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Trinity Episcopal Church Hattiesburg, Mississippi Pentecost Sunday May 27, 2007 Go To Trinity's Home Page

Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:25-35, 37b
Romans 8:14-17
John 14:8-17, 25-27
Collect of the Day
From the Revised Common Lectionary as Adapted for Use by the Episcopal Church
and Authorized by the 75 th General Convention of the ECUSA

Philip said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, `Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (John 14:8-17, 25-27)

The Mythic Reality of the Flaming Holiday
The Rev. Dr. Bill Stroop

     Pentecost. The end of the fifty days of Easter, and the day many people consider to be the birthday of this thing we call “church.” It is a glorious day, the last resplendent day in the liturgical calendar before the beginning of the “long green season” that will carry us to next Advent.

     I know we’ve all been to the greeting card aisles lately. We got our Mother’s Day cards for our mothers, and our daughters who are mothers, and daughters-in-law, and other women we know who are mothers. Coming up is children’s day followed by grandparent’s day. Children’s day will be celebrated in New York on June 16 this year with a free family festival hosted by Gordon from Sesame Street with performances by John Lithgow, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and a spectacular Target fireworks show. And yes, there will be a Barney™ Sing-Along.

     Did you know that the word, “holiday” comes from the two words, “holy day”? Given that, you’d think we would celebrate more religious holidays than we do. But other than Easter and Christmas, the holidays of the church year don’t get much space in the card racks.

     If you’re a Buddhist, this past Thursday was a big day. That was Buddha’s birthday. But you won’t find a Happy Buddha Birthday card at the store. Mormons in Utah, where I lived for a number of years, celebrate Pioneer Day. This was when Brigham Young declared “This is the Place” for the Mormons to settle in the Salt Lake Valley. But still, no card. Hindus celebrate Diwali, and Sikhs celebrate Guru Nanak’s Day with the reading of 72 solid hours of scripture readings, but do not exchange Nanak cards.

     Pentecost, the day celebrated as the birth of the Church is apparently in good company with other religious holidays for which there are no cards. You’d think that the card makers would be inspired by this day – it is after all a day commemorating the birth of one of the greatest religious movements of all time. And you’d think its strange imagery could lead to some pretty spectacular cards. There is the sound of wind in today’s reading from Acts to describe the physical presence of the Holy Spirit; “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.” And from the Gospel, Jesus promises the disciples that the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, will be sent to them by God to teach them.

     Another prominent theme of the day is fire. It is a special fire, a holy fire, a fire that is described by Luke to have lighted upon each one of the disciples. We commemorate that by wearing fiery colors: reds, oranges, and yellows.

     And then there is this business of the power of the Holy Spirit to give the disciples the ability to speak in languages other than their own. We commemorate the ability of the Word of God to spread quickly like wild fire to all nations of the earth by reading some of our lessons in Spanish, German, Russian, French, Latin, and Italian.

     All of the imagery associated with Pentecost speaks to the extraordinary thing that happened after Jesus’ ascension. Despite persecution and isolation, small groups of Christians devoted to their vision and understanding of Jesus as Messiah and Risen Lord and Savior, grew into larger and larger groups, such that within twelve generations, Christianity had become the sanctioned religion of the Roman Empire.

     And as these early churches looked back on their own histories, they were awestruck by the power present to them through their faith, the grace of God, the memory of Jesus, and the presence of the Holy Spirit.

     And they struggled to find literary ways of expressing their wonderment at the power of God to transform an entire Empire. It’s no wonder that we are left with images of tongues of fire resting on the disciples heads. To the early church the feast of Pentecost came to represent when light, power, and joy came to the church.

     The 2004 movie Big Fish is a story about Edward Bloom who is dying of cancer and his son. Will hasn’t spoken to his father for years because he believes him to be a liar who never really cared for his family. Edward was always a teller of tall-tales about his oversized life as a young man. He was gripped by wanderlust that led him on an unlikely journey from a small-town in Alabama, around the world, and back again. Will heard so many stories about his father’s life he didn’t know what was true and what was fantasy.

