May 11, 2008
The Day of Pentecost (Year A)
Acts 2:1-21; Psalm 104:25-35, 37b; 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13; John 20:19-23
Happy birthday church! This is a month for church birthdays! Today we celebrate the birth of the Christian church by the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples and their friends two thousand years ago, and next week we will celebrate the birthday of Good Shepherd – with a bit of a party, of course – Good Shepherd is fifty years old!
It’s interesting to think about the church universal: how it has developed, grown, and changed in those two thousand years. Of course, Good Shepherd has grown and changed, too, in just fifty years, but we will talk about that NEXT week!
We believe that the Holy Spirit is the tangible proof of the continuing presence of God acting in the world. The Spirit is what empowers us, guides us, and helps us dare to move or change or serve in ways that, left to our own devices, we probably would not risk. Human beings are for the most part creatures of habit so observing how people or institutions move and change when they seek the guidance of God or the Holy Spirit is also, I think, to observe how the Spirit guides and moves in the world on an ongoing basis.
This movement of the Spirit, which the church has always assumed and called upon to guide it throughout history, is a fascinating one. It is a bit of a different lens with which to explore history. It is to ask how was God present in this? It is how the people who wrote the Gospels looked at history. The church began as gatherings of Jewish people in homes to read letters from other churches, to tell each other the stories Jesus had told their various members or friends of members or friends of friends of friends. The church gathered, men and women, rich and poor. They shared an agape meal, mostly pot luck, as they prayed together and shared news of other Christian gatherings. The early church was about relationships. It’s not hard to find the Spirit in that!
Some of the early communities held everything in common – something we find incomprehensible today, of course. We balk at the concept of tithing. Imagine if this community required us to share all our possessions with the whole in order to claim membership? Imagine how the Spirit might work in such a community? But as the Jesus movement (as it was described in the early years) grew, tension also grew between the Jewish leaders/synagogues and the gatherings – the rabbis and Pharisees and other religious officials in power did not believe that Jesus was the messiah. The house churches that began as part of the mainstream of Judaism became alienated, and they moved underground, hidden in catacombs, homes and outlying villages. But the Spirit led them even in persecution, sometimes not toward personal safety and what would be termed “success” by either their standard or ours, but the Spirit was with the church, for, in the end it was accepted and became mainstream itself.
They would say, and I would agree with them, that the Spirit moved them, surrounded them, and allowed them to keep the faith alive despite virulent persecution.
Then Christianity became a religion of the state, and the church grew from a hidden, minor sect to a prestigious institution. And it has remained that for centuries all over the western world.
The Church always believed the Spirit to be guiding it but was it? I wonder how the Spirit was guiding during the crusades. The people believed that the Spirit was calling them to rid the world of infidels, but was it? Often the Church was used as the reason for conquering other nations, a clever deception for power and land hungry political leaders. Even Hitler claimed to be a Christian!
When imported to this continent, Christianity became the backbone of the American ethos. Even though we “separated church and state,” the tacit understanding was that this was a “Christian nation” – though not of a specific denomination of Christianity.
How is the Spirit moving in our nation today? Is it in the political process? Is it in the Democratic primaries? The war in Iraq? Through the leadership of George W. Bush, who is self-described as a man of deep and practiced faith? People of deep faith would say “yes” to all these questions while others of equally deep faith would laugh with scorn that the Spirit could be attributed to any of the current political scene.
And that is the tricky thing about the Spirit. It was pretty clear when we consider that first day of Pentecost when the Spirit descended upon the disciples and all those gathered and gave them the power to speak in all languages. It was clear that the Spirit was acting in that moment, but I wonder? Suppose they didn’t know that day that it was the Spirit. Suppose those men and women of great faith prayed and dared to act, and listened and went on about their ministry with conviction about who Jesus was in their lives. Then, when they had time to reflect they began to tell the story. And finally some years after the fact, the author Luke wrote it down based on oral history and it became gospel. But I would wager that the people that day in the middle of that chaos, the tongues and the flames and the gathering of friends and co-workers and loved ones, probably knew something wonderful as happening, but they could not have named it as the coming of the Spirit until they reflected on it.
That is the way the Spirit is most evident, in retrospect. People of faith count on the Spirit in all aspects of their lives, from the leading of an individual on the right path to whole nations praying for discernment and guidance. And the Spirit works through individuals, through groups, and through the constant and faithful listening prayers of God’s people. But all people of faith must walk in mystery, not knowing, until through hindsight, in the context of the reflective work of community, the action of the Spirit is named and affirmed.
Many of us, myself included, have believed the Spirit to have led us to a specific action in our lives. We believe that we have followed faithfully what God has asked us to do. I certainly felt that way when I was called to come and serve here, and when I was invited to be part of the bishop’s election in California last year. I thought the Spirit was leading me to act on those invitations. Yet, in hindsight it is clear to most all of us that I was called to be among you, that I was not called to serve as bishop. Hindsight would affirm that, but in the chaos and confusion of trying to discern, I had to step out in faith as did the people of this parish who called me, and as the people of the diocese of El Camino Real who called Mary Gray Reaves. But not for a moment do I believe that the Spirit was not active in all of our lives, and that winning or losing is not a sign of the presence of the Spirit. For I trust that God’s love and power extends to everyone, and not everyone ends up where they think the Spirit is leading them. Always the reality is that we step out in faith and follow in mystery, in NOT knowing as we go. The Spirit never seems to leave a trail of bread crumbs to make it easy for us
But to this day I believe that the Spirit was active and present, both at these times as well as in every other moment of my life and your life. I believe, even though one time I was called and the other not, that I was needed to be part of the process of discernment, and that my own discernment and leading of the Spirit would bring me to a deeper and holier understanding of God’s action in my life and the life of the world around me. And it has in ways I could not have imagined when I began.
Too often we, all of us, think a warm fuzzy feeling or a clear idea is a sign from God that we are called to do or be or change or guide our lives in a specific direction. Warm fuzzy feelings can even initially be affirmed by people we trust who are wise and faithful people. And it seems that the Spirit will partially open a door, but the path we take turns in ways we couldn’t know at the start. We can still learn from, and often in hindsight see the better path for us. Sometimes the Spirit has something more wonderful for us. So true for me, this year having a new grandchild! and having new friends I wouldn’t have had had I moved to California! Sometimes we think we are going somewhere following the Spirit, but then it turns out very differently and becomes so clear in hindsight.
What is clear to me is that the Spirit is working, in all of our lives, and that we need each other, in this community and ones like it, to listen, to reflect, and discern the next path we can try. We may not know the outcome of our journey for weeks or years or in this life, but we will always be assured along the way with small moments of brilliant recognition of the presence of God in our lives.
Following the Spirit is not easy, and it is certainly not always accurate from our own vulnerable, limited human viewpoint. But if we dare to look at history, at our own lives and our common life in this parish, with eyes focused on how the Spirit might be leading us, I trust that we will have a wonderful and wild ride! We will have lives filled with risk, hope, faith, and love. We will know failure – of course! But we will also know that deep peace that passes understanding.
May the Spirit guide and hold us all. May we all know the peace that passes understanding. The peace Jesus gave his disciples on that first Pentecost Day. Peace, my friends. Peace.
Amen.
The Rev. Dr. Gale Davis Morris
Church of the Good Shepherd