A Day to Remember
A Day to Remember
Acts 2:1-4
Today is a day with layered meanings. First, it is Memorial Day weekend. This is the unofficial opening weekend of summer! If you have a cabin, chances are you are there and opening it up, maybe even putting the dock in. If you’re a gardener, you finally can feel confident about getting those last plants in, no more frost until the fall. If you love to grill, even if you’ve grilled all winter, now you’re ready to bring your “A game.” Those are all sacred things!
Second, it is Memorial Day weekend. For a lot of people, this is a time to remember our lost loved ones. I remember my parents going to their parents’ graves, cleaning them up, putting out flowers, and just spending a little time. It is a way of marking those people’s place in our lives—still. If you’re out driving and you pass a cemetery, take a look. You’ll see people with their lawn chairs set up next to a headstone, remembering the dead.
Third, it is Memorial Day weekend. This is not the day when we honor everyone who has ever served in the military. No, that is Veteran’s Day. This is the day when we honor those who died while serving our country. Just consider the losses. In the first Gulf War, from 1990 to 1991—258 soldiers died. Consider World War 1 (116,516), World War 2 (405,399) and the American Civil War (620,000). It’s hard to take in. It seems worth remembering.
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by the numbers from the Civil War. Casualties do soar when Americans are killing Americans. Still, the United States’ population in 1860 was roughly 31.5 million people. Proportionally, if we were to suffer the same percentage of losses today, we would lose about 6.5 million people. Imagine how profound that sense of loss must have been. Then, remember the founding date of our congregation—1866, right at the end of that war. Grief and loss had to be the very soil in which this congregation was planted. That seems worth remembering, too.
Often, I have the honor of praying at Lake Bluff’s Memorial Day gathering. Because I’m Audrey Hindman’s son, I always arrive early. Usually, I find my chair at the gazebo and settle in. The band is practicing which makes me remember that one girl who played the flute and sat in front of me in high school. (Jean Hillary, the heartthrob of the whole baritone section!) The boy scouts arrive and practice raising the flag. People of every shape and size and age arrive with dogs of every shape and size and age. Then, the Marines appear—seemingly out of nowhere. Finally, the flag is raised and we all rise to say the Pledge of Allegiance together. There’s something so simple and sacred about that moment…
Next, some dignitary reads the list of people who are from Lake Bluff who died in service. If you listen carefully, there are some familiar names. Even when you don’t recognize the name at all, you understand this was someone’s son who played in the ravines and at the beach just like our kids still do. People just like us have paid a terrible price—the ultimate price—for us to live as freely as we live. I’m pretty sure that we shouldn’t ever forget that.
Of course, if we don’t remind ourselves, we will forget it. We’ll get lost in the day-to-day annoyances and, without thinking, come to the conclusion that bad traffic is the worst thing that can happen to us. We’ll buy into the notion that paying taxes is just asking too much of us. We’ll get the notice in the mail that it’s our turn to serve on a jury and we’ll feel entirely put out. We’ll forget that we’re supposed to add a little sacrifice of our own—a meager sacrifice compared to those who died but some small sacrifice that will make actually make the nation stronger.
I read a good novel recently—“The Lincoln Highway,” by Amor Towles. It’s the story of four boys on a ten day journey at a critical time in their lives. It’s also a book with some powerfully wise insights. One of my favorites is this: “Those who are given something of value without having to earn it are bound to squander it.” It’s such a human tendency. We receive a gift in life—parents who love us more than we deserve or an opportunity that is greater than we deserve, or simply the good fortune of where and when we were born. If we stop and think about it, we realize how lucky we are. How often, though, do we think about it?
Need a really concrete example? I live three blocks from Lake Michigan. Maybe you live even closer than me. I’m going to be honest with you. I can go days without ever thinking about the lake, and I love lakes! Occasionally, I walk to the bluff. I almost never walk all the way down to the beach. Still, It’s right there! Tell me there’s not a special person built into your life, or a meaningful job, or some other really good facet of your life that you don’t overlook, that you don’t have to remind yourself to appreciate.
So, the other thing that today happens to be is…Pentecost Sunday, perhaps the most taken for granted and barely understood day in the Christian year. Not long after seminary, Tracy had another pastor call us to ask, “What is Pentecost anyway?” As one of the three major days in Christianity, you kind of think that would have been covered in seminary, right?