     In the film, Will recreates his father’s elusive life from the few facts he knows. We the father as a bouncing baby on the day he was born, his involvement in Vietnam, and his job as a traveling salesman and a bank robber. We seem him romantically fill an entire street and courtyard with potted daffodils in order to capture the eye of the love of his life. His mythic exploits dart from the delightful to the bizarre as his life unfolds in unbelievable tales involving giants, blizzards, and a witch. One of my favorites was how Edward rescued a pair of conjoined-twin lounge singers in Southeast Asia, and brought them to the United States. Edward once caught the biggest fish ever using the only kind of lure one can use to catch a fish that special. One has to use something that represented great love, and we watch as Edward uses his own wedding band to attract this giant fish. Through all of these tales, the son begins to understand his father’s legendary feats and his great failings.

     In the end, we are never sure how much of these tales is myth and how much truth. But it doesn’t really matter. It does not matter if his father’s tales are 100% true, 50% true, or complete fabrication. What matters is the profound effect his father’s zest for life and his accomplishments had on everyone. His father’s life was mystical, fantastic, charming, and most importantly, transforming.

     And so it was for the early church. The coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was one of those events that identifies who and what we are as Christian people perhaps more by the myth than by the reality. It is something that has the power to transform and change with the gentleness of a light breeze, or with the speed of a tornado. Something gave the disciples courage to step forward as witnesses, and sufficient wisdom to be heard and understood. It was that something that led them to baptize people in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit as a way of demonstrating both the desire of the individual to transform their own lives and the desire of the community of the believes to support them in their new Christian vocation.

     Joe Klein tells the story of a young man and woman standing on the front porch after their first date. The young man asks the woman, “Can I kiss you?”

     The woman smiles quietly, but says nothing. The boy then tries again, this time saying, “I mean, may I kiss you?” But again the woman says nothing.

     Out of exasperation the boy cries out, “Have you gone deaf!?”

     To which the woman questions in response, “Are you paralyzed?”[1]

     The Pentecost story is a story of the church becoming unparalyzed, of becoming empowered to carry out its purpose.

     Exactly what happened that gave rise to the legend of Pentecost we will never know. We are in the same position as Will who was never really able to separate the myth from the facts in the legend that was his father.

     But what matters is that the process of unparalyzing the church continues today. Pentecost teaches us that we need to be open to others, open to new ways of doing things, and open to new ways of understanding.

     And fortunately, we have the Holy Spirit to help us with that work. For without the Holy Spirit we would get nowhere. Without the power of the Holy Spirit, all human efforts, methods, and plans would be as futile as attempting to propel a boat by puffing at the sails with our own breath.[2] Let us all work in ways guided by the Spirit to unparalyze our church and to help it grow into the kind of body that lives into the gospel each and every day.

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Acts 2:1-21

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.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.” But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that 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. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved’.”

Psalm 104:25-35, 37b Benedic, anima mea

O LORD, how manifold are your works! *
in wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.

E não só isso, mas essas mares imensos
são também cruzados por toda a espécie de navios.
E neles até pode brincar a grande e forte baleia! (Portuguese)

There move the ships,
and there is that Leviathan, *
which you have made for the sport of it.

Le -o dai Tu, ele o primesc;
Îţi deschizi Tu mîna, ele se satură de bunătăţile Tale. (Romanian)

You give it to them; they gather it; *
you open your hand, and they are filled with good things.

Pero si envías tu Espíritu, son creados,
y así renuevas la faz de la tierra. (Spanish)

You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; *
and so you renew the face of the earth.

Son regard fait trembler la terre,
il touche les montagnes et, déjà, elles fument. (French)

He looks at the earth and it trembles; *
he touches the mountains and they smoke.

Möge ihm gefallen meine Rede!
Ich, ich freue mich in dem Herrn! (German)

May these words of mine please him; *
I will rejoice in the LORD.

Алилуя (Bulgarian)

Romans 8:14-17

All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ-- if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

John 14:8-17, 25-27

Philip said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, `Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”

Collect of the Day

Almighty God, on this day you opened the way of eternal life to every race and nation by the promised gift of your Holy Spirit: Shed abroad this gift throughout the world by the preaching of the Gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

[1] From Synthesis for Year A. Boyds, MD: Sedgwick Publishing. May 15, 2005.
[2] D.M. Dawson as quoted in Martin M. Manser (Ed.). The Westminster Collection of Christian Quotations. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001. p. 173.

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Copyright © 2007, William G. Stroop - All Rights Reserved.
24 May 2007

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