Sermons

The Apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Rome considers the deep and profound benefits of the Holy Spirit. In whatever we face – suffering, bondage, death, even – the Spirit intercedes for us, steps in the middle for us, and prays for us. And we who live on this side of such things, even in our weakness, would love to know the words of such prayers, and perhaps even utter them ourselves. But the Spirit intercedes “in sighs too deep for words,” and we, in that moment, understand the fuller nature of our weakness and more so the fuller nature of the hope we receive as a gift.

There is a certain irony at play this morning, the irony of the juxtaposition of that powerful phrase, “too deep for words,” with an event, Pentecost, that seems to be filled only with words. Couple that with the irony of a central point of this conversation, the life of faith moving beyond words into a deeper comprehension and more profound understanding, with an exercise that, for a few minutes anyway, relies entirely on words, and we have a little Pentecostal problem.

Let me say therefore, that this is a day “too deep for words,” and then seek anyway to use a few limited words to consider what this may mean for all of us.

It is Pentecost, the Day of Pentecost. It is a day we Protestants, we Presbyterians, known sometimes as “God’s frozen people,” don’t know all too well what to do with. It is, perhaps and at the same time, perhaps the most vital day in the church’s year.

We admittedly have a limited awareness of what this day suggests. I was talking to a minister friend this week in another city. Her church intersperses bits of video in their morning worship from time to time. This morning’s worship will include snippets of interviews from persons on the street. “What do you know about Pentecost?" the pedestrians are asked. Of the ten or so responses, nine say “nothing,” and one, for variety, said “not a thing.”

Perhaps this is us as well. If we have any awareness at all, it is a wary one, because the chief topic of the day, the Holy Spirit, is not one that plays easily in our thinking or rolls easily off the tongue.

American churches will do many things this day. Some will wear red. Some will include liturgy read in different languages. Children will sing “happy birthday” to the church and perhaps enjoy a little birthday cake, which will probably not be as good as the carrot cake we enjoyed several weeks ago to celebrate our own 175th birthday.

All of these efforts will seek to bring greater experiential understanding to a biblical moment and an ongoing spiritual reality that is, indeed, too deep for words, and that is left more faithfully to be considered in our very living together, and in our very life in and for the world.

It is Pentecost, the fiftieth day, seven weeks after Passover. People had gathered from many places in Jerusalem for the Jewish festival. And suddenly something happened, a physical and emotional experience – wind and fire are the best ways to describe it. And then we are told, in words that align naturally with Paul’s reminder, that all were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, “as the Spirit gave them ability.” The Spirit giving ability seems vital to this story, to every story, really.

Bystanders saw this happening, and recognized different languages being spoken by those who ostensibly did not know them, as if suddenly all of us were to begin speaking Russian and Korean and American Sign Language and Swahili, or French even. Some saw this happening and were bewildered. Others saw it happening and simply ascribed it to the fact that this new, curious band of pre-church Christians had been imbibing entirely too much so early in the morning.

And Peter, the leader, makes what is perhaps the first sermon in the life of this infant church. These people are not drunk, he says. No, they, we, are filled with the Spirit that God promised in the prophet Joel. He then recalls that glorious anthem we just heard. Dreams and visions. Young and old. And the church is born.

The theologians have a word for it – “pneumatology” – what we think about the Holy Spirit. Such a cumbersome term underlies the challenges we face this day. Holy Spirit thinking is inextricably intertwined with thinking about the nature of the Trinity, the nature of Christ, how God chooses to reveal God’s self.

Protestant Christianity is around 500 years old, and there have been literally centuries when we have chosen not to think about this stuff, in part because we are such a heady tradition that anything with even the whiff of experience or emotion was suspect. Such was not the case in the beginning, at our Calvinist roots.

Such is not the case now. To understand God, even haltingly, and more so, to understand the common work to which we are called and the common life we are given to share, we must do so through the fire and wind of the Spirit. And thank God for that.

This morning we ordain new officers and baptize babies. We understand these things now only to have efficacy, to make a difference, as the Spirit is present. That is to say that whatever amazing gifts that Amy and Peter have to contribute to the important task of “deaconing,” and whatever wonderful people Conor and Hannah will grow into, such will happen only because of the Spirit’s inspiration.

