Sermon, Sunday, 31 May 2009 -- Pentecost Sunday

Acts 2:1-13

April in New England can be an iffy affair. Some in that section of our country joke that there are really only three seasons: summer, winter, and mud. April can be a part of that mud season with one day filled with spring sunshine and the warming of winter out of one’s bones while the next can bring a drop of many degrees and several inches of snow on the flowers doing their best to begin the growing process.

So it was in April 1934. There were some wonderful days of sunshine and then a terrible storm arose. Of course, on the tops of the White Mountain Range in New Hampshire, those changes in weather are only accentuated to the extremes. And the summit of Mt Washington, the tallest of the White Mountains and one of the highest on the eastern seaboard is no exception.

It was there, atop that treeless apex, that on April the 12th of 1934 that the fastest wind speed on earth was recorded, a measurement that stands to this day. Does anyone know what the speed of the wind was in that wild storm? There was a gust of 231 miles per hour.

Since that’s the fastest recorded wind speed, and because I sincerely doubt that anyone here today was there on top of Mt. Washington some 75 years ago, I imagine none of us have really experienced such high wind speeds. But who’s been in the midst of a hurricane? Or a wind storm sweeping across the plains? Or been atop a high, unprotected mountain in the midst of a storm.

I experienced the high winds of a hurricane while in seminary and those winds only got to 80 miles per hour or so. Still, from my dorm room window, we watched several of the tall pine trees on our campus lose their branches, one entire tree giving into the relentless pressure of those winds and toppling over. And those winds were only a quarter of those from the top of Mt. Washington back in 1934.

We’re told that on that day when the disciples gathered to celebrate the first Pentecost after Jesus’ death and resurrection, that besides the tongues of fire that appeared and the miraculous speaking in languages which everyone understood, there was a violent wind that rushed from heaven and filled the house in which they were gathered.

Let me be clear: this was not a puff...not a breeze...not a wafting zephyr. No, this was a VIOLENT wind. A wind that would knock your socks off, though I doubt they wore socks yet by this point in history.

In the original Greek, the word used here is biaios and it is not found elsewhere in the New Testament. The King James Version translates this word as ‘mighty’, but the translation of the word biaios is closer to forcible or violent, which is how the New Revised Standard Version translates it.

Too often we want to think of the Spirit as moving among us in those puffs and wafts and gentle zephyrs. Too often, we invite the Spirit into our midst and expect a breeze to blow through; nothing too strong or anything that would disturb our carefully coiffed theological stances. Our prayers often seek a kinder, gentler Spirit to blow around us.

But that’s not the Biblical precedent. If we are to read the Pentecost story and believe that nothing has changed since then, we should expect major, mighty, violent wind to accompany the Spirit. It’s not a wind that we can control like an oscillating fan in a too warm bedroom. It blows where it will and as strong as it will. And we’d just better be prepared for it not only to undo our tightly curled, perfectly in place hairstyle that we call church, but to blow us right along with it to places we may not want to go. This violent, forcible Spirit will move us and shake up everything we think is already right in place, and just where it should be.

I’ve been on the top of Mt. Washington. (Don’t think I got too athletic and hiked up or anything--there’s a road and a van that takes you there.) Like the top of most high, unprotected mountains, it is a very windy place, even on the best of days. I have a feeling though those winds, and the winds of that hurricane I experienced, are nothing to what God has in store for us when the Spirit is unleashed among us.

Photo of the Pentecost Dome at Basilica San Marco, Venezia, Italia; photographer unknown

14 December 2008

Advent Table at Chalice

Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; Psalm 126; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28

When I probably was about high school age, I was with my Mother at a small, local shopping center. We were walking from the parking lot to the sidewalk that ran along in front of the stores. I have no idea now of what came over me, but I broke out into a run and leapt over a low, backless bench that was firmly rooted in the concrete on the sidewalk. Well, I should say, I attempted to leap over the bench because I misjudged and, splat, went flat out onto the sidewalk. Mom, quickly figuring out that I wasn’t really hurt anywhere, laughed a bit as she picked up the heap on the sidewalk that was her second son.

I’m sure she laughed because it must have been quite a spectacle, because, you see, I was not the most coordinated of people, then or now. I was…am…always tripping over things or bumping into things or otherwise performing unintentional slapstick humor. I was no good at athletics, always the last chosen in gym class. The gift of athleticism was given to my sister and two brothers, but not me. They were the ones who could throw, kick, or hit balls and run gracefully while I stumbled my way through life. I do think that there were times they would all, all five of them including my parents, look at me and wonder just how I got in the family. The athletic-capability entrance exam must have been waived when I came along.

Of course, some 30-plus years later, I’ve gotten somewhat used to it by now. I don’t fall as often mostly because I’ve stopped trying to jump over shopping center benches. I’ve learned some tricks along the way that help me to stay upright and in one piece. But the truth is I was, am and evermore shall be a klutz. And that’s okay.

