DAY OF PENTECOST (and Baptism of Kaitlyn May Dunn & Aden James Dunn)
SERMON PREACHED AT CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, NORWAY, MAINE
THE REV. ANNE G. STANLEY
31 MAY 2009
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Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 104:25-35, 37; Acts 2:1-21; John 15:26,7; 16:4b-15
Today is a Sunday for Baptisms, so we say the Apostles’ Creed. But most Sundays we say the Nicene Creed, in which we acknowledge God, creator of all things, seen and unseen. Things seen, things unseen.
There’s a lot about our faith and our religion that we can see, isn’t there? That we can see and hear and touch. Even right in here. The pulpit, the vestments we wear, candles, bread, wine, the prayer book, the hymns, the water of Baptism.
And once upon a time, people could see Jesus.
There’s a lot about our faith that is unseen, too. The things that work inside us. The mysteries of God. The Holy Spirit. On that first Day of Pentecost, the disciples experience the Spirit as like a wind, like flames of fire. Evidence of the Spirit, but not the Spirit seen.
Things seen and unseen: our faith.
The night of our daughter Katherine’s marriage to Adrian in Costa Rica, there was a neighborhood reception. I left the music and festivities and wandered up the narrow road for a breath of fresh, evening air. There were lights in an upstairs room over one little shop. I looked up. I could hear singing, God songs, they were, and then a voice reading. I caught only the odd word now and then, since my Spanish is limited, but I could tell it was scripture. And then there was what could only have been a sermon. A voice rising and falling. Murmuring responses. Then more singing.
I wondered then, as I wonder now, if that’s what it was like on the first Pentecost. Disciples gathered in a room for worship, for remembering their Lord, for praising God.
In the midst of it all, for those first disciples anyway, came the rush of the Holy Spirit, like the rush of a violent wind, filling them. There were tongues of fire and the disciples began speaking were in many different languages.
Nothing was ever the same for those disciples again. Nothing is ever the same again when the breath of God moves through any of us. Nothing will ever be the same again for Kaitlyn and Aden today. The unseen mystery of God.
We can’t see the Spirit of God. But there’s plenty of evidence of its gifts. The gifts of the Holy Spirit, we say.
There’s the gift of understanding, as when the people outside the room where the disciples were gathered could hear and understand the words spoken in their own languages, no more gibberish. The confusion of Babel was now reversed. The Sprit’s power give us the ability too, now, to begin to understand each other, in spite of our differences. We can honor and respect and rejoice in our diversity as we strive to listen and comprehend.
There’s the gift of community, in the bond of peace, brothers and sisters joined. Of knowing that we belong—to Jesus, to each other.
There’s the gift of knowing also that Jesus has not gone away forever. That the Spirit carries Jesus’ voice, the voice that lives, Jesus’ voice that is blown here and there and everywhere in the breath, in the wind, of the Holy Spirit.
There’s the gift of knowing that we will never be orphaned. That the Spirit of the risen Christ will guide and comfort and sustain us forever.
You can’t beat any of that!!
It’s also true, of course, that because of its “spiritness”, the Holy Spirit cannot be contained. It can’t be confined. It can’t be tamed. We can’t put it into a box or control it.
Which keeps us on our toes, ever watchful, since we never know what the Spirit is up to. Jesus’ living voice, the Spirit’s restless activity, is a transforming presence in our ever-evolving lives, in the ever-evolving world. Trying to preserve either ourselves or the world around us, or the church, as constant and rigid and never-changing, is an impossibility when the breath of God wafts in. Our fear of change and transformation represents a struggle to stifle the Spirit’s movement. The Spirit isn’t trapped, though. But we are.
On the other hand, the Holy Spirit is no fad. And being filled with it does not make us infallible, as if we have some secret tool or ability or message that others do not possess. Beware of any who tell you otherwise. Baptism is not magic. The Holy Spirit is not magic. No, it is better than magic because it is real. The Spirit’s reality is based, not on fluff but on the solid foundation of the risen Christ, the gospel, the Good News and on the standard of love demanded by God, for God and for our neighbors.
Life in the Spirit demands much of us. The promises or our Baptism are not simple little ditties for Hallmark. In a few minutes we will renew our own vows, carefully and with thought; Kaitlyn and Aden’s vows will be made on their behalf, but their parents and sponsors will reveal those promises to these two precious children as they grow. The important thing today, for Katie and for Aden, and for all of us, is what we will do when the strains of the last hymn fade away, after we’ve brushed off the last crumbs of Coffee Hour and we venture out into the parking lot, drive home, put our car keys on the shelf and begin yet another week. The important thing about today is the gift of our lives into which Jesus will send us, as we are sent out every Sunday, reborn again and again.
The Spirit demands much of us. But it gives back even more. The sacred Spirit of Christ, the breath and heartbeat of God, sustains us all and guides us all, so that we can turn eagerly towards a new and transformed future.