthday, whether we keep track of them
anymore or not.
Think
back over the span of your life, no matter how long it has
been, and recall those important birthdays that have helped
you mark time in your life. Remember those early years when
birthdays could be marked with the simple addition of a single
finger? There was the great anticipation that came when you
would move from 5 to 6, from marking time with one hand to
two. Then came the big one: 11. How would you ever be able to
keep track now?
There
are other biggies. Sweet 16, a coming out of sorts, when we
gain access to the car and the new-found independence that
comes with it. Eighteen is another big one, a real right of
passage signaling the emergence of adulthood, granting the
right to vote, eligibility for the draft and graduation from
high school. And of course there are the decade birthdays. At
the turning of every ten, we mark another milestone. At 20,
30, 40, 50, 60, 70 (and God willing, 80, 90 and
maybe even 100), we usually pause to take stock of where the
journey of life has taken us.
And
yet other birthdays become significant, not so much because of
the time they mark, but more so because of the events in our
lives, or in our world, that occurred since we last blew out
the candles. One such birthday for me was my 27th.
An otherwise insignificant milestone, 27 will always be
noteworthy to me because that was the first birthday I
celebrated after my mother died. For me, birthdays have taken
on a different significance now that the woman who made all of
them possible is no longer here to celebrate with.
That
is the one thing about every birthday. They each point to the
day that every one of us received the greatest gift this side
of the grave: the gift of life itself. That is the true
celebration at any birthday, counting every blessing that life
has to offer. The truth is, you can’t have a birthday unless
you’ve been born.
So
what does that mean for Pentecost, the birthday of the church?
The same thing, really. It, too, is the celebration of the
gift of life…the gift of our life in Christ. Like our
personal birthdays, when it comes to Pentecost, we can’t
really celebrate this birthday unless we have been born…
born of the Spirit. The Pentecost story, with all of its big
drama, high emotions, flames, gushing wind and speaking in
tongues, can only make sense to people who have themselves
been filled by that same spirit…the spirit of life
itself…the spirit that raised Jesus from the grave.
Pentecost
is for people who have been (dare I say it?…I think it has
to said) “born again.” “Born again”…believe me, I
hesitate to use that phrase because, to the great detriment of
the Church, the term “born again” has been so misused.
It has been misused in limiting God grace, misused to
draw narrow lines of exclusion rather than wider circles of
inclusion. Too often when one claims to be “born again,”
they feel free to refuse “the outsiders” the full
blessings of the Body of Christ.
Why
use it at all, you might ask? Why risk being misunderstood?
Because I believe being “born again”…being truly
transformed by an encounter with the living Christ… is what
Pentecost is really about. Pentecost is, after all, the
collective celebration of a people who have been filled with
the Spirit…“born again”…whose lives have been visibly
changed by an encounter with the living spirit of God.
So
how do we experience the promise of Pentecost, the promise of
the spirited-filled life? How can we each find our own light
to add to this birthday celebration? What does it really mean
to be “born again”? It begins by each of us reclaiming,
and then not being afraid to recount, our own “rebirth” in
the spirit. Pentecost takes its hold on us by realizing that,
somewhere along the way, the grace of God has transformed our
lives…a realization that brings peace to our souls and joy
to our hearts. Pentecost is not just retelling the old story,
it is realizing that we each have our “rebirth-day” story
to tell.
To
help us get in touch with our own personal Pentecost story, I
will turn to two stories from scripture. Each is very
different, but both are “rebirth-day” stories,
nonetheless. The first comes from the book of Acts, the ninth
chapter:
Meanwhile Saul was still breathing threats to
slaughter the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest
and asked for letters addressed to the synagogue in Damascus,
which would authorize him to arrest and to jail in Jerusalem
any followers of the Way…that he might find.
It happened while he was traveling to Damascus
and approaching the city. Suddenly a light from heaven shone
all around him. He fell to the ground, and then heard a voice
saying, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” “Who
are you, Lord?” he asked, and the answer came, “I am
Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Get up and go into the city;
and you will be told what to do.” The men traveling with
Saul stood there speechless, for though they had heard the
voice they could see no one. Saul got up from the ground, but
when he opened his eyes he could see nothing at all, and they
had to lead him to Damascus by the hand. For three days he was
without his sight and took neither food nor drink.
[Then once in Damascus, Saul meets Ananias, a
man who has a vision and will bring to Saul his calling from
God. Ananias helps Saul open his first re-birthday present.
