| May 23
- May 23, 2010
Today is the third biggest day on the Christian calendar. Behind Christmas, celebrating the birth of Christ and Easter, commemorating the resurrection of Christ. On Pentecost we observe the birth of the church and the gift of the Spirit -- when Jesus was dynamited all over the world! Even after the Ascension God says, “There’s more!” With God, there always is. After Pentecost, Jesus’ disciples had everything they needed to turn the world upside down! No money, or a nice parking lot, or even ordained leadership. But God’s own breath, his enlivening Spirit, the most elusive and least-typecast part of the Trinity. But the very soul of the Christian Church.
I thought it might be helpful to explain why Pentecost runs a distant third to Christmas and Easter. But I realized I don’t know why. Every year we enjoy Christmas pageants and Easter parades, but I’ve never seen a Pentecost card and don’t recall any restaurant advertising a “Pentecostal dinner.” There won’t be any long lines to contend with today. Some are content to just leave Pentecost to the Pentecostals, whose danger is not in getting into heaven, but going on past it! Or maybe it’s the nature of Pentecost. Unlike Christmas and Easter, which are about God doing things for us. Pentecost is about us doing things for God. And that’s not nearly so attractive in our hand-out society.
The color of Pentecost is fiery red, the language of Pentecost is foreign tongues, and the food is a birthday cake. We can also listen to stories from the scriptures about how this day came to be. The Bible says “fifty days after Easter,” God was experienced by Jesus’ followers in a startling new way. To that point they related to God through Jesus of Nazareth, as “the Word become flesh;” because he took the trouble to become one of them, in order that they may be more like him. But after his death, resurrection and ascension, God took another form; this time as Spirit. A little less concrete and lot more pervasive. And they were filled with it to the point of exuberance, that lifted them out of their confusion and disappointment over losing Jesus.
That the Spirit gave them clarity and direction is best seen in the difference in Simon Peter’s behavior before-and-after Pentecost. Earlier the big fisherman cowardly crumpled before the taunts of a slave maiden and fled into the safety of night-time. But after God infused them with his Spirit, the same guy was incredibly emboldened and wasn’t the least bit intimidated when he openly preached before thousands, challenging them to stand up to “the principalities and powers” of Jerusalem and Rome. With the interior confidence of God’s Spirit they left the locked doors behind to spread God’s light and warmth. Before Pentecost “their hearts were warmed;” now their “tongues were on fire!” The result was they were no longer afraid and defensive; or thinking of saving their own hide. This is the day they turned outward to share the Good News and got involved redemptively in the agonies of history. They shared “all things in common” and a depth of caring those on the outside could only marvel at.
I was thinking on the way to this worship, boy I could sure use some of what they had, couldn’t you? It seems like the world has gone insane. There’s so much even the experts can’t understand. The craziness of the events of our time has left a lot of people exhausted and confused, and not a little bit agitated and short-tempered. So many feel overwhelmed by unemployment, the inability or unwillingness as the case may be, to secure our borders, and all the divisiveness that comes from that. And then the accidents of industry, exposing our inability to bail out a month-long leak of crude oil, but then bailing out Europe! Who’s next? Record deficit spending that somebody’s gotta pay for. While Mother Nature strikes back, crises hit: volcanoes erupt; floods descend, and we’re dancing the night away on drugs?
Nah those early disciples have nothing on us! Who couldn’t use a good dose of Pentecost today? A little more light and a lot more warmth from God might be just the trick. How can we reach-out to others when every fiber of our being says “Pull inward; protect yourself.” How long can this go on? God’s surprising gift on Pentecost is precisely what the world needs now. But how do we participate in something that happened so long ago in our day?
The first thing that stands out to me in the Book of Acts is: it was not staged or a framed photo-op, or something accomplished by human beings. No politician made it happen. No cash could buy it. It wasn’t for sale. No media could spin it so that those in power they favored got the credit. Pentecost came from beyond this world; the Spirit lit on them from above. The “Spirit blows where it will and we don’t know where it came from, nor where it’s going.” That is, it’s out of our control, thank God! It was the product of the sole goodness of God. And like everything else God does, Jesus set the stage for it. For forty of those fifty dizzy days between Easter and Pentecost Jesus did this “showing-up and disappearing act” among his followers to prepare them for this. On his final appearance, from the Mount of Olives as he was ascending, he promised them that a new way of experiencing God would come upon them and left them with a single directive: “Go to Jerusalem and wait.” Jesus gave them the secret about how to meet God. He didn’t act like a football coach, stirring his disciples to action. Just a mild: “wait on the Lord.” I guess, next to letting go, waiting is the most difficult thing we can do.
