June 3, 2001
Rev. Eugene Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
PENTECOST
Acts 2:1-21
William Willimon, Chaplain at Duke University, shares the following story: “The
last Sunday of the school year I got a call from the chapel attendant about 8
a.m. ‘Dr. Willimon. You up?’ ‘Yes, I’m up.’ ‘Just wanted you to know that
there’s no electricity in the chapel this morning.’ “I threw on my clothes,
rushed down to the chapel. It was dark. I mean it was so dark. We took
a flashlight, went downstairs, and got every candle we could lay our hands on.
By 10:15 we had 232 candles lit. Still it was dark. We had to redo the entire
service because we couldn’t use the organ or the sound system. I was a wreck.
“But at exactly
fifteen minutes ‘til eleven, suddenly, for no reason, all the lights came back
on. So most of the people entered the chapel to be greeted by 232 candles stuck
in every window, on every flat surface. ‘Well, what do you have in store for us
today?’ asked a sophomore. “One of your trendy worship innovations?
Jack-be-nimble Sunday?’
‘Shut up and sit
down’ I said, with love.
“From there,
everything that could go wrong, went wrong. I was as glad to get that service
over with as I was to leave army boot camp. ‘I’ve had it,’ I thought, ‘there
must be easier ways to make money.’
“’Nice try, Dr.
Willimon,’ said another student, ‘You’ll probably be better by fall.’
“’Shut up,’ I
said, again with love.
“After everybody
had left, there were these three young women who came up to me - smiling. I
hadn’t noticed them before. One said, ‘Dr. Willimon, we’re all seniors. This
is our last Sunday here. And we were just saying to ourselves that we’re really
going to miss your sermons. What you’ve said has really helped us make it
through our four years here. Thanks.’”
Says Willimon,
“Even through thick limestone gothic chapel walls, I felt a breeze.”
That’s the way
it is with the Holy Spirit…you just never know when it might blow through a
church service, a sermon, our own lives. Even bad sermons and worship services
can be transformed. Martin Luther once said that he led the Protestant
Reformation by sitting in a tavern, drinking good beer, and minding his own
business. The Holy Spirit did the rest. You just never know how or where that
restless Spirit is going to blow, what form it might take. Professor Barbara
Brown Taylor says: “Under the power of the Holy Spirit, shy people have been
known to step up onto platforms and say audacious things. Cautious people have
become daredevils, frugal people have become philanthropists and people who used
to be as sour as dill pickles have become rich with friends. There is no limit
to what the Holy Spirit can do.”
And so a
confused group of Jesus’ disciples find themselves once again in an upper room .
. . waiting. The risen Jesus had told them to wait in Jerusalem. But for what
exactly? What was next? It seemed that he was done with them, that from now on
whatever they did, they were going to have to do it on their own. Doubt.
Despair. Fear. All were present in that room. Then the wind begins to blow,
and the disciples realize they are not alone, that something else is with them
in that room - the very presence, the Spirit of Christ himself. And a church is
born.
The Holy Spirit.
What do we make of it? A minister who was serving one of our black UCC churches
had not been officially ordained into the ministry by the denomination. As the
process for ordination was being explained to her by a member of our Conference
Committee on Ministry, she interrupted him saying, “It really doesn’t matter
what you or the Conference do, all your rules and requirements, because I have
already been ordained by the Holy Spirit!” She went ahead and fulfilled all our
ordination requirements, but in her mind they were clearly secondary. The
Spirit had already taken control of her life, the Spirit had called her into
ministry, and for her and her church, that was really all that mattered.
Ordained by the Spirit, baptized in the Spirit, filled with the Spirit - it’s
not language we use much in churches like ours. We don’t talk much about the
Spirit - what it can mean for us, what it can do to us. Concerning the Holy
Spirit, theologian Hans Keung, writes, “What, then , does ‘Spirit’ mean? It is
the invisible power and strength of God…What does believing in the Holy Spirit
mean? It means a simple and trusting acceptance that God can be inwardly
present for me in faith and that God can gain control of me in my innermost self
and in my heart.” Perhaps that is why we don’t talk about the spirit much in
our church. Anything that can grab hold of me, change my life’s outlook and
direction, needs to be dealt with cautiously. Do I really want to let it loose
in my life, in my church?
