Acts 2:1-21
John 14:8-17
In the name of God our creator, Christ our savior, and the
Holy Spirit who still empowers us and guides us. Amen.
Everything about the Christian story seems, at its core, to
be about pushing us.
Pushing us past the boundaries we have erected. Pushing us into new ways of thinking. Pushing us into more authentic ways of living
and acting.
But perhaps most of all, the Christian story is about
pushing us ever more out into the world.
And nowhere, in all of the Christian story, is the narrative
about going - of our being pushed - more explicit than it is in the story of
Pentecost.
The disciples are huddled together. It’s been nearly two months since the
resurrection, but still they keep huddling.
Of course they haven’t been simply hidden away the whole time. We heard about Thomas being away somewhere
when Jesus first appeared to the disciples.
We know that Peter took them fishing.
But even despite the episodic ventures beyond the confines of their
secure little community, the pull was always back into the huddle.
Even as late as Pentecost - 50 days - nearly two months
following the Resurrection - even then, the disciples were still walking
timidly through their new world. Even
then, their timidity and fear kept pulling them back into their familiar circle.
One of the images of Pentecost that has never really sat
well with me is that of the “birthday of the church”. This is something I’ve heard about as long as
I can remember - the idea being that on Pentecost the Jesus movement went from
being a small band of followers, to a church in the world - growing and
expanding and spreading the message of Jesus to everyone. Not just to the few that were fortunate
enough to have been personally called while he walked among us.
Different places where I grew up put differing levels of
emphasis on this “birthday” idea, but sometimes it went so far as having a
birthday cake for the church, and candles, and balloons, and streamers, and an
atmosphere not far from that of a child’s birthday party.
That idea always made me sort of uncomfortable. Even as a child, I somehow knew that it
didn’t really make sense. Having a
birthday party for the church seemed to be trying to anthropomorphize it; but
even as a child, I knew that the church wasn’t a person. It’s bigger than just a person. Its purpose is higher than any person.
Giving the church a “birthday party” seemed somehow
belittling - like we were trying to hold the church in too small a box. Like we were trying to hold God in too small a box. A simple “birthday party” like I might go to
some Saturday morning for any of my friends seemed a bit too trivial for
something as big and as important as the church.
But this week, after years of hearing it, the metaphor of
the “birthday” of the church started making sense to me for the first time.
It’s less about parties and cake and balloons and streamers
- and more about birth.
As the disciples are huddled together, the Holy Spirit fills
the room “like the rush of a violent wind”.
Suddenly, tongues of flame descend and rest on each of them, and they
begin speaking in languages, not their own.
They speak in all the languages of the world. They speak in a multiplicity of voices that
can reach the ends of the earth. They
speak with a surety that pushes them out of their security and their huddled
enclosure into a world aching for their message.
They speak with the voice of the living Christ.
Like a mother laboring to push new life into the world, the
Holy Spirit labors to push us, the followers of Christ, beyond our huddled
enclosures into a world that aches for our message.
And the church is born.
Whenever we speak the truth of Christ in tongues that seem
foreign to us; whenever we speak the truth of Christ to people who seem foreign
to us; whenever we speak the truth of Christ beyond the safety of our own
huddled enclosures; then the church is born.
It’s not about cake, and streamers, and parties - it’s about
being born. It’s about the labor. It’s about being pushed into the world and
taking our first breath, and having it fill us with life like the rush of a
violent wind. It’s about the promise
that in this new life we will stand up, and walk, and carry the message to the
farthest reaches of the earth - even if those unreached places are just around
the corner, or even just outside ourselves.
Even if that means that we’ll have to speak in ways that seem foreign to
us, to people who seem foreign to us.
There are those who say that the church is dying. And maybe it is.
All around us church attendance is dropping and church
giving is dwindling. The impact and
influence of churches on our wider society is slowly chipping away and eroding.
But in the places where that isn’t true, it’s because the
church is being reborn. In those places,
the church is learning to speak in new ways to new people.
Birth - and even rebirth - is a painful experience. Laborious, even. But it’s a labor of love. It requires moving from our places of safety
and security into places of vulnerability.
It requires moving from huddled warmth into the cold vastness of the
outside world. But it also involves
moving from darkness into the light.
From confines, into freedom.
And the same Spirit, who pushes us into the world, supports
us and guides us through it.
“I will ask… and [God] will give you another Advocate, [the
Holy Spirit], to be with you forever.
This is the Spirit of truth… [who] abides with you, and [who] will be in
you.”
We needn’t do it alone.
Birth is frightening, but it’s the only thing that leads to
life.
We are being pushed.
Past the boundaries we have erected. Past our old ways of thinking. Into authenticity and truth. Into and among new people and experiences
that we never could have imagined.
We may try to scratch and claw our way back into some sense
of safety and security, but we are being pushed. Into new life in a new world.
And the Holy Spirit, our Advocate, is with us. Pushing us.
And showing us the way. Amen.
Comments