June 9, 2019 – The Feast of Pentecost – Mass on the Grass…with Brass!: May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard. Amen.
What a joy it is to be out worshiping with all of you here in the midst of God’s beautiful creation. When we started this annual Mass on the Grass…with Brass! back in 2015, we couldn’t imagine how popular it would become. Perhaps it is beloved because it is followed by a picnic with lots of food, but I think it is more likely that folks sense something profound in the setting.
Now, our church building is, I think, one of the most beautiful anywhere – its imposing neo-gothic stonework, the Romanesque main tower that soars above the altar, the Tiffany stained glass windows that rain down an array of sparkling colored lights across the worship space, the large labyrinth that beckons you to a journey in the narthex, the carvings in the wood that harken to another age – it all captivates the heart and centers our very souls on the sacred. So why do we leave it to come here?
Well, just look around you? There is sacredness in creation too, for while the church is the work of human hands dedicated to God, this is God’s direct handiwork – and how alive it is too. The sounds, the smells, the feel of the grass…and yeah, even the occasional bite of a mosquito or annoyance of gnats flying by – it is all so active and full of life. And I can’t think of a better Sunday for us to be out here than on the Feast of Pentecost, for on this day, and forevermore, the promise Jesus made to his disciples in the passage from the gospel we read this morning came into being…and the world has never been the same since.
So, let’s start with what happened, as we hear it in the passage from Acts read every year on this Sunday. On the day of Pentecost, the apostles being good Jewish men and women were gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the Festival of Weeks and the giving of the law, one of three times faithful Jews were required to make pilgrimage and gather – the other two being Passover and the ingathering of the harvest. But for the followers of Jesus, this was a time of uncertainty. Jesus had departed, telling them, as we heard in the gospel today, that the Spirit of Truth, the Advocate, would be with them always – but what would that look like? What did that mean?
In that house in Jerusalem, they found out – a rush of wind, and tongues of fire rested on each of them – they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other languages – speech that was unfamiliar to them. It was all so strange that when they began to speak to the crowds that had gathered outside of the house in response to the noise, folks thought they were drunk. As I say every year, that led to perhaps one of the funniest lines in all of scripture, as Peter says to them “…listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning.” I guess those folks had never been to a college town following a Saturday night.
But while this is a totally awesome story of pyrotechnics and promise, what does it all mean? Or perhaps most importantly, what does it mean for us now?
I opened this sermon with the contrast of worshiping out here versus inside of our church. If we really pause to consider it, it is a great metaphor for the lessons of Pentecost. See, the thing is, that when that rush of wind and fire entered into the space where the apostles were gathered, they didn’t sit there and revel in it. They got up and out, speaking and hearing in a new way, with people who were different than them, who came from other cultures and places, and who spoke other languages that they, through this gift of the Spirit, were now able to comprehend. That is the first lesson of Pentecost. These faithful people were open to receiving the gifts God gave them, and with that, they left the familiar to go to the unfamiliar, left the house in which they were gathered to go into the community.
And the second lesson of Pentecost is that they didn’t do anything to bring about this gift of grace. To be sure, they were a very mixed bag of folks – not exactly the model of perfection in any sense of the word. Of the men anyway, one denied him, two others competed with one another for his affection, and most of the others were generally clueless. Yet the Holy Spirit alighted on them all the same.
God works through the ordinary to bring about the extraordinary. God chooses to work through us not because we are perfect, but because through the cracks of our imperfections God’s light shines brightly. The beauty of our sacred space we call our church is a wonderful thing, but God is just as present here among the unadorned splendor of nature. We don’t need to be anything but our ordinary selves given over to God through Christ, and we will know where the Spirit is leading, and be fully equipped to go and to do as God intends.
There’s a story told by Jeff Sackett that was in the newsletter of Luther Seminary. He wrote, “On a recent wilderness canoe trip to the Quetico Provincial Park, I sat with my daughter, Hannah, in front of a lovely campfire as the sun fell on the water behind us. As we sat together I casually picked up a small pine cone that I saw lying at my feet and tossed it in the fire. Hannah said, “Dad, do you know what that is?” “No,” I said. She said, “That’s
the cone of a jack pine. It opens when heated by fire. The seed can’t germinate until the cone burns.” …
The next day as we paddled along I reflected on the lesson of the jack pine cone. As it lay in our campsite, the cone itself was hard as a rock. You’d never know by looking at that little crescent-shaped pine nugget that there was any life inside it. Unless it were exposed to extreme heat! … The Bible describes the Holy Spirit with images of uncontrollable power – …fire. Wind. …The holy heat of that Spirit is continually cracking our hearts open so that the “life that really is life” can be released.”[1]
The holy heat of that Spirit is continually cracking our hearts open so that life can be released.
