A CHURCH IS BORN
Acts 2:1-18
Ezekiel 37:1-10
Rev. Gary Paterson
May 31, 2009
Pentecost Sunday
Pentecost Sunday – such an important day in the life of the church; right up there after Christmas and Easter; celebrating the gift of the Spirit; I get to wear my red socks and paint my thumbnails bright red. “And, yes,” I answered to someone who was thinking about joining the church, “we’ll be having our Joining Sunday on Pentecost.” “And that would be when? Or rather, what?” And I recognized that once again I had slid into “churchese”, throwing around language that too often doesn’t connect with people’s real lives. Pentecost—what’s Pentecost? In truth, I don’t remember talking much about it when I was growing up in the church. Is it something we just discovered? And by the way, what’s with the red socks and nails?
I realiced that probably most of us could use a quick refresher course in Pentecost. Like, at a literal level, it only means “fifty.” As in fifty days after Easter; just do the countdown, and you arrive at… Pente-five- fiftieth-cost-day. As Luke describes it in his gospel chronology – forty days of various appearances after Easter, with the Ascension, Jesus going to heaven marking the end of that period, followed then by a ten day wait until the Spirit was given to the disciples.
Interestingly enough there was also an important Jewish holy day on that same date… fifty days after Passover, the Jews were instructed to celebrate the Feast of First Fruits. It was like the classic Thanksgiving festival – gratitude for the first harvesting of the spring wheat, some fifty days after planting. Giving thanks to God for the stuff of life, for the crops, food, our daily bread, all that’s needed to sustain life. So partly, Pentecost is an opportunity to do just that… give thanks; recognize the sheer holiness of just being here, alive… and nourished.
But this Festival had a twist that catches you by surprise. Because after giving thanks at the Temple, you were to go home for the great feast… roast lamb no doubt instead of turkey – gathering family and friends around, and then, according to the commandments, you were to gather in your servants, your slaves, the foreigners, the widows and the orphans… all those who live on the edges, with limited resources. The feast was for everyone, a lived experience of what it might be like to live together where everyone is welcome at the table, where there is ample and enough for everyone. That’s something worth remembering… and celebrating… and maybe emulating. Thanks be to God for the dream.
In typical religious fashion, this Harvest Festival was expanded to include an opportunity to give further thanks, this time for the gift of Torah, of the Law, the commandments. Hence all the wind and fire imagery…. You remember Charlton Heston and the Ten Commandments, or “The Prince of Egypt”, on the top of Mt. Sinaie, with Moses receiving the Tablets of the Law… lighting flashes, earthquakes, tornado; red, orange, cutting through the dark smoke. Invited to give thanks for the framework of our lives, the structures, values, ethics that give shape to life, that offer directions in the journey to a good life… a framework that hallows the ethical and moral centre of our being and our society. So…first, thanks for the stuff; and, now, thanks for revealing a map for the journey… no; perhaps better, a path to follow, a way of living rooted in love and holiness.
And then, in typical religious fashion, this Celebration of Harvest and Torah was expanded to include an opportunity to give further thanks – this time for the gift of the Spirit. The story we heard with the children’s help… how the disciples, now a group of 120 people, were gathered… maybe for worship, who knows… and suddenly they felt it… a presence, an energy that filled them with hope, with a recognition and conviction that the energy they had known in Jesus… through his teaching, presence, his own way of being… well, that energy was with them, right now, filling them with joy, passion, an embracing of the world. “Like a great wind suddenly sweeping through the city, through the room,” that’s how they described it; “like tongues of fire dancing over our heads, on fire, all fired up,” they said; “And it was clear,” they said, “that this Spirit was embracing everyone… clear as a bell it seemed, those words from the past, from the prophet Joel, “…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.’” Almost sounds like the Harvest Festival of First Fruits, like that big Thanksgiving Feast where everybody gets an invite. An inclusive vision, that right from the beginning, said Luke, made sense in fourteen different languages. Talk about a multicultural, intercultural symbolic statement on day one; when you proclaim that God so loved the world, you really have to mean everyone, even if their ways are as different as speaking Phrygia.
I like Pentecost, the music, the permission for minor chaos in the worship; new banners… the blue heron… but get this… churches that celebrate Pentecost… like us… they don’t usually want to be called Pentecostal… now, do they? And those churches that pride themselves on being called Pentecostal don’t usually waste any time celebrating Pentecost. At least that’s what I heard. And I know the first half to be true. That we don’t really want to be called Pentecostal. Carries a lot of baggage, that word; has become associated, with a particular style of modern worship… lively singing; intense, emotional preaching; enthusiastic congregational response, and, often, ecstatic behaviour, like speaking in tongues. I was talking to a recent member of the congregation… he was lifting his hands in praise as we sang our hymns; and a older member leaned over, and kindly whispered, “We don’t do that here.” A gesture of kindness, just sharing the hidden norms, helping someone belong; or maybe a wistful explanation, more a “We don’t do that here, but I sort of wish we did.”
