PENTECOST: A ‘HIGH HOLY DAY?’”
SCRIPTURE
Today is
Pentecost. It’s a festival day, a
holiday, meaning a high holy day in the life of the church. Pentecost – called by some the birthday of
the church. It is the day when we
remember and celebrate the long-awaited gift of the Holy Spirit, the one Jesus
promised the disciples would accompany them on their faith journey, reminding
the disciples of all that he had taught them and would continue to teach
them. The Holy Spirit, the Comforter,
would give the disciples the peace they needed in the face of challenge and
danger. The Holy Spirit, the Advocate,
the one who encourages and empowers the disciples, helping make possible what
seems impossible. The Holy Spirit, the gift of the One who draws people
together regardless of race, nationality, language, ethnicity, gender,
identity, and assures “that they may all be One,” one in Body and in Spirit,
helping us understand one another, have compassion for one another, and love
one another. Pentecost, the birthday of the Holy Spirit, is
the ongoing gift of God’s self to the disciples of long ago and to us as a
faith community today.
So, if this
is such an important day to remember and celebrate in the life of faith, why do
we tend to treat this day as any other regular Sunday in the life of church and
in our daily lives? I surely didn’t see
people flocking to get in the doors early this morning, just to be sure they
got a good seat for this service, like I see folks do on Easter and on Christmas
Eve, did you? I haven’t seen people
preparing for this holiday weeks in advance – decorating their homes or the
church, or engaging is special Pentecost festivities, have you? And, I have yet to receive or send out one
Pentecost card this year, have you? Granted,
I’m not sure Hallmark or the other card companies even print or publish
Pentecost cards! So, I have to ask
myself, why is Pentecost so overlooked by the church? Why is it an underrated holiday, holy day, in
the life of the mainline church? Do we
not cherish the gift of the Holy Spirit?
Do we not value the role the Holy Spirit plays in our lives and the life
of faith?
Maybe it’s
not that we don’t cherish and value the gift we have been given – maybe it’s that we are less sure about our
relationship to Spirit, and how we allow, even invite, Spirit to play an active
part in our lives and our life of faith.
Maybe we are a bit skeptical or even fearful of this third person of our
God. After all, we are upstanding UCCers,
who believe that “God is Still Speaking,” but heaven forbid that the Spirit of
the living God might move among us in worship in such “strange ways” as move
those who follow in the Pentecostal tradition.
We don’t want any waving of arms or speaking in tongues stuff here in
this church, right?
Yes Lord,
we do believe you are Still Speaking and by the power of your Holy Spirit you
move among us and through us to be the Body of Christ in the world. But, dear God, you better do it in an orderly
and upstanding fashion, and certainly in ways we can recognize and relate to,
please!
Heaven
forbid that the Holy Spirit move in us in such a way that it disrupts our well
thought-out and planned lives!
But isn’t
that just what the Holy Spirit does? The
Holy Spirit blows into our lives in such a way as to disrupt us. The Spirit may break free our attachment to
certain ideas, notions, and cherished perspectives. The Spirit may create shifts in our lives or
radically change our way of living. The
Spirit may uproot us, breaking us free from all that is familiar, but offer us
the freedom to receive a new life or way of life in places we didn’t expect,
and often surprising.
Such was
the case for Sara Miles. Some of you may
have caught her story on Friday evening as Bob Abernathy interviewed her for Religion and Ethics Newsweekly. Sara was a journalist, a serious
journalist. During the 1980’s she spent
a great deal of time in
Upon her
return to the
One day,
however, the Spirit blew into Sara’s life and changed her forever. Out of curiosity she ventured into this
church in
Sara,
curious about this ritual, decided to partake.
Sara said, “And then a woman put a piece of fresh bread in my hand and
gave me a goblet of some rather nasty, sweet wine. And I ate the bread and was completely
thunderstruck by what I felt happening to me.
So I stood there crying, completely unsure of what was happening to me. Got out of the church as quickly as I could
before some strange, creepy Christian would try to chat with me, and came back
the next week because I was hungry, and kept coming back and kept coming back
to take that bread.” She goes on to say,
“I think what I discovered in that moment when I put the bread in my mouth and
was so blown away by the reality of Jesus was that the requirement for faith
turned out not to be believing in a doctrine, or knowing how to behave in a
church, or being the right kind of person, or being raised correctly, or
repeating the rituals. The requirement for faith seemed to be hunger. It was the hunger that I had always had and
the willingness to be fed by something I didn't understand.”
