Sermon by The Very Rev Chris Yaw, 6/5/2022, Pentecost 1
So, there they were gathered all in one place, people from all over, packed in and around that iconic house, on the day of Pentecost - as Acts chapter 2 describes for us:
But who were all those people?
1 percenters and welfare fathers,
The meat eaters and the vegans,
The Black Panthers and the White Aryans,
Buckeyes and Wolverines,
Law school graduates and High School dropouts,
Vaxxers and anti-vaxxers,
Pro-choice and pro-life,
Trumpers and Never-Trumpers,
Dog owners and cat people,
Climate activists and climate deniers,
The alt-right and the far left,
Hippies and yuppies,
Gay and straight,
Quisp and Quake,
More filling, tastes great…
Can we get the picture that this incredibly diverse gathering of people came together, in awe and wonder, to harmonize on a single song of praise to God, when they let the Spirit grab hold of them?
Sure, it may have been the cacophony of different languages that caused those onlookers to say, “They must be drunk"
But could it also have been the phenomenon of camaraderie that, perhaps you have witnessed, that happens when people from varied backgrounds who have had too much to drink, all the sudden - get along -
‘Hey, you’re alright!’
’No, you’re alright!’
’No, you’re alright!’
Could this be what happens when the Holy Spirit gets ahold of us?
Unity - Power - Possibility
This story of Pentecost tells us about these three things - about what happens to us when we let the Spirit grab hold of us.
First, Unity - it unites us.
It pulls us together.
It serves as a foundation stone upon which all can be built.
Second, Power - the Spirit empowers us.
We get the strength and courage to go on -
It fills us with the power to do impossible things.
And third, Possibility - when the Spirit gets ahold of us, we become people of hope and really believe Jesus’ words that ‘With God, all things are possible'
And we venture out with confidence and ambition - because we have experienced a higher calling.
Unity - Power - Possibility
When we let the Spirit grab hold of us.
Not when we do things on our own.
Not when we take the reins and try to steer.
No, but when we let go, and let God.
When we focus our energies and attentions on the Almighty -
When we put aside the things of the flesh and put on the things of the Spirit.
What does that look like in your life and in mine this morning?
How are we allowing the Holy Spirit to get ahold of us?
How is God urging us to become more spiritual - less caught up in the worries of the day - and thus, allowing that Spirit to better grab hold of us?
-----------------
Some of you who were at Katie’s and my wedding in 2017 remember that the preacher was a dear friend of ours named Fr. Paul Chateau - a Roman Catholic priest - as both my wife and I are so thankful and appreciative of our Catholic upbringings.
And as a wedding gift, Fr. Paul arranged for us, during our honeymoon in Rome, to have an audience with the Pope.
Now when I say ‘audience’ I mean that instead of 100,000 people he met with in St. Peter’s Square, we were one of 3,000 people the Pope “met with" in a small corner of that square - and what I mean by ‘met’ - we waved at the Pope from the back of a crowd that was 50 feet away - and I could swear he was waving back right at us!
Anyway, when we got to Rome we were told to go to a specific office at a specific time to get our tickets - so that when we got to St. Peter’s Square, we could get to where we were going.
So when the morning of our meeting with the Pope came, we got up at 5am and got in line with tens of thousands of people - each of us holding our tickets. And this was an amazing group of people - from around the world - old, young, black, white, men and women - some singing songs, everyone sharing water and food - it was pre-COVID - as we experienced this unity - that all of us different people had all come from varied places - but were here for the same experience.
You may have felt this way camping out for a rock concert - or in an opera hall - or in an art museum - places where we share an appreciation, even a journey - and it serves as a way of uniting us almost instantly.
And how much more so then, when that unity is in our most foundational beliefs as people of faith?
Yes, we can unite around a lot of things that will lead to great accomplishment - a tech start up that develops revolutionary medications - a baseball team that wins a pennant - a neighborhood group that defeats a developer -
But Pentecost asks us to consider what unity around Jesus is all about.
Yes, there are nearly 10,000 Christian denominations in the world - 10,000 expressions of what following Jesus looks like - 10,000 and growing.
But we are not talking about uniformity, we are talking about unity.
We don’t all have to go to the same church -
But we are being invited to yearn for the same Spirit to grab hold of us.
That Spirit that can break down the walls that divide - and enable us to find common ground.
When we intentionally grab hold of - and make room for - that Spirit of God, whose fruit is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, and self-control - seeking to make God our center and our core - we can see barriers broken - fences mended - and real progress made.
