May 31, 2019 – Feast of Pentecost: May God’s words be spoken, may God’s words be heard.  Amen.

Welcome to the Feast of Pentecost.  It is a principal feast day, sometimes thought of as the birthday of the church, and I am guessing that many of you are wearing festive red – a tradition – as it symbolizes the Holy Spirit. Yet for whatever reason, we talk about C&E Christians – those folks who show up only on Christmas and Easter, but not about CEP Christians, even though it was Easter and Pentecost that for the first few hundred years of the church were the “Big Two.”  Christmas came much later. 

This Feast day is so important, we celebrate a very, very, long season of it…right up to All Saints on the first Sunday of November.  Not only that, but in classic literature, it was the time that King Arthur would summon his knights to the round table, and the feast, also called Whitsunday, was mentioned by authors from Shakespeare to Dumas. 

Anyway, the texts for this Sunday are particularly poignant in this time of our lives, for they have lessons to teach us – ones we must pay attention and respond to – or we cannot call ourselves followers of Jesus – no matter how many times we come to church – virtual or otherwise. 

So, let’s start with the main story itself – the anointing of the apostles by the Holy Spirit – the gift promised to them by Jesus, as we heard about in the text from two Sundays ago.  Like many other good and faithful Jews, the apostles, having witnessed the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, were in Jerusalem for the Festival of Weeks, a harvest celebration that falls seven weeks after the Passover – or fifty days after the first Seder.  Jewish faithful from all over the known world were there too.  It was a large and diverse crowd that would gather for this important religious observance.

Now, back to those apostles…they were gathered in prayer when suddenly a violent wind filled the house, and tongues of fire appeared among them and on top of their heads.  The Holy Spirit filled them – and they began to speak in other languages, as they had the ability.  When the crowds gathered for the festival heard them, they assumed they were drunk, and that is when we get one of the funniest responses from Peter, right? “Nah…we aren’t drunk – it’s only 9 o’clock in the morning!”  Like THAT ever stopped anyone – then again, maybe Jerusalem wasn’t the city that never sleeps of the Ancient Near East.  Anyway, then Peter tells them that what they were witnessing was foretold by the prophet Joel – but, we’ll get to that later.

You know, they have made the Ten Commandments, and the story of Jesus, into Hollywood blockbusters, but you gotta admit – this would make a great film, right?  I mean, it’s got wild winds, fire, festivals, and other strange happenings.  Yet, when we allow ourselves to be distracted by those things we can sometimes gloss over something so important, so central to this story of the church’s beginnings, and it is this: Pentecost isn’t about the spectacle, but about us, and who we are meant to be in the world.  And, we need this reminder of Pentecost and what it means for us, now more than ever, for we are a people in pain.

This has been another horrific week, hasn’t it? 

We reached the milestone of over 100,000 dead from COVID-19.  Think about that – 100,000 people – in just a few short months, and we are not yet at the end of this pandemic.  And there are over 40 million people out of work, and many more facing economic uncertainty.  Let me say those numbers again -100,000 dead and 40 million people out of work – we reached those numbers this week.

We also witnessed yet another killing of a black man by police, as George Floyd pleaded that he could not breathe while a white police officer pushed his knee into his neck and stayed there until he died.  Meanwhile, a grandmother in Texas stood watch over her black grandson to protect him from police – and she was a force to be reckoned with – perhaps even saving his life from the ones standing over him with guns drawn for…get this – an alleged traffic violation!  How many white folks would have guns pointed at them for running a stop sign?  How many of us would have to be protected like that?

There was also a hammer wielding woman in Houston who terrorized a couple from Ecuador, who were taking respite there after the wife had been treating COVID patients.  She was yelling at them to “go back to your f&*%cking country.” In the video, she is wearing a t-shirt with an Irish flag, and driving a German car.  You can’t make this racist crap up.

And the weeks prior were no picnic either.

Since the pandemic broke out, the President has quietly deported hundreds of migrant children by themselves, often without notifying their parents. So first we put them in cages, or kidnap them from their families, and now we just ship them out without their parents knowing about it. We know this only happens to those with brown skin who speak another language too, don’t we.

We have found that COVID disproportionately affects African-Americans and our Indigenous Tribal People, and the shutdown has impacted women economically at higher rates, while also exposing them to situations of domestic abuse.

And of course there are always scores of reports of the oppression and killing of women and LGBT people, not to mention Ahmed Aubrey, Breonna Taylor, and all the other people of color who are killed and are not reported, that seem to get lost in the news of the day. 

It is exhausting.

But one thing my faith has taught me is that when things look darkest, the light will shine brighter – always look for the hope amidst the despair.  And so, if we were paying attention, there were also hopeful stories, lots of them really – there were all those who took to the streets in protest – all those who care for the sick, all those who stand up for the immigrant – they give us all hope.  And I found a bit more hope yesterday, and perhaps you did too, with the launch of the Space X Dragon capsule, sending astronauts into space.  No, I don’t mean that an expensive commercial space program is good news in and of itself, but launches always give us something we don’t always see.

When I was a kid, I used to love all the Apollo missions.  My dad would bring my brother and me patches for each one, and my mom would sew mine onto my jean jacket.  We would watch the launches together too.  Launches always made me dream about what that must be like, “to slip the surly bonds of earth” as the poem goes, and to see the earth from orbit.  So, as Dragon entered into orbit and the images showed the earth below, I remembered this quote from astronaut Sultan Bin Salman al-Saud from Saudi Arabia, who in 1985 was one of a seven-member international crew on the space shuttle Discovery.  Speaking of that flight, he said, “The first day or so we all pointed to our countries. The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day we were aware of only one Earth.”

