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Sermon - May 31st, 2009
Holy Chaos
Rev. Gwen Drake
Scripture: Acts 2:1-21
Luke, the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, was an artist, not a journalist or a historian. Luke tells the birth of Jesus in greater detail than any other gospel. The poet, T.S. Eliot said, “In my beginning is my end,” meaning that the start of a person’s life can indicate the direction his or her life will take. Or, our origins have greater significance in the rest of our lives. Luke begins both birthdays, the birthday of Jesus at the beginning of Luke and the birthday of the Church at the beginning of Acts with the arrival of the Holy Spirit. With the arrival of the Holy Spirit comes holy chaos….rather than holy order.
Holy chaos seems to be the truth of Pentecost—so I shall pass over the probable historical context, the possible psychological motives, and other interesting asides, and instead let the story itself have its way with us. What Luke has done in both the story of Jesus and the Church is unfold a story of a new reality for us. Luke is telling the story of the beginning of a new community, with God as the chief actor in the drama. He tells the story without direct explanation, leaving the interpretation up to us, up to the community. More than one interpretation can be offered to what happen on that day when they were all together in one place. What happened was strange, beyond the bounds of imagination. It was nothing short of a miracle. It was inscrutable. It was the only way that Luke believed could explain the existence of this thing we have called “church.” The story could not have been told in a flat, prosaic way. Something crazy needed to happen to get this timid, terrified group of disciples huddled in the upper room out there, boldly proclaiming the truth of Christ.
So, they are waiting and praying, when the new day, the new reality begins with an eruption of sound, a sound from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind. Then what was heard becomes something they can see—tongues like fire. In four descriptive verses we find out it is none other than the Holy Spirit, promised by Jesus and promised by John the Baptist when he said, “He will baptized you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” And Luke continues, almost playing with the story by telling us that the fiery tongues led into the speaking of “other tongues,” “other languages.”
And the disciples move outside to proclaim in the language they have received to the crowd that has gathered outside, a crowd of Jews from every nation under heaven. This diverse crowd hears the proclamation in their native tongue and are perplexed and amazed and bewildered. The chaos continues—holy chaos. No one is excluded, they all hear and understand and question, “What does this mean?” Of course, some, and we all know people like this, react with skeptism, “oh, they are filled with new wine.” After all, that’s a rational explanation to such irrationality—they are inebriated. It’s better than trying to explain something as unsettling and deeply threatening as the in-breaking of the Holy Spirit. Things are breaking loose and breaking open… could it be the same thing, the same wind that swept across the dark waters? Could it be the wind of creation? Is it this same wind that is once again bringing something new to life? What is all this chaos, this holy chaos?
Luke did a similar thing in his gospel in chapter 4. He tells the story of Jesus visiting his hometown synagogue where the hometown people are full of admiration that turns to wrath, running him out of town. The first sermon proclaimed by Jesus in Nazareth, becomes a foreshadowing of the rest of the Gospel of Luke. The second chapter of Acts is also the prequel to the rest of the story. The power of God bursts into a conventional gathering of the faithful in Jerusalem in an unconventional way. Proclamation is set in motion. And once again there are questions, and bewilderment, and scorn—holy chaos.
So, Peter, upon cue, stands up and speaks the word, explains the meaning of this holy chaos, another surprise for us who know Peter. For we remember Peter as the one who said he would stand by Jesus no matter what. It was Peter who only “followed at a distance.” It was Peter whom the maiden in the courtyard caused to utter these terrible words, “Woman, I do not know him” (Luke 22:57). Luke left him weeping in the courtyard as a disciple who was tested and found wanting.
So when it was Peter who said, Judas must be replaced, we remember, Judas wasn’t the only one who wasn’t loyal and trustworthy. Yet, here is Peter, PETER, standing boldly, the first one to lift up his voice and proclaim openly the word that only a few weeks before he could not speak even to one servant woman in the middle of the night.
In the beginning, the Spirit of God breathed life into dust and created a human creature. In Acts 2, the Spirit of God has breathed life into a coward and created a new man who is able to speak the bold truth. The Spirit of God breathed into a community and the result was the living, breathing body of Christ, the church. Luke tells the story to show us that God accomplishes what God wants to accomplish in spite of all the obstacles. The miracle is proclamation. Those who had no “tongue” go forth and preach the mighty works of God.
