Sermon: It's in the Wind

          Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

          Think back to Genesis Chapter 11, where the people said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves".  And the Lord saw this, saying to Himself, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them."  Knowing that without one common language, the people would multiply and spread throughout the Earth, so God confused their language.  "[T]he Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city."

          Now, I was going to try that verse from the Psalm that I started with, to speak it in four languages.  That was rather a disaster of pronunciation, so I'll let you imagine. 

          Over time, people in many languages celebrated Pentecost – not as we do today, but rather as a combination of celebrations.  Shavuot, known as the Feast of Weeks in English, and Pentecost in Ancient Greek, was a week of weeks beginning at Passover and culminating in the celebration of the first harvest of wheat or what became the Celebration of First Fruits, where people brought their first fruits to the temple.   It was also a celebration of the time God gave the Torah to Moses and the people of Israel gathered at Mt. Sinai.  So Jews are gathered together from many nations at the Temple in Jerusalem.  As we hear in Acts, Jews and gentiles from Parthia – an area today of north eastern Iran, middle Persia, Khuzestan and Ilam Province as well as a small part of southern Iraq,  Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, Crete and Arabia.  Anyone walking through a modern metropolitan city today will hear a similar cacophony of languages. 

          And then Pentecost suddenly changes.  Christ had ascended to the Father the week before.  The disciples knew that they were to stay in Jerusalem, because the Advocate whom Christ had promised to send would be arriving soon.  Gathered together, having nothing but questions, and no answers, and not knowing what else they could do, they began to pray together.  (Close your eyes, and listen.)  One by one, they began to say together the Lord's prayer:  Father, hallowed be your name.  And the wind began to pick up, so they spoke a little louder, Your kingdom come, And around them, they could now feel the wind in the closed room with them.  They could hear the crackle of fire, well beyond what the sconces on the wall sounded like.  Peter spoke louder, leading them, Give us this day our daily bread, and almost shouting, the disciples spoke as one:  "And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us. And do not bring us to the time of trial.”

          The disciples' eyes opened, and they began praying and prophesying, and the ears of all around them heard their words in their native tongue.  The reversal of the story of the Tower of Babel began, as all understood either in their own language, or in a universal language that all who had ears to hear could understand.  And Peter reminded those standing there what the Prophet Joel had said, " 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."

          Can you imagine knowing that you stand in the presence of the Holy Spirit; you speak and tell people about Christ; you are utterly filled with the knowledge that you can share this with every person there.  You can tell them about Christ, about eternal salvation.  And thus, the Church was born this day!

          In case you haven't guessed, Pentecost is one of my very favorite holy days.  There are areas on the Earth that are rapidly growing, on fire with the love of Christ, baptizing people who want to be Christ followers, taking a week to be able to baptize every one of them!  They are filled with the Spirit, and they share that love of Christ with their families, friends, neighbors, or anyone they happen to meet. 

          Now at the same time, we are certainly seeing a rapid decline in church attendance in the United States and other "first world" countries, in belief, in the desire to fulfill our own baptismal covenant to share the Word of God and of Christ's love.  Many Christians want just enough religion to be comfortable, to be respected, to feel good about themselves, but not so much that it shakes up their routines and changes their way of living. Many Christians want the benefits of the Holy Spirit without having to experience much of the Spirit. So, many of us read about Pentecost and the power of the New Testament church and smile and then put it back on the shelf next to our favorite novels and DVDs and go back to our lives as usual. Such exuberance is kid stuff, the stuff of movies and myth. After all, you have to be careful with this kind of exuberance. And if there is one thing that many modern Christians are, it is careful.

          A colleague of mine was assigned to a new church. He was just out of seminary; on fire and excited about what God was calling him to do at his first church. It was an older church, but they had lots of young people moving into the area. He felt led to reach those young people and grow the church. So he decided to start a more modern, edgier worship service for the young people. He got a team of people together and made plans. Members of the church who were musicians volunteered to play. A bunch of instruments were donated. They set a start date and began publicizing it around the community. About a week or so before the very first service, my colleague found the donated equipment piled up outside his office. On top of the pile was a note from concerned members of the church. It said, "Dear Father: If you continue with this newfangled service, we will write the Bishop and tell him you are incompetent and not fit to serve our church." Well, he continued with the service. A year later, he was voted out of the church. We have to be careful with all this Pentecost business, don't we?

          He didn't like the direction the church was going. He felt it didn't have much life. It wasn't doing the things that a church ought to be doing. It wasn't praying enough and serving enough. It wasn't studying the Bible enough. So he, led by the Spirit, started all of these small groups in the church. Lo and behold, they started to catch on, got all fired up, started to change things and shake things up. And the leader of this group started to speak all across town. He lifted up the gospel and all these people listened to him and responded. They received Christ. He was the talk of the town. Well, his church was none too pleased with all this excitement and exuberance, with all this change. They got annoyed with this group in the church and their leader. So, what did the church do? They wouldn't allow him to speak in worship anymore. His name? John Wesley. The group? Methodist Episcopalians! We have to be careful with all of this Pentecost business, don't we?

          Because it's much easier running the church on our own, without being bothered by the Spirit, isn't it? I mean, a church can survive quite a while keeping the Spirit at bay. All we have to do is be organized, be nice, be civilized, be careful, find a good speaker to tell nice stories, play good music and we are on our way with being pleased with ourselves with all we can do with our church. Sure, there is only so much we can accomplish without the aid of the Spirit, but at least we look good. At least, we're in control.

          Ezekiel said in Chapter 37, "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord...I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live...and you shall know that I am Lord."  Open your heart, your ears, your mind to the Holy Spirit, all around us.  Because the implication is that God's Spirit, Breath, Wind--can put flesh on a skeleton and bring it to life--whether it's a nation or a church. 

          I heard about a church that was about to close its doors. It was old and tired. One day all these people starting coming to the church. It started to grow. I asked, "What happened?" And someone said, "It's in the wind."

          Let us pray. Loving Holy Spirit, make us aware and receptive to the unpredictable, uncontrollable gift of your creative Spirit that is closer to us than breath itself and that permeates and sustains the universe. Amen.