The Day of Pentecost
The Rev. Nigel Taber-Hamilton, Rector
Last night I got a note from a friend relaying a story told by Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, in one of his recent books. It was the story of what happened a couple of years ago on this day - The Day of Pentecost - in a large Episcopal church in Florida.
Apparently the rector who "had a flair for the dramatic", decided to add some flavor to the re-telling of the passage we just heard from Acts that recounts the Pentecost story.
So he got the engine out of one of the boats used in the Everglades - you've all seen them - essentially it's a flat-bottomed boat with a big engine driving what looks like an airplane propeller in a cage - he got one of those and mounted it at the back of the choir loft.
The idea was that when the passage about the coming of the Holy Spirit was read someone in the choir loft would start the engine and the wind would - he hoped - bring to life the experience of Pentecost.
So here's what happened. When the lector read, "And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind and it filled the entire house", that was the queue. The flunky in the loft hit "start" and the engine roared into life.
I suppose this would be the moment when the rector had wished he'd rehearsed it a little better.
Sheet music and bulletins flew into the air! Women's hats flew off. Carefully arranged hair styles were just blown out. The preacher's sermon notes were 'gone with the wind'. A hair piece flew toward the altar! And, of course, the whole congregation was in an uproar!
Everything, my friend said, was "messy and noisy, and absolutely unpredictable."
And that's just the way it is with the Spirit." Messy and noisy and absolutely unpredictable.
So much for advanced planning! So much for careful implementation! Life - or, in this case, new life - is clearly what's happening when we're making other plans - life in all its richness and complexity. Life in all its unpredictability.......Life.
What was it that Jesus said to Nicodemus - we heard it way back in the depths of Lent.... "The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.
That's a reminder to us not to try and second-guess God. Not to assume that we know, that we understand, that we have some sort of corner on the truth about God and faith and life.
Pentecost's invitation is to let go of the need or desire to control, the wish to have our lives' sheet music laid out in front of us sheet music, and be open, instead, to entering into the song of creation, entering into the gift of life that comes from God.
There's a lot of things that could be said about today. Actually they're probably all being said somewhere. I may have said them in the past. I might say them in the future - you know, things like the way the story of Pentecost is the reversal of the Tower of Babel, that, though this moment there now exists the possibility for the end to all the old divisions that separate us from one another.
But there's only one more thing I want to say this morning - and that's because this day is, in addition to being the Day of Pentecost, Mother's Day.
There's a link, and I'd sum up that link in one word: Legacy.
Last week I talked about the story of the Ascension as being, at its heart, a story about love, and how love survives loss. That Luke hints at this by mentioning that the last thing Jesus did was go and say goodbye to his friends Martha, and Mary.
A week or so on part of the gift is that the disciples finally realize that now its down to them. They recognize all the things that Jesus did for them, all the gifts he gave them, all the startling insights and new realizations, all the new relationships and the new possibilities.
On this day they realized that he had given them their lives.
And, I suspect, when all the celebrating had died down there came a moment of reflection for all of them.
And that's where that word 'legacy' comes in. How to continue the story. How to make sure that the truth about Jesus didn't die. How to go now into the bright, shining future and forever keep this glistening brightness in front of them.
We can look back on them, and on all the great people of faith who have followed, and see how they responded, how they carried the torch, how they were true to themselves and each other and their faith.
And don't we all come to a realization - at some time or another - that we have been given great gifts by our mothers. And when we do the invitation's the same: how to continue the story, how to live in such a way that we honor all the things our mothers did for us, how to be true to all the things that they did.
And perhaps, in the end, all the streams come together, into the stories of our lives and into the Story of our Common Life, they come together into one, great, recognition:
It's all a gift.
May we live out of the knowledge of that gift on our journey home to God.
Amen.
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