Feast of Pentecost

The Day of Pentecost – Year B (RCL) 2009
Ezekiel 37: 1 – 14; Psalm 104: 25 – 35, 37b; Acts 2: 1 – 21, John 15: 26 – 27, 16: 4b – 15
St. Stephen’s Episcopal Parish, Portland, OR
Sunday, May 31, 2009

BREATH OF GOD – LIFE FOR THE WORLD

Let us Pray: Spirit of truth breath upon us this Pentecost day and always. May your Spirit break into the rooms we shut ourselves up within and set us free. Help us to claim the truth which is plainly spoken – even if not in the language with which we are comfortable. On this birthday of your Church, may we hear the voice of your Holy and life giving Spirit as it speaks in the mouths of all who believe and proclaims your Good News of hope and salvation. Fire us up to live out the gifts given to each of us according to our needs. Send forth your Spirit and we are created and you shall renew the face of the earth. Amen.

(SUNG) BREATHE ON ME BREATH OF GOD
FILL ME WITH LIFE ANEW
THAT I MIGHT KNOW WHAT THOU DOST KNOW
AND DO WHAT THOU WOULD’ST DO.

Today is the feast of Pentecost which is, actually, a festival feast carried over from our religious roots in the people of Hebrews and celebrated fifty days after the Passover feast. The origin of the word “pentecost” is acutally the Greek meaning “the fiftieth day” and commemorated the Hebrew feast of “weeks” when the first fruits of the corn harvest were presented. In our Christian story as told by the author of Luke/Acts it is the day of Pentecost and the twelve (with Bartholomew having been freshly added to their ranks) are gathered once again in what is possibly the same “upper room” where Jesus had made several post resurecction appearances. This day, however, they are not expecting to see Jesus in their midst as these events take place after the Ascension which had been narrated in the previous Chapter. Here they are once again. Their teacher and mentor has given all that was possible to give and then gone ahead of them. A promise was left, however, as we hear in the Author of John’s account of the Good News – that “an Advocate” as the word is translated in the New Revised Standard Version would be sent. That word is the Greek “paracletos” and is often translated in our english texts as “paraclete” or “comforter”. The promise was that a force or guide would be among them as their continuing teacher and support in the absence of the Christ. That force is encountered on this festal day as “…a sound like the rush of a violent wind”, and “…divided tongues, as of fire” which are used to describe the physical manifestation of the Holy Spirit who is credited on this day as giving birth to the Church.

(SUNG) BREATHE ON ME, BREATH OF GOD
UNTIL MY HEART IS PURE,
UNTIL WITH THEE I WILL ONE WILL,
TO DO AND TO ENDURE.

This first Christian scripture description of the coming of God’s Holy Spirit taken from the Author of Luke/Acts account is a truly Jewish phenomenon. The twelve, hearing from heaven the sound like the rush of a violent wind which fills the entire house where they were sitting – then experience divided tongues, as of fire appearing among them and resting on each of them. The only possible thought in my brain at that moment would have been, “drop and roll” from my days in elementary school when that was the advice if one happened to find ones self on fire. However, in this midst of this wind and fire and Spirit – the gift of speech in languages other than their own as the Spirit gave them the ability – is displayed. Here we are told that there were “devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem”, who were astonished at these Galileans who suddenly were speaking in languages which they would have had absolutely no exposure to – and making sense apparently. All who spoke the many and myriad languages then represented in the known world – heard the message being preached on that day in their native language by these back water fisherman from that God forsaken area in the hicks called Galilee. What in God’s world is going on? Then the head Galilean begins to preach and preach he does, calling on the voice of the Prophet Joel to fortify their devout Jewish minds and remind them that “in these 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.” Note that at this point in the story of the developing group of followers there is no hint that the message of Jesus is to be shared with the gentiles. However, if we look into the text – both Peter’s words and the words of the Hebrew prophet Joel – the all inclusive and always expansive Gospel – will make it known that there are no boundaries to God’s Holy Spirit….even upon slaves, both men and women! The Good News will not lay hidden long in the confines of the people of Israel.

Here’s the thing, though, when the Holy Spirit breaks in – She is very difficult to contain! I use the feminine pronoun there very definitely. I do not mean to restrict God’s Holy Spirit to a specific gender – either female or male – rather I wish to shock you, my listeners, into hearing the power of this message new, fresh and different than we may have experienced it previously, because I want us all to realize that Pentecost happens anew each time we experience the story. God’s Holy and Life Giving Spirit is not contained to the walls of this Church, nor is the message of new life in that Spirit meant to be heard by our ears only. The eternal temptation of religious people and religious institutions is to lock God up and keep God out of the present where God can be a downright dangerous threat to our way of doing things. Churches often are tempted to encapsulate God in our customs and traditions. Some very good and pious folks are tempted to confine the Divine to a space between the first page of Genesis and the last page of Revelation. We tend to want to stuff God into the limits of what we have known, as if God can be fenced by the parameters of our experience. We formalize and regulate, institutionalize and theologize, and in the end, if we don't watch out, we create "perfectly respectable" religion, precise, predictable, familiar, comfortable, lovely and graceful even, but scared to death of anything as unpredictable and unregulated as the Holy Spirit.

I, like all of us, have come to love the way we do church here at St. Stephen’s. I love the laid-back committees, the thoughtful and inclusive mission statement, even the tightly-scripted Annual Meeting. I love the structure and formal dignity of our worship, the intimacy of our Lady Chapel and the pomp and dignity of our processional cross and smoking incense. I love the services of Holy Week. Let's face it, we're a traditional liturgical (leaning on the “high” side) kind of church. And that's OK. But our challenge, is to dance our great old traditional liturgical dance with Spirit, to dance liturgical church fresh, to dance it with life and passion and vision. Not necessarily with some new and outlandish dance. No, we can awaken our own hearts and the hearts of those whom we welcome as the Christ in our midst with a good old traditional liturgical dance, but done with Spirit and a few new steps. This challenge has challenged our Church with each new revelation of the Holy Spirit that our General Convention has heard in the past 50 years since the great and influential liturgical renewal movement swept through our Church and through the Church of our sisters and brothers in the Roman tradition. Through the invitation that the Episcopal Church Welcomes You – whoever you are; black or white, female priest or male altar guild, Rite I eight o’clocker or Jazz Mass ecumenist – you have a place at God’s Holy Table.

And that is just the challenge always before the church, before the whole Christian Church in general, before the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, and before St. Stephen’s Episcopal Parish in downtown Portland, OR. It's the challenge before our baptised members, vestries, search committees, convention delegates, deacons priests and bishops: to dance the old steps in a way that that is so fresh and spirited that some will rejoice and others will want to silence our son’s and daughters who are prophesing, our young men who are seeing visions and our old women who are dreaming dreams. On this Pentecost day we dare to pray "Come, Holy Spirit." We pray that God will break out of the confines of the past and be alive in this very moment. We pray that God’s Holy and life giving Spirit will transform our well-loved routine. We pray that same Spirit will coach us to dance the set steps and familiar movements afresh and anew.

(SUNG) BREATHE ON ME BREATH OF GOD,
BLEND ALL MY SOUL WITH THINE,
UNTIL THIS EARTHLY PART OF ME
GLOWS WITH THY FIRE DIVINE

But, should our Pentecost prayers for God’s Holy Spirit actually be answered, be prepared, I warn you, be prepared. Sometimes we'll want to listen with baited breath and dance with pure abandon, and sometimes we'll want to pull the plug before it's too late. In the name of the creating Father and of the redeeming Son and of the sustaining Holy Spirit, especially today, the Holy Spirit. Amen.