The Feast of Pentecost Year C May 19, 2013
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie G. Hutson
Acts 2: 1-21 + Psalm 104: 24-34, 35b + Romans 8: 14-17 + John 14: 8-17, 25-27
Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth.
When the day of Pentecost had come they were all together in one place. And chaos broke loose.
All of those believers in one place and then…chaos.
I’m happy to say that this is NOT our report from the NW Washington Synod Assembly!
It is, instead, this very familiar story of Pentecost from the book of Acts, which is a sort of history book of the early church. It’s also the reading that causes those who serve as Lectors and readers in church to tremble just a bit. All of those names to pronounce. Well done, Kate!
So Just imagine, a group of believers gathers and chaos ensues.
This is not unheard of in the church, that there is chaos and it is certainly not unheard of in our culture today. Chaos is not necessarily a bad thing, though it is almost always an uncomfortable thing.
And what most often happens when things become chaotic is that we become either fearful or we react in anger. No one rests very well in the midst of chaos.
Some try to explain it away, as though providing a logical explanation would make it easier to dwell there without anxiety or fear.
“They are filled with new wine” they sneered at those early believers.
When we as Christians find ourselves in chaotic times, we would do well, then, to consider whether the chaos is of our own making or whether the Holy Spirit has blown into our midst and is stirring things up, just as she did at the first Pentecost.
My Spiritual Director says that when the Holy Spirit blows into our lives she wrecks them, takeing our best plans, our most well thought through agendas, our most careful intentions and blowing them all to smithereens!
And don’t we often react with fear or anger or suspicion rather than faith? They are filled with new wine. Yeah, that must be it.
In our Gospel reading from John, Jesus advises the disciples against both reactions…against fear and against anger. Do not let your hearts be troubled, he says, and do not let them be afraid. And that word for troubled in the original Greek language is not like we understand it. It is better translated as annoyed or ticked off. Or angry. Do not let your hearts be angry. And the disciples were angry. Jesus, who they had left EVERYTHING in their lives to follow, was telling them that he was going to die. That he was going to leave them. And they just couldn’t understand it. Why would Jesus die if he was the Messiah? And Jesus gets a bit impatient with them :”Have I been with you all this time Philip and you still do not know me?” But this is more than the disciples were prepared to hear from Jesus. It was new and it was different – all of this talk of dying and rising.
But as we understand our lives, we die and rise again in the waters of baptism. We die to our old selves and rise to life with Christ. And we do this daily. This is not, of course, what our culture teaches us about dying. Our culture says that we must avoid dying, whether in a literal sense, or whether in a figurative sense, at all costs. That we must grasp for power and control and authority. But that is not what we understand about discipleship. We understand discipleship to be much more about servant hood, and about dying and about some chaos.
Today Mackenzie will come to these waters, surrounded by all of us. This is why we baptize within a community of faith….so that all of us who die and rise daily can be reminded of how upside down that seems. So that we can declare to Mackenzie and her family that we will stand with her in the baptismal promises. So that water will splash over her and over us in generous amounts.
Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, addressing the Synod Assembly yesterday said that we should fill water balloons with water and throw them at one another to remind us of our baptisms! Talk about chaos!
Baptism prepares us for all that is ahead. It is this lavish and wonderful gift. It is the holy bath and the outward sign of God’s love for us. Paul wrote to the church of Rome that we are adopted into God’s family and that we cry out “Abba!” We have received a spirit of adoption that bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. Mackenzie, Mason, all of us….we are children of God, heirs, Paul says. The spirit, Paul writes, is not a spirit of fear, but of the trust that a child would have for a loving parent.
In this life, we will be asked to do many things that may cause us to be afraid. For some it is the first day of school, or the first day on a new job. It might be taking the chance to open one’s heart to another. It might be allowing your name to go forward as a Bishop’s nominee or, as Vicar Inge did with eloquence yesterday, speaking to the synod assembly in support of a resolution on climate change. It may be that we face job loss or illness or that we lose people we love. But the Spirit has been sent to us, so that we may not be angry or afraid in the midst of that chaos.
In John’s Gospel, the Spirit has many functions in our lives. The Spirit is comforter, advocate, truth teller, revealer. And in the midst of all of the confusion of life, Jesus reminds the disciples and we are reminded as well….we are not alone. We are never alone. The Spirit is with us, to comfort us, to advocate for us, to lead, guide and reveal to us the ways that are life giving. And yes, sometimes to cause chaos to come into our lives and stir things up, so that our plans might give way to God’s plans.
So, Mackenzie…come to the water. Precious children of God….come to the water. In the chaos of this life do not let your hearts be troubled and do not let them be afraid. The Spirit has been sent in and to and for each one of us. And that is the good news…that is the Gospel news for this day and for all people.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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