Pentecost

When God the Holy Spirit came into that room on Pentecost, scripture says it was like the rush of a violent wind. Too often in the Church, when we finally do get around to talking about the third person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit, we talk about something warm and fuzzy. It’s a “sweet, sweet spirit in this place,” and there’s a lot of warm, maternal imagery. Now, I’m certainly not against feminine imagery of God, but a feminine God isn’t always warm and fuzzy. In fact maternal figures can be pretty hard and precise and the Holy Spirit as it is described in Acts is anything but soft and cozy. It’s a storm, it’s a fire, it rattles the building and shakes people up.

That’s not to say that God the Holy Spirit can’t move in people’s lives like a soft, sweet spirit, but somehow, right now, I’m wondering if we need something else. I’m wondering in a our country where are mass shootings about every week if we don’t need God as a mighty storm to blow us into some clearer, decisive answers. I’m wondering if over 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation and almost 60 years after the Civil Rights Act was signed, and yet homicide is the leading cause of death for African American males age 15-24, if we don’t need a rumbling thunderstorm instead of a soothing pat on the back.

In a country where one in five children go to bed hungry and 40% of the food produced is thrown away each day, and yet people spend more than a hundred thousand dollars on a car, I’m wondering if we don’t need an Arkansas tornado version of the Holy Spirit to wake us up.

I’ve always suspected that on the Day of Pentecost that that sound that filled the room like a rushing wind was like a tornado that when it goes over sounds like a train running over the rooftop of your house. I suspect that that was more like the sound that filled the room that day. It was a sound so ferocious that it shook the disciples to their core. A sound like that commands your undivided attention. But it was more than sound. Scripture says that there were tongues of fire that appeared and rested above each person’s head. And then, as if that wasn't enough, everyone began to speak in languages that they couldn't understand. The room was filled with God the Holy Spirit and more than that, as a body of people they became filled with the Holy Spirit, and as individuals they were filled with the Holy Spirit.

Now, the Spirit of God wasn't totally absent before this. There were many occasions in the story of the people of God where God's spirit came and affected people. I suppose what was different was that in the Old Testament God's spirit came and influenced and affected people from the outside; it gave them proof that God was present, but this time, on that day of Pentecost, God the Holy Spirit came and did more than just affect them from the outside, it filled them up from the inside. Instead of reacting to God's Spirit and doing something in response, the Holy Spirit began to emanate from inside them, from their hearts it flowed out to everyone they encountered. That's different, its a subtle difference but I've experienced it in people and I'll bet you have too. A person who simply seems to exude the Spirit of God; it just seems to flow out of them.

Yes we need the awesome Holy Spirit to storm into our lives like that. We need our sons and daughters to prophesy. We need some visions and dreams that will shake us out of the lethargy of doing things the same way year after year.

That experience on the day of Pentecost was a defining moment. Before the disciples had been disciples, sheep; they followed and listened to Jesus. But from this day on they became leaders, apostles. Before then they only knew one way of doing their ministry but after this storm of the Holy Spirit God opened their eyes to lots of different ways of doing ministry with lots of different people.

That may be the message for us today. God wants to pour out the Holy Spirit on us as a community so that God's spirit will emanate out from our hearts. So that we can see things in a completely new way. It is so easy to just keep trying to do church like we've always done it. Maybe God is trying to tell us to look for a different way, to find that “more excellent way,” to be the church, to be the body of Christ today, here and now in this place.

I wish I could tell you exactly what that will look like, but what I can tell you is that if we do allow God's Holy Spirit to speak to us, to all of us, not just me, not just the vestry, but all of us, then what emerges will be as exciting and may even sound like a rushing violent wind. Yes it may be scary, daring and innovative, adventurous and life-giving. It ma be a way that will look as different to us as it did to the disciples on that day of Pentecost. But it will make our hearts glad and full of faith resting assured in the love of God actively working in our lives. AMEN.

The Rev. Dr. Dennis Campbell