Sara was
indeed fed by the Spirit and in turn she now feeds others in body and
soul. Sara, along with a whole host of
volunteers, now runs a church food pantry, collecting enough food to feed 500
families each week, offering anyone who comes through her doors the gift of
dignity, grace and food. By the Holy
Spirit, she has felt the call to nourish and nurture God’s people and her response
has changed her life in ways she can hardly fathom or forget.
This past
week I, along with some 1680 pastors, attended “The Festival of Homiletics,” a
preaching conference held annually in different parts of the country. There were many nationally known and
well-respected preachers invited to share with us in lecture and worship. Fred Craddock, a New Testament scholar and
preaching professor at Candler School of Theology, was
once asked, “Sir, what’s the greatest sin you ever committed?” His reply was this, “The greatest sin is to
be unresponsive to the Holy Spirit. Our
challenge and our call is to walk in the Spirit of the Living Lord’s
footsteps.” Being responsive to the Spirit means that we are willing to have
our lives named, claimed and shaped by God, however God may lead, guide and
direct us. It means saying yes to some
things and saying a clear no to others.
Living by the Spirit may mean we make sacrifices, but they are
sacrifices which may offer new life to others.
I am
blessedly aware of how many members in our own congregation live by the Holy
Spirit’s leading in their lives. Many of
you have had your lives disrupted and changed by the Spirit’s leading. One member, whose name I won’t mention, this
past year left a high-paying job in a well-known corporation to dedicate her
talents and gifts toward helping disadvantaged people acquire the skills and
resources they need to secure employment in the community. She and her family made significant changes
in their lifestyle to make that happen – choices and decisions which required
everyone’s participation and sacrifice.
I am aware
of how many of you are responsive to the Holy Spirit, giving of your time,
talents and resources to make a significant difference in the lives of people
locally, nationally and internationally.
Your generous response is faith in action and one that models a
different kind of Christianity to the world than what many people know. It’s a response born out of a love, grace,
mercy and justice, and one that is desperately needed in this world, as I am
keenly reminded daily.
Jim Wallis,
an evangelical preacher committed to social justice, was also at this
conference. He wrote the book, God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong
and the Left Doesn’t Get It, for which he was interviewed by Jon Stewart on
The Daily Show. After the interview, he received thousands of
e-mails. Many folks wrote to simply say,
“I didn’t know you could be a Christian and care about poverty, education or
the environment.” In numerous illustrations
Wallis pointed out that there is a growing hunger in this country for
spirituality and justice and that he feels it is incumbent upon us as people of
God to feed that hunger, to be responsive to the Spirit’s leading, and get
busy. And even the youngest among us are being responsive. Jim told the story of how an 8-year-old came
up to him after one of his sermons and thanked him. Surprised he asked her, “What did you hear
tonight that makes sense to you.” She
replied, “When you said that all these kids are dying everyday in our country
from poverty and it’s like a silent tsunami.
I thought to myself, if I’m a Christian, then I better do something
about it.”
The gift we
are given, the gift of the Holy Spirit, is one that can and will expand and
enrich our lives and the lives of others with God’s grace and love. The Spirit of the Living Lord brings
compassion, hope, justice and peace to all who are touched by its breath and
feel the flames of love burning within them.
But don’t be surprised if the wind and flame of the Spirit moves among
us as more than a nudge. Don’t be
surprised if the Spirit disrupts our lives, dislodging us from the privileges
and platforms on which we stand and moves us in new directions, taking us to
new perspectives, places and people, and giving us the opportunity to be molded
and shaped by the Still Speaking God.
But, we must be willing to commit to the Holy Spirit’s leading.
There is a
prayer from a man in
You asked for my hands that you
might use them for your purpose. I gave
them for a moment then withdrew them, for the work was hard.
You asked for my mouth to speak out
against injustice. I gave you a whisper
that I might not be accused.
You asked for my eyes to see the
pain of poverty. I closed them for I did
not want to see.
You asked for my life that you might
work through me. I gave a small part
that I might not be too involved.
Lord, forgive my calculated efforts
to serve you only when it is convenient for me to do so, only in the places
where it is safe to do so, and only with those who make it easy to do so.
Father, forgive me, renew me, send
me out as a usable instrument that I might take seriously the meaning of your
cross.
(Joe
Seramane,
Sermon
preached by Reverend Jane B. Anderson at First Congregational United Church of
Christ,