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A Congregation Of The "Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - Gracie Allen |
From
May 4, 2006 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And 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 were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs - in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine." But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.' * * * * * * * * * * * * Happy Breath-day! Happy Pentecost! Happy birthing day, Church! Today is our day for remembering. Remembering how God drew in a deeply loving breath, a profoundly loving breath, and then blew that Spirit-breath into an earnest assembly of Christ's followers. Today is the church's birthday, its breath-day, the day God made good on Jesus' promise that holy help would come when he could no longer be with them in body. Today we celebrate how this Spirit-sending changed everything and how, in birthing the church, God did what God does best - creating and animating life by doing the new and unexpected. Creating and animating new and unexpected life - this is old hat for God. In fact, it's as old as creation itself. Remember? Way, way back at the very beginning of our story God showed a knack for this. Remember how it all started? Remember how pure love inspired God to create the heavens and the earth, and how after days of fashioning all manner of wonderful, God scooped dust from the ground, formed it into a man-shape, and then breathed life straight into that man-dust's nostrils. Humus became human. A handful of earth became our man Adam. Breath indeed does animate. It's what launches our out-of-the-womb adventure. If breath doesn't happen, we don't happen! Breath animates us. Have you ever done this? Have you ever pursed your lips and gently blown a stream of air into a baby's sweet face? If you have, you know that this stream of breath will usually make her eyelashes flutter and a grin rise up. Keep blowing and soon the baby's nostrils will flare and she will begin to draw in deeper and deeper breaths. She will become more animated, baby will. And her spirit will brighten, even if it was already bright to begin with. So it was in Jerusalem. When the time was just right, when Jesus' followers were together wondering what might come next now that their risen Messiah had returned to be with his Father, God drew a loving breath and blew. Blew it into the nostrils of Peter and the rest. Did their eyelashes flutter, did they grin? I don't know. All I know is that after that holy breath, they ceased being who they'd been - a collection of believers. After God's heavenly, holy breath blew into their lives, they were completely transformed. From that moment on, they were the very Body of Christ, breathing the Spirit in, breathing it back out into the world in truth and love, just as they had experienced Christ doing while he was among them. In his marvelous new book Simply Christian, NT Wright devotes some attention to the Spirit and its relationship to us. He writes: "The Holy Spirit and the task of the church. The two walk together, hand in hand. We can't talk about them apart. Despite what you might think from some excitement in the previous generation about new spiritual experiences, God doesn't give people the Holy Spirit in order to let them enjoy the spiritual equivalent of a day at Disneyland. Of course, if you're downcast and gloomy, the fresh wind of God's Spirit can and often does give you a new perspective on everything, and above all grants a sense of God's presence, love, comfort, and even joy. But the point of the Spirit is to enable those who follow Jesus to [take his Good News into the world]." (Simply Christian, p. 122.) Listen just a little more, because what Wright shares next is essential! "Equally, the task of the church can't
be attempted without the Spirit. I have sometimes heard
Christian people talk as though God, having done what
he's done in Jesus, now wants us to do our part
by getting on with things under our own steam. But that
is a tragic misunderstanding. It leads to arrogance,
burnout, or both. Without God's Spirit, there
is nothing we can do that will count for God's
kingdom. Without God's Spirit, the church simply
can't be the church." (p. 122-123.) Just as Jesus was part of God's future arriving in the present (Wright's words), we are too, as the Spirit breathes into us. Because of Pentecost, now we are Christ's living presence. The Spirit comes bringing a bit of God's new creation--God's future--into our shared life so that we can do and say what Christ would be doing or saying were he standing here in our midst. As we do this, God's future becomes the world's present, the answer to our heart-felt prayer "on earth as it is in heaven." In his annual report to the Indiana-Kentucky Conference, Rev. Thom Webster reflected on our region's troubled response to last year's General Synod resolution calling for equality in marriage. Sometimes, Thom said, the United Church of Christ rushes to be faithful to its gift for being an "early church." (Early in calling for God's compassion and justice, that is). As happens when promising fruit is taken from the tree too soon, our rush sometimes doesn't allow for the ripening of an issue. It doesn't make room for the Spirit's wise timing, the Spirit's delivery of the future into the present, and so instead of the sweetness we might have hoped and longed for, sometimes we are left with small, bitter fruit. I'm grateful to Thom for lifting up what I have long felt is one of the church's central failings. And by church, I mean local churches, our associations and conferences, the denomination as a whole, as well as the church universal. As well-meaning as we are, we can be willful. We can be impatient. We can convince ourselves that we know best what needs to happen and when, rather than humbly taking our lead from the Spirit. This week-end delegates and visitors came to Annual Meeting holding our breath with respect to the four resolutions that we were being asked to consider. As I mentioned last week, taken together these resolutions had the power to deepen divisions in our Conference. Voting on any or all of them would certainly create winners and losers, which then would make us all losers. God has a future for this Conference that none of us can yet see. We may sense aspects of it, but we can't see its totality. This is why we needed the Spirit this week-end. We needed the Spirit to breathe itself into us as we deliberated and discerned. It's why we needed the Spirit's sweet air filling the lungs of our spirits, minds, and emotions. Because left to our own devices, agendas, and timetables, we could have done considerable maybe even irreparable damage to the Body of Christ. On Friday, there was an open forum to receive comments about the resolutions. It took courage to speak and it took work to listen, not simply because what folks had to say was challenging but because the Spirit was speaking as well. And listening to the Spirit takes effort, especially when it feels like something is at stake. Then yesterday morning, we assembled to vote. None of us knew what to expect. None of us knew whether we would walk away arm in arm or whether we would leave feeling it necessary to take up arms against those whose faith inspires opinions different from our own. As we gathered, the Spirit was there and held out its hand. Held out its hand and we took it, bless our faithful hearts. The Spirit led us in a new direction, one we had not considered until then. And that new direction was this: postpone indefinitely a vote on these resolutions until we can do the greater work that the Spirit is asking of us. The issue before us is not so much gay marriage as it is Biblical authority - in other words, how are we to think about and relate to God's holy word? The day before the church's birthday, delegates in Indianapolis celebrated a breathday. A day of breathing in the Spirit's wisdom, the Spirit's leading, the Spirit's caring companionship. We breathed God's Spirit in and let it create something new and unexpected in our midst, something we embraced with gratitude and gladness, even as we recognize that hurt and confusion still surround the issue of equality in marriage. That new something? A plan of action that would have local churches enter into study and discernment around Biblical authority, which can then inform our understanding of the issues and realities of our time. So yesterday, a breathday - a breath-of-fresh-air day. And now today our official breathday, Pentecost. Praise be to God for sending the Spirit's holy breath. Praise be for the life it makes possible, for the church it animates, and for the love it supplies so that we can breathe that love into a world so needful of what Christ would give. Amen. © Rev. Karen Winkel |
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