In John Grisham’s,
The Street Lawyer, a young lawyer on his way up in a prestigious
firm is jolted off course by a strange encounter with a homeless person. The
homeless man threatens the young lawyer with death, but interestingly, the whole
experience causes the young man to rearrange his priorities. He finds himself
going in a new direction as he exchanges the prospects of great wealth to become
a street lawyer, a lawyer whose only practice is to help homeless people. You
just never know what might happen when that spirit gets hold of your heart and
starts blowing through your life.
One minute the
disciples are sitting around, discouraged, depressed; the next minute they are
speaking in tongues, for heaven’s sake; then they are out on the street,
preaching the word, healing the sick, baptizing converts, sharing wealth and
worldly goods with each other. There’s only one explanation - the only rational
explanation - is that they are drunk, been hitting the communion wine just a
little early and often. No one is quite ready to believe that these people are
filled with the Spirit, that it has broken over them like a wave, sweeping over
barriers, opening doors, shaking foundations, changing lives; no one is quite
ready to believe that this rag-tag group of followers of a crucified Jew is
about to change a world. Are we ready to believe it - to believe that it could
even happen to us?
Old Testament
scholar, Walter Brueggemann, writes that we live in a world which mostly
believes that all the assets are frozen, that things will pretty much stay the
way they are. In his words, “You know, if you’re dead, you’re dead, and will
stay so. And if you are alive, you had better scramble and get it all, because
that’s all there is and all there is going to be. If you are homeless, you will
be that way forever. If you are number one, you had better have lots and lots
of power, because that’s the way to keep it the way it is. Everything is
arranged and settled and fixed and closed, and we work hard to keep the
boundaries secure, the assets frozen. With this way of reality, some of us end
in complacency because it works to our advantage; some of us end in despair
because we had hoped for better.”
Then it’s
Pentecost. And with Pentecost there is a kind of dangerous restlessness that
lets nothing stay fixed and frozen, because God’s Spirit is on the move in more
ways than we can understand, a Spirit that shatters our complacency and
overrides our despair, a power we cannot control, a power that makes life
possible even in all the failed places, that makes healing possible, even in the
midst of our hurt and hate and fear. Can we permit this within the horizons of
our lives?
When I think about
my years serving as your pastor, I know there have been many slip-ups, missed
opportunities, downright failures. More than once, I suppose we could have come
apart at the seams. Many churches have. But something has held us together.
And along the way, look what has happened. Not only have full time associate
pastors been added to our staff, but for the first time associates who were
women! A new building, Memorial Hall, an impossible dream made possible and
constructed. The Open and Affirming process. We even managed to agree - mostly
- on a new hymnal. I think of our commitment to youth ministry, starting a food
pantry, taking the lead more than once in affordable housing battles, expanding
our budget goal and lo and behold, this year reaching that goal, some of us
finding ourselves giving more to the work of the church than we ever thought we
would - and, feeling good about it! In our church, this congregation, time and
time again, when we have been cold of heart, slow to move, timid and cowering,
the Holy Spirit has intervened and prevailed. And I suspect we’ve surprised
even ourselves.
And in your own
lives, so many of you have shared with me over the years those moments when all
seemed lost, when there was no way out, no way forward, and yet just when you
least expected it, just when you were at the end of your rope, a door opened, a
way was found when there had been no way. And so, in the words of Willimon, “We
therefore do not lose hope. We therefore are kept on tiptoes, expectant, eager,
sometimes even nervous! For the Holy Spirit that gave birth to our church
continues to prod, cajole, and beckon us forward. Just when we get all settled
down, comfortable with present arrangements, our pews bolted securely to the
floor, all fixed and immobile, there comes a rush of wind, a breath of fresh
air, tongues of fire.”
I think of those
disciples filled with the Spirit, moving beyond complacency, beyond apathy,
beyond despair, with something new underway in their hearts, actually believing
something of Christ’s heart was now beating in their own. Only them? The
Spirit blows where it will. It could also be us!