Winds of Change
First
Sunday of Pentecost
June 8, 2014
Tim
Moon, Stephanie Little Coyne, Elizabeth Mangham Lott
St.
Charles Avenue Baptist Church
Tim Moon:
[Acts 2-Pentecost in New Orleans]
When
the day of the Jazz Service arrived, they were all gathered in the
courtyard. Then all of a sudden there
came from the sky a rumbling wind, like right before a hurricane, and it filled
the whole space where they were gathered.
And they saw flames spread like lightning across the sky, and heard that
low hiss and crackle, like a camp fire.
The flames settled upon everyone, and they were bursting with Holy
Spirit and started talking in whatever different languages the Spirit directed.
Because
of Mardi Gras, there were many visitors gathered in New Orleans, religious
people from countries all over the world.
So when they heard this great noise, they all came running
together. And then they heard these folks
talking to everyone in their own native tongue, and were they excited! Amazed
and astounded to no end, they said “Look, aren’t all these speakers Americans? Then
how is it that each of us is hearing it in his own native tongue-French,
Spanish, German, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian, Italian, Greek, Turkish, Hebrew,
Swedish, Arabic, Hindi-in our own languages we are hearing them tell of God’s mighty doings.” Everybody was
dumbfounded and puzzled, saying one to another, “What’s the meaning of this?” But others
sneered, “They’ve
been hitting the Sazeracs.”
So Pete, along with the eleven, got right
up and started explaining matters to them: “Fellow Louisianans and all you guests
in New Orleans, let me set you straight on this right now. These folks are not drunk like you think,
because it’s just nine o’clock
in the morning. We haven’t even had a parade yet today! Instead, this is the happening described in
the prophecy of Joel:
When the time is ripe, says God, I
will share my spirit with all humankind, and your sons and your daughters will
speak the truth. Your young people will catch visions and your old people will
dream new dreams. Yes, indeed, when the time is ripe I’ll
share my spirit. With my boys and my girls and they will speak the truth. And I
will put terrors in the sky above and nightmares on the earth below- blood and
fire and a mushroom cloud. The sun will be turned into blackness and the moon
into blood, when the glory and the majesty of the Lord’s
Era will be ushered in. And then, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord
will be liberated into God’s freedom and peace.
Adapted from Cotton
Patch Gospel by Clarence Jordan and
The Voice Bible
Elizabeth Lott:
“When ancient man
confronted the mystery of death, which is also the mystery of life—when he
looked at the body of a dead man and compared it with himself as a living man
and wondered what terrible change had come over it—one of the first things that
struck him apparently was that whereas he himself, the living man, breathed,
the dead man did not breathe. There was no movement of the chest. A feather
held to his lips remained unstirred. So to be dead meant to have no breath, and
to be alive—to have the power to rise up and run and shout in the world—meant
to have breath. And the conclusion, of course, was that breath is not just the
little wisps of air that men breathe in and out, but that it is the very
animating power of life itself. Breath is the livingness of those who are
alive. This is why in so many languages the word for breath comes to mean not
only the air that fills the lungs but the mystery and power of life itself that
fills a living person. Such is the Latin word spiritus, from which our
word ‘spirit’ comes.
Each one of us has a
spirit, this power of life in us, and like breath it is not just something that
is in us but something that also issues from us. Every [one] has the capacity,
more at some times than others, to project some of this power of [one’s] own life, [one’s] vitality, into others. It is the
power literally to in-spire, breathe into, and although it is invisible and
intangible and cannot be put into a test tube or under a microscope, it is
perhaps the greatest and most dangerous power that we have.”
Stephanie
Coyne:
Right
before the musical production begins, before the curtain opens up, there is
always a time for the individual musician to warm up—to practice a difficult
run of notes, to remember again a correct breathing pattern—and for everyone to
be in exact tune with the oboe’s A, the “concert pitch.” During the warm-up period, if you focus your
ears on one sound, you might be able to identify what you are hearing, but
overall, the sounds are chaos. And then,
the first note strikes and it all comes together—the cacophony becomes
melodious and beautiful and it all makes sense.
Elizabeth
Lott:
It
all makes sense at different times and in different ways. That’s why the
prophet Joel spoke of prophesy, visions and dreams. We encounter the Spirit
uniquely. For poet Antonio
Machado, it’s in the dreaming:
Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a spring was
breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which
secret aqueduct,
water of a new life
that I have never
drunk?
Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white
combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.
Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
That a fiery sun was
giving
light inside my
heart.
It was fiery because
I felt
warmth as from a
hearth
and sun because it
gave light
and brought tears to
my eyes.
