Year B, Pentecost Sunday, PSALM 104.24-34, 35b, Spirit World

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  Amen

All of them look to you to give them their food in due season. You give it to them; they gather it; you open your hand, and they are filled with good things. When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; and so you renew the face of the earth.
(Psalm 104:27-30)

On Pentecost Sunday we remember that day in Jerusalem when the Spirit rested on the disciples and they spoke in the various languages of the people who had gathered there.

Remembering that day, there are many things we might say, many sermons that can be preached.

For some the focus will be on the miracle of Pentecost, that the disciples could speak in foreign languages and that through their witness thousands from every nation came to believe.

For others the focus is on the focus is on the new mission of the Church to reach out to all nations, not just the Jewish people, that all may be saved.

And for many the focus is on the gift of the Holy Spirit which Jesus promised when he said:  Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

Pentecost.

Fifty days after Easter.

Another common theme concerning this day is to focus on the beginning of the Church.

3,000 people were baptized as a result of the Apostle’s witness. 

All of these emphases focus specifically on the roll of the Spirit in creating faith in the hearts of those who believe.

And the tendency for us is to view this work of the Spirit in very specific, exclusive terms.

When I was in college, back in the 70’s, the charismatic movement was all the rage.

One of the professors there at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, a man by the name of Stephan Emory, was a charismatic and made it his mission to share the gift of the spirit with the students on campus.

One of the things he shared was that the baptism of the Holy Spirit went beyond what the Church practiced in the Baptism of Water.

Those who were baptized in the Spirit were an elite class of Christians.

And with that baptism came special gifts, such as speaking in tongues.  This was the primary focus and remains so to this day among those who are Pentecostal Christians.

From this perspective, the Spirit’s activity is very specific.  The gift of the Holy Spirit is limited to a very few blessed people.

It’s an exclusive club.

Another professor I knew from seminary was also a charismatic, kind of a rare commodity among seminary professors.  He was an Old Testament scholar.

As an Old Testament professor he had been invited to speak to a gathering of Charismatic Christians, and the specific topic he had been asked to address was the “Spirit in the Old Testament”.

He related that his hosts had anticipated he would spend his time focusing on the Spirit of God as it was manifest in the work of the prophets.

Prophecy is one of the gifts of the Spirit that Charismatics love to focus on.

He didn’t.

He related that his hosts were amazed, somewhat surprised when the central theme of his presentation on the Holy Spirit was not prophecy, but creation.

His conviction was that if we are going to understand the breadth of the Spirit’s work among us, we must start with creation.

All of them, that is, every living creature, look to you to give them their food in due season. You give it to them; they gather it; you open your hand, and they are filled with good things. When you hide your face, they are terrified; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; and so you renew the face of the earth.

Literally, the Spirit of God is the Breath of God.

The Hebrew word for Spirit means breath, wind, spirit.

When God created Adam he “breathed” his Spirit into him.

When Jesus breathed his last, he commended his “Spirit” to God.

This said, the point is that the primary gift of the Holy Spirit is not faith, or any particular gift such as speaking in tongues, but life itself.

Not just human life, but all life is the result of the presence of the Spirit of God.

In this light, the manifestation of the Holy Spirit is not some exclusive gift reserve for a select few of the most devout Christians.

It is rather what binds us together with all people, and indeed, with every living creature on the face of the earth.

Think of this, the next time you interact with a dog, or cat, or any other animal, even a plant.

We all share in the Spirit of God that gives life.

St. Francis of Assisi took it even one step further when he wrote his “Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister Moon”:

Most High, all-powerful, all-good Lord, All praise is Yours, all glory, all honour and all blessings.

To you alone, Most High, do they belong, and no mortal lips are worthy to pronounce Your Name.

Praised be You my Lord with all Your creatures,
especially Sir Brother Sun,
Who is the day through whom You give us light.
And he is beautiful and radiant with great splendour,
Of You Most High, he bears the likeness.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
In the heavens you have made them bright, precious and fair.

Praised be You, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air,
And fair and stormy, all weather's moods,
by which You cherish all that You have made.

Praised be You my Lord through Sister Water,
So useful, humble, precious and pure.

Praised be You my Lord through Brother Fire,
through whom You light the night and he is beautiful and playful and robust and strong.