2 Corinthians 5 describes your ministry and mine as ‘ministers of reconciliation’ - and that’s what we become when we grab hold of that Spirit.
And God knows we need it -
Can we talk gun safety?
Abortion?
Immigration?
We are as split and un-unified as it gets -
But the Spirit is about unity.
It's about reconciliation - repairing - mending - bridging the divide.
How is God calling us to be reconcilers and unifiers?
That’s what the Spirit is about - unity - how is God calling us not to fight - but to unify?
------------------
I went through an earthquake once.
After the 6.2 magnitude quake shook my Pasadena apartment 30 years ago I was told that the awesome power that imploded buildings, snapped power lines, and flattened freeways was not something that, all of a sudden, happened. But that it was the result of years and years of almost unnoticeable, undetectable underground forces at work, that would bring about a dramatic shift in the earthly landscape above.
The 42 second earthquake would make headlines for weeks, while the underlying, silent forces that led to it, would continue to go unnoted.
The Pentecost story opens itself to misunderstanding because we look at that mighty rush of wind - or those tongues of fire - so that when we think of ‘Power’ we think of worldly phenomena.
And in our story these are powerful symbols of the real power - the spiritual power - the often unnoticed power - that Jesus gives to us as we grab hold of the Spirit.
The power of Pentecost is found in those unseen forces of: hope, courage, confidence, trust, ambition, relentless dedication, and a sincere sense of calling and mission - this is power!
I went to visit my friend Abe in the hospital - who had just finished 10 rounds of chemotherapy.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“How’s the wife and kids? Got the sports car out yet? How's the cat?”
When someone’s gone through 10 bouts of chemo I am much more accustomed to hearing detailed reports on the procedures, the pain, and the worry being experienced.
What gives Abe the power to put others before himself?
What gives my friend Molly, who just lost her husband, the power to sleep well at night because she trusts her hubby is in a better place?
What gives my friend Amy the stamina to wake up early each morning to do her exercises so that when she’s a grandma she can get on the floor to play with the grandkids?
The power of Pentecost is found in hope, courage, confidence, trust, ambition, relentless dedication, and a sincere sense of calling and mission.
The power of the Spirit is not the power of the world - accumulating money - or commanding people - or ruling nations -
No, you and I are after the real power - that comes as the Holy Spirit grabs hold of us!
---------------------
The best cellist of the first half of the 1900’s - and an envy of my grandfather’s - who was a cellist - was a man named Pablo Casals.
He was best known for his recordings of Bach Cello Suites - and was so widely admired that President Kennedy awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the 1960’s.
He was also a teacher - and he famously said this:
"Each second we live in a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that never was before and will never be again. And what do we teach our children in school? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are?
"We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel.
"You are unique. In all of the world there is no other child exactly like you. In the millions of years that have passed there has never been another child like you... You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel.
"And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is like you, a marvel? You must cherish one another. You must work—we must all work—to make this world worthy of its children.”
Friends, the Holy Spirit is a Spirit of possibility.
From a small band of people in the backwaters of the Roman Empire, a government that tried for 2 generations to stamp it out - this Jesus movement would grow and grow, and very soon become the official religion of its earliest persecutors.
From that dusty, insignificant beginning, God would birth a movement that’s changed the world more than any other.
Who would have thought?
And if God can do that back then -
God can do what you and I are doubting can be done today.
Many of us have come to church this morning heavy with the weight of impossibility:
‘Oh, my job won’t improve.’
‘Oh, my health won’t get any better.’
‘Oh, COVID is going to ruin me.’
‘Oh, there’s no way things can improve in my life.'
You and I are hit with these barrages of doubt and uncertainty and apathy and discouragement - it's just in the air isn't it?
And if the Holy Spirit is telling us anything this morning it’s:
“Cool it!”
“Hopelessness is not the final word!”
"Giving up is not the answer!"
"I have so much more for you!"
“After all, you have my Spirit!”
"It is inside of you and all around you!"
“And my Spirit is not done with you!”
“Grab hold of that Spirit!”
Find ways to make God’s way more our way.
Find ways to allow the Spirit in - by shoving away all that other stuff that’s in the way.
It’s this Spirit of Unity, Power, and Possibility that are offered to us today - on this Pentecost Morning!
Let us resolve to make this summer one of making more room for this Spirit - that we might see more Unity, Power, and Possibility in our lives and in the world around us.
Amen.