May 24th: “From Babbling to Blessing”
Sermon for Pentecost Sunday
by The Rev. Sandra Nixon
“Oh a song must rise for the spirit to descend… oh a song must rise once again…”
That first hymn we sang today almost didn’t make it into the service.
I’ve always had a bit of a theological beef with the words and I decided this year I needed to get my head around it before I could add the song to another Pentecost service…
What’s my beef you ask? Well - it’s two-fold:
The words seems to suggest that we need to DO something in order to get the spirit to come to us. That it’s up to us whether to not the spirit shows up. A) Sing b) spirit hears us (presumably, and arrives
The song speaks of the spirit “descending” - is it really “up there” somewhere?
However (in reverse order):
2) the language of the spirit descending is a biblical reference. During J’s baptism, the spirit is described as “descending like a dove” on Jesus (Mt 3)
1) This notion of us having to do something - sing, apparently - to get the spirit to come… Maybe the singing is not so much a causal thing s it is, a preparatory thing.
Last week we were talking about the story of Jesus’ ascension and if you remember, just before Jesus blesses the disciples and gets carried up to heaven he tells them:
Luke 24: 49 And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised, so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”
This is a reference to the promise he made them that once he was gone, God was going to send the spirit to them as an advocate and a comforter. (In Luke’s gospel he says this twice - 1st time at last supper, then here just before his ascension).
But notice what Jesus asks them to do - he asks them to stay in the city - to WAIT in the city - don’t go anywhere or do anything - until the spirit comes. That waiting - effectively, it’s an act of faith. Jesus doesn’t say low long it will be until the spirit arrives. They are just supposed to wait and see.
And that act of waiting - it is an act of faith which I’m going to suggest is an act of expectancy. If you’re waiting for something, then you are also hoping and trusting and expecting it to happen at some point.
Living with hope - trust - expectation - that is what the disciples, in their waiting, were really doing. It was a act of faith.
And I might argue that that our singing at the start of the service - our causing s along to rise - was also an act o f hope - trust - and expectation.
Permeable ground…
There’s an online publication I enjoy called hem of the Light. And the author of this publication offers this reflection on Pentecost:
Unstopped, the promised Spirit flows on and we are the permeable ground of its freshening.
Waiting makes us that permeable ground.
So, right now, I lift up the necessary prelude to the Pentecost event: which is: our waiting.
I need it right now. Our world needs it. Not the anxious waiting for which shoe will drop today - is the US further from or closer to a deal with Iran? Has someone else in Canada tested positive for hantavirus?
No that kind of waiting. Rather, waiting as askesis, as spiritual practice.
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It’s hard to wait - especially on (the movement/arrival of) the spirit.
We have been told - promised - that we will not have to wait any more - or at least not very long:
Skip/Uber: for dinner or groceries to arrive
AI: for information, inspiration, the right words, the perfect email response.
For a letter in the email (I actually like those!)
For anything (I can think of to purchase and order for delivery) - especially if I live in a big city, I can literally get almost anything delivered by 8am the next morning - if I’m willing to pay.
And as we slowly lose our capacity to wait - it can be tempting to think we can figure out how to make the spirit appear on demand too. Wouldn’t that be grand because there a heap of stuff I’d like to spirit to help me and the church out with and, frankly, the world.
Waiting in a spiritually intentional way might, friends, be one of those things that heals our hearts and resets the world.
As the author in that “Hem of the Light” posting suggests:
Sit in a place where the path to stillness has been well travelled and invite the Sprit again. Wait in the undergrowth there for the tops of the grasses to bend and the sound of mystery to fill you.
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Our “doing” doesn’t make the spirit arrive. In fact, it is quite possibly the opposite - it’s quite possible that it’s the “spiritual practice” waiting - maybe including taking a break from social media or making something that takes time and hey, we might as well sing - and pray - while we wait - it’s the holy waiting that makes us into the permeable ground which readies us to receive the truth and the power of God’s spirit, blown in on the wind.
And then - this spirit - this advocate, Comforter, Truth revealer (Jesus repeatedly calls God’s spirit the “spirit of truth” in John’s gospel) - this holy spirit comes when and where she will.
And while we’re waiting, we may want to recall that, as Cole Arthur Riley in his book, “Black Liturgies: Prayers, Poems and Meditations for Staying Human” notes: Pentecost reminds us that the Spirit of God rejects assimilation under the guise of “unity”.
The babble of Pentecost is the sound of liberation:
God’s word is for all the people
God’s future is a future full of spirit-filled liberation
We may also want to remember that , like most patterns of the divine, the promise of the spirit is both now and still to come.
God’s word is for all the people
God’s future is a future full of spirit-filled liberation
We speak of holy waiting to make us fertile ground for the spirit to work, but the gift of the Spirit is already given. The Holy Spirit has already come and is doing her thing.
When I think of those signs of spirit, I think of the story I read recently about the two Catholic nuns of the Scalabrinian Diocese in El Paso, Texas who have taken on the ministry of following detained immigrants wherever ICE takes them. They’ve now set up a system of volunteers who will accompany people as they arrive at the immigration court, and then, if it looks like agents are there who are planning to detain them, the volunteers are afforded a short time to prepare them - and they of things like provide Sharpies to write families’ numbers on their bodies, prompt them to make a plan for their car and childcare, and ask if they will share their information so another team can visit them in detention and support their families.
Talk about the spirit of accompaniment! That’s it, embodied in those catholic sisters and their volunteers.
Richard Rohr of the Centre for Action and Contemplation (Rohr, CAC) points out that all the scriptural images of the Spirit are dynamic—flowing water, descending dove or fire, and rushing wind. And that if there’s movement, energy, deep love, service, grace, forgiveness, surrender, or spirit-filled liberation, we can be pretty sure we are living out of the Spirit.
He says: God gives the Spirit in this awakened way to those who want it and actively wait for and expect it. On this Day when we celebrate Pentecost, the ask is quite simple: want it! Actively wait for it!
Rely upon Christ’s promise. Know that the Spirit has already been given and live out of that trust.
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Our celebration of the gift of the Spirit to the church has its origins in the story from Acts, based on the promises that Jesus made to his followers, which in turn are based in a history of references to God’s spirit in the older, first testament - the Jewish scriptures, such as the quote from the prophet Joel - which Luke references in the Pentecost account in Acts.
The history of the timing of the church’s celebration of Pentecost is also based on an older celebration - the word Pentecost comes from the Greek word pentekoste - meaning 50th.
It’s a reference to the Jewish festival of Shavuot - which is held on the 50th day after the 2nd day of Passover and celebrates the giving of the torah - the law - to the Israelites at Mt Sinai.
In Acts, the disciples were said to have been gathered for the Shavuot festival when the spirit came to them.
So - our celebration today - on the 50th day after the celebration of the resurrection - continue the tradition of the people of God’s affirmation of God’s spirit at work amongst God’s people of every time and place, including this time and place.
I want to end by reading you an excerpt from the UCC’s Song of Faith:
And so we sing of God the Spirit,
who from the beginning has swept over the face of creation,
animating all energy and matter
and moving in the human heart.
We sing of God the Spirit,
faithful and untameable,
who is creatively and redemptively active in the world.
The Spirit challenges us to celebrate the holy
not only in what is familiar,
but also in that which seems foreign.
We sing of the Spirit,
who speaks our prayers of deepest longing
and enfolds our concerns and confessions,
transforming us and the world.
(In worship - singing , praying - and in other practices of holy waiting)
we open ourselves
to God’s still, small voice of comfort,
to God’s rushing whirlwind of challenge.
(Through which)
God changes our lives, our relationships, and our world.