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Sermon - May 27th, 2007
Holy Fire
Rev. Gwen Drake
Scripture: Acts 2:1-21
I attended a concert presenting Bach's Mass in B Minor. The man introducing it said, "Speaking about music is like dancing about architecture." I think it's the same feeling I have when trying to talk about the holy spirit. Actually, the beginning of the worship service said it with song and dance and light. Or, perhaps we could just sit here together and focus on our breathing. We use our breath to live. When we breathe out, our breath carries some of us out with it, into the next person, and out into the world of flowers and trees and animals. The breath we breathe knits us together with each other and all of creation.
When Jesus let go of his last breath, that breath must have hovered in the air in front of him for a moment and then that breath was set lose in the world. Such a deep and powerful breath, full of passion and love and life! But, it did not simply dissipate as so many breaths do. It grew, in strength and in volume, until it was a mighty wind, which God sent spinning through Jerusalem God wanted to make sure that the followers of Jesus received the breath of Jesus. And that is what happened on the day of Pentecost. They were all moping around wondering what they were going to do without their leader, when this holy hurricane swooped in, filling them up with God's own breath.
Before that day, the day of Pentecost, was over, that baffled group of individuals grew into a community. Shy people became bold, scared people became gutsy, and lost people found a sure sense of direction. Disciples discovered abilities within themselves they never know about all because they dared to inhale on the day of Pentecost. They had sucked in God's own breath and they were transformed by it. They received the breath of life and passed it on. So as we sit and breathe together, know this: we are all being filled with God's breath, God's Spirit, God’s holy fire.
So, do we really believe in a God who acts like that--today? Do we believe in a God who blows through closed doors and sets our heads and hearts on fire? Do we believe in a God with power to transform us, both as individuals and as a church?
Of all the aspects of God, the Holy Spirit is the hardest to pin down. Not that people haven’t given it their best effort. Even Jesus had a hard time describing the Spirit. He told Nicodemus, "The Spirit blows where it chooses and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes." I have found the most profound descriptions of the Holy Spirit not in sermons but through music or poetry. I hope that none of you will be satisfied with what I say or anyone else. I hope you will not rest until you have felt the Spirit move through your own life, rearranging things, opening things up and maybe even setting your hearts on fire. There is nothing you can do to make it happen, as far as I know, except to pray, "Come, Holy Spirit, come" every chance you dare to. But, if you don't want anything to change in your life, then, my advice is don't pray for the Holy Spirit to come. However, if you are the kind of person who drives to the coast when a good storm is coming in just to see and hear and feel the power of the crashing waves, then you are probably a good candidate for invoking the Holy Spirit into your life.
Now, asking for the Holy Spirit to come is only part of the story. Recognizing it when it does come is the other part.
We are living into a time that is called the post-modern time. First there was the pre-modern time when it was the Holy Scriptures that was the authority and your belief in God help you understand and explain life. Then around the 1700's science started to influence the world and we entered the modern era. Human beings started to rely on reason and natural law. Science and religion were often in conflict with the other. We also had this belief that we could solve the world's problem s with one truth, when we finally discovered what that was. And now, since about the 1960's, we have been transitioning into this post-modern era, a time that is difficult to define. So the experts define it in terms of tendencies. And the main tendencies are that experience is primary, life is a journey, there is no ONE answer but lots of answers and lots of ambiguity in life, and we are searching for authentic community. People don't trust the institutional church like they used to. They are more likely to trust their personal experience, their close friends and their intuition or feelings.
Well, you know what I say to this ambiguous, mixed-up, post-modern time? Welcome to the era of the holy spirit! The holy spirit has been set free! God is being born again! The church and that means us, you and me, we need to get on board and ride this holy hurricane or be left in the dust of being out of touch, archaic, and irrelevant. And we have a choice--we can look at it as a challenging time to be the church or an exciting time. I'm opting for exciting. Because it's a chance for a new beginning. And that's one of the ways that the holy spirit acts.
I went to Pastor's School at KaNeetah week before last. I've been going up there this time of year most every year One of my rituals up there is to walk to the top of the butte behind the lodge—Raven’s Ridge, I think it’s called . I love the high desert country. And it is absolutely stunning up there. The landscape is rugged and wild and desolate and huge. There is so much life in the desert--the morning doves singing their mournful song to each other, meadowlarks with their cheerful melody, crickets singing in mass. The sound of life was deafening. There's something about going to the same place year after year. This year the wind was blowing when I walked the ridge. So, I stopped and noticed and just felt the wind. The mighty wind. I was breathing the wind. I think I can say I was breathing in the holy spirit.
Another trademark of the holy spirit is the giving of a way back into relationship. Maybe that has happened to you. It happens to me every time I get tired of hanging onto anger or bitterness and either just let it go or do something about it. W hen that happens my heart opens up and I feel the burden lighten and energy coming back. Call it what you want, but I think that it is an act of the holy spirit.
The Apostle Paul wrote about another trademark of the holy spirit--gifts. He said there are a variety of gifts and service and activities, but only one spirit. He mentions a few and then is quick to say that all are important and needed just like the parts of a human body. No one gift is greater than the other, needed more than the other, honored more than the other. You notice a gift in another person, tell them, encourage them, because it is not just a gift, it is an act of the holy spirit.
Another trademark of the holy spirit we need to recognize is imagination. Our human imagination is a gift from God and it is a gift we need to reclaim in this post-modern time. We have a tradition and history that is very suspicious and critical of imagination as if we are afraid of it. Katherine Paterson, an author of children's books was asked why this was so, and she responded: "Because we can't control it: the imagination is not tamed or tame able. Therefore we can't be sure how it's going to come out. It probably won't come out safely."
I wonder sometimes if we come to church because here it is easy, predictable, and comforting. We live in a culture that is thriving on imagination and the imagination explosion. And as usual the church is behind. In fact, some say never has imagination been so blatantly disconnected from the sacred. We cling to the literal and what we know and what we have always done. Because it is easy and predictable and comforting. But you know what; it’s not working for us anymore. Not very well. And this is good news! It’s time for the imagination and the sacred to meet again. That's why I believe that this post-modern time is the holy spirit's time. That's why I believe that this time at Hillsboro United Methodist Church is the holy spirit's time. And we are not going to be able to control it. We are being hit by a holy hurricane. God is speaking to our imaginations. God is calling us on a new journey, a journey through uncertainty and ambiguity, a journey into the mystery of God. A fresh wind is blowing into our culture and our world, and it is trying to get into the Church to clear everyone's heads so we can become creative together, coming up with ideas. You might have another name for it, but I think it is an act of the holy spirit.
And once we get the hang of it, I hope it will become easier to recognize. Whenever two plus two does not equal four but five--whenever you find yourself speaking with eloquence you know you do not have, or offering forgiveness you had not meant to offer--whenever you find yourself taking risks you think you did not have the courage to take or reaching out to someone you had intended to walk away from--you can be pretty sure that you are learning from the holy spirit and its many gifts. And we can take part in it. We are taking part in it as we are breathing. We are taking God in and giving God back to the world again, with some part of us attached. Breath is God's moment-by-moment gift to us. We can call it air, we can call it holy fire, we can call it the holy spirit. It counts on us to warm it up, and lend it our live s. In return, it promises to fill us with new wind. It promises to set our hearts on fire, giving us tongues to speak of things we cannot begin to understand—giving us spiritual imagination.
Do we really believe in a God who acts like that? Can we experience a God who acts like that? Do we want a God like that in our lives? I hope so, because that's the kind of God I need, and it's the kind of God my family needs, right now, and the church needs. To save our lives! To be relevant! To be in touch with this post-modern time!
Amen.