By the wind and the fire, Luke says, loud talk, buzzing confusion, public debate. The Spirit is not about personal transformation in this passage. The Spirit is the power which gets the church to “go public” with its good news, with its bold message. A new wind is set loose upon the earth, provoking a storm of holy chaos—for some it is a threat, for some it is a fresh breath of hope and power. The questions are clear: What does this mean? What do we do to be saved? Just as the psalmist sang, “Our God comes, God does not keep silence, before the Lord is a devouring fire, round about, a mighty tempest” (Ps. 50.3).
God is a troublemaker. God is the wild card in our ordered deck. God is the up-setter of the applecart. God is the uninvited guest that shows up at an invitational only banquet. Annie Dillard said we should be wearing crash helmets in church because “the sleeping god may awake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.” God’s Spirit comes to bring holy chaos. And out of chaos, comes imagination and creativity and a new reality. God knows that is what we need today, in the church and in the world.
Sometimes, when I’m pondering on the state of the nation and the economy and the world, I wonder if in 10 or 50 years we will look back and be able to see that the Spirit was stirring things up and breaking things open—especially IN the church. I wonder in this time when we are working SO hard at being friendly and welcoming and gracious and hospitable, maybe what we all really need is a whack on the head saying, wake up! We need the wind and the fire blowing through here like a wildfire, saying, go forth, go forth, be bold, be bold, get out there, get out there, shake up the world—shake up your world with the blunt and brutal truth. Don’t let money rule your life. Don’t let greed rule your life. Don’t let anyone but God rule your life. And know this, God does not play it safe. God may lead us through green pastures and still waters; but more often God will lead us through the wilderness lashed by wind and flashing with fire. Being faithful does NOT mean order and safety and prosperity is promised to us. We are not entitled to anything…except holy chaos. What God does promise is that the Spirit will give us the courage to walk through our chaotic lives. Being one of God’s faithful ones comes with a warning, wear your crash helmet.
Seems like I need to hear that warning every time I start to get comfortable. I know the church does. We were getting awfully comfortable. Now, we are not comfortable; we are not safe. We used to be able to build it and they would come. Then, we thought, if only we had a praise band and a projection screen, they will come. Then, someone said, start another worship service, and they will come. We are always looking for a temporary, flashy, catchy thing to attract people to come through our doors. Well, I know one thing God is doing in our church. God inspired one of our members to start an ESL program—and they are coming. Our church is bursting at the seams with activity on Wednesday and Thursday evenings because we are offering a ministry that is needed. I don’t know where it is going to go. Some of us worry about that. I think God has something in mind for us and that’s to be patient and let it evolve, or not, out of that community of people we are serving. This is not our thing, or Mary’s thing, or the ESL thing. It is God’s thing. Remember though, have your crash helmet handy, because when God decides to do something with us, we may need it. It might not look like what we were imagining. It might not be comfortable. It might be, probably will be, holy chaos!
The church has been receiving a wake-up call for a long time and most of us have been ignoring it. But in these economic times, we can’t ignore it any more. We have been coasting for a long time. Well, we can’t coast any longer. We need to pray and wait and believe that the Holy Spirit is going to come in and cause holy chaos. And out of that holy chaos will come a new reality. It happened two thousand years ago. It happened in the Protestant Reformation. Some believe it is happening again—all over the world. A new reality! Some probably think we are all just intoxicated with new wine! I don’t think so. I think God is doing a new thing which makes today’s Scripture very relevant for today. Do we know what the new thing is? I know I don’t.
The Psalmist said, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Psalm 127:1). The next move is up to God, in other words. And I don’t say this as a “cop out.” I say this with the deepest humility I can muster. I say this with as much sense of surrendering as I can imagine. We all need to be in prayer. We need to be bold in our prayer life, almost arrogant before God. And our prayer needs to be simple. This is our prayer: “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done!” It is a prayer that calls God to be faithful to God’s promise and true to God’s Self. It is also our humble realization that only God can give the church what we most desperately need. It’s the Pentecost message. Come, Holy Spirit, come. Bring us your holy chaos. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done!” Amen!