Grace to you from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today is Pentecost, the last Sunday of the Easter Season in the Church, 50 days after Easter Sunday. That’s what Pentecost, the word, actually means, 50. Pentecost existed before Christians. The Jewish people celebrated Pentecost, 50 days after the Passover.
For us, Pentecost marks the descending of the Holy Spirit onto the disciples as tongues of flame and the birth of the Church. The earliest Christians did not call themselves Christians, instead they called themselves “The way” likely an allusion to Christ’s proclamation that he was the way, the truth, and the life. The earliest Christians viewed themselves not as a separate religion, but instead as a continuance of and a part of Judaism.
I am going to be honest, I do not normally read the italics on the celebrate worship folder, that folder that we put in the bulletins when we meet in person, and is available for you in the church kitchen during this time of separation. The folder that has the Bible texts for the week, the prayers of intercession and the “preparing for next week.” But, I did this week, and I want to share with you what the description for this Sunday says:
Pentecost derives its name from the Jewish festival celebrating the harvest and the giving of the law on Mount Sinai fifty days after Passover. Fifty days after Easter, we celebrate the Holy Spirit as God’s presence within and among us. In Acts the Spirit arrives in rushing wind and flame, bringing God’s presence to all people. Paul reminds us that though we each have different capacities, we are unified in the Spirit that equips us with these gifts. Jesus breathes the Holy Spirit on his disciples, empowering them to forgive sin. We celebrate that we too are given the breath of the Holy Spirit and sent out to proclaim God’s redeeming love to all the world.
It is a wonderful summary of the texts, why we worship today, and really serves as a nice concise sermon, aside from the fact it doesn’t speak directly to our experiences here or in this time.
It is important to see that this week we have two very different stories about the coming of and giving of the Holy Spirit. For some this might be troubling. You might be asking, “was the story of the Spirit descending like wind and fire or the story of Jesus breathing on his disciples, truth?” The answer is yes, they both are. They both tell us profound things about God and our experiences of God.
Both are quite miraculous when we think about it. A loud rushing of wind, flames descend and sit on peoples’ head and all can hear their voices as if they are speaking in their own language. Or Jesus, who was dead and buried appears in a shut and locked room to his disciples, breaths on the disciples and gives them the power reserved only for God, the forgiveness of sin.
The Holy Spirit sometimes feels like a gentle presence telling us, Peace be with you, blessing us, and empowering us to do amazing things; sometimes the Spirit comes in terrifying fashion, a sudden wind, fire, and does amazing things through us, without any effort on our part. Sometimes it is a mix of the two.
I don’t know how I write sermons every week. This is the 40th week in a row that I have written a sermon and some weeks multiple for special occasions and funerals. I can’t imagine how I will write likely another approximately 1,500 sermons, if I preach at least once weekly until I am 65, ha, like I will retire at 65. I don’t know what I will write or what I will say most weeks until it is written. The weeks that I have an idea of what I will say, normally something entirely different ends up on the page. I don’t claim anything special here, but I can recognize that it is the Holy Spirit at work while I write the sermon. It definitely is not me.
Last week when I sat down to write the sermon, I did not know that I was going to write about racism, sexism, and the abuse of the marginalized, from Jesus’ prayer that his disciples be one as the Father and Son are one. When it was written, I was terrified what the congregational response would be or what response from the folk who view our services online would be. But ultimately I knew that it was a message that needed to be shared.
I didn't know when I wrote the sermon, or preached it that on Monday morning, a white woman would call police on an African American man who had asked her to leash her dog, as the law required. Or, that Monday evening, officers responding to a call about a counterfeit bill would kill a black man on the street. I didn’t know that there would be a week of protests, riots, and rebellion, or that people in power would leverage that power to call for further murder of an already outraged and exhausted people. I also didn’t know that the FBI would announce that they would be opening an investigation into the March killing of a black EMT in Louisville, when three white officers serving a search warrant would go to the wrong home, in the wrong part of town, fail to follow the protocol of the warrant (they arrived in plain clothes, unmarked cars, and failed to identify themselves as police before kicking in the door) to arrest a man who was already in police custody before the search warrant had been issued.
I don’t know how many of you have experienced this, but sometimes the wind blows hard in your face and it takes your breath away. That is how this week has felt to me. But, not even just this week, but these past couple months. Crisis, calamity, a never ending stream of bad news.
The words of George Floyd as he lay on the ground with three men on his back and neck are profound this week. “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.” They are profound when the world is suffering a pandemic where the disease kills by suffocating the infected, they call out, “I can’t breathe.” These are also the very words that Christ could have cried out on the cross, as he died by slow suffocation. Christ calls out, “I can’t breathe.” In all the ways that the world presses in on us, in all our various suffering, in our grief, in our pain, and in our broken-heartedness as we witness the pain and suffering of others, we call out, “I can’t breathe.”
In our Psalm we heard and spoke the words of the Psalmist:
When you hide your face, they are terrified;
when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.
I am not saying that God is hiding God’s face from us, but that we are just failing to see God. We are not looking to God, and in that we are terrified. We are sinners who have and who continue to turn our faces away from God. We are not meant to go about this all on our own. God is the source of all life, healing, and salvation. We turn away from God, we attempt to do things on our own, and try to cut ourselves off from our source of all things.
But, then the Psalmist says:
You send forth your Spirit, and they are created;
and so you renew the face of the earth.
And we hear again, Jesus says, “Peace be with you,” then he breaths on the disciples, giving them the Holy Spirit, and sends them into the world, proclaiming that peace, that Good News, that Jesus has be raised from the dead, your sin has been forgiven.
So, we today, and everyday call out, Jesus, breath the Holy Spirit into me, let me be renewed and reformed by the Spirit. Empower me with the gift of your Spirit to serve you and the world through you. Jesus Christ, send your spirit, help us to breathe again. Amen.