Pentecost: 5-20-18
Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our
risen Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy spirit, amen.
You may have noticed that time within the church doesn’t quite follow the same rules as time OUTSIDE the church. We don’t start celebrating Christmas
until December 24th. Some years we slather ash crosses on people’s
foreheads on Valentine’s Day if it falls on Ash Wednesday. Easter is not just a
day, but it is a season, seven weeks long. We can skip years of Jesus’ life between Sundays,
and we can spend weeks talking about
what happened on one single night.
Just today even, we get the story of the arrival of the
Holy Spirit in a totally weird order. Because we’ve been reading through Acts
as our first reading, we heard FIRST about the actual arrival of the Holy
Spirit, with the wind and the flames and the languages and the confusion, which
hopefully you followed along with what the choir sang. Then, in our second
reading, we get the apostle Paul’s take on the continuing works of the Holy
Spirit. Last, but not least, our Gospel reading takes us all the way BACK to
Maundy Thursday, the night Jesus was betrayed… to hear how Jesus gives his
disciples the first announcement that the Holy Spirit would be arriving. Kind
of a little bit backwards.
But, here we are. Still back at Maundy Thursday. The
night where so much happened, because Jesus knew he had so little time left
with his disciples before he would be betrayed, arrested, tortured, and put to
death on a cross. Jesus knew that, even after his resurrection, his time as a
bodily presence here on earth was limited. Jesus knew that, after he left, the
disciples would be facing some new and scary things.
When Jesus was at
his lowest point, and his disciples were about to be at THEIR lowest point very
soon as they abandoned Jesus and fled from the religious authorities out of
fear at Jesus’s upcoming arrest… as Jesus was about to leave, Jesus gives them hope. He gives them something… someONE to hold on to.
Jesus was leaving… but Someone was coming to be at their side when life gets scary and
unfamiliar. Jesus was leaving…. But Someone
was coming would lead the way into the abundant life and exciting future
that God was calling them to.
I think most of us have experienced what its like to say
goodbye to someone we love, whether that means they have died…. we are
separated from them by distance …or the relationship has ruptured through some
other means. It is something that most adults, and many children even, deal
with while growing up. And I think in the last few years we’ve been blessed by
children’s movies that have not shied away from dealing with the hard stuff,
like grief and loss. I’m thinking of movies like UP, Inside Out, Coco, and one
of my personal favorites, Moana.
Moana is the daughter of the village chief on an island
in the Pacific Ocean. While most of her people are more than happy with their
land-based life, Moana yearns for more, and … big shocker… doesn’t quite fit in.
Only her grandmother seems to understand her connection with the big scary ocean…
And when her grandmother dies in relation to a mysterious plague that is
affecting her island, Moana is devastated. She sets out onto the big ocean on a
quest to set things right, facing challenges with the help of cute animal
sidekicks. At one point the odds seem so great, and the hardships seem so
insurmountable, that Moana is on the verge of giving up, turning her little
boat around, and going back to her island. She holds her oar out over the ocean
to begin her way home… but she hesitates. Her grandmother’s spirit appears
behind her, and… you guessed it… her grandmother starts to sing.
Her grandmother’s spirit sings to her to remind her WHO
she is: Moana is the daughter of the chief, who loves the sea and her people,
descended from world travelers. But her grandmother’s spirit also reminds Moana
how she is strong enough to overcome the journey ahead. Her grandmother says, “Sometimes the world seems against you. The journey may
leave a scar. But scars can heal - and reveal- just where you are. The people
you love will change you. The things you
have learned will guide you.”
As the music swells, Moana sees a vision of her ancestors
speeding past her small boat, leading the way forward into the dark and unknown
path to where Moana is called to go. Moana turns to her grandmother and says: “I will carry you here in my heart, you'll remind me That come what may, I
know the way.” The next moment all is dark and quiet around her, and she is
alone… but not really.
Moana
needed this reminder…. The disciples
needed this reminder…. And we need this reminder… we are NOT alone. We have the Holy Spirit to be present
with us when Jesus is not. We have the Holy Spirit to remind us that we belong to God. We have the Holy Spirit to remind us that we are not alone when we
follow the path that Jesus has called us to.
We are not alone, because we can’t walk this path on our
own. The disciples tried, and failed, until the outpouring of the Spirit
happened on Pentecost. Every week we say the Apostles Creed, which ends with “I
believe in the Holy Spirit…” which Martin Luther explains in this way: “I
believe that by my own understanding or strength I cannot believe in Jesus
Christ my Lord or come to him, but instead the Holy Spirit has called me
through the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, made me holy, and kept me in
the true faith.”
This is pretty much just a fancy way to say: when we rely on
our own smarts and strength we often miss the boat on following Jesus’s way. It
is the Holy Spirit who pushes us out the door, gives us the tools we need,
keeps us doing the right things, and of course reminds us that we are loved.
And so, we are empowered to love others, as Jesus has done… as agents of the
holy spirit, to remind OTHERS that
they are loved by God, and to treat them accordingly.
There are so many voices out there telling people that
they are not loved, they are not worthy, they are not valued for whatever
reason. Sometimes these voices are loud, scary, and occasionally in our own
backyard. On Tuesday afternoon, as school let out at Central Bucks West High
School, to men stood outside the school with signs, shouting these very lies to
the students as they exited the school at the end of the day. Their signs were
a “warning” to the following list of people, warning them to “Obey Jesus or
Hellfire.” The list included: witches, liars, Muslims, drunks, ankle biters,
“homos,” sissies, and the Pope.
Photos of these signs were taken by a student
at the school and was posted in a community Facebook group I am a part of, and
it was reported that students were frightened and dismayed by this display.
By that evening, counter protest had been organized for
the following day. People from all over the Doylestown community came out with
signs to stand in the rain to show their love to the students: old men and
women, children, students, pastors, business people, community organizers… to
hold signs that said things like: “CB West we love, Value, and Support you.”
Standing together, we said: hate doesn’t win. These other people do not
represent the Jesus that I believe in. Together, we stood out there in the rain
as bus loads and car loads of teens honked their horns and cheered in
appreciation for what we were doing… and by the way…These OTHER people didn’t
even show up again… I like to think that a shower of rain and downpour of LOVE
was just TOO MUCH FOR THEM to handle.
 |
| Photo from Rise Up Doylestown FB page |
After all, as one of my college religion professors Dr.
Judith Jones once said, “How can anyone who truly knows Jesus… use doctrinal
error to justify violent or hateful treatment of another human being?”
The answer to that is, they wouldn’t, and they won’t.
Because we carry the Spirit with us, and the Spirit reminds us of who we are,
and therefore we know the way.
This way will have some low moments occasionally… or a
lot. Sometimes we may find ourselves feeling our very discouraged and disheartened,
ready to turn back, like Moana was. Sometimes the journey does leave a scar.
But we are not doing this alone. We have the Holy Spirit… and we have each
other. And our job together is to remind each other that we are loved, valued,
and worthy, no matter what.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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