2017-06-06
Brooke Strong
Scripture: Acts 2:1-8
Some of the most exciting moments of my life have been at athletic events. When I was in high school, we had a fantastic swim team, and the whole school came out in support. One day, the team faced the best program in the league. We packed the stands. And we found ourselves down going into the last relay, the 4x100 freestyle relay. The winner of the relay would win the meet. As we entered the last leg of the relay, Bruce Goodwin, all six feet, seven inches of him, was behind by a body length. Slowly he inched up on the leader, and, at the last wall, he out-touched him, to win both the event and the meet. It was pandemonium. I don’t think I ever yelled as loud and as long as I did during that relay.
And many other sporting moments have been as exciting. Joan Benoit Samuelson winning the inaugural women’s Olympic marathon in 1984. The U.S. women winning the soccer World Cup in 1999. I was at Yankee Stadium when David Cone pitched a perfect game for the Yankees in 1999. Rajai Davis’ game-tying eighth-inning home run in the seventh game of last year’s World Series produced bedlam in our house. Mary and I went berserk at the end of the seventh game of last year’s Cavs-Warriors playoff—a scream we hope against hope to duplicate this year!
You who are sports fans will have your own to add to these. There’s a visceral elation in such events that is unsurpassed. But sports is not the only arena in which such excitement happens. I will never forget the thrill of our two sons being born. Nor the magic of my wedding to Mary. Singing and listening to music has moved me to my core. My ordination into the Christian ministry, complete with fireworks that the church set off afterwards, ranks right up there in the pantheon of my life’s exciting moments.
Sometimes, when the day of Pentecost comes around each year, I wonder if I’m supposed to feel like that every day, or whenever I come to church, or whenever I pray. I’ve even occasionally wondered if there were something missing in our experience of church because not every moment feels like that. Should we have more spirit? Should life here be more exciting? Is there something we’re not doing that we should be?
On the day of the first Pentecost, the disciples are all together in one room; there’s a sound like a gale-force wind; tongues of fire rest on each person there. “All of them,” says Luke, “were filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:4). It’s a story of such excited energy, such frenetic aliveness. And I sometimes wonder if that’s the way it’s supposed to be for us. Besides certain sporting events and various other high points, where do we sense the Spirit in our lives?
Then I look more closely at the story of that first Pentecost, though, and I realize that the high point of the story isn’t really the gale-like sound. It’s not the strange image of fire lighting on each person. In fact, the high point isn’t really some emotional quality at all. No, the high point of the story, the story’s real core lies elsewhere. At the heart of the story Luke tells about the coming of the Spirit is this: that people are able to speak in languages other than their own, and they’re able to understand languages they’ve never ever heard before. As Eugene Peterson puts it, “Then they heard, one after another, their own mother tongues being spoken, and they were thunderstruck . . . [They wondered,] ‘How come we’re hearing them talk in our various mother tongues?’” (2:6, 8, The Message).
The heart of the story isn’t no-hitters or winning goals or come-from-behind victories, in other words. It’s just this: that people come together and understand each other and “get” each other. It can be tempting to measure the richness of our lives against the emotional high points that come along once in a while, but not really that often. Life’s real high points, though, are measured on a different scale entirely. Life’s central moments are not measured by heart rates or decibels or Jumbotron displays. They’re measured instead on a scale of kindness. They’re measured on a scale of acceptance. They’re measured on a scale of forgiveness and compassion. You want to know when the Spirit is present? It’s not really when emotions are at their highest. No, it’s when barriers and divisions are broken down. It’s when people are honored in all their fullness. It’s when something is made whole when it was previously broken. I’ll take another Kyrie Irving game-winning three-pointer any time. But what really makes my life is when someone visits me when I’m down. It’s when I’m forgiven my pride and stupidity. It’s when I’m accepted even with all my confounding limits. That’s when the Spirit is really present.
