A sermon for Pentecost Sunday
“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.”
The
language we hear in our Acts reading today is crafted to be rich, metaphorical
and colorful. It’s a crazy scene. What’s going on?
During the
40 days after his resurrection and before his ascension, Jesus had been moving
amongst the disciples again; he filled their broken hearts with purpose and hope.
Before he ascends, he tells them to gather in Jerusalem for the festival of Pentecost
and he has promised them that the Holy Spirit will come upon them there. And so
they are gathered, all together in
one place. And even with this sense of
immanence, the absence of Jesus must have been palpable. The apostles must have yearned for his
presence, and they must have been stunned, delighted, and amazed at what
happened in that room. For what an entrance the Holy Spirit makes!
I
imagined the scene like a family reunion, with one beloved member—the head of
the family--absent, and a new family member invited to take his place. And who
shows up but the crazy aunt in the family! She blows in, with flaming red hair,
and generally disrupts everything in a most unpredictable and glorious and holy
way. The crazy aunt who laughs a little louder than everyone else, speaks the
truth in a disarming way, rearranges the seating chart, blows open the windows,
and takes the party outside. The people at the party just have no idea what hit
them, but they know that everything is different now. Holy disruption indeed!!
Perhaps
it was the same Spirit breathing into me that brought this image into mind when
I went to see the musical Mame a few years ago. It happened to be during
Pentecost season, and I have never forgotten the image. And so, ever the
scholar, my research this week had me watching the movie Auntie Mame, starring
Rosalind Russell, who created the role on Broadway as well as in the film. People, I think Mame is that crazy aunt!
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| Mame greets Patrick, who has no idea how his life is going to change... |
She
is a
flamboyant (get the flame reference?) exuberant woman, famous for her
extravagant parties that bring together eclectic, bohemian guests. A literary critic described her as having “a
wit as sharp as vodka and a heart as free as her spirit.” Her motto is, “Life’s a banquet, and most poor
suckers are starving to death!” In the musical version of this story, her
admirers sing to her: “You made us feel alive again, you gave us the drive
again…” (Or in the words of our psalm, “You send forth your Spirit and we are
created, and so you renew the face of the earth.”)
Now—do
you see what I mean about Mame and the Holy Spirit?
The
story is set in the 1920’s. Auntie Mame adopts her orphaned nephew Patrick and
has to fight her late brother’s stuffy lawyers, who want him sent to an
exclusive (stuffy) boarding school. She
wants to send him to a progressive school, because she wants Patrick to be a
sensitive, caring, modern young man, open to everything life has to offer. (After
all, “Life’s a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!”) She introduces
him to her friends—an exiled Lithuanian bishop, a washed-up singer, all kinds
of avant garde artists, musicians, and writers—even an unwed mother she has
taken in, to the shock of polite society. Before one of her parties, she suggests
that Patrick write down the words he hears that are new to him, and later, he
approaches and asks, “what is a heterosexual?” It’s a subtle allusion, but judging
by the characters at her parties, I’m pretty sure Mame would be front and
center in the Pride parade in downtown Portland next weekend. And Patrick? He
is absolutely thrilled with it all. “She made him feel alive again. She gave
him the drive again.” Mame had come into his life like a breath of fresh air.
In fact, the word Spirit comes the
Latin word for breath—and so to be “inspired” is literally to be breathed into,
as in Genesis, God breathed into Adam and he became a living being. In the Old
Testament, God’s Spirit is in the tabernacle, the tent of meeting, the cloud by
day and the pillar of fire by night. This weekend, Jews celebrate their
Pentecost, called Shavuot—which, like the word Pentecost, means 50 days. It
celebrates the gift of the Torah, how Jews believe God is made known to them. Whether
as a small, still voice, a mighty wind, or a flame of love, the Spirit’s
presence is the difference between a formless void and the perfect shalom of
God’s creation; between a mere assembly of people and the very church of Christ
in the world.
And
while the comparison with Mame may be frivolous, who the Holy Spirit is, exactly,
is not something Jesus said much about. Instead we recognize the Spirit in the
stories of the lived faith and transformative works of the early
believers. And today, on what we recognize as the birthday of the Church, we
are reminded again that this is how the Spirit works: she hangs out with people. Jesus speaks of an
Advocate, “the Spirit of truth,” whom we will know because the Spirit will
abide with us and in us. She speaks to us in whatever language we understand,
and will give us words and inspire us to the works which will make Christ known
in the world.
But the Spirit is not neutral. For she is one with God, and so carries God’s
agenda of justice and truth and inclusion wherever she goes. The Spirit came to challenge the
powers who rejected Jesus and rejected his message. And, as our Acts reading
emphasizes, she both glories in diversity and unites across difference. The Spirit blows where the Spirit will,
across borders, transcending walls and boundaries, and speaking her truth into
the hearts of the most and least likely in turn.
Now,
back to Mame. Later in the story, Patrick’s trustee has prevailed and sent him
to a college more to his liking, and Patrick has become a bit—well,
conventional. Mame becomes concerned when she meets his fiancée, a stiff,
vacuous socialite. Sensing holy disruption may be in order, Mame gets herself
invited to the fiancee’s family compound in a “restricted” community in
Connecticut—“restricted,” meaning it excludes Jews and other so-called
undesirables. Well, Auntie Mame will
have none of that. She reciprocates with an invitation to a party on her own
turf, and through a carefully and creatively planned disaster, she exposes the
narrow-mindedness of the fiancée and her family, and Patrick sees the
light. And oh, by the way, she buys the
lot next to their home in that snooty suburb, and builds a home there for unwed
mothers. Holy disruption, indeed.
The
Spirit is doing the same today. Like those
early apostles, we begin as disciples, followers of Jesus, but we are filled
with the Spirit in order that we, too, might become his apostles. Messengers.
Those who are sent. And
while the Spirit knows how to work in us in silence, with a still, small voice,
she is an extrovert: she inspires us so
that we may inspire others.
This day, Pentecost, we’ve decked out our sanctuary
to celebrate the birth of the Church—the anniversary of the gift of the Spirit as
the animating presence in the Church, and we have set a special place at our
table for her. But she doesn’t just make
a birthday appearance: she’s already here. We have manifested her in the
welcome and hospitality we show to others.
Her creative inspiration is present in the architecture of this place
and in every Sunday School and preschool classroom, in our art camp, and in our
beautiful celebration today. She is
present when we open our hearts to welcome people into this place and invite
them to participate with us in our work of holy disruption. Her truth has
inspired us to open our eyes to the world’s hunger and serve our community. Surrendering
to her inspiration, and letting it lead us, is what this community at St. Gabriel’s
is all about.
So let us affirm her. She is present and accounted
for: Our friend, our advocate, the crazy
aunt in the family of God. Let us celebrate
today all the ways the Spirit has inspired us in the past, and ask her to
breathe into us anew, to wash over us, to shake us up, to take away our fear, and
to fill us with creativity and purpose. Because life is a banquet, my friends,
and there are so many pour souls who are starving to death.
We are going to need a bigger table.
Preached June 9, 2019 at St Gabriel Episcopal Church, Portland, OR
Lectionary readings: Genesis 11:1-9; Psalm 104:25-35, 37; Acts 2:1-21; John 14:8-17, 25-27
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