Praised be You my Lord through our Sister,
Mother Earth
who sustains and governs us,
producing varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.
Praise be You my Lord through those who grant pardon for love of You and bear sickness and trial.

Blessed are those who endure in peace, By You Most High, they will be crowned.

Praised be You, my Lord through Sister Death,
from whom no-one living can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin! Blessed are they She finds doing Your Will.

No second death can do them harm. Praise and bless my Lord and give Him thanks,
And serve Him with great humility.

Paul writes in Romans the 8^th Chapter:

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; 20 for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; 23 and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.

And in Revelation John writes:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

The Spirit of God.

All of creation is filled with God’s Spirit.

And God will redeem it all, bringing forth a new heaven and a new earth, and with it every form of life and being.

Wow!

Just Wow!

I believe that one of the greatest mistakes and misunderstandings that we have as Christians and people of faith is that we tend to view God’s grace and mercy, and his redeeming activity in very exclusive terms.

We are prone to think that God concerns himself with humans alone, and that Christians alone have the assurance of salvation, and that even among Christians, only a select few will be saved.

And in so doing, we fail to see the breadth of God’s grace, and depth of his love, and the presence of his Spirit throughout all of creation.

I do not believe that any of us can ever rightfully judge that some are beyond the grace and mercy of God, or that they are lost.

Contrary to that, I invite you to recognize that God’s Spirit fills all of creation.

As Paul preached in Athens:

“For 'In him we live and move and have our being';”

It is by the gift of God’s Spirit that anything exists.

It is the Spirit that gives life, even to the plants that surround us.

It is the Spirit of God that breathes life into every living creature.

It is God’s Spirit that sustains and renews all people.

And apart from the Spirit of God, we die and return to the dust.

And yet even then, the psalmist writes:

You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; and so you renew the face of the earth.

Pentecost is about resurrection, it’s a follow up to Easter, and its promise is nothing short of a new heaven and earth, and a redeemed life to all of creation.  Amen

Year A, Pentecost Sunday, Acts 2.1-21 “The Rush of a Violent Wind”

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ.  Amen

“And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.”

Wind makes me uneasy, unsettled, and downright anxious.

It’s not often around here that we experience a great wind.  But it happens from time to time.

My experiences of the wind come from my time on the Great Plains, now there they have some wind.

My mother-in-law reminded us what the wind was like in North Dakota following one of her last trips back there.  She was watching the kids running around on the farm, and what she noticed was that when they ran around the corner of the house they would instinctively lean into the wind. 

The wind on the prairie can be oh so persistent, and howling, enough so as to drive one crazy.  Karla used to imagine those early prairie settlers hunkered down in their soddy shanties listening to that howling wind all winter. 

But the most unsettling of winds, were not the steady constant winds of everyday, but the violent winds that accompanied major weather fronts, winds so pronounced that you could see them coming.

With the sound of such a mighty wind you knew that change was in the air.

Great Falls, Montana, holds the record for the greatest single variation in temperature for a given day.

On that particular day, they woke up to the bone chilling temperatures of thirty below zero, and then the Chinook winds began to blow out of the South, and by 3:30 in the afternoon it was 75 degrees outside. 

The rush of a violent wind.

Anxiety.

When major weather fronts moved through the plains there was much to fear.

Hail could wipe out a crop in a flash.

Brush fires set off by the lightening would rush across the prairie and consume everything in its path.

The then there was the ever present reality of the greatest of all winds, the tornadoes.  There is the epitome of “the rush of a violent wind”.  Entire towns leveled.  Houses thrown about as though they were but a piece of paper in the wind.  And in one of the strangest of phenomena, single pieces of straw, straw!, blown so hard and so fast that they will penetrate fence posts.

Wind makes me uneasy, unsettled, and downright anxious.

“And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.”

Change was literally, in the air.

Ruach is the Hebrew word.

It means “Breath, Wind, and Spirit”

It was this mighty Ruach, this great wind that was at one and the same time the Breath of God, and the Spirit of God, that blew over the watery chaos and signaled the beginning of Creation.

“1 In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”

Imagine the sound of that great Wind from God, blowing over the face of the waters stirring up the waves with such a force that life itself was stimulated from that primordial sea.