And that – this God’s eye view of our world – that is the lesson of Pentecost we need to hear if we are ever to fully be the church we celebrate today, and oh how Jesus needs us to be that now.  Because what we so often miss in this cornerstone story of our faith is that it isn’t about the pyrotechnics, but about how God works in the world, or really, how God wants US to BE in the world. 

See, the gift that was given to these first church leaders was that they could speak the languages of the people of the world.  Think about it – God could have made all the peoples of the earth speak one language so that the apostles could spread the good news, but no…the Holy Spirit made it possible for those earliest followers to go out into the world and meet people where they are. The foundational gift of Jesus to his church was to open doors to the diversity of God’s creation – not to expect everyone to conform to a single way of being.

This too is the message of St. Paul we heard today, who makes it clear that the church itself is intended to be diverse.  He tells us that while we – all the peoples of the world – are united in the body of Christ, members of a larger whole – we are not the same.  To each is given unique spiritual gifts. 

And what are all these gifts of the Spirit meant to be used for?  Well, that is found in the words of Jesus in today’s gospel, when he says that “out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.”  And we know what that living water is, don’t we?  It is the gospel we proclaim – the good news of God’s all inclusive love and grace – found in Jesus- and lived out by each of us as the body of Christ.

The lesson of Pentecost is that our church doors were never meant as a gate through which only those who conform to preset standards may enter, but are to be portals through which we are able to come together as the body of Christ, and then to go out into the world to love and to serve everyone – young and old, rich and poor, no matter what gender they claim, who they love, where they were born, and yes – what language they speak.  That is how we are able to be the living waters for those who thirst for justice, for compassion, for love, for peace.  That is what it means to be the church.  But, wait…there’s more!

Now, earlier I mentioned the part of our story from Acts when St. Peter told the crowds that this gift of the Holy Spirit, manifested in the ability to speak to them in their native language, was something foretold by the prophet Joel.  Listen to what that prophet said according to Peter “God declares…I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.” 

Pentecost is about the gift of the spirit being brought upon the followers of Jesus that we – men and women, young and old, everyone – may see visions, dream dreams, and speak truth to the world.  And what are those visions, dreams, and truth?  It is none other than that which is given to us by God – it is God’s very vision of shalom, God’s dream of love and peace, God’s truth that all of the earth are her creation given into our care from the beginning of time.

You know, next week we will hear the story of that beginning – of God creating the world found in the book of Genesis, chapter one, and I can assure you it does not say “God then said, let us make humankind in our image – white, male, straight, and speaking English – and let us create an exclusive place for them to dwell called the United States.”  But Lordy, if you look around at some people who call themselves Christian, you might think it did! 

Folks, one thing needs to be made very clear about much of the news of late, and that is this: the victims weren’t killed, beaten, raped, abused, oppressed, or marginalized because of who they were…but because of who we have become.  In Pentecost, we are reminded of who we were born to be – a people who celebrate the diversity of God’s creation, not destroy it.  God calls us to see the world as She sees it.

And from God’s point of view there are no countries, just a world filled with all of God’s beautiful creation – all peoples, all of nature – magnificent in its diversity. That is why the gift of Pentecost wasn’t one of conformity, but of multiplicity.  That is why St. Paul reminds us that we will be a people with a variety of gifts. 

And so today, on the Feast of Pentecost, we join with the larger church to celebrate our beginnings – when the Holy Spirit gifted the earliest followers with an ability to speak, and to be heard all over the world.  Does we really understand what that means for us today?  

Because when we are silent while our government puts families into cages on our borders or kidnaps their children, as we ignore their cries of oppression, we have not learned the lesson of Pentecost.

When we are silent when people of color are killed, harassed, told to go back to wherever someone think they ought to be, and ignore all their suffering under the tyranny of racism, we have not learned the lesson of Pentecost.

When we are silent when the indigenous people of our country are systematically marginalized, their tribal lands scarred by pipelines and border walls, their water threatened, we have not learned the lesson of Pentecost.

When we are silent when women are abused, killed, discriminated against in society and in the church, we have not learned the lesson of Pentecost.

When we are silent while LGBT people are shunned, pushed to the margins, excluded from our church, beaten, or killed, we have not learned the lesson of Pentecost.

When we are silent while Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and all people of faith are persecuted, we have not learned the lesson of Pentecost.

Because the lesson of Pentecost is that –

We are not meant to be silent!

We are meant to see visions, dream dreams, and prophesy!

We are meant to be the living water of Jesus!

So let us rejoice in the power of the Holy Spirit, and go forth into the world to meet people where they are – proclaiming the good news that all people – every single person in the world – without exception – is a beloved child of God.

Let us go forth to proclaim the good news of Jesus, and break the chains of injustice, be a voice for the voiceless, and be a balm of healing and forgiveness for a broken world.

Let us go forth to be the people of Pentecost we are – a diverse people called to love and serve a diverse world.

And may God give us all the strength and courage to see, to dream, to prophesy, and to be the living water of Christ, until God’s vision of shalom is realized across all the earth. 

Amen.

For the audio from the 10:30am service, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here:

Sermon Podcast

The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
May 31, 2020
Feast of Pentecost – In A Time Of Separation
1st Reading – Acts 1:6-14
Psalm 68:1-10, 33-36
2nd Reading –  1 Peter 4:12-14; 5:6-11
Gospel – John 17:1-11