food4fifty: "You call from tomorrow, you break ancient schemes..." (sermon for Pentecost Sunday, May 31, 2020)

Opening Thoughts About Pentecost Sunday

In recent times Pentecost and Pentecostal experience have come to refer to the experience of a particular stream of the universal church, and a particular kind of spiritual experience. What’s lost in that particularity is the fullness of how holy Spirit is experienced and expressed in many different ways, by all kinds of people.

In our Creed say we believe in God “who works in and others by the Spirit.” In this we mean God’s Spirit has as many faces and as many ways of acting in and upon the world as there are people into whom God’s life is breathed, each of us living with our own experience, gifts, image and fire of God within us.

Today we reflect on the holy spirit that dwells within us, feel it stirring, and feel gratitude for it.

Reading: The Coming of the Spirit (Acts 2:1-36 Good News Translation)

When the day of Pentecost came, all the believers were gathered together in one place. ²Suddenly there was a noise from the sky which sounded like a strong wind blowing, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. ³Then they saw what looked like tongues of fire which spread out and touched each person there. ⁴They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to talk in other languages, as the Spirit enabled them to speak.

⁵There were Jews living in Jerusalem, religious people who had come from every country in the world. ⁶When they heard this noise, a large crowd gathered. They were all excited, because all of them heard the believers talking in their own languages. ⁷In amazement and wonder they exclaimed, “These people who are talking like this are Galileans! ⁸How is it, then, that all of us hear them speaking in our own native languages... about the great things that God has done!” ¹²Amazed and confused, they kept asking each other, “What does this mean?” ¹³But others made fun of the believers, saying, “These people are drunk!”

¹⁴Then Peter stood up with the other eleven apostles and in a loud voice began to speak to the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, listen to me and let me tell you what this means. ¹⁵These people are not drunk, as you suppose; it is only nine o'clock in the morning. ¹⁶Instead, this is what the prophet Joel spoke about:

¹⁷‘This is what I will do in the last days, God says:
    I will pour out my Spirit on everyone.
Your sons and daughters will proclaim my message;
    your young men will see visions, and your old men will have dreams. ¹⁸Yes, even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will proclaim my message. ¹⁹I will perform miracles in the sky above
    and wonders on the earth below.
There will be blood, fire, and thick smoke; ²⁰    the sun will be darkened, and the moon will turn red as blood,
    before the great and glorious Day of the Lord comes. ²¹And then, whoever calls out to the Lord for help will be saved.’

²²“Listen to these words, fellow Israelites! Jesus of Nazareth was a man whose divine authority was clearly proven to you by all the miracles and wonders which God performed through him. You yourselves know this, for it happened here among you. ²³In accordance with God’s own way, Jesus was handed over to you; and you killed him by letting sinful men crucify him. ²⁴But God raised him from death, setting him free from its power, because it was impossible that death should hold him prisoner…

³²God has raised this very Jesus from death, and we are all witnesses to this fact. ³³He has been raised to the right side of God, his Father, and has received from him the Holy Spirit, as he had promised. What you now see and hear is his gift that he has poured out on us…

³⁶“Listen to this, then: Jesus, the crucified one, is the one God has made Lord and Messiah!”

Pastoral Reflection

What is Pentecost this year, and for us? What good news does the story of this day have for us in a time of pandemic – when much of the world is shut down, we’re both looking forward to and fearful of re-opening, there’s a lot we can see now that was terribly wrong in the old normal, and we wonder what the new normal will be?

Linda McEneny has made a wonderful Pentecost image for our sanctuary this year.

It’s a kind of statue of cut-outs of people in black silhouette holding hands in a circle, dancing around a bright orange and red crepe paper flame in the middle of their circle that burns large and high above them.

And I have to admit the first thing that came to mind for when I saw a picture of it, was a scene near the end of William Golding’s classic tale, The Lord of the Flies. The story is of a bunch of well-heeled English schoolboys alone on an unknown island somewhere in the ocean. The plane they were on for a school trip has crashed there. The adults have died in the crash, and now the boys must fend for themselves in the jungle.

They begin civilized enough. But with external restraints gone, they soon descend step by step into suspicion and mistrust of one another; into jealousy, fear, power struggles and tribalism between them; eventually into violence, warfare and murder. The marks of humane society fall away, and near the end we see one group in particular finding its power and its unity in a wild, naked, orgiastic night-time dance around a raging bonfire, opening themselves to vast range of darker spirits that humanity is so easily and so often susceptible to.

I think of Don McLean and his song, “American Pie”:

And as the flames climbed high into the night

To light the sacrificial rite

I saw Satan laughing with delight

The day the music died…

Is that, however, the only option for us and for the world in this time of dislocation and change? Is fire only and always just the devil’s only friend? Are the flames of destruction and death the only ones for us to dance around? Is the orgiastic chant of self-defence and self-serving the only song for us to sing and dance to in the world?

Or is there also still another flame – the flame of God’s love that first brought all things to life, and has sustained them through all time?

A light that shines not just in, but also against the darkness for the healing and well-being of all? A glow that brings warmth and nurture, not fear to all God’s creatures? A Pentecostal spark of hope and joy not just in a chosen few, but in all the world?

Is there still a holy fire of love and life that comes to us from beyond our present distress, because it is deeply embedded within all the world and in our own bones, just waiting to be stirred, awakened, and set free?

The end and collapse of an old order is the context of Pentecost and of openness to that eternal flame, both in the Book of Acts and today.

In Acts in first-century Palestine, when Rome and Jerusalem condemned Jesus to death as a problem they could not tolerate, and God immediately affirmed him as messiah by his resurrection from death an d his ascension to the heavens, the bankruptcy and the eventual end of the old normal of Rome and Jerusalem was obvious to all who knew and followed Jesus.

Things could not continue as before. Blind resistance to the way and will of God for all the Earth could not last.

But, what would take its place? Would the new normal be better, more self-giving, more life-sustaining, more healing and holy, more in tune with God’s desire for the wholeness and healing of all the world?

It was in that time of transition – of collapse and re-creation – that the followers of Jesus were opened to, and caught up in the Spirit of God with a message for all the world around them.

And isn’t that where we are today? With the problems and flaws of the old normal suddenly so clear and obvious to all? And all the world – all humanity, wondering together in a wonderfully opened way what the new normal will be?

Yes, there will be elements of fear and greed. There will be jealousies, suspicion and tribal sentiments. There will be violence, warfare and murder. Humanity is easily and often susceptible to the darker spirits.

But in this in-between time, do we also see a different light and a different truth? Feel a different spirit gathering new strength? Can we see and even feel within ourselves the sparks and the glowing of a different, more holy fire? Can we learn to dance together in new ways with others for the well-being of all? Can we learn to sing together across boundaries, distance and differences in the key of life – join in the song of all people, of all creatures, of Earth itself set free from at least some of the sins of the old normal to give praise to God?

Give some time to this question:

In the last two months, what have you seen happening in your life, in life of your community, or the life of the world that seems good and right and meant to be, and that you hope and pray will remain as part of the new normal once we start to move beyond the pandemic?

Hymn VU 375: “Spirit, Spirit of Gentleness” (Let the words of this hymn help you remember and be opened to the eternal presence and purpose of God in the world)