May 24, 2015 – Pentecost Sunday: May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard. Amen.

So, here we are on Pentecost – Easter is over, the white vestments are put away (well, until next week when we cart them out for Trinity Sunday – thank God for our Altar Guild!), and then we will settle in for season of Pentecost, or what is sometimes called “Ordinary Time.” Ordinary time…sounds almost like we’d be rocking on some porch sipping lemonade. That is a funny thing to call the next few months, because it is anything but ordinary, and we are a people that, like I said about Jesus last week, are not (or at least should not be) sitting around. In fact, our lives as the body of Christ are meant to be anything but ordinary. That is the message of Pentecost…a message launched, quite literally, last week in the Ascension.

Now last week…using that all important theological commentary…”Star Wars,” the Ascension of Jesus was for those standing there, and for us now, a new hope – which was the title of the first Star Wars film. And they left that to gather in community in hopeful anticipation and openness to what was to come.

And so here we are today, a principal feast day, the birthday of the church…and as Jesus said would happen, the Holy Spirit has moved through those earliest of his followers, and the force awakened in them has not stopped moving even to this day- the Force Awakens being the title of the next Star Wars movie (and perhaps the last?).

Now, I want to just go back to that first Star Wars movie for a moment, because there is moment that I think is about that time in our lives when God is asking us to be open, not distracted, and trust in the Spirit. Our young hero, Luke Skywalker, is in the midst of the final big battle of the rebellion against the evil Empire. He is piloting the only battle ship left that has a chance to send a small bomb into a very tiny hole in this enormous space ship called the Death Star. This Death Star is the Empire’s new weapon of mass destruction – able to annihilate whole planets. There is a single place on it that is vulnerable to attack, but all the other battle ships – yes, X-Wing fighters for true geeks – have been destroyed by either it, or the fighter ships of the Empire. Luke alone has a final chance to fly low over the Death Star and release the bomb in the precise place. A miss, and it is all over.

These X-Wing fighters that Luke is piloting are entirely controlled by targeting computers and other electronics, as one might imagine to be true for the future (or really the past, as Star Wars takes place a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away). So picture this…Luke is streaming along at top speed over the face of the Death Star with Darth Vadar, the Empire’s dark knight as it were, in hot pursuit. And Luke hears the voice of his friend – the older Jedi knight Obi-Wan Kenobi – in his mind. Obi-Wan is dead…think Ascended…killed by Darth Vadar – well actually, he lowered his saber in a dual to allow Darth to kill him – in other words, he gave up his life so that he could be with Luke and the others of the rebellion in a new way that they could not imagine. Hmmm….does that sound familiar? I mean, just a little bit?

Obi-wan tells Luke at this most tense moment to “use the force.” What he is saying is – you can’t do it alone – targeting computers won’t do it. Don’t get distracted by the technology, but free your mind and heart to hear and see in a way you have never before – the results will be life changing! The force will guide you if you let it. Well, Luke listened to Obi-Wan, turned off his targeting computer, letting go of all control over the outcome he closed his eyes, and…you know the rest – and if you don’t – go watch the movie! Or…read our texts for this week. No, Luke Skywalker doesn’t start speaking in tongues, but he is shown the way he needs to go and what to do. The force moved through him, and the results changed everything.

God is speaking through the Spirit – always has and always will; but, we have to stop talking and start listening! We have to stop our reliance on other things to tell us what to do. We need to make the time to listen apart from all the other distractions of our lives, and let go of our need to control everything. We need to be open to the force awakened in us – to hear what the Holy Spirit is saying, to allow it to move in us, and then…we need to be willing to go wherever it leads.

Those earliest followers of Jesus had no idea what would happen to them, but once they were given the power to speak in other languages, they understood the Holy Spirit was guiding them out into the world – not just the world they knew, the world that was home to them, but that the Spirit would take them to places, and to people, they would never have thought to encounter before. They were to seek Christ in the world, and to do that, they had to be what they were looking for – they had to be the body of Christ.

Ascension is “The New Hope,” and that hope began with Christ getting a few scars during his ministry – he got out into the world and it cost him. But beyond the historical Jesus, the Jesus alive today – the body of Christ – the church – you and me – we need to as well. I am not saying we need to be nailed to a cross – real or proverbial. I am saying that we need to at least get in the game.

I was watching the Mets game the other night, which lately has truly been an act of faith, but as a Mets fan, I am used to that. Anyway, at one point a player that usually is waiting on the bench to play, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, got a chance to be in the outfield, and don’t you know – he made the game winning catch. When he made this really spectacular catch, sliding in the dirt and then into a wall, the commentator said, “Isn’t it great to see Kirk Nieuwenhuis with a dirty uniform!”

So many Christians stay far too neat and tidy. We need to have dirty uniforms. Well, okay, we don’t wear uniforms…but we do claim an identity and that is essentially what a uniform is – a claim of an identity. And that uniform, our uniform, is something we wear inside that, if we are open to the Spirit, is evident to all around us in ways big and small. It isn’t about wearing t-shirts that say “Let me tell you about Jesus” though that will get you a seat all to yourself on the subway. No, it is about being the gospel alive. As St. Francis of Assisi famously said, “Preach the gospel. Use words, only if necessary.”