As far as I can tell, there are two kinds of reality in the world. There are some things you have to work for (or at least we used to). And others you can only wait for. Will power can’t touch it; nor brilliance, nor effort; nor all the other secret manipulations we do to get our way to ensure that the world is run the way we like it. The sun came up today, no matter what we did yesterday. Spring arrives apart from any of our efforts. I always wanted to be as tall as my Daddy, so I could see better when I went to the picture-show! I used to measure my height and mark it on the bedroom wall. Scuttlebutt had it that you could grow taller if you “ate standing up,” I tried that. I did everything I could and still came up two inches short. I couldn’t will those last two inches. All I could do was wait and hope. Many more important things in life are like that. They come only by much prayer and waiting. Think of all the things we enjoy that are gifts to us, that came from outside ourselves: life itself, our families, our church, Easter.
Pentecost is like that, it came from God upon people who listened to Jesus and learned how to wait. In an activistic culture waiting is hard for us. I like to be pro-active and hate feeling trapped. Then life confronts us with some things about which you can’t be either proactive or reactive. Sometimes the hardest thing in the world is to do nothing. And that’s especially difficult when there’s nothing anybody can do, except wait, for the “fulness of time” to arrive, when purpose and power converge -- that makes creativity possible.
The early disciples struggled with this. Ten days between the Ascension and Pentecost, Simon Peter got restless ... waiting. In his impatience, he looked around and said “surely there’s something we can do besides pray! Judas is gone, that leaves only eleven. Can’t have that. We’ve got to do something about the vacancy.” So they “cast lots” and a guy named Matthias popped up! And that’s the last we hear of him. What Peter overlooked in his eagerness to force it was, God had “somebody else in mind,” named Saul of Tarsus. But at that time he wasn’t even a believer! The timing. Peter just didn’t have it in him -- to give time, time. And something that had to be waited-for was worked-for and predictably messed up!
How many times have we done this to ourselves? Pushed and shoved, trying to do on our own, what can only be waited-on from God? One pentecostal beatitude is, “Blessed are those who’ve learned how to wait.” But to wait in openness; not prescribing ahead of time how God has to do it. We can’t limit God’s gifts to us by our narrow experience or try to structure it to our liking. God came in the “strong wind and fire” and no one had ever seen anything like it. But because they were open and flexible they received the gift and proceeded to pass it on. Those who witnessed it thought they “tied one on!” The Greek intellectuals were offended by the out-of-control emotions; way too boistrous to suit their taste. They’d have missed it by a mile!
It would be like going to a flower show with the idea that “my eyes are the only judges.” It leaves out my nose to smell the fragrances; my touch of the velvety blossoms. Such self-imposed limitations diminish the many ways flowers could share their gifts. We see this a lot in church, limiting what God has to give us. The One who created all our senses has something to contribute through each one. The disciples didn’t make that mistake, even thought they were blown away by the shape it took. Nobody had ever seen anything like it, “wind and fire and racket!” Another beatitude: “Blessed are those who can trust the form of God’s gifts as well as the timing.” What God has for us may not be what we expect; or even what we think we need. But it’s ten times better to take what God gives us and adjust to it, than to demand that God adjust to our pitiful wisdom and what we want. I hate to think of all I’ve missed because my prejudices cut me off from an unexpected gift from above. And yes, even the painful ones. I hope we will be like the earliest Christians and not limit how God can come to us; and to recognize it when it comes and be open to whatever form it takes. To me, that’s church at its best; because it’s like the very first one.
On Pentecost we see God gifting the followers of Jesus and the stunning difference it made in their lives. The Good News to us is, what we need most, God is able to give. Now it’s up to us to accept it. It's Pentecost. Happy Birthday Church! 1977 years old today! As birthday presents for our church, after another good year of service, we offer a heart full of gratitude for the memory of the saints who have supported this local congregation for 372 years. Happy Birthday Church! And thanks be to God for The First Baptist Church in America!
Providence Prayers: Pentecost 2010 (5/23/10)
It is Thy gracious Spirit that gives us the wisdom to visualize commonality; the motivation to love different people, the determination to discern their needs and the will to serve in Jesus’ name. Breathe into this congregation a renewed joy for life, a new sense of purpose, and real desire to follow Thy guidance.
On this day we celebrate the historic birth of Thy Church. Let this church, like a city set upon a hill that cannot be hid, be a beacon of hope and a sign of life in an age that seems to kill the things it loves May it show us the determination to change what ought to be changed, faith to endure what cannot be ignored and the wisdom to accept the life we have been offered, instead of what we prefer it to be, and may this worship broaden our vision of it and deepen our faith in it. Through the Spirit of Christ we pray. Amen. Back |
