Movin' Kids!
Day of Pentecost, June 8, 2014 (Acts 2:1-21 and John 20:19-23 with I Cors. 12:3b-13)
When I say God, what image, words, picture come to your mind?
When I say Jesus, what image, words, picture come to your mind?
When I say, Holy Spirit, what image, words, pictures come to your mind?
I don't know that it is ever easy for us to find words or even a picture to share our experience, our understanding , our insight into the mystery of God, Holy Trinity – God the Father/Creator, Son and Spirit., three in One. After all God is God. Part of what that means within orthodox Christianity is that immortal God is mystery to we mortal, human beings.
This doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to understand.
Today is the day of Pentecost. Our lectionary holds before us three different "accounts of the Spirit" As we hear/feel/ are touched by God's Spirit we are moved.
Such "being moved" is not always easy, comfortable or even desired. Yet "being moved" iby God is rarely boring and frequently exciting.
When one's baby first moves in utero – it's exciting! When a child takes his or her first steps, the excitement is contagious. As a teenager becomes a quasi-adult and moves out of his or her parental home – it's exciting! Even when adults move to a new home – or to a new job, there is, excitement. Such movement isn't necessarily easy. Nevertheless such movement opens up various new possibilities. A fundamental, integral, essential part of life involves such "movement".
When our minds "change" or we become aware that our minds have changed as a result of meeting someone else, or seeing someone as they actually are or even ourselves, well wow, that's both exciting, and sometimes frightening. Such change may involve "moving" in many parts of our being.
To be sure, often we don't want to move. I think of my dog. Sometimes in the early morning she is just so comfortable in her aged sleep that she resists any kinds of movement. However, once I rouse her and we move outdoors to the rain, sun or snow, and we encounter other dogs and people, well, she seems to enjoy any and all such moving, and becomes fully alive.
How much more is this true for us as people, as Church? We too enjoy comfort. We too, can get stuck right where we are.
The early disciples were stuck. In the lesson from Acts the disciples have already seen the risen Lord . How they wanted to hold on to him! But too soon he leaves them telling them to wait. If there is anything we like less than moving into uncharted waters, it's waiting. Yet those disciples do wait, perhaps because there was nothing else they were capable of right then.
The Spirit of God, of Jesus comes to them. The Spirit doesn't come gently. Now, the Spirit comes like a prairie wind. The Spirit can literally move "heaven and earth". That wind is strong, uncontrollable for humans. I remember the spring time winds of southern Saskatchewan, blowing the freshly tilled soil into humongous clouds of dust through which, around which, no creature of heaven or earth could see.
However, this powerful wind of God, the very Spirit, undertakes something constructive. The Spirit of God moves the disciples out of their fear, from being self centered, – to arising to show and tell others of the mighty power of God. God's love and forgiveness overcome death and all of death's allies. Those humongous dust clouds appear miniscule in comparison to this miraculous and wonderful work of God.
John's Gospel pictures the Spirit's movement in a somewhat different way. On that first Easter evening Jesus comes to the disciple's self-inflicted cloister. They are shackled by the shock of Jesus' death and the fear for their own lives. Jesus enters into their fear. He gives them words of peace. To flesh such peace into reality He breathes on them, giving them Himself, His Spirit. He moves so that they can let go of that which causes them doubt and fear, so that their minds and hearts can behold God's work anywhere even within and among themselves. They are literally enlivened.
What does this mean for us?
Are you ever afraid? Sometimes we are fearful of death: our own or others. Sometimes we are afraid that the Church as we knew it is dying. What will happen then? Sometimes we are un sure of where God is, or maybe even if God is. Mounties are shot. Children contract cancer.
Could it be that God that in the midst of our struggles God comes like a loud or even silent wind enlivening we simple folk to be of good courage, to enable our lives with courage and hope in the face of death and doubt, threats and betrayal?
Our fear, our exhaustion, our doubts and questions ARE NEVER BEYOND THE REACH OF GOD. God approaches again and again in the wind: the "wind" of words and sacraments, in the windy breath of another! God comes in the energy and hopes and dreams of others God has inspired. Refuse to give up on dreaming. Hear each other's stories. Tell your own. God is in the story- likely the author of the story.
In the excruciating moments of loss, pain and suffering, we may feel that God has abandoned us. If we can't feel God, is God present? In this experience we are numbered with many others. God's own Son utters a cry of abandonment on the cross " My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" Forsaken is a level beyond abandonment. Yet on the third day Jesus is raised. It is he who breathes on those disciples so that they may receive his Sprit, so that they too can move.
What is God calling us to do? Who is God calling us to be now? Why not stop and ask God? God's Spirit can and will guide, us direct us, move us to new realities.
Doubt me? See Paul. See Peter. See Mary