It is so hard to do Pentecost again, isn’t it? I mean, in our ordered, structured, controlled and many ways comfortable lives, our Confession and call to worship — more poetic, today — I think, kind of nailed it: “So we listen, depart, and return to our ordered existence: we depart with only a little curiosity but not yielding; we return to how it was before, unconvinced but wistful, slightly praying for wind, craving newness, wishing to have it all available to us.” (Those were the words of pastor, prophet and professor Walter Brueggemann.)
He concludes in that piece: “We pray toward the wind and wait, unconvinced but wistful.”
With all that we have, why would we even need the Holy Spirit at Pentecost? Right? She just messes things up.
I mean the Acts story is kind of entertaining, we’re a little curious, but “shake us loose from lethargy, break the chains of sin asunder for earth’s healing set us free, crumble walls that still divide us, make us one in Christ our Lord” (all from verse 3 of the Hymn of the Day we’re about to sing) — that all sounds nice, but let’s calm down here, people: Pentecost is just a day for wearing red, maybe reading and singing in different languages...earth’s healing? crumbling walls? C’mon, Jesus — that’s too much, that’s too “out there”. We’d rather remain “unconvinced but wistful.”
It’s hard to do Pentecost, isn’t it? It’s hard to live Pentecost, and — what we in the church call — the Season after Pentecost. Starting next week until Advent! We’d rather just return to our ordered existence, only a little curiosity, but not yielding.
This is our dilemma: It’s hard to yield. It’s hard to let the Holy Spirit in, disordering, dismantling.
Couple years ago, I heard a story from a new friend about Emma. I was at a training event in Chicago and met Jan, Emma’s pastor. She told me about her larger-than-life little Emma, a 7-year-old member of this start-up congregation in suburban Kansas City.
They had been gathering for only a few months, and they were just beginning another typical Sunday morning service with red hymnals like ours and synthesized organ on the electric keyboard, gathering at the font for the Invocation, the Call to Worship like we do. Pastor Jan, offering the opening words in the Confession and Forgiveness. And suddenly Emma says, “Stop!!” See, they were worshiping in a storefront and one of the walls of their space was all window, and Emma was watching, and she saw that a new family had just arrived, running late with their baby in a stroller, but trying to be discreet. Emma went running right through the gathering at the font and burst outside to throw her arms open and say, “Welcome! We’re so happy that you’re here! My name’s Emma! What’s yours?” (It happened to be a same-gendered couple.) The congregation can watch this whole drama unfold through the glass, and within seconds, little, energetic Emma bursts back into the sanctuary, with her new friends and announces, a little winded now, “This is Anna and this is Julie, and this is baby Simon. [whew] Now we can start.”
When Pastor Jan told me this story, she ending by saying: “Best Call to Worship ever.”
Crumbling walls, yes? The gift of a storefront sanctuary, walls that are windows. Or no walls at all. I love when we worship outside in the pavilion, and what a gift it is to gather in a place where outsiders can be easily seen and welcomed in. We have that too, in many ways, with our large narthex and multiple points of entry.
This is doing Pentecost, and while it is hard, Christ fills us this day with courage and joy to go, and throw our arms open like Emma. “Welcome, we’re so glad that you’re here!”
Another true story from the West Coast that happened in one of the congregations out in the desert. Service was beginning. It was a more traditional, established church, where people even dress up a bit for worship on Sunday (polo shirts). And all the usual people were gathering and greeting one another, and in comes a very thin woman — we’ll call her Nora — she’s a white woman, but her tan skin is so dark and leathery that you can barely see the strange tattoos exposed by her tank-top, her hair is frizzy and tangled -- also beaten by the sun. And her worn-out sandals are barely hanging onto her feet.
The “greeter” — we’ll call her Joan — who is always the greeter and knows everybody who comes in by name (Joan’s even the type of person who knows personal details about just about every member), Joan sees this wild-haired, poorly dressed, age-worn woman coming in from the parking lot, and she immediately gets both nervous and suspicious. “Hi...” she says to the visitor with a forced smile. “Can we help you?”
“Uh, yeah.” Nora’s starts, with a raspy voice from years of smoking, kind of peering into the past Joan toward the sanctuary, “Where are the service folders?”
“Um,” Joan stops her. Kind of looking over her shoulder. In a hushed whisper, Joan offers some advice: “Maybe you’d be a little more comfortable at the church down the street.” (Joan knows that St. James Episcopal, just walking distance, down on the corner really “specializes” in homeless ministry.) “Maybe you’d be a little more comfortable at the church down the street.”
“The hell I would!” says Nora, “I’m coming in. I need to be here.” And in she walks, finds the bulletin herself, takes a place in the one of the middle pews (nobody sits next to her), and proceeds to sing and participate enthusiastically...and off key through the service.
The people remain nervous and suspicious, watching her out of the corner of their eye during worship. But Nora’s not going anywhere.
[pause]
[slow] Friends, both Nora and Emma are Pentecost characters. The Spirit bursts out to welcome the stranger and the outsider, and the Spirit sometimes is the outsider that’s “comin’ in!” “I need to be here,” Holy Spirit says, whether we’re comfortable with her or not.
It is hard to do Pentecost, when we’re settled and comfortable, but friends in Christ, Pentecost is upon us. We don’t get a say in it. We have a God who blows out and blows in, with or without our permission or our parameters. This God is with us and for us. This God moves among us — sometimes we’re on board with her; many times, we’re ambivalent at best. That doesn’t stop the Holy Spirit. (In Greek and Hebrew the exact same word for spirit means wind or breath too. Why do you think that is?)
The Holy Spirit, she is wild: sometimes bubbly like young Emma, sometimes raspy and way off-key like old Nora. Sometimes gathering us in, sometimes, breaking us out..of old ways and old suspicions. This Holy Spirit is here in our midst today, and even while it is indeed hard to do Pentecost — to not just stay “wistful and unconvinced” — even while it is indeed hard to do Pentecost and this coming Season after Pentecost, the “What now? Season”...friends, the Spirit stays with us anyway. The Holy Spirit in all her wildness rests even on our heads, burns our psyches, singes our egos, grants us visions and dreams, enables us to prophesy, that is say things that we would never imagine ourselves to be saying...and in all that, we are made free. In other words, the Spirit moves us to yield.
She moves us to yield and sends us forth to serve in peace, for we are made free...whether we’re ready for this kind of freedom or not. Pentecost is upon us. Thanks be to God. AMEN.
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