This, my friends, is the third lesson of Pentecost, and it exactly what Jesus promised in the gospel we heard today. He knows that he will not be physically present with his followers in the way he had been, but tells them that another is coming – the paraclete or advocate, will be sent, who will teach them everything and remind them of all that Jesus had told them. Wait…you mean if Jesus didn’t say it in all those red letter bibles it might still be God’s word? In short – yes. There is always more for us to learn, and God is always trying to crack us open that we might understand more, go further in our faith, and live the life that is really life.
And that Advocate, the Holy Spirit, alighted on those disciples on that first Pentecost, and has been doing the same on the church ever since. Through the centuries, the church has been pushed by the Spirit to move beyond the walls we build, to expand the circle, to break free from our limited view of God, and what She is doing in the world. And that means learning new languages – new ways of reaching across the divides of our human existence, and it means tearing down walls built of fear, arrogance, greed, and hate. It means going to people that don’t look, think, vote, love, and yes…even speak the way we do. It means leaving the walls of our churches, having been nourished in the Word and in the grace found in the Eucharist, and going out into the world, as we are doing today.
God is always trying to crack us open that we, the ordinary ones, might be the powerful children of God we are called to be so that the seeds of Christ’s love, deep within us, might be spread far and wide as we move beyond the boundaries of what and who we know. Put another way – the fullness of Pentecost is found not in the fact that a bunch of apostles could start speaking a whole lot of languages, but that followers of Jesus were opened by the fire of the Holy Spirit to hear the call of God and live out their lives in new and unexpected ways, that the life found in Christ through his resurrection might spread far and wide. It all begins by being open to the language God lights within us, to hear the truth the Spirit brings to us. Because there is always more for us to learn, always others being sent to teach us, always places we need to go.
This is my last Sunday with you until October, because as you know, I am going on sabbatical. Sabbatical is a time of renewal, when priests slow down to listen to God, and to experience new things. It is a Pentecost experience to be sure. The Holy Spirit will be speaking, and I will do my best to listen with an open heart and go where she leads.
You all know myplans for sabbatical – I will be engaging in ministry as an advocate for immigrants and refugees in Washington DC, studying a lot for a two week Theology Summer School at Oxford University, visiting sacred sites in the UK, attending different worship services in a variety of settings, and of course, getting sabbath rest.
What will you be doing? What will these next several months bring for you? Because you will, like those at that first Pentecost, hear a multitude of voices preaching this summer – use this as a way of hearing God in new and different ways. This is also your time to be open to how that new language is working in your heart, and guiding you to live out your call in ways yet unknown.
So I want you to have a plan too, because there is a reason priests are made to develop one. It isn’t about boxing us in, but about setting us on a path toward what we do not yet know, and having a plan gives us the impetus to take the first steps forward in our journey with the Holy Spirit.
What is something you hope to do or experience in your faith in the next 3 months? Think about that for a moment, and when you are ready, open your bulletin to page 10, and on the blank area on the lower half of the page, below the gospel, write it down…go ahead. If you don’t have something to write with, borrow your neighbor’s, or take one of the pencils being passed around. It could be one thing, or several, but let it all be guided by the love found in Jesus.
Now, when you get home, tear out that page, and put it on your refrigerator or some other place where you will see it every day. Let it be a reminder that God is seeking to crack open your hearts by the heat of the Spirit’s fire, and calling you to new possibilities as children of God and followers of Jesus, and to be open to all that lay ahead for you.
I also want you to take one of these pine cones, which I will hand out at The Peace. These are not Jack Pine Cones – I don’t have any of those – but they are from the White Pines in my yard. Keep them in this sabbatical time as a symbol of all that the Holy Spirit is calling you to be, and as a reminder that I will be praying for you in this time apart.
Before I close here today, I want to share one more thing to know about the Jack Pine…”In Michigan, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) lights fires in the Jack Pine Ecosystems to help new jack pine trees grow. This is because the Kirtland’s Warbler will only build nests under the young jack pine trees.”[2] “Nearly extinct just 50 years ago, the Warbler has found new life, and it is well on its way to recovery.”[3] It is a story of death and resurrection, found in the revived bird song of the Warbler.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we are his human Jack Pine Cones, broken open by the fire of the Holy Spirit, and through our death and new life in Christ, we spread the seeds of his love, bringing life to a world that is filled with the spiritually dead.
I pray that when we meet again on Sunday, October 6th, we can share with one another the new things God has taught us, the places the Spirit has led us, the seeds of Christ’s love we have spread from our hearts…
…cracked open in this Pentecost time.
Amen.
For the audio from the 10:30am service, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here:
[1]Jeff Sackett, Stewardship e-newsletter of Luther Seminary, July 11, 2017. luthersem.edu. Retrieved November 29, 2017.
[2]http://techalive.mtu.edu/meec/module11/FireandJackPine.htm
[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirtland%27s_warbler
The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
June 9, 2019
Pentecost Sunday –Year C
1st Reading – Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:25-35, 37
2nd Reading – Romans 8:14-17
Gospel – John 14:8-17, (25-27)
