The Day of Pentecost

May 11, 2008

Acts 2: 1-21

 

“All were perplexed” according to the Acts of the Apostles: “saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’” Maybe you are asking the same question; I know I am; what does this Pentecost experience mean? “Suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind… Divided tongues, as of fire appeared among them; and they began to speak in another language.” This is not an everyday sort of experience. I’d even call it strange.

 

There’s a story, I don’t know whether it’s true or not, about someone visiting the Washington National Cathedral one day. Now if you want to see Episcopal liturgy done with all the I’s dotted and T’s crossed, the National Cathedral is the place to go. They do formal liturgy and pomp and circumstance well—they have lots of canons and vergers to make sure everything’s just right.

 

And this person, visiting that day, was moved by the sermon and the whole experience—moved to the point of exclaiming, “Amen,” aloud not once, but over and over. In some places it wouldn’t seem strange doing this, but in this context it did. Eventually the man was approached by a verger who made clear he’d have to leave. “You’re creating a disturbance,” the verger told him. “I’m just praising God,” the man replied. “Well we don’t do that here,” said the verger.

 

The Pentecost experience, with images of this Spirit descending from above, brings to mind another extraordinary experience: Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist in the River Jordan. “Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased. And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.”

 

Mark tells that story with a sharper edge than the other evangelists. What strikes me in particular is the last part: “The Spirit… drove him out into the wilderness.” It doesn’t say the Spirit gently nudged him or calmly called him; it says it drove him. There is power and immediacy here. The Spirit doesn’t mess around. Wild, radical, strange things happen because of this Spirit. And now the Spirit descends again; this time upon you and me: with violent winds and divided tongues and fire. God, the Spirit, refuses to be domesticated or refined.

 

People have asked me, “You Episcopalians, why do you read out of book for your services? Where’s the spontaneity, the substance, the space for the Holy Spirit in your worship?” I understand where they’re coming from and have a deep respect for the various freer traditions. Even within the predictability of our beloved prayer book tradition, though—the order, the beauty, the comfortable familiarity of our services—I have found every service to be different; the wind, the fire of the Holy Spirit always full of surprise.

 

The feelings are hard to describe because they seem less tangible and more abstract than most subjects of modern-day conversation. This doesn’t make them any less real, however. I’d like to share with you a few of these experiences. Two Pentecost Sundays ago, right here in this space, Keith was preaching and suddenly I had this sense of heaviness resting upon me. It wasn’t an awkward or unpleasant sense, but a profoundly calming and comforting one. It was holy. Maybe it was God’s way of assuring me of his presence when otherwise I was feeling doubt.

 

There have been weekday celebrations of the Eucharist and observances of the Daily Office, also in this space, that stood out from the usual ones. I felt the same sort of sacred heaviness and tranquility as on that Pentecost Sunday, and not unlike that Pentecost Sunday experience, I understood from others—unsolicited—that they felt it, too. How’s that for affirmation? There was power in the room, God’s power at work, enlivening us, strengthening us.

 

There have been times in the midst of worship, both here and in other places, in which I have experienced these profound bursts of joy that come unexpectedly—usually while we’re singing a hymn. I have physically felt a radiance emanating from me: a glow on my face that I know is there even though I can’t actually see it. These are feelings like no other, powerful feelings, feelings that come unpredictably, feelings of God’s presence surrounding me.

 

There was a time in the not so distant past that I would have kept these feelings to myself and certainly not spoken of them from the pulpit. I felt they would be dismissed or perhaps analyzed within the framework of modern psychology. “Our priest is hallucinating, having these strange, abnormal experiences.” Or as some bystanders on the Day of Pentecost, said, “They are filled with new wine.” I don’t stand removed from such skepticism myself; I myself have judged people, analyzed people, cast these labels on people.

 

I have come to believe, however, that there is power, real power, real wind and fire and spirit, in what we proclaim. God gives us room to doubt or be skeptical, and that’s okay—we all do it, not once but over and over again. God’s power, God’s peace, however, is greater than our doubt. I believe this. The Spirit is at work among us, enlivening us, transforming us, converting us, even in those times of doubt, even when we are unaware.

 

Our scriptures are full of such examples such as Paul’s Damascus Road experience. Paul not only doubted the Christian claims; he thought they were dangerous and deserving of persecution and even death. Whatever he experienced on Damascus Road that day, whatever caused his change of heart must have been powerful and profoundly transformative. He wasn’t looking for it; he didn’t even want it, but as he discovered: God’s ways are not our ways. The experience radically changed Paul’s life and ours. He devoted the rest of his life to spreading the gospel.

 

Perhaps Paul was thinking of his conversion experience when he wrote to the Corinthians, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” What we proclaim is more than an idea—a philosophy—a set of tenets—a rule for ordering our lives. What we proclaim is the power of God intruding into the world and—in a manner of speaking—disordering our lives, driving us into the wilderness, shaking us up, making us citizens of a radical new kingdom.

 

I do not preach this today because I think I have everything figured out. I preach this because I know I don’t have things figured out. Over and over in my life God interrupts my plans and guides me in new, surprising, unimaginable directions. The more I plan, the more I think I have things sorted out, the more I think I understand, there’s that rush of the violent wind again, the driving force of the Spirit, and I know God has other plans.

 

There are dilemmas that all of us face in life, and we long for them to be resolved. Things happen that I wish would not have happened, or things I hope for may or may not come to fruition. I look back and wonder how this or that might have turned out if only I had made different turns. Sometimes I look back and realize how stubbornly I resisted God’s tug in one direction or another, and how I only found peace when I decided to follow his path for me.

 

And as my brain turns all these things over time and time again, I begin to feel frenzied and anxious. At some level I know to trust God, to accept—as we say at the end of our services, “the peace of God that passes all understanding.” The problem is: I can be stubborn; I can refuse to let go. My spiritual director encourages me to try contemplative prayer, to sit quietly and let things pass through my mind and turn them over to God. And I work at it. I really do.

 

But if the Day of Pentecost has anything to say to me or anyone else, it is this: the power of God, the power of the Spirit, is greater than all our thoughts; the power of the Spirit doesn’t depend on our getting it right; the power of the Spirit is dynamic and alive: sweeping us in, setting our hearts on fire, guiding us, transforming us, driving us—even in our most stubborn moments. .

 

So what does all this mean? Maybe Peter was on to something when he remembered on that strange occasion what God had spoken through the prophet Joel:

 

                  “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…

                                    In those days I will pour out my Spirit;…

                                    before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.

                                    [And] everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’”

 

Amen.