And then, that same Ruach was breathed into a lump of clay, bringing life to that which was lifeless, and Adam awakened.

With every breath we take the Spirit, the Ruach of God, fills us with life.

And then at the last, there is one more great rush of wind as we exhale that last time, giving up the Spirit of God that is within us, and dying.

“Into your hands I commend my Spirit”, the Ruach, and with those words, Jesus died.

For the disciples, this meant a return to the chaos of the beginning.  Darkness covered them as in the beginning.  There was a formless void left in their lives in that place that Jesus once filled.

But then the wind started blowing.

Easter morning there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, a wind so powerful it rolled back the stone that had sealed tight the tomb where Jesus laid.

And then, that very wind, breathed life back into the lifeless corpse as Jesus’ arose.

For almost fifty days the disciples experienced the presence of the risen Christ, until finally yet another wind blew, and Jesus was caught up as in a whirlwind and ascended into the heavens.

On Pentecost, the disciples gathered together again.

It began like the calm before the storm.

All was still, and yet there was uneasiness in the air.

Then, the wind began to blow.  The same Spirit of God that moved over the face of the deep in the beginning, now filled the house in which they gathered.

And with the Wind, came fire igniting within them a deep passion for the Gospel, and for all God’s children.

They could contain themselves no more.

And in the power of the Spirit, they began to speak.

Hearts were changed.

Belief was born.

Three thousand were baptized that day, and yet it was just the beginning.

Wind is a powerful thing.

It can signal the end of life as we know it.

And it can give birth to the future of God.

Nearly two thousand years have passed since that first Pentecost.  Two thousand years during which the Word of God was shared and people received the gifts of the Spirit throughout the earth.  Faith, hope, and love, these three, and the greatest of these is love.

But for all of that, we stand at a crossroads in our country.

The Winds of change are blowing all around us.

We don’t know what to make of it.

It’s hard to discern, from the howling of the wind, whether it will bring new life, or destruction.

And so we are anxious.  I am anxious.

There are places in the world where the Wind that is blowing is clearly the Spirit of God at work.

Africa.  Long a mission field for our work.  Now, it is in Africa that some of the most vibrant Churches are growing.

I served as a hospital chaplain with a priest from Africa, Jacob Yali, who had come from Nigeria.

He told of his congregation.

25,000 people were part of his parish. 

A typical confirmation Sunday might see 300 to 350 new believers affirm their faith.

The same thing is happening in China.

But the Winds of change in our country are not so promising.

Small congregations like ours dot the landscape, and too often the sound of the Wind that we hear, sounds much more like a last gasp for life, than the beginning of new life.

I have a friend, a frequent visitor to our congregation in Sandpoint, Julie.  Julie is a charismatic Lutheran, and is quite unique to have in worship.  One Sunday, I looked over and saw her lying on the floor.  Two of our members were doctors and rushed to her side.  I stopped them.  Julie was simply overcome by the Spirit.  She would get that way whenever she received the bread and the  wine. 

Well, Julie is convinced that the Spirit is going to start blowing once again in this country.  Like a farmer watching the weather on the horizon, Julie perceives that the great Wind of God is going to start blowing through our land.

I hope Julie is right.

Not only that, I hope that we will hear the Spirit’s presence like the rush of a mighty Wind.

During our Lenten services this year I was delighted to see a Dove outside our window, looking in on us.  “The Spirit descending on us like a dove”-- is what I thought, gentle and lovely.

I think that is what we’d prefer.

We’d prefer that the Spirit come to us, gentle and lovely, like a dove.  Comforting.

And yet on Pentecost, the Spirit was anything but “gentle and lovely”. 

The rush of a might wind.

I think we are beyond what a gentle Dove can fix. . .

What we need is that mighty Wind that called forth life from the watery chaos.

What we need is that Breath of God, breathing once again into our lifeless corpses, raising us up to new life in Christ.

This is what we need.

But it’s not something we can do.

Only God’s Spirit can work such wonders in our midst.

Only the Spirit can give us faith.

Only the Spirit can give us hope.

Only the Spirit can teach us to love as we have been loved.

And so I’m praying these days.  Fervently praying.

“Come Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove, Might Wind, Breath of God.

“Fill our hearts with your Love, and our lives with your power.”

Amen.