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Note:
For the last fifteen or twenty years, I have institutionalized
the annual observance of Pentecost on the first Sunday in
June. Occasionally the liturgical calendar of Christendom
concurs. Other years, not. My reasons for doing this are
largely personal. I simply grew tired of trying to blend
Pentecost with Mother’s Day, with Memorial Day, or with the
annual children’s musical (all of which occur in May). By
setting aside the same Sunday in June for a Pentecost
observance, I have been able to place a singular spotlight on
the celebration, to the degree that it has become (in the
churches I have served) an exciting and much-anticipated
Sunday morning. I add this explanation for the liturgical
purists who may read these sermons, the better to explain my
logic rather than reveal my ignorance.
Sermon
For
as many years as I have been preaching Pentecost Sunday
sermons, I have customarily begun with Luke’s wonderfully
visual story from the second chapter of Acts. It’s dramatic.
It’s ecstatic. Lots of sound. Lots of fury. It takes place
in Jerusalem, a couple of months after the Resurrection. There
are 120 people in the house and a whole lot more outside the
house. That’s because it’s a Jewish holiday, a holiday to
celebrate the giving of the Law. Which explains why everybody
was “hanging out,” don’t you see. Because “hanging
out” is one of the things you do on holidays. You don’t go
to work. You don’t go to school. You don’t put the trash
out by the curb. Because who is going to pick up the trash on
a holiday? Nobody. So you hang out.
Which
is when it happened, Luke says. It was early in the
morning….too early for people to be drinking. So if (a few
minutes after 9:00 a.m.) it looked like people were drunk, it
must have been Spirit rather than spirits. For it looked like
people were drunk, what with everybody talking funny. You
should have heard it. There were sounds coming from
everywhere. Multiple languages. Exaggerated cadences. High
pitches. Nobody understanding it. But, in a strange kind of
way, everybody “getting it.” You might say these people
were “fired up.” Which is what Luke said. And I have no
reason to disbelieve him.
Except
to concentrate on the fire, as some of us are inclined to do,
is to overlook the wind. Which was how it all began.
When the day of
Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. When
suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty
wind.
And
maybe there was such a sound. And maybe there was such a wind.
Or maybe Luke borrowed the sound and the wind from the
occasion which created the Jewish holiday in the first
place….borrowing both sound and wind from the book of Exodus
when God gave, not the Spirit, but the Law. You remember it.
Surely you remember it. The people were at Mount Sinai.
They’d been out in the wilderness for a time. Too long a
time. So much so, that it felt like God had forgotten them out
there. Which made them afraid. So they said to Moses (in
effect): “We can’t stand it. Why don’t you climb that
mountain and find out what God wants. Then come back and tell
us.” So Moses did. And scripture records that there was a
storm….accented by thunder and wind….followed by fire and
smoke. And then came the Commandments. All ten.
It
is as if Luke is saying in the book of Acts: “Whenever God
gives us something truly significant, it is always windy and
fiery.” And anywhere in the Christian world where a church
wants to lock in on those stories (or those images), that
church is called “Pentecostal.” And if you go to one of
those churches in search of the Spirit of God, you expect to
shaken up by the experience. But after 37 years in places like
this, I have learned that those churches ain’t us….ain’t
never been us….probably ain’t ever going to be us….so
that the second chapter of Acts (taken as a text) doesn’t
really fit us.
But,
as I told you several years ago, Luke’s version of the
coming of the Spirit is not the only version. And the one that
contrasts with it most vividly is John’s version. We are
still in Jerusalem. We are still in a house. But there are far
fewer people. And the clock is set at a far later hour. There
is no holiday. There is no “hanging out.” There is just a
group of disciples hanging tight. Because they’re scared.
Scared for their lives. For Jesus has been put to death. And
who knows who might be next?
The
door is locked. But Jesus is suddenly in the room. No knocking
on the door. No going to the door. No looking through a
peephole in the door. No recognizing Jesus on the other side
of the door. No throwing wide the door. There is nothing
having to do with the door. Just Jesus….in the room. Don’t
ask. I don’t know how he got there. He’s just there. And,
in this visit, there is no touching of wounds….just a
viewing of wounds. Touching comes a week later when Thomas
comes back from the Seven-Eleven.
This
time there is just a twice-repeated phrase from the lips of
Jesus….“Peace be with you”…. followed by: “Just as
the Father sent me, I am sending you.” And then this. He
breathed on them. That’s right, he breathed on them. Then he
said: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” No wind. No fire. No
blowing. No burning. No babbling. Just breathing. And
that is how John says it was when the Spirit came.