Verse 17 picks up the story…]
Then Ananias went. He entered the house, and
laid his hands on Saul and said, “Brother Saul, I have been
sent by the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on your way here,
so that you might recover your sight and be filled with Holy
Spirit.” It was as though scales fell away from his eyes and
immediately he was able to see again. So he got up and was
baptized…
It all
happened on the road to Damascus. Just like that, Saul’s
life was changed forever. And to prove it, he got a whole new
name, a different identity. From then on, Saul of Tarsus would
be known as Paul the Apostle, the Church’s first great
theologian and evangelist.
Paul’s
story is full of all the trappings of great conversion
accounts. It has flashes of light and voices from heaven. The
power of God enters into the life of one who is inflicting
suffering upon others and knocks him right off his “high
horse.” The story is full of drama. Good ole Paul once was
lost but then was found, he was blind but then could see. It
is the story of a life radically changed by a single encounter
with the living Christ. There is no doubt about it. Paul
life’s would never be the same after that moment. On that
day, he had his own personal Pentecost. On that Damascus road,
Paul had his second birthday.
The
Damascus road story is the stuff of movies and television,
full of drama and intrigue. It is the story of folks whose
lives are unexpectedly “touched by an angel” or of people
who are suddenly invited to become “Bruce Almighty.” The
history of the Christian faith is filled with earth-shaking,
light-flashing, pulled-out-of-the-pits-of-destruction kinds of
stories. At one point or another, we have all heard them.
Lives suddenly turned around. Folks at the end of their rope
who suddenly “get religion.” The pages of the Church’s
history are filled with Damascus Road accounts…stories of
sinners who became saints, drunks who became dry, persecutors
who became preachers, and doubters who are now deacons.
Why are
there so many “Damascus road” stories in our tradition?
Perhaps because they really do happen. When open to it, ready
to receive it, or perhaps when we have nowhere else to turn,
God’s grace can radically and powerfully enter situations in
our lives and cause us to make major changes. Maybe there are
some among us tonight who have met God on the Damascus road,
who had a life-changing encounter with amazing grace. Maybe it
came when you were knocked to the ground because of an
addiction or the struggle of a broken relationship or divorce.
Maybe the scales of hatred or prejudice were suddenly lifted
from your eyes by an encounter with the risen Christ in the
poor, the homeless, the refugee or the stranger. However it
happened, wherever it happened, I have no doubt you left the
experience feeling like you had a new lease on life…that
you, too…just had a second birthday.
That is the
good news of the Damascus road and it is the good news of
Pentecost. The good news is, if you are here tonight and find
yourself at the end of your rope, facing difficult days or
uncertain futures, let tonight be the night you encounter the
spirit of God anew. Let tonight become a “rebirth-day” for
you. Let tonight be the night that the flame of Pentecost
takes hold in your life. I cannot promise that the earth will
shake or that the hand of God will split open the sky, but I
do believe that if you accept God’s invitation to begin
again, to start fresh, that this day can indeed become a new
beginning for you. If that describes where you are tonight and
you find that you are in need of prayer and someone to talk
to, please see me after the service and I will be happy to
pray with you and help you discover what the life of faith is
all about. Pentecost is about reclaiming the transformation
that happens on all of life’s Damascus roads.
But what about those who never
walked down the Damascus road, whose stories do not seem to
have that one dramatic turning point—no single moment of
divine intervention—whose spiritual journeys appear to be
devoid of any high drama? What does it really mean to be
“born again” to those who have always grown up in the
church, those who have more or less always walked the straight
and narrow? How does Pentecost become real to those who are
cradle Christians, those who know the rhythms of the
church…its language…its story?
To discover how we might find
answers to these questions, let us turn to the final pages of
Luke’s gospel, chapter 24 starting with the thirteenth
verse. Here we find ourselves on a different road:
Now that very same day, two of them were on
their way to a village called Emmaus, seven miles from
Jerusalem, and they were talking about all that had happened.
And it happened that as they were talking together and
discussing it, Jesus himself came up and walked by their side;
but they did not recognize him.
He said to them, “What are all these things that you
are discussing as you walk along?” They stopped, their faces
downcast.