What are the three days? Christmas, of course, is when we remember Jesus’ birth and mark the day when God became one of us. Of course, it doesn’t matter what religion you are or where in the world you live, Christmas never gets overlooked. (Who forgets a day that involves getting presents?). Easter, of course, is when we mark the mystery of Jesus’ resurrection. Given the fact that everyone of us will have people we love who die and everyone of us will one day die ourselves, there’s a built in level of interest in this day. Besides that, it connects to spring and it involves good food. We notice Easter. Then, coming in a distant third, with no cultural recognition at all is…Pentecost— no decorations or presents or trees, and when it comes to food—you’re on your own.
Let me take a shot at why we should not take Pentecost for granted. There are three big experiences of God’s presence in human life. First, in classic theological imagery, there is God, the Father. The danger and often the reality of that “Father” language is that we get too concrete and think that God’s actually a guy. God is not a “dude.” This is why I prefer the language of God, the creator, or simply God, “the great I am.” This is the God who simply is, who is the ground on which we stand, who is the source of all that is. When do we meet this God? We meet “the great I am” when we are dazzled by a sunset or a sunrise or overwhelmed with the birth of our child or when we are caught off guard by a field of wild flowers and then lean in and see the majesty of one—just one—of those flowers. The world is amazing. Life is amazing. It’s a sheer gift that there is something and not nothing at all. We can easily take such gifts for granted. Almost as soon as we do, we start to abuse the world we’ve been given. After all, if it’s all just stuff to use, then we will mindlessly use it, until we use it all up, right?
The second experience of God’s presence is “God, the Son.” Again, I think the gender focus can mislead us here. Beyond and beneath the language is the experience of the God who is with us in this life, the God whom we know through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. So, we study the stories about Jesus and the lessons he taught because they reveal a way of living. At other times, we examine our own lives—the person in need that we just ran into and the pangs of empathy that welled up inside us—and we realize that God is still with us, pricking our consciences until we take action. The God who is with us finds ways to whisper to us, “You are loved. So, isn’t it about time to do something?” It’s the personal, “You are loved…” piece of the message that’s so easy to just take for granted.
At the end of Jesus’ life, days before his death, he keeps promising his disciples that there will be “one who comes after him,” that this one will be “the counselor,” or “the advocate.” After he died and after he quit appearing to a handful of people in a smattering of places, no one knew what to expect. I wonder if anyone actually remembered those promises at all? One of the central things that Jesus had ingrained into them, though, was the power of being together. Almost every good thing that had happened during their time with Jesus had happened to groups of people. (Just pause and consider how easy it is to take for granted the essential truth that even when everything else is going “to hell in a hand basket,” as my grandfather used to say, at least we have each other. The fact that we have each other is sometimes all that stands between us and despair.)
So, the believers are gathered in a room. I’m pretty sure they don’t really have any clear sense of what they even believe at that point. They just know that they need each other. After 9/11, we didn’t know what to do but we knew, as a church and as a community, that we needed to gather together. When the pandemic hit, 800 people gathered on-line to celebrate Easter. When in doubt, when our hearts are broken, when we are at our wit’s end, we join hands and we hold on for dear life to each other.
Suddenly, with the believers gathered together, something incredible happens. Without any warning (which is how most powerful things happen in this life), a roaring wind fills the room. From ancient times, the people had told a story of creation that began with a roaring wind, the “ruah Elohim,” the breath of God, moving across the ace of the earth. Welcome to the new creation! Tongues of fire appear with one hanging over the head of each believer. Remember Moses and the burning bush, the call that led to the birth of Israel? Everyone is a burning bush now! Finally, people are empowered. In this case, they are able to speak in languages that they have never spoken. Here’s the new creation, the new nation, the newly empowered people—ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to the Holy Spirit, the one who came after Jesus.
There’s far more to cover about the Holy Spirit than we can say today. Today, I’d simply like to suggest to you, as Memorial Day and Pentecost align, that we probably need look no further than to those fallen heroes to see the work of the God who empowers human beings. God didn’t stop the wars. God didn’t intervene to make sure one side won. It seems clear that if we are intent on destroying one another, we are free to do so. No, God was inspiring people to be self-sacrificing servants, to lay down their lives for their brothers and sisters, to care for and love one another, even in the midst of terrible carnage. Just ask a veteran what it was like to be a part of a “band of brothers,” when everyone belonged.
The Holy Spirit inspires us and empowers us. The Holy Spirit guides us and makes us braver than we otherwise would be. With God’s help, we are able to do what we’ve never done before. God is the ground on which we stand. God is the one who showed us how to live a loving life. God is the one who is always within us and beyond us and beside us, urging us to loving action.