Numbers 11:24-30 Acts 2:1-21
John 7: 37-39
Grace & peace to you from God our Creator and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen.
There’s an old expression for people who are passionate about something: it’s said that they have “fire in their belly”. Maybe it’s a cause or a hobby or a sport or even a person…but I love that phrase…fire in their belly. In the Gospel reading this morning Jesus says that “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” And here’s the interesting thing about that verse…the actual translation is not “heart”, it’s “belly”. If you look this verse up in your Bibles, there will be a footnote noting that the actual translation here is “belly”. Out of the believer’s belly shall flow rivers of living water. You see, in ancient times, it was held that the euphemistic center of a person’s soul was not their heart, but their belly…after all, when you are heart sick or when you say you are suffering from heartache, isn’t it actually your stomach that hurts? So, instead of offering peace in your heart or blessing one’s heart….we might instead hope for peace in our bellies.
Aside from the interesting spin on the language there, you’re probably wondering what in the world a fire in your belly has to do with living water in your belly. And the connection is that both of these have to do with passionate living as followers of Christ who are filled with the Holy Spirit.…with living life in ways that are full and deep and that are connected to the good news, the Gospel news.
A trip into the self help section of any bookstore will offer you some words about passionate living. But that is not what we are celebrating here today. Today we gather and we read in Scripture stories of what happens when the Holy Spirit, the Spirit that exists as one with the God and one with Jesus in the Trinity, the Holy Spirit who empowers us to ministry, we read what happens when that Holy Spirit comes and dwells among us.
In the reading from Numbers Moses has chosen seventy people to serve as elders of the people and the LORD places some of the spirit on them, enabling them to prophesy and for reasons we do not understand they prophesy once and they never do so again. But two other men, who were not with Moses and the elders in the tent also receive the spirit and they begin prophesying…they begin speaking the word of the God…and Moses not only affirms Eldad and Medad, but Moses says “Would that ALL the LORD’s people were prophets and that the LORD would put his spirit on them.”
And in the familiar reading from Acts today, as those who have gathered receive the Holy Spirit, the word of God was spoken and heard in so many languages that all could understand it. This was such an amazing fete that some seeking to explain it said that they must be drunk!
Eldad and Medad and those gathered there in Jerusalem that day had fire in their bellies. They knew the word of God and they wanted to share it. They wanted to share it no matter what the cost. Because people are thirsty for the word of God. People are thirsty for meaning. People are thirsty for hope. People are thirsty and out of the believer’s belly shall flow rivers of living water, offering the promises of God to a thirsty people.
This week, as I was preparing to celebrate this Feast of Pentecost with you all, I was thinking about those people I know who have fire in their bellies for the cause of Christ. Of course, I could come up with many examples from history…martyrs from ancient and not so ancient times, Stephen and Joan, and John, Martin Luther King, and others. I could name those who literally set aside their own lives in order to offer living water to the thirsty…Mother Theresa, and others like her. And then I began to consider those in my own life whose willingness to offer that living water to me and whose fire in their belly burned so brightly that I too was enriched by the power of the Holy Spirit. Sunday School teachers and seminary professors. Friends and relatives. Poets and hymn writers.
Pastor Patrice Weirick is a woman with fire in her belly and a passion for pouring out living water to those she serves. Pastor Patrice, as her parishioners call her, serves two small rural congregations in Pennsylvania. Younger people move out of the area almost as soon as they graduate from high school, if they hope to have a decent paying job. So, those left are mostly those who have been in those churches for a very long time, about 30 in each place on any given Sunday. They struggle to pay the bills, including their pastor’s salary, so they hold bake sales and pie auctions every month. Every month. Sometimes they don’t make enough money to pay Pastor Patrices’s or provide her medical care. Certainly she could move on, certainly she could serve elsewhere, where the financial need is not so severe. But Pastor Patrice has a fire in her belly that was likely stoked by her father, who was also a pastor, and served…at the same time…in one call…five small congregations in rural West Virginia. Fire in their bellies. Living water poured out from them. The Holy Spirit moving through them in prophetic and faithful and imaginative ways.
This week I also thought of the many ways I see that Holy Spirit moving here among us. I could think of each one of you…each one of you….and some way that I see that living water pour out for the ministry that we undertake together. Some of you sing and some of you play and some of you teach and some of you are caretakers. Some of you serve on Council and some of you care for the altar. Some of you greet and some of you meet and…well, the list is endless. The list of the young people in this place who see visions and the old people who dream dreams.
The Holy Spirit moves in amazing ways. In unexpected ways. In ways that surprise us and perhaps cause us to credit it to something else. When I sit with our middle and high school students I am so aware of the fire in the bellies of those young people, a fire for justice and a fire for equity and a fire that means that this world will be better when they are the ones in charge. And that fire comes from the Holy Spirit who also worked through their parents, through their faithful Sunday School teachers, and through their beloved Mary, who told them stories of faith in the nursery.
The Holy Spirit moves when our youngest disciples sing together and run and play and laugh together. They remind us that anything is possible….they don’t let anything hold back their creative understanding of what is means to be a child of God.
The Holy Spirit moves when those of you who have been around for awhile remind us of the many ways the Spirit has moved thus far and the many ways the Spirit will move again.
And today, the Holy Spirit goes with Lilia, as we celebrate with her family her high school graduation. And the same Spirit calls new people to this place, and empowers us all to do the work of ministry.
People of God, the world is thirsting for the living water that is dwelling in us. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to go and tell and pour out that living water. The sign of the Spirit rests upon us and we are empowered to serve the world in the name of God, who is the Creator of us all, Jesus God’s only Son, and the Holy Spirit who is like fire, like wind, like a dove, like living water flowing out of us. Thanks be to God. Amen.
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