Last night, as I slept,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that it was God I had
Tim Moon:
[Southwest China, July 2008]
I
have grown into the rhythms of life here in rural China. I am about half way into my 6 week mentoring
with missionaries here. While sitting in
a classroom at Baylor, the idea of doing holistic, cross-cultural ministry on a
farm in southwest China sounded like a dream come true for me, but in reality,
I feel uprooted, disoriented. Each day I
wake up, eat weird food, sit through a Bible lesson in Chinese, eat weird lunch
while locals help me with the art of chopsticking, work on the farm, eat a
weird snack, play ping-pong or soccer, eat one last weird meal, 2 hour prayer
meeting (once again in another language), then off to bed. And the nights are so dark and so
lonely. There is no electricity, no one
to talk to, nothing to do, except sit with my thoughts. Without being able to converse, I spend most
of my day in my head. Having
conversations with myself, thinking too many thoughts, over-analyzing
everything. And while I hear voices all
day, I understand none of them, while I see the same people each day, I feel so
alone, while I speak, I receive confused or quizzical looks which make me know
I am not being heard. It is quite a feat
to be in the most populated country on earth, yet feel so completely
alone.
This
rhythm of not being heard always lead me back to the nights where the questions
creep in. Why would God put me
here? Where is God? What am I doing with
my life? I feel like humans are not
meant to face this much silence, or maybe our fast paced culture has made us
too uncomfortable with it. In the hustle
and bustle of normal life, I take for granted how easy it is to communicate
with others, but that is a lost luxury when everyone speaks Mandarin, or Wa,
but not English. And all the silence
makes me wonder why God isn’t
speaking to me either. I mean, I don’t really hear God audibly speak to me,
but shouldn’t
I sense something, shouldn’t
I feel something, right? I continue to pray and read scripture, but it has
become so routine, so stale for me. I
just wonder where God is? One dark
night, as I read by the light of my head lamp, I am reminded that the story of
God’s
people is one of remembering. In the
midst of darkness, God’s
people have always remembered God’s
acts in their lives. The Jews in exile
remembered the Exodus, the first generation Christians remembered the risen
Christ. And today, we remember the
teachings of Christ, we remember the outpouring of the Spirit. And in a personal sense, I remember how the
way of Christ changed me from a self-centered only child into one capable of
loving outside myself. I remember going
on mission trips in high school and that this process gave me a sense of
calling to become a minister. I remember
little moments of unexplainable peace when the world around me seemed so harsh
and cold. And this comforts me. While I may not feel or see God here and now,
I have learned to accept the darkness.
Because in my own history as well as the history of God’s people, I am reminded of God’s movement, and I eagerly wait for the
Sprit’s
next outpouring in my midst. Just
because I haven’t
seen God’s Spirit moving, doesn’t mean I’m not expectant for that next
Pentecost moment. My distress gives way to hope, and I wait… I wait … I wait.
Elizabeth Lott:
In recent weeks we
have been reminded that we do not wait alone. The stuff of the Spirit is the
same stuff of Immanuel: God With Us. This word “spirit,” we recall, is
interchangeable in scripture with the words “breath” and “wind.” Frederick
Buechner reminds us just how significant it is to say that God is near to us as
Spirit; near to us as Breath.
“To say that God is
spirit is to say that life does care, that the life-giving power that life
itself comes from is not indifferent as to whether we sink or swim. It wants us
to swim. It is to say that whether you call this life-giving power the Spirit
of God or Reality or the Life Force or anything else, its most basic
characteristic is that it wishes us well and is at work toward that end.
Heaven knows terrible
things happen to people in this world. The good die young, and the wicked
prosper, and in any one town, anywhere, there is grief enough to freeze the
blood. But from deep within, whatever the hidden spring is, that life wells up
from, there wells up into our lives, even at their darkest and maybe especially
then, a power to heal, to breathe new life into us. And in this regard, I
think, every [person] is a mystic because every [person] at one time or another
experiences in the thick of joy or pain the power out of the depths of life to
bless. I do not believe that it matters greatly what you call this power—the
Spirit of God is only one of its names—but what I think does matter, vastly, is
that we open ourselves to receive it; that we move in the direction that it
seeks to move us, the direction of fuller communion with itself and with one
another.” Frederick Buechner, “The
Breath of Life” from The Magnificent Defeat[3]
Stephanie
Coyne:
I’m
not sure who I would have been that day—a skeptic or a believer. I feel confident that I would have waited in
the back until I could get a handle on the situation. I love playing the part of the cautious
observer, remaining in control in the midst of a chaotic scene. But I also feel confident that after the
flurry of sounds began, when all the languages began to sound at once, I feel
confident that I would have turned my ear and perhaps leaned in a little
closer, hoping to hear my own language.
I would want it to be spoken because I would have wanted to somehow be a
part of the chaos. I would have wanted
to understand.
Elizabeth
Lott:
Our
compulsion to know and understand the works of God is an element of the human
experience. In 1370, Catherine of Siena famously encountered God and cried out:
“You, God, are
a fire that always burns without consuming. You are a fire consuming in its
heat every compartment of the soul’s
self-absorbed love. You are a fire lifting all chill and giving all light. In
Your light You show me Your truth. You’re
the Light that outshines every light.