See, I think we often get caught up in the big flashy stories of scripture – the sound of a mighty wind, fire dancing on heads, miracles of healing…but it is often more true that the Spirit will lead us to places and inspire us to actions that are much more about what Christ was about – serving and loving our neighbor. What we do matters far more than what we say, and it is in the doing where we get our uniforms dirty, were we get in the game. And sometimes, most times really, it isn’t the spectacular catches, but the “just doing my job” type of daily acts that make such a difference in the world. Those seemingly small acts of kindness that are truly hope delivered by a force awakened.

I have a friend that I play golf with, I’ll call her Karen. Karen is one of those people that listens very well, and I have told her that in many ways, she exemplifies what it means to be Christ in the world (knowing that she was a Christian). Actually, I am blessed to know many people like that, especially the women I play golf with each week. Anyway, Karen and I have a mutual friend, who I will call Lisa, who also plays golf with our league. Last week, I had called Lisa to check in on her as she had recently been struggling with a family member’s cancer diagnosis, and that day she had just heard some devastating news. Lisa was upset, and unfortunately, I was nearly at the church, and about to have a meeting with a parishioner who was also in need, so I couldn’t turn the car around. So, even though Karen was incredibly busy planning a huge charity event, I took a risk and called her to let her know about Lisa, and left a message with the hope that perhaps she might be able to call her. I found out later from Lisa that Karen dropped everything to drive over and pay a visit – a visit that really made a difference. When we next played golf, as we walked over to the first tee box, I thanked Karen for her visit to Lisa, and told her how much her pastoral visit made such an impact. She humbly dismissed it as just part of what anyone would do, and was surprised I called it a pastoral visit, given that she wasn’t a priest. But I told her that she actually is – she is a part of the priesthood of all believers, and that she was providing a ministry of presence.

See, what Karen did was get in the game…well, she was already in the game running a charity event, but the thing is – this is a woman whose uniform is most definitely dirty at the end of every day. In ways big and small, she allows the Spirit to guide her to do the work of Christ. And I know so many of you that do this too – do these small acts of loving neighbor that are really quite huge.

So often we think we have to do grand or dramatic things like speak in tongues, or defeat the death star and Darth Vader. And so we also expect the Spirit to move like that too – in gusty winds knocking us down, or sending flames of fire on our heads, and sometimes it does. But the Spirit also moves in the soft, small, and quiet breezes, and if we are always listening for the hurricane, we won’t hear the whisper of the soft wind.

We may be called to change the world in dramatic ways, many have, or change the world one small act of kindness at a time. But either way, this force, the force awakened in us, is a force to be reckoned with, and it will not be stopped – certainly not by anything we do or don’t do. The Spirit has been active in creation from the beginning of time, and she goes before us, imploring us to be a part of her work in the world. We have an opportunity to be a part of that – if we open ourselves to what the Spirit brings – because it isn’t always what we expect.

As one commentator noted, this “is not the story of the Church bringing the kingdom to fruition or reforming society. It is a story of the Church gasping for breath as she runs to catch up to what the Spirit of [God] is doing in the world. The apostles [will later] appoint a twelfth to fill the slot abandoned by Judas, but the Spirit is less interested in maintaining structures than in deluging the Church with power. Dozing Peter requires a thrice-repeated vision to wake up to the fact that Gentiles are now part of the family of God. The Spirit […] redirects Paul from evangelizing Asia and gives him a vision of a man from Macedonia, who, just to keep Paul on his toes, turns out to be a woman named Lydia! …. Luke writes a gospel sequel [this book of Acts] because [God] is still acting and teaching. [And God is still speaking to us!] The question is not when Jesus is returning [as though we are in some sort of waiting room] but whether we will learn to catch up to what [God] is doing now and to look outward [and inward] instead of heavenward [for the Jesus who IS in the world today]”^[1] And we call this ordinary time? This is a time that is anything BUT ordinary.

Once anointed with the Spirit, once that force of God’s love was awakened in them, those earliest followers of Jesus went out around the world – not to give Christ to people, but to be the Christ alive, and to seek Christ in others. To empower them as Christ empowered the apostles, aiding in the work the Spirit was already doing in the world. That is the new hope that the Ascension promised and that the force awakened at Pentecost brought into being.

And like those apostles, through Christ we have been given a new hope, and through the power of the Holy Spirit, we are a force that is awakened – awakened to offer that new hope to a world that is still very much in need of it. We don’t bring the Spirit or Christ to them, but in our lives, our actions, our getting our uniforms dirty, we meet the Spirit and Christ in the work already begun by them. We get in the game.

Pentecost reminds us that the church is Christ alive now, and was never ever meant to be stuck behind walls, anymore than we would imagine Jesus would sit behind them.

Pentecost reminds us that we are going to have to step boldly forward and risk getting our hands dirty in ways big and small in a continuing journey into the unknown.

Pentecost reminds us that the force of the Holy Spirit is awakened…and it will guide us if we let it – if we stop trying to control it.

Christ gave the world a new hope, and the Spirit is the force awakened in each of us to be that hope in the world.

A world in need of hope now more than ever.

“May the force be with you.”

Amen.

[1] http://www.ekklesiaproject.org/blog/2011/05/gospel-sequel/#sthash.M6uf8jAt.dpuf

[Sermons as written may not be as delivered on any given Sunday]

Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
May 24, 2015
The Day of Pentecost
1st Reading – Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104: 25-35,37
2nd Reading – Romans 8:22-27
Gospel – John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15