For those who were not able to attend services at Advent, the lessons and/or sermon from this past Sunday appears here, as made available by the Rector and the Church Secretary.
The Sermon for Pentecost
May 27, 2012
Robin Martin, Rector
When I was growing up in the Episcopal Church in the 1950s and ‘60s, I can’t remember ever hearing the word Pentecost except in the reading we just heard from the Acts of the Apostles…if I was even listening to that. What I do remember is a Sunday called Whitsunday. Whitsunday, I learned, was the birthday of the church which I vaguely understood to involve a lot of people gathered some place called the “upper room,” a bird…a dove to be precise, a strong wind and flames of fire. What I remember vividly is that there was a gigantic cake from time to time to help us celebrate this birthday which went over well with all my sugarholic friends and me. But for the most part, Whitsunday was just another of those days with strange sounding names…like the Sundays immediately preceding Lent: Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima. I was such a little snob that I accepted these terms as elegant oddities which set my Episcopal ethos apart from the ordinariness of the Southern Baptists and Methodists who far outnumbered us in that time and place.
I’m sure at some point I must have begun to have a more mature understanding about this day and what happened on it over two thousand years ago, but I have no specific memory of when or how. It was not until I was a young adult and the services for trial use which eventually became the prayer book we use today were introduced that I learned, along with the rest of the church, that Pentecost is the more biblically accurate name for this day. And it was not until several years after that, when I personally experienced the reality of the Holy Spirit, that the whole thing became more than an intellectual exercise in church history and theology.
But isn’t that the way it is with us human beings? Of all creatures on the earth, we are the most adept at taking in, processing and organizing abstract information. We can even be inspired by concepts and ideas, but in the end the most powerful learning tool for us is usually experience. Touching an iron that is hot enough to sear our skin teaches us in a split second what countless admonitions from our mother can fail to communicate. The same is true of more positive things. For example, I’m thinking we never really understand what friendship is about until we have a friend of our own.
So it was with those first followers of Jesus. He told them he would send the Spirit to comfort them in his absence. He told them he would send them power from on high to accomplish all those things he was commissioning them to do once he was good and gone. They believed him because they loved him and trusted him, and they knew about the Spirit of the Lord that had rested on the prophets in times past. But there was no way they could understand the magnitude of what was about to happen to them until it happened. There was no way they could understand, before the fact, that they would suddenly be released from that fear for their own safety which had haunted them all those weeks since the crucifixion and find themselves in the middle of the city preaching to hoards of people. These were people from all over the known world, each of them hearing the message of Jesus crucified and risen from the dead in their own language. There was no way they could imagine the chaotic wondrousness of it all…until it happened.
So what about you and me? As Christians, we believe that the Holy Spirit enters each of us in the act of baptism, just as it did with Jesus. We teach that the Spirit is God’s gift to us, a gift freely given. We trust that the giving of it is not dependent on any worthiness we might exhibit, but on God’s endless generosity. You know, I sometimes fear that the readiness with which it’s given and the unfailing bounteousness of the Giver may cheapen the gift for you and me, may make it seem not all that precious and desirable…simply because it is so readily available. The church teaches that Pentecost is the second most important day of the Christian year, second only to the Day of Resurrection. But the sacredness of this day is continually trumped by other things; things like graduations and their attendant festivities, or the need to open the house at the shore, or Memorial Day weekend as it is this year. I sometimes wonder if the real problem with paying attention to Pentecost may be the fact that no one’s thought of a way to market it the way they have Christmas and Easter.
I said earlier that it was not until I personally experienced the reality of the Holy Spirit that all the stuff I’d been taught about it began to mean something to me. We were living in a little town in northeast Alabama, and the parish was going through a period of intense spiritual renewal. As the wife of the rector, I was deeply involved in the prayer and praise groups that were a part of that renewal. But exhilarating as it was, there was something missing for me. There were experiences other people talked about having and gifts of the Spirit they exhibited that I couldn’t quite embrace for myself. It was in the midst of a sleepless night a week or two after the birth of Adam that I found myself lying on the sofa in the den praying. I’m not quite certain what happened that night except that my hunger for God finally overcame my caution. I firmly believe that God does not coerce anyone into a place that we do not wish to be. But I also believe that God is persistent, waiting patiently until our hunger overcomes our caution.
On this day of Pentecost 2012, we remember that day so many centuries ago when the Spirit of God came to dwell in humankind in a new way. But let’s don’t make the mistake of thinking this is simply a day of remembrance for some event long past. The reality is that every day is Pentecost; every day there are people around the globe who finally allow their hunger for God to overcome their caution. Every day.
The Readings for Pentecost
May 27, 2012
COLLECT: 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.
FIRST READING: 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 104:25-35,37
25 O LORD, how manifold are your works! in wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.
26 Yonder is the great and wide sea with its living things too many to number, * creatures both small and great.
27 There move the ships, and there is that Leviathan, * which you have made for the sport of it.
28 All of them look to you * to give them their food in due season.
29 You give it to them; they gather it; * you open your hand, and they are filled with good things.
30 You hide your face, and they are terrified; * you take away their breath, and they die and return to their dust.
31 You send forth your Spirit, and they are created; * and so you renew the face of the earth.
32 May the glory of the LORD endure for ever; * may the LORD rejoice in all his works.
33 He looks at the earth and it trembles; * he touches the mountains and they smoke.
34 I will sing to the LORD as long as I live; * I will praise my God while I have my being.
35 May these words of mine please him; * I will rejoice in the LORD.
37 Bless the LORD, O my soul. * Hallelujah!
SECOND READING: Romans 8:22-27
We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
GOSPEL: John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15
Jesus said to his disciples, “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes from the Father, he will testify on my behalf. You also are to testify because you have been with me from the beginning.
“I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. But, now I am going to him who sent me; yet none of you asks me, `Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts. Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
