Day of Pentecost – May 11, 2008 (Mothers’ Day)

Genesis 11:1-9; Acts 2:1-21; John 20:19-23

St. Giles Church, Northbrook IL – The Rev. Cynthia J. Hallas

The National Workshop on Christian Unity, which I recently attended here in Chicago, closed with the reading of a poem written by the Rev. Jaime Potter-Miller at the conclusion of the General Conference of the United Methodist Church back in 1988.  I don’t know what happened, or more likely failed to happen at that general conference, but whatever it was or was not prompted to reflect on the need for a Pentecost event in the modern church.  Each verse of her poem concluded with the refrain: “Light is not enough; give us fire!  Light is not enough; we need fire!”

This morning, we celebrate fire!

This is the day God takes the light of Christ and kindles the fire of the Spirit

This is the day the Spirit of God becomes the palpable force, the ‘power from on high’ that Jesus has promised would clothe the believers.

This is the day those believers go from being disciples (those who follow) to being apostles (those who are sent).

(If this is beginning to sound like a Pentecost version of the Exsultet from the Easter Vigil, the resemblance is strictly intentional!)

I see two important themes emerging out of our readings today.  The first is language: language as gift, and language as curse – the latter something we hear about in the reading from Genesis.  This is the lesson that generated the most input from parishioners, mostly wondering about the capricious behavior of God, and what in the world the story has to say to us.  I believe this story and others like it, especially many of those in Genesis, function as foundational ‘myths’ – not myths as in fairy tale, but as stories that in their telling, illustrate a larger truth. It’s in our scripture and even in our lectionary.  I believe the truth it illustrates has to do with humanity’s tremendous hubris in trying to access and attain the divine on our own terms, using our own efforts, and not relying on God – ‘let us build a tower to the heavens’.  We were presumptuous enough to think we could find our way into heaven on our own merit and skill.  We were trespassing in a place where God would freely invite us.  So God ‘confused’ humanity by making it impossible for us to communicate well enough to make such an effort again. 

But in the story told in Acts, language becomes a gift.  On the Day of Pentecost ‘they’ – that is, the eleven disciples remaining after the resurrection plus the newly chosen Matthias and likely many more – were all together to celebrate the Jewish festival of Pentecost – the fiftieth day after Passover, when Jews commemorate the gift of the Law on Mt. Sinai.  They’re probably still in that ‘upper room’ – they appear to have taken out a somewhat extended lease on that space. John’s gospel mentions a similar space where they met in fear, with the doors locked, on the evening of the resurrection.  But how different things are on the fiftieth day!  The advent of the Holy Spirit brings the gift of proclamation – the sudden ability of the disciples to communicate the Good News in languages not their own, languages they had not spoken before.  The gift of language, of proclamation – that’s one emphasis today.

The other emphasis is boldness, empowerment.  The Spirit comes into that place where the disciples were staying and takes over – it’s a sacred invasion.  The Spirit of God comes as a wind described as ‘violent.  The Spirit of God also comes in the form of tongues ‘as of fire’.  Wind and fire – elemental, both powerful and dangerous, energizing and creative, and destructive as well.  The Spirit – wind and fire - empowers the disciples and energizes them; it destroys their fears and their insecurities and unleashes the dangerous power of the gospel into the world. 

Boldness and language are gifts of the Spirit that set the fledging church in motion.

And boldness and language are gifts that the Church needs now more than ever.  “Light is not enough; we need fire!”  We need that fiery Spirit to empower the Church once again, and to send us the gift of language that will aid us in communicating the gospel in new ways to those who have never heard its power.  The old ways of proclaiming the gospel, just like the old ways of being church, no longer work in the world we live in.  Times, attitudes, practices, culture have all changed.  The gospel hasn’t changed.  But if we don’t find new, fresh ways of proclaiming it, then the message of that Good News stops at our door. 

We can’t expect non-churched people to drive by and see our signs and say, “I think I’ll drop by there this Sunday.”  That’s not a motivating factor.  We can’t count on societal expectations to drive people to church because those expectations no longer exist.  We can’t wait for more Episcopalians to move into the neighborhood and join the church; that’s not how churches grow anymore.  We can’t expect people who visit our church to fall in love with our customs and our traditions and our prayer book, no questions asked.

We know all this – I know we know it.

Last month, Dan Jariabka, Tracey Solano, Donna McCluskey and I attended the diocesan leadership and ministry fair.  Bishop Jeff Lee gave a wonderful, energetic kick-off talk, and in the course of that talk he said something very provocative; he said, “God doesn’t need the Church.”  That’s not something most of expect to hear from the mouth of a bishop.  I interpret the Bishop’s words to mean that it’s time we all got over ourselves.  It’s time we stopped hanging on to our institutional identity for its own sake because that identity means nothing to the unchurched and non-churched and de-churched people we say we hope to bring into our faith

communities.  It used to be that we mourned a generation of young people who had left the church but at least still knew what church was.  But that generation now has children and even grandchildren who have no connection with or understanding of the church. 

People who are seeking God today are suspicious of institutional religion.  They want relationship more than rules; prayer, spirituality, and mystery more than programs; they want collaboration, not hierarchy.  They are attracted to the message of Jesus and they trust him – the institutional Church, the church that the vast majority of us know, has little appeal to them.  And if we’re going to reach out with the love of God to those unchurched and de-churched and non-churched persons, then we must be willing to learn to speak their language because most of them simply aren’t interested in learning to speak ours.  I know this is surprising and difficult and even painful for many of us to hear, but I promise you it’s the truth. 

You know how we talk about ‘thinking outside the box’ when we need to look at something with fresh eyes or approach it in a new way?  Someone reminded me that when you do that you’re still relating to the box – it’s still there, dictating what you do and how you proceed.  It’s time to get rid of the box.  If the Church as it currently exists isn’t getting the job done, God will find another means to spread the gospel.  God will get rid of our box.  Simply put, we cannot hide the Good News in churchspeak.  The world is ripe for another Pentecost.

We need Incarnation; we need to know that God’s love of us is so strong, so vast, that God honored our divinely created humanity by becoming one of us.  And we need Resurrection; we need to know that God is stronger than death and that death – whatever form it takes - will never have the last word.  But we need Pentecost, too.  We need God’s Spirit to unleash that divinely dangerous, energizing, creative power on us and in the world.  It’s here; it’s inside us – individually, and as a Church - waiting to get out. 

May God hear our prayer: “Give us fire!”