Today is a marvelous reminder of the ways in which that rich and beautiful Spirit shows up on a daily basis. Chagrin Falls High School seniors graduate today and join other schools in the area in recognizing and applauding a slow and steady growth and development and maturation. I remember thinking, when our first son Alex graduated and left home, that this was awful, a tremendous loss to his mother and me as his leaving broke up the home that had been our haven. But when I thought about the alternative—with him stagnating, and never growing and changing, and just staying home forever—I realized that there was beauty and genius and wonder in this way of the world. In what was, in some ways, this unwelcome change, there was also a rich and wonderful Spirit of growth and newness.
In a different vein, we also celebrate the elders in our midst today. You can’t be part of a church and not be aware of the huge losses that come with aging and finally death. In a congregational setting, we’re confronted daily with our mortality, and sometimes it’s all-but-overwhelming. But that very death we fear is also what gives life its urgency. And in that context, a day like today invites us to remember and give thanks for those elders who have supported and sustained this church over its many decades and centuries. Among us sit long-time members who have served as moderators and council members. Among us are those who have visited the sick and comforted the dying. Among us are those who have, for decades, supported this church with their sweat and their passion, their annual giving and their capital campaigns. And alive in them has been a rich and wonderful Spirit.
In a moment we will receive new members into Federated Church. We will give thanks for their energy and joy, for their commitment and love, for their gift of themselves to something larger than they are. New life will fill us. And once again, we will be filled with a rich and wonderful Spirit.
And all of this happens in this church that has witnessed to the wonders of Christ for over 180 years. A church that has stood for sacrifice and generosity. A church that has sought the guidance and support of God. A church that has made it its mission to embody the love of God right here in the Chagrin Valley. This church has built fantastic buildings, and advocated for those who were broken and bent, and fed people whose bellies growled in hunger, and opened its doors to those who could find no place else to lay their heads. This church has, in countless ways, been filled with the Spirit. And it continues to listen for that Spirit in living out the mission given to us by God.
A couple of months ago, I received an email from a young Federated woman now away at college. She told me she had to do an assignment for one of her classes, in which she was to ask a local church leader about the church’s stance on various issues of sexual orientation: does the church accept LGBTQ people; is the church universally welcoming or is it divided on the issue; what are the Bible’s views on the subject?
I spent quite a bit of time crafting my answer, explaining the church’s Open and Affirming stance, confirming the church’s commitment to such a position even while some still struggled with it, and exploring at some length some of the thinking about the Bible’s perspective on the subject. I affirmed the importance of Federated’s witness in a culture in which so many churches are still so highly judgmental and intolerant. I thought all of this might be helpful for the student’s project.
Twelve minutes after I hit “Send” on my email, I got a response from this student. I deceived you, she began. I didn’t ask you these questions for a school project. I asked them because I’ve just realized I’m bisexual myself, and I couldn’t risk saying that unless I knew it was safe to do so. “I feel bad for deceiving you,” she wrote; “however I feel that coming out as bisexual is a big step in my life and not one that I wanted to reveal to the church until I knew what their reaction would be.”
She went on to say that she had not yet been able to tell her parents of this realization. And she had recently been mortified that when she had told a friend of hers about this, the friend had responded that they would have to sever ties and end their friendship because, in his eyes and in the eyes of his church, she was a sinner. So learning about this church and its commitments had made a huge difference to this woman. “I am so glad,” she wrote, “that Federated is so open and affirming for all people, no matter race, gender, and sexual orientation. This [has been] a very difficult time for me, and I am glad that I can still seek God’s help and [God’s] word in the church that I have come to love throughout my life without fear of persecution.”
On this Pentecost Sunday, the Spirit of God is richly alive here at Federated. This is where the Spirit feeds her people. This is where the Spirit brings death to life. This is where the Spirit blows, in grace and forgiveness and understanding. Here the good news is preached and sung. Here hope is renewed. Here all are extravagantly welcomed. And the Spirit shines in all its luminous brilliance. Thanks be to God!