Pentecost
Pentecost
Acts 2:1-13
As a Christian, there are three pathways to experience God’s presence. We can look at the world around us—at the majesty of a sunrise, at the intricacy of a spider web, at the incredible diversity of the world around us—and discover God, the Creator. This is the God who is the source of all that is. This is the Alpha and Omega. This is the “something more” whom we discover when we marvel at the birth of a child or when we cultivate a sense that this world in which we walk is intrinsically sacred.
The second way that Christians experience God’s presence is by engaging with Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus’ life and death and resurrection, his teaching and healing and preaching, his living example, when they become compelling for us, guide us toward a way of living. This way is marked by grace and love and compassion and forgiveness not because they are nice ideas but because this is what Jesus embodied. This is the same life that we are led to live if we choose to follow Christ. We leave selfishness and pleasure seeking and vengefulness behind. When we live in Christ’s way, even for a little while, God’s presence and God’s light shines through us.
Last week, there was a stunningly simple example of this kind of living right in the middle of communion of all places. (Who expects to catch a glimpse of God’s kingdom during communion, right?) One of our young children, Derek, grabbed one of our older members’ hands and escorted her down the aisle. This wasn’t some preplanned event. This wasn’t some gesture put on for anyone else’s benefit. I’m pretty sure Derek didn’t even think about it. He saw an empty hand. Then, he held that hand.
This moment literally made me slack-jawed. Here was a hand that needed holding and, in an instant, that hand was held. Think of it this way: in that awkward moment when you’re standing in line and waiting for your chance to receive the communion elements, when you’re not quite sure what to do, when you’re maybe thinking to yourself, “All this for a tiny piece of bread,” or you’re thinking about what you’re going to do when church is done, Derek, without thinking did something loving and caring for someone else. I don’t want to overstate things but for a guy who is pretty much always on the hunt for what the world would look like if it worked the way that God would have it work, that moment with Derek was such a clear example.
Part of the charm of that moment rested in its fleeting nature. Derek is at that lovely young stage of life when a child is willing to do the most caring things without any concern about whether they will be “cool.” Would a teenage boy spontaneously take the hand of an older member and walk down the aisle with her? It doesn’t take us long in life to develop our “imaginary audience.” We are sure they watching us and judging us, day in and day out. We give that imaginary audience the power to make us screen our choices so that we won’t ever be at risk of being judged for doing something that wouldn’t be universally adored and approved.
I hope that growing up doesn’t knock the “sweet” out of Derek However, the other problem is that a lot of us wouldn’t be all that comfortable receiving his hand in ours. You have to be pretty comfortable in your own shoes to have something surprising happen and not let the discomfort of the surprise make you recoil.
When I was in Japan as a high school exchange student, I was surprised to discover that the boys often walked to school hand-in-hand. At 17, I was super uncomfortable in my own skin. However, this cultural difference was so unexpected. At first, I did recoil. Later, I discovered that this was actually a nice way to walk to school. I did not dare to bring this custom home, though.
My point here is that the world is complicated and so are we. In this complicated world and as these complicated people, we can do the most straightforwardly loving and caring things and those things can fail miserably, not because the attempt was wrong but because the conditions weren’t right. We weren’t really ready to give that love and care or we were only ready to give it in our own way and that way wasn’t a way that the other person was ready to receive. You can be living exactly the way you are meant to live and your care can be misunderstood or ignored all together. This is, after all, what happened to Jesus. What he taught us was that this faithful life isn’t “results based.” Rather, this faithful life is about choosing to live in a certain way with as much integrity as we can muster, regardless of what comes our way. This, of course, is the kind of living that can get a person crucified.
When we follow Christ, when we live a life that is loving and compassionate, we become the person who God—the creator—created us to be. This sounds great and sounds pretty straightforward until we realize how hard it is to actually live this way. How are we ever going to do this?
My analogy is a work trip moment that happened every year. We would start to plan in December. By April, we would standing at someone’s home, meeting people in need and trying to discern which of those needs we could do something about. We’d decide on a project for that family. We’d come back and make drawings and put together lumber lists. We would gather the people and head to Missouri. However, what was always waiting was the Monday morning moment of really concretely realizing that, “Oh, my God, now we actually have to do this! I don’t have every tool I need. I wish I had more talented workers. I wish I was more talented. Besides all that, it’s hotter than heck outside and I’m pretty sure there are snakes under that old deck.”
The moment when theoretical work trip turned into “now we are going to work” was tough. You had to come to terms with the fact that this is it, that now is the time when we need to go to work, that it is time to go all in. At the same time, you had to be smart about how you worked. And, to top things off, you had to remember that you were working with real people who had their own issues and who needed—some way, somehow—to be a part of your team. If the point was just to make a deck, then you could hire someone to do it. If the point is to make something together and to make something well, then how you do what you do will always matter at least as much as what you produce.
To live the way that Christ taught us to live, we have to be doing more than just knocking tasks off the great “to do” list of life. That’s so hard! That’s so complicated! That’s so frustrating! Where will be ever find the energy to do all that?
When we choose to live the hard way rather than the self-centered way, God helps us. God doesn’t do the work for us but, in my experience, God helps us to find the energy to keep going. God doesn’t give us all the answers, but, in my experience, God does sometimes offer us a clue, if we are paying attention. God doesn’t make us capable of doing everything but, in my experience, God does sometimes lead us to the person who can teach us, who may even decide to pitch in. God inspires us and guides us and energizes us, if we are open to such help and if we are actually doing the kinds of things that God would have us do.
This is the third way that Christians experience God’s presence: the Holy Spirit. Last week, we noted that our ancestors in faith talked about the risen Jesus appearing for a while and then not appearing any more. Just as many people seemed to have forgotten that Jesus had said that he would suffer and die and rise again, we also forget that Jesus promised that there would be “one who would come after him.” Jesus, most clearly in the Gospel of John, talks about “The Counselor,” and “The Helper,” and “The Advocate.” While many people were expecting Jesus, himself, to come back, Jesus, actually told us to watch for the one who comes next.
Here is the clearest way that I think about this. The first experience of God was as the source of all that is. That God mostly stood apart from human experience, giving us the rules to live by and then intervening occasionally when it became obvious that we were not good at abiding by those rules. The second way that we experience God is when God becomes one of us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. God comes to show us the way. That way is still how we are meant to live. The third way that we experience God’s presence is both within us and among us. God inspires us and energizes us to actually live our faith. God encourages us and makes us braver than we otherwise would be. God helps us to do more than we would ever do on our own and this is true individually and in community with each other. God is all around us. Then, God becomes one of us. In the end, God moves in.
The Holy Spirit, prior to Pentecost, is acknowledged but it seems to be reserved for the special few who are given special work. On Pentecost, a whole group of people are gathered together in an upper room, waiting for what’s next. Suddenly, there is the rush of a mighty wind—which anyone steeped in the Old Testament would recognize as being an awful lot like the wind that swept the earth in the first creation. People are being created anew! At the same time, there are tongues of flame—one for each person—everyone’s “in”—but no one is burned. Again, if you were steeped in the Old Testament, you think of the burning bush through which Moses received his calling. These tongues of fire mean that every person is called. Finally, people start speaking languages that they couldn’t previously speak. In the Old Testament, God makes people speak different languages as a barrier to limit human ambition. Now, the Holy Spirit removes that barrier and makes understanding the norm.
It’s not easy to be an Easter people in a Good Friday world. Since Pentecost, though, God has been ready to help. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, God is within us and empowering us to love.