Not
to be outdone by Luke, John also has an Old Testament point of
reference. But it’s not in Exodus, it’s in Genesis. And
it’s not at Sinai, but in the Garden. Where, in that most
primitive of stories, God fashioned dust into something more
than dust and breathed into its nostrils. Whereupon dust
became a living being.
Leading
one of my esteemed colleagues to say:
What
if….let’s just scare ourselves for a minute….what if God
had not imparted God’s own Spirit to this being? The human
would be just like the animal, don’t you see. Can you
imagine people living like animals because they hadn’t
received the Spirit of God? Why the whole of our lives would
be devoted to eating and drinking, sleeping and eliminating,
being attracted to the opposite sex, and dying. Like animals.
Now
I know that animals can be trained….some of them, anyway. It
makes them a lot more cute. It may also make them a tad more
valuable. Some can be trained to do work. Others can be
groomed to the point where they can go up on stage, do a few
tricks, and people applaud them. And I suppose that, had God
not breathed into our nostrils, many of us could be groomed
and trained….maybe even bred….so that it could be said of
us that we had good lines, came from good stock, or descended
from the best families. So if God had not breathed into our
nostrils God’s own breath, we could still have our shows,
strut our stuff and brag about our breeding….in addition to
eating and drinking, sleeping and eliminating, fooling around
with the opposite sex, and dying.
Oh,
but we’re so much more than that. At least some of the time.
Because while God said, “I’m so proud of the squirrels. I
love the llamas. I stand in awe of the elephant. And the
horse, I can’t get enough of the horse,” I believe God
also said (after dusting and forming and breathing): “Ah,
this one is like me.”
You
remember King David, of course. And I’m sure you remember
the Bathsheba story. Beautiful woman. Rooftop bath. King sees
her….desires her….sends for her….has his way with
her….leaving her with a remembrance of their encounter that
neither of them planned for. Which means that the king has to
figure out a way to get her husband….her soldier
husband….her loyal soldier husband….killed. Which he
does….get him killed, that is. And it works (thereby
enabling him to go back to eating and drinking, sleeping and
eliminating, along with fooling around with the opposite sex).
Until he gets a case of the guilts, that is. I mean, “severe
guilts.” Which leads him to pray.
And
do you remember what he prayed? Sure you remember what he
prayed. Although, like a lot things from the Bible, you just
can’t place it in context. David prayed: “O God, do not
take (back) your Holy Spirit from me. Do not reinhale your
breath….sucking it back, as it were….for then I would be
an animal again.”
Which
all of us are, in part. And which some of us are, in whole.
Animals, I mean. Even proudly so. There was a time when, had
someone said of me, “Ritter….what an animal,” I might
not have minded. But I wouldn’t brag about it now. Even
though I occasionally revert to it now.
As
do you. And others. Both in and out of church. So what would
happen to you if the Spirit be withdrawn? What would happen to
me if the Spirit be withdrawn? What would happen to
“church” if the Spirit be withdrawn? I’ll tell you what
would happen. It would be like a zoo. Maybe even a jungle.
But
back to our story. The room was locked. Jesus found his way in
anyway. Where, after a bit of showing and telling, he breathed
on them and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Then he sent
them out….as if to say: “Not everything that starts here,
stays here.” To which they may have said: “But it’s safe
here.” In response to which he may have said: “But I do
not intend for you to stay here.”
Picture
a little girl lost in a big city. There she sits, crying on
the curb. A policeman finds her, puts her in his cruiser and
drives her up and down the streets, hoping she’ll recognize
something familiar. Which, at last, she does. She sees a
steeple with a cross on it. Tears vanish. Speech returns.
“That’s my church,” she says. “I can find my way from
here.”
You’re
not the only one, little girl.
The
last time I was in a Pentecostal
church (I mean a really Pentecostal church), I noticed that
the ones who really got the Spirit fainted. Fell right over
backward. They had nurses there (or at least ladies in white
uniforms dressed to look like nurses). They were there to
catch the fainting people. They call that “being slain in
the Spirit.” Well, whatever floats your boat, I guess.
Except
I’ve got this text that seems to say that the true
measurement of Pentecost is not how many the Spirit slays, but
how many the Spirit sends.
Note:
I first explored the differences between Luke and John (as
regards the coming of the Spirit) in a sermon several years
ago and have been working with the distinction ever since. I
was greatly aided by Fred Craddock and his linkage of Luke
with Sinai and John with creation, in a sermon preached
several years ago (from which I also borrowed the title). The
story about the little girl searching for a familiar landmark
is one that I have borrowed (with slight adaptation) from Ann
Lamott in her book, Traveling Mercies.
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