You, God, give the mind’s eye Your divine light so completely
and excellently, You bring lucidity even to the light of faith. In that faith,
I see my soul has life, and in that light, I receive You who are Light itself.”
[4]
Stephanie
Coyne:
The Old is merging with the
New.
The Jewish people have come to
Jerusalem to celebrate Shavuot, the celebration of God’s giving of the
Torah. And Peter, the disciples, and
other followers of Jesus have also come to Jerusalem, trying to figure out what
life after Jesus’ Ascension might look like.
This juxtaposition of these two
gatherings of people must be significant; this must be more than
coincidence. Practically, lots of people
turned out to be in the same place and therefore, lots of people were witnesses
to the strange scene that occurs with Peter and the disciples. But there is more here, there is movement
here, a shifting. The literary
inclinations woven through the text ask us to consider the people, the
tradition, the multitude of languages, the reference to Joel’s prophecy.
In the middle of Shavuot, a
time when the first fruits of harvest are being brought to the altar in
thanksgiving, God interrupts the feast….
The wind begins, bands of fire
seem to rush down and then everyone begins to speak. But it is chaos.
Can you imagine being a
bystander? Brows must have furrowed,
heads must have turned, people must have stopped in their tracks. What? What are they saying? What does this mean? And then, after a few moments, Wait.
That guy is speaking my language.
After the speculators
speculate, Peter offers them explanation as Jesus offered explanation so many
times, through Hebrew Scriptures. Peter
draws from the Old to help interpret the New:
“This is what you are hearing!
The Holy Spirit has come and all
will prophesy, see visions, and dream.”
Many of the Israelites expected
that God would give a Messiah that would establish a political kingdom. They believed that he would be king.
But this is New. God’s wisdom is not imparted to a King. God’s wisdom is not spoken in one language to
one nation. God is not making one
nation. God is acknowledging the
scattered; God’s wisdom is available to all.
We are not dropping
Shavuot. We are not simply hijacking the
festival and calling it Pentecost and therefore making the celebration ours
alone. We will not forget to bring our
first fruits, our loaves of bread, our talents to the altar. We are not neglecting the past. We are not forgetting that God made a
commitment long ago. Rather, we are renewing
our commitment to God and praise be, God is renewing a commitment to us. Old women and young men both move forward in
this gift together and along with our first fruits we will also bring our
dreams and our prophecies in thanksgiving to God. Joel’s words still are true for us today—the
rumblings of the Holy Spirit are still present with us today.
What are some of the dreams and
prophesies of our pasts, our ghosts?
What are some of the dreams and prophesies of our aged, ourselves, our
children? Wisdom is not given to just
one of us. Let us move forward, lean
closer, and incline our ears that we might hear the language we know
best!...Let us hear the Spirit speak to us and let us share what we have heard
with one another!
Tim Moon:
[Peter, A few weeks after Pentecost]
So
much has happened since Pentecost. The
Spirit is moving, enabling, pushing the limits.
I mean just a few months ago I was denying Jesus, and now everyone looks
to me. I mean don’t get me
wrong, I’m
still far from perfect, but the Spirit is working, changing me, and I am just
trying to keep up. If you had told me a
week ago that I would be baptizing a gentile centurion and his family, I’d say you were crazy. But we just welcomed the Spirit in Cornelius
moments ago. And the Spirit isn’t just changing new followers, it’s transforming us all. The Spirit feels like the warmth of sitting
around the fire talking with Jesus, but now it’s somehow within me, moving through me
sometimes like a gentle breeze and other times like a gust. The explosion of the Spirit at Pentecost was
just the beginning. We are seeing little
glimpses of Pentecost almost everyday.
Today, not only did something stir within Cornelius, something stirred
within me, something is stirring within us all. I changed, we all changed. Our dreams got a little larger, a little
fuller, and it seems this is the way of the Spirit’s work. This Jesus way is growing, it’s changing, and it’s not only in our
hands now. I can’t wait to see what’s next, how God’s dreams will become our dreams. How the Spirit will open the gates wider so
that everyone might know they are the beloved of God! And until the next Pentecost moment, we wait…
Elizabeth
Lott:
We wait…
Stephanie
Coyne: We wait...
[1] Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat: “The
Breath of Life” (Harper San Francisco, 1966), pp. 110-115
[2] Antonio Machado from Life Prayers from Around the World
(Harper Collins San Francisco, 1996), pp. 371-372
[3] Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat: “The
Breath of Life” (Harper San Francisco, 1966), pp. 110-115
[4] Catherine of Siena, A
Little Daily Wisdom: Christian Women Mystics (Paraclete Press, 2008), p.
127
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