I wonder sometimes whether our hesitation to claim the descriptor “Pentecostal” arises from a deeper concern… maybe our own concern to keep a control on things. To make sure that we arrive more-or-less where we expected to land. Not many surprises, not getting out of control. Perhaps not being too open, too vulnerable. I’m reminded of a story from one of Margaret Lawrence’s novels… a young girl, Presbyterian family background, now a member of the United Church; invited by a friend to a tent meeting, a Pentecostal Revival Service. The whole nine yards, including slaying in the Spirit. Suddenly a voice is heard screaming ecstatically in tongues… who, she wonders, while, with another part of her mind she is realizing with horror, that it is herself that’s letting loose. As I said, the fear of losing control; very sensible fear I sometimes feel.
Except, there’s Pentecost… which seems to keep happening, over and over; just as you think you have nothing left; just as you feel that nothing, especially the church, is ever going to change… something happens; the Spirit moves again, I would say, coming like wind to Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones …”Will these bones Live? Will my bones live? “ A”Ah,” says God, I will blow my spriit into them, and they shall live.”
So maybe everytime we open up, become vulnerable to the Spirit, trusting that God is gracious –maybe that’s when we are pentecostal – in our own way, in our own language, “Come, Holy Spirit! We need you, we are empty without you; come like wind and fire, tornado and lighting flash, like breeze and candle; fill us with new life.” Maybe when we are open to change, hey, even to transformation (really?)… ready to risk a little of control – maybe that’s when we are Pentecostal.
I think we’re in real danger of becoming Pentecostal here at St. Andrew’s-Wesley; well, frankly, I think it’s a done deal. Open the door a crack and the wind is going to push it further. As you know, last weekend I was at the Annual General meeting for our BC United Church Conference. A great chance, among many things, to hobnob with old acquaintances and friends. Lots of conversations started like this, “How’s it going? I hear great things are happening down at St. Andrew’s-Wesley… hey, isn’t this the year you’re having a significant birthday… thinking of retiring early?” And that’s often when I jump right in with… well, perhaps it might sound like praise of this congregation… but it feels more like witnessing… Pentecostal witnessing. Saying, “St. A/W’s such an exciting congregation… something’s happening there; and I have no intention of retiring.” Well, no I didn’t mean forever… relax. But you know what I mean.
Think about last night’s concert… a grand fund-raiser for Cottage Farm, a recovery home rooted in respect and dignity for those who live with serious mental illness. As the repeating line of one song proclaimed, “If I told what I really needed, whould your spirit say “Yes!”? And the church full, a thousand people strong, and the Spirit moving through the haunting music of lamention and hope, touching and breaking our hearts, the Spirit moving us from shadow into light, into a new compassion. Thanks be to God.
I think about last Wednesday, when the Buddhist Mindfulness and Christain Prayer groplp came to an end, and the thirty odd folk who had been involved for the past six weeks, decided to keep on with meetings, at least once a month, and even during the summer. And then I think of the folk walking the Labryinth every month; or the forty odd people who have signed up to explore Yoga as a spiritual practice, starting this Thursday… there’s a hunger out there. A hunger that can only be satisfied when the connection happens; when we discover ways of opening us up to the Breath… the Spirit.
Or last Sunday… I wasn’t here, but I’ve heard several times, how this community embraced Roger in love; holding, listening… praying for him, with him, as he grieves Elgin’s death; all of us grieving, together. Hearing from Roger how the service of worship and friends touched him, helped him… surely this too is the work of the Spirit.
Or a couple of months ago… “The Word Is Out!” group, for GLBT people and friends, had engaged in a on-going discussion about Sexuality and Spirituality. Somewhere along the way, however, someone finally raised the lurking question, “So then, after all is said, what gets done? How does my faith connect with the nitty-gritty of my sex life?” I imagine a long pause… maybe not; but what a spiritual concept, that one’s faith will inform one’s sexuality. Sounds Pentecostal – but different; what emerges from the movement of the Spirit is not tight legal boundaries, but a recognition that everyone gets an invite to the Thanksgiving Feast; no exceptions.
Or I savour today, when our children led us in worship, helping us hear the story in a new way. I am moved by the women and men who will be received as members today; knowing our deep human need to keep asking questions of meaning, our hunger for purpose, community, the presence of Spirit.
I could go on… and so could you. But how many moments of Spirit encounter need to be named before we realize that St. Andrew’s-Wesley has gone Pentecostal. But here’s a final thought… when you look for the signs of the Spirit’s movement, be attentive, alert; just take it for granted that your are going to be surprised. For instance, take another look at the hanging on the communion table where Mae Runions has envisioned the Spirit in the broad wing-flapping of the Great Blue Heron arising out of the waters of Burrard Inlet and Fraser River. Great blue wings filled with mystery and majesty. O come Holy Spirit, come. Come to each of us, come to this church; come.