May 20, 2018
There are
some weeks--and I know that we have all experienced them, where we just feel a
little beaten down by life. It may be one huge serious thing, it may be 1000
small things that build around us until we feel suffocated… It could be
anything. It could be everything. It might be something personal, or something
more global. For instance, this has been
a difficult week in terms of the news.
In the beginning of the week, we were bombarded with reports from Gaza.
It is a land that seems to know no peace, a land that every major religion
prays for, a land where our Lord and Savior lived, died and was resurrected. A
land where over 2000 were injured in one day this past week. In our nation, our week ended with yet
another school shooting. This time, 10
students were killed by a 17 year old boy.
The carnage never seems to end in our schools.
While our week ended with the royal
wedding and the uplifting and encouraging sermon by our presiding bishop, I
still found myself struggling to find the good in the good news. It was especially
challenging, because this week is Pentecost.
It’s the day we mark the coming of the Holy Spirit and to some extent,
the birth of the church. We wear red. We
talk about fire and light. We eat
cake. It’s supposed to be about joy,
right???
And yet, the biblical description of Pentecost is a little more complicated
than the birthday of our Christian Church.
The fire we talk about in the Pentecost story is not created by birthday
candles. The fire in the Pentecost story
is tongues of fire over people’s heads. When I hear about tongues of fire
resting on people’s heads, I often wonder why people did not duck. Would
that not be the most natural reaction to fierce winds and tongues of fire
descending on your head? The first thing I would do would be to dive for
cover. Had they not yet heard of stop, drop and roll?
All the paintings that depict the
story of Pentecost have the people looking serene. Some look almost
bored, like there was nothing strange about flames hovering over their heads.
A couple of the paintings depict people looking a little surprised, even
scared, but that is certainly the exception. And there is not one that I
could find where people are actually ducking. If someone could find me
one, I would be most appreciative.
I cannot help but wonder what gave those people in the Pentecost story the
presence of mind to stand still, to know that there was nothing to fear.
Perhaps the Holy Spirit had some sort of calming effect. If the Holy Spirit
could give them all the ability to speak in other languages, surely the Holy
Spirit could also provide some sort of natural sedative…like lavender infused
wind. However, for some reason I have an easier time imaging every person
speaking in different languages than people being calm when tongues of fire
were resting on their heads.
The thing is, they had every reason to be afraid. The scary truth is that
the Holy Spirit brings change and transformation. Those are anxiety
provoking things. No amount of calming lavender will take that away. The only
time the Holy Spirit is not terrifying is when we let the flames just hover
over our heads (like in the paintings) rather than break into our hearts.
But the intention of the Spirit is
never simply to hover. In Paul’s letter
to the Romans, he wrote, “And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the
mind of the Spirit…” Earlier in Romans, Paul wrote: “…hope does not
disappoint us because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the
Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
That all sounds great, and it is very lovely imagery…but what does it
mean? The text almost makes it sound like we are just passive
recipients. God searches our heart. God’s love is poured into our
hearts. It almost seems like we don’t have to do any work…we just sit
around and wait for the dancing flames. Actually, there is something we
can do—or rather something we can’t do. We can’t duck. We can’t run
for cover. We can’t hide behind something that is safe and secure, like
the brick walls of a church, or willful ignorance that may shield us from pain,
or fear that keeps us from taking risks.
When it comes to the Holy Spirit,
nothing is safe from its violent winds or tongues of fire. It does not
discriminate in what it chooses to transform. That makes it sound as though it
is unstoppable. However, this is not the case. There is one thing that
can stop the transformative power of the Holy Spirit, and that is our hard and
uncompromising hearts. In order for God to search our heart….in order for God’s
love to be poured into our hearts, we have to open our hearts.
People always talk about broken
hearts like they are a bad thing. It’s true, they are painful, but they are
necessary. I do not know about you, but
when I have weeks like this, weeks when the small things or the very big things
threaten to tear me down, I have a tendency to bury the pain. Sometimes I want to ignore the bad or thought
provoking news and watch reality TV or read fashion magazines. Sometimes I do. But then there are weeks when I can’t,
because I have to preach to you all. So
here is what I did this week. I read the
news. I cried. I cried a lot and watched Bishop Curry’s sermon about love and
then I cried some more.
And then I prayed that the Holy
Spirit would touch all your hearts when my words were not enough. I even prayed that your hearts would break a
little. I believe that we have two
options when our hearts break—when we face pain and fear. We can sew them
back up tight, maybe even encase them in a hard shell. Or we can just
piece them back together, leaving the heart cracked, but much more open than
before. Because if we leave those cracks, those tiny imperfections, we
leave more space for God’s love to break through.
Those people at Pentecost…they had
every reason to be afraid. But it was not the flames or the wind that
should have scared them. It was what would come after, that should have
scared them the most. When the wind died down, the flames disappeared,
and the great crowd dissipated, their lives were forever changed. I don’t
think the Holy Spirit provided them with the presence of mind to stay
calm. I believe the Holy Spirit gave them something far greater, courage
and hope to stand still and open their hearts to something new and different. My prayer for all of you is that when the
wind comes and the flame burns just a little too hot, that you will find the
courage to stand still…to lean into the wind and the flame, knowing that God
may let you fall, may even let you get burned a little, but will make sure that
whatever hardship you might face will bring you closer to the person who God
created you to be.