Then one of them, called Cleopas, answered him,
“You must be the only person staying in Jerusalem who does
not know the things that have been happening these last few
days.” He asked, “What things?” They answered, “All
about Jesus of Nazareth, who showed himself a prophet powerful
in action and speech before God and the whole people; and how
our chief priests and our leaders handed him over to be
sentenced to death, and had him crucified. Our own hope had
been that he would be the one to set Israel free. And this is
not all: two whole days have gone by since it all happened;
and some women from our group have astounded us. They went
back to the tomb early in the morning, and when they could not
find the body, they came back to tell us they had seen a
vision of angels who declared he was alive. Some of our
friends went to the tomb and found everything exactly as the
women had reported, but of him they saw nothing.”
Then he said to them, “You foolish men! So
slow to believe all that the prophets have said! Was it not
necessary that the Christ should suffer before entering
glory?” Then, starting with Moses and going through all of
the prophets, he explained to them the passages throughout the
scriptures that were about himself.
When they drew near to the village to which
they were going, he made as if to go; but they pressed him to
stay with them saying, “It is nearly evening, and the day is
almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. Now while he
was with them at the table, he took the bread and said the
blessing; then he broke it and handed it to them. And their
eyes were opened and they recognized him; but he had vanished
from their sight. Then they said to each other, “Did not our
hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road and
explained the scriptures to us?”
They set out that instant and returned to
Jerusalem…Then they told their story of what had happened on
the road and how they recognized him in the breaking of the
bread.
A different road. A different
story. But a “rebirth-day” story nevertheless. This time
the road is Emmaus. This time the characters are insiders,
followers, believers, good old church-going, Bible-reading
folk. They know all the words of the story…in very clear
detail, mind you. They can recite it, chapter and verse, if
you were to press them. And yet when it comes to being able to
recognize the living, breathing manifestation of the risen
Christ in their midst, they completely miss it. There it is,
right in front of their eyes…in the here and now…in flesh
and blood…and if anyone should get it, it should be them.
But they never even noticed it! That is, until finally…in
the midst of life’s simple routine, the preparing and
sharing of a meal among friends…they realize the Christ has
been with them all along. Now as they look back over their
journey, they see his presence where they had always missed
it. They were blind but then they, too, could see. And it was
in discovering Christ in the midst of their everyday living
that their lives were changed.
I imagine that for many who are
here tonight, the Emmaus road is a familiar road. It is an
insider’s road, a walk for those who have been followers for
as long as they can remember. The warning from this scripture
is that even when you’ve walked the Emmaus road and spent
most of your life in the church, never straying too far off
the straight and narrow, you don’t even know that you have
not yet had an encounter with the resurrected Christ. When
you’ve walked the Emmaus road, the road of familiarity, it
can become easy to feel like you don’t really have all that
good a story to tell. But then it happens, just like it did to
the two followers from our reading. In the midst of your
everyday routine, you suddenly realize that God has been with
you all along…a realization that cannot help but transform
your life.
Tonight we are reminded that there
is good news for those who have been walking the Emmaus road,
those who have always been able to call the Church home. The
good news is that you don’t need the earth to shake or
lighting to strike in order to claim your own
“rebirth-day” story. The story of Emmaus reminds us that
when we finally realize that God in Christ has been with us
all along the way…when we discover that in the presence of
friends and in the sharing of the goodness of creation, the
living and loving presence of God is the spirit that has
always made such experiences possible…when we can find the
sacred in the midst of the ordinary…then the Emmaus road can
become the way to a “rebirth-day” celebration that is
truly the promise of faith. If you have come here tonight by
the Emmaus road, then let this night be the night that you
experience the fullness of Pentecost. Let your light shine
forth so others may see that you have been touched by the
spirit of the living Christ.
Tonight, on this Pentecost
celebration, we will come to the table together to break
bread. As we come, it is my prayer that we, too, will
recognize Christ in the breaking and the sharing of the bread.
It is my prayer that each of us will realize in the breaking
and sharing that it is true: God has been with us all along.
After you have received the loaf
and the cup, each of you will be given a candle. After all,
what is a birthday party without some birthday candles? (And
the neat thing is, on Pentecost, the Church is the cake and we
are the birthday candles, giving off the light from lives that
have truly been “reborn in the spirit” and transformed to
better love God and serve the world.) Brothers and sisters,
the table has been set. Whether you come to it by the road
called Damascus or the one called Emmaus, the feast has been
prepared. Come and celebrate! Happy birthday, Church! Happy
birthday.
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