Look at the veritable laundry list offered in the Presbyterian Brief Statement of Faith: the Spirit “rules … engages ... claims…feeds…calls” and gives us courage to “pray…witness…unmask…hear…work.” None of that possible without the Spirit, or stated in the positive, all of it possible only with the Spirit. And all of it “too deep for words,” which feels particularly intriguing this morning, and compelling.

Harvard chaplain Peter Gomes says that one of the “liabilities of Pentecost” is this crowd and its ecstatic nature. He may be right. We are not quite sure what to make of all this. We are not quite sure what to make of that word, Pentecostal, that seems so antithetical to our experience. And yet Gomes speaks of the “gift of understanding,” and it is to that gift that we are invited to cling this wonderful, mysterious day. The gift of understanding. (“The Gift of Understanding,” in Sermons, pages 98-101)

It is communication at the deepest level. We are knee deep at least in wedding season. I drove down East Avenue a Saturday ago and it appeared to be a limo convention, with each church hosting its own local chapter. Every time I visit with two people contemplating being coupled, we spend the most time communicating about communication. Real communication. True communication. Honest communication that has integrity and passion. “Too deep for words” communication. And I would tell that couple that such things happen only by God’s grace, and may be received only as gifts from God.

That is what we consider and celebrate this day. Speaking in those new languages only as the Spirit gives ability, and most often in ways that are too deep for words. Experiences of healing. Steps toward inclusivity. Glimpses of justice. All, mind you, not as privatized affairs, but as widely and deeply communal undertakings. The Spirit appeared to the whole gathering, to a people, and not to individuals off somewhere by their lonesome.

William Willimon writes that “to those in the church today who regard the Spirit as an exotic phenomenon of mainly interior and purely personal significance, the story of the Spirit’s descent at Pentecost offers a rebuke. …This outpouring of the Spirit is anything but interior. Everything is by wind and fire, loud talk, buzzing confusion and public debate. The Spirit is the power which enable the church to ‘go public…’ to attract a crowd…to have something to say worth hearing.” (Interpretation Commentary, page 33)

And so we have been given something worth hearing and something worth saying. And the wind and fire of God make all such interchanges possible. All that the church does – our worship and our service – are made possible because of this Pentecostal moment. Every sacramental moment, every learning and teaching moment, every outreach moment, are all gifts of the Sprit and Pentecostal occasions. Every moment when humanity comes into closer union with God's vision, with Christ’s ministry, is a gift of the Spirit and a Pentecostal occasion. Every time that the soul of the church is shaken and put down in a new place, every time that the church makes witness to the world for justice and peace and hope is a gift of the Spirit and a Pentecostal occasion.

The lovely anniversary party a George Eastman House reminded me of hats, ladies’ hats more precisely, which in turn reminded me of English weddings which, in turn, reminded me of a favorite movie, “Four Weddings and a Funeral.” (I hope that was not too convoluted!)

The most poignant moment in this film comes rather at the funeral than at one of the weddings. Gareth dies suddenly of a heart attack. And just prior to his funeral the vicar invites his partner Matthew to offer a few words. He talks around a bit, sharing the touching reflections of others. And then he notes that he himself has run out of words, and offers a magnificent poem from Auden, “Funeral Blues,” as tears stream down faces and a fallen friend is rightly remembered.

That would seem to be what this day is about. When there are no more words, we offer poetry: the poetry of our lives bound to one another; the poetry of the church when it is at its worshipping and serving best; the poetry of all creation as it groans to be born into something better, more loving, more joyful, filled with hope and peace and grace, filled with dreams and visions.

And we would understand, and such understanding would be a gift of the Spirit and a Pentecostal occasion.

“And so the yearning strong With which the soul will long/Shall far outpass the power of human telling;/For none can guess God’s grace, Till Love creates a place/Wherein the Holy Sprit makes a dwelling.”

May it be so. And may the God whom we know as Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer be praised through every breath we take. Amen.