Stroop Sermons, Year A, Pentecost

Lectionary Year A, Pentecost: May 18 & 19, 2002
St. John's Episcopal Church, Austin, TX

What happens to us when we gather to worship? The Episcopal Priest and world class preacher, Barbara Brown Taylor, says that "the Holy Spirit swoops in and out among us, knitting us together through the songs we sing, the prayers we pray, the breaths we breathe." [1] The Holy Spirit is an amazing thing because it can move us to joy and laughter, it can cause us to weep; it can scare us or comfort us. The Holy Spirit is like electricity in a household outlet. It is always there, waiting to be tapped. It does not force us to use it, or to even experience it. But when we do experience it, we can shine like a light bulb plugged into that outlet. Or, if we choose not to plug ourselves into the Spirit, we can remain unillumined. That's the thing about the Spirit – we are free to choose whether or how we will respond.

In today's Gospel, we heard the author of John say that Jesus breathed on the disciples and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit" (Jn 20:22). Jesus 'breathed' on them. I would like all of you to close your eyes for a moment and take a big breath, and hold it until I say to let it out. Okay, take a deep breath . . . hold it. Now let it out. Did you ever stop to think about that air you just breathed in? Where did it come from?

Our planet possesses two things that no other heavenly body that we know of has: An atmosphere and abundant water. It is the combination of the atmosphere and the water than gives our plant it's distinctive blue color. My wife and I collect space art, and one of the prizes in our collection is a photograph taken of the full earth by Gene Cernan on his way to the moon in Apollo 17. If you look carefully at the edge of the earth in that photograph you can see the extremely thin blue strip of atmosphere that envelopes our planet. And that's all the air there is. There is no cosmic air replenishing service coming to earth every few hundred years to replace the air we breathe. The air we breathe is just recycled, over and over again. We are breathing the same ancient air that the dinosaurs breathed. We inhale air that recycled through the rain forests of Brazil, and that was exhaled by people like Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Lizzie Borden, and Adolph Hitler. When we inhale, we are taking in what was some baby's first breath, or the last dying breath of another. That air you just exhaled is now inside my lungs, and when I exhale it again, it will be free to be inhaled by other animals and even taken up by plants all over the earth.

We breathe the same air that Jesus breathed. Barbara Brown Taylor wrote that "when Jesus let go of his last breath … that breath hovered in the air in front of him for a moment, and then was set loose on earth. It was such a pungent breath – so full of passion, so full of life – that it did not dimply dissipate as so many breaths do. It grew in strength and in volume, until it was a mighty wind, which God sent spinning through an upper room in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost." [2] This is Taylor's way of looking at the mystery that is the Holy Spirit and the creative power it can provide to us.

The Gospel of John describes the Spirit coming to the disciples as the breath of Jesus Himself. The Gospel of Luke, and the accompanying book of Acts also written by Luke, describe the coming of the Spirit in quite a different manner. "Suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them."

Luke and John, as well as Barbara Brown Taylor, struggled to write about something that is beyond human description. They were trying to describe the third person of the Trinity – The Holy Spirit – and tell us how that Spirit was responsible for the utter and complete transformation of the disciples into the Apostles. To make his point about the power and importance of the Spirit, John equated Jesus' breath with the breath of God who blew life into Adam at creation: "The Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being" (Gen 2:7, NRSV). Luke used wind in ways similar to John's use of 'breath.' But Luke added fire. Fire is an agent of transformation that can melt metals, incinerate flesh, and turn sand into glass. Perhaps Luke used the imagery of fire to emphasize the transforming power of the Spirit. The tongues of flame of the Spirit under the guidance of God transformed those frightened and mourning men who hid from their community in that upper room, into the twelve Apostles who carried Jesus' teaching and healing into the world.

How do we know about the power of the Spirit? We know it by the effect it had on the women and men in that upper room. In the Gospel of Luke we read that "all of [the disciples] were filled with the Holy Spirit and [they] began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability" (Acts 2:4). Barbara Brown Taylor describes it this way: "Every one of them was filled to the gills with God's own breath. Then something clamped down on them and the air came out of them in languages that they did not even know they knew." [3] They spoke in tongues! "Like a room full of bagpipes all going at once, they set up a racket that drew a crowd. People who came to Jerusalem for the Jewish festival of Pentecost (which was a festival to celebrate the first fruits of the harvest) heard the noise, and came to the room expecting to see people from their own countries. Instead they found a bunch of hysterical Galileans – rural types from the northern country – all speaking about God's works in the world acting "like a bunch of Ph.D.'s in middle eastern languages." [4]

However comical this might seem, we have to remember one very important fact. Within 313 years of Jesus' birth, or about 280 years after his death, Christianity had become the dominant religion of the Mediterranean world. Despite worshiping in secret, persecutions and pogroms, the message of Jesus Christ flourished. How else could an obscure sect of Judaism emerge to become the dominant religion of the planet unless the Spirit was involved?

We celebrate Pentecost because we recognize that the Spirit is what enabled the worshipping community to form into the Body of Christ. Just as our bodies are energized by the life giving oxygen we inhale with each breath, the community that is the Body of Christ is energized by the Spirit to work faithfully to usher in the Kingdom of God.

The key here is that what happened that day in the upper room happened to the community of Jesus' followers. It was not an individual thing, but a community event. In his book, The Bible and the New York Times, the preacher Fleming Rutledge writes that "as surely as we are gathered here today, the faith of the Christian Church depends for its existence on the reality and the power of what happened on Pentecost." [5] The disciples were ordinary people until the power of the Spirit grabbed a hold of them and shook them out of their fear of the crowds, and their grief over the loss of Jesus. Two things happened that transformed the disciples into world-changing apostles and evangelists: the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and the descent of the Holy Spirit. [6] The Holy Spirit is essentially the power of the resurrection at work in human beings.

The Spirit is something we hold very much in common. At stake for all of us is what we hear the Spirit calling us to do, and how we respond. Remember that the conversion of the Apostles on that first Pentecost was not for them. It was for you. And me. It was for the Kingdom of God. It is up to us to listen and feel for the Spirit, and to let our faith community help us discern our spiritual and physical gifts. Remember that the Apostle Paul said there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit (1 Cor 12:4). That means that each of us have within us something that is needed by the whole Body of Christ. In 1 Corinthians, Paul wrote, "There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all [people]. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. All [gifts] are the work of one and the same Spirit, and [the Spirit] gives them to each one, just as [the Spirit] determines. The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ." [7]

At St. John's we are all called to ministry of some sort. Maybe you don't know what that ministry is yet, but you may confidently expect to find out, because I am firmly convinced that the Holy Spirit has found fertile souls in this congregation. Because "the Spirit which is from God [teaches us to] understand the gifts bestowed on us by God" (1 Cor 2:12), the Spirit will move us, if we let ourselves hear it.

It was hard for me to finally admit that the Spirit spoke to me so many years ago. There I was a comfortable medical school professor, happily doing research on herpes simplex virus, teaching medical students, and molding graduate students into my own image. That's the stuff of academic science and research. But after I heard the Spirit, I found myself in a discernment process for the ordained ministry. In August, 1999 I drove out of my driveway, seeing my wife and daughter holding up each other as I headed to this city to attend seminary.

Also about three years ago, I began to attend St. John's, having sampled some of the other Episcopal Churches in Austin. I don't think I chose St. John's, I think the Spirit led me here. You, the ministers of St. John's, made me feel more than welcome. I have always felt at home here. Many of you learned that I was attending seminary without my family. You have often and lovingly asked me about them. Today, my wife and daughter are with us, and I would like to introduce them to you (they stand and are greeted by the congregation). Yes, these are the real articles! On Tuesday, I will graduate from the seminary and as a family, we will leave Austin for Fayetteville, Arkansas, where I will become the Canon Missioner for Campus Work and the Episcopal Chaplain to the University of Arkansas. This is what the Spirit is calling us to do now.

In a few moments, we will gather around this table, and I will have the opportunity to serve you one last time as your deacon. Andwe need to remember that we are gathered here to open ourselves to the Spirit and to risk putting ourselves in Her power. Maybe we ought to wear crash helmets when we come for communion! The spirit will through the symbol of the bread and wine demonstrate to us all that we are assembled here as part of God's Holy fellowship. Through the sacrament of the Eucharist, we will all receive power from God today through the Holy Spirit. We will receive power for life, power for service, power for ministry, and power for love.

I would like to conclude this sermon with a short prayer and a benediction. Let us pray. May you the good people of St. John's be granted such an abundance of gifts that, through you, Christ our Lord may yet do such things with this congregation that cannot even now be imagined, by the great power of might of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs-- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power."

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body-- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free-- and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

When it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."

[1] I am indebted to Barbara Brown Taylor's sermon on the Holy Spirit. Her sermon can be found in Barbara Brown Taylor. "The Gospel of the Holy Spirit." Home By Another Way. (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 1999), 142.

[2] Barbara Brown Taylor. Home By Another Way. (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 1999), 143.

[3] Barbara Brown Taylor. Home By Another Way. (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 1999), 143-44.

[4] Barbara Brown Taylor. Home By Another Way. (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 1999), 144.

[5] Fleming Rutledge. "The Apostolic Flame." The Bible and the New York Times. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman's Publishing Co., 1998), 166.

[6] Fleming Rutledge. The Bible and the New York Times. 166.

[7] Paraphrased from 1 Cor 12:4-12 (NIV).

This publication, ie. this page and the preceding document that has a link to this page, are copyrighted. Except as permitted by the Copyright Act, no part of it may in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or any other means be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or be broadcast or transmitted without the prior permission of the publisher.