But what doesn’t seem okay to me is my also ongoing spiritual klutziness. Spiritually, my world is filled with oughts and shoulds. I should read the Bible more than just for sermon preparation. I ought to be looking for God in the faces of people I see. I should pray more. I should. I ought. I should. Those shoulds and oughts plague me. And I feel like a spiritual klutz most of the time, tripping and stumbling my way through faith like a bad Chevy Chase imitation of Gerald Ford.

And then I get to the readings we had for today and I really feel like the faith family outsider. Yeah, I know that these readings are uplifting and joy-filled, but when I really look at them, I have to start to wonder where I fit in.

Take the Isaiah passage for instance. These words, which Jesus himself used to proclaim the start of his own ministry, cause me to look at myself and ask some question. I haven’t done that much good news bringing to the oppressed lately. I haven’t even talked to any prisoners or captives, none-the-less proclaimed liberty and freedom to them.

The Psalm wasn’t much help either. Sure I’ve done my share of sowing in tears in my time, but I think I’ve missed out on the reaping with shouts of joy somehow.

And Thessalonians…yikes! Pray without ceasing? Giving thanks in all circumstances? Holding fast to what is good? I consider myself lucky if I touch something good, without thinking about holding on. But those ‘without ceasing’ and ‘in all circumstances’ phrases really make me uncomfortable when I’m judging my spiritual self. More klutziness!

These scriptures pull out the measuring stick, stand me against the wall, and mark my spiritual height. And sometimes it looks like I’m shrinking rather than growing, using their yardstick.

But then I get to read John’s gospel. And in those first few verses of the passage which we heard today, in which John’s poetic writing reminds me about John the Baptist I find the comfort I need in my spiritual klutziness. John the Baptist wasn’t the light, I’m reminded. John testified to the light. John indicated the light. John pointed to the light. And I remember, in the midst of my faith trips, stumbles, and false starts, that I don’t have to light up the world myself. All I have to do is point.

I may be the worst spiritual mess on the face of the living earth at any given point in time, but I can usually still point. I can point to the light and say, “there it is, go get it.” And sometimes, I admit, that’s the most I can do for myself or for anyone else.

As these lectionary lessons for today percolated in my head over the past week, I was really drawn to the image of the light. I was preparing for all sorts of clever ways to talk about light, riffing on those couple of verses from John. For instance, we’re approaching the Northern Hemisphere’s winter solstice, when daylight becomes more and more scarce and thus precious. We’re celebrating Advent, in which we gradually increase the light in our world by lighting one more candle than we did last week. I knew we’d be discussing the Magi in our worship today and thought about how they relied on a light in the midst of darkness to guide them. All these ideas were tumbling about in my head.

But then I read something in preparation for our gathering last Tuesday on Handel’s Messiah. What I was reading was actually about another light-filled scripture, the one about “arise, shine for thy light has come,” but it seems just as valid here in the glow of John’s verses. I realized how light is so very important throughout our scriptures. Light is there at the very beginning in Genesis. It is the first thing created, in verse 3 of chapter 1. And light is at the end as the last chapter of the final book of our Bible, Revelation, proclaims, “And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.”(22:5 NRSV) Throughout the Bible, in the Psalms, the prophets, and the epistles, light is used over and over again to help us understand God in some small way.

And, if you’ll notice, the light that is referred to is different from the sources of light that we know. In Genesis, God created light first off but didn’t get around to creating the sun, the moon, and the stars for a few more days. There’s a difference between them, you see. Even in the Revelation passage, God’s light shines separately from and over and above any other kinds of light. Those lights simply cannot compete with the divine light that has shone so brightly since before the beginning of time and came to earth in Jesus’ radiance.

So in the glow of the divine, I don’t really have to worry about my spiritual klutziness anymore. I can point. I can seek the light of which John wrote and be guided by it, be drawn to it, show it to others who live in the shadows. It’s really very simple when it comes down to it. Those other things…proclaiming release, and bringing good news, and praying without ceasing and the other things that make me feel spiritually uncoordinated…they will happen in and due to the pointing that I can do. Finding God’s light and letting it shine in your life is release and liberty; it is reaping with shouts of joy even when the seeds of tears are all too well remembered; it is lifting out of oppression the forgotten and broken ones of our world; it is rebuilding the shattered and broken foundations of our faith walls.

Advent is our time of expectancy of Christ’s coming and John reminds us that this coming, in this wonderful birth we wait for, is a shining in the darkness; in the darkness of night in an insignificant corner of a world far from us in time and geography, and in the gloom of humanity’s faith story. In your Advent preparations, as the December sunlight does become more rare and as a star over a manger rises higher in the east in the skies of our imaginations, seek that light that brings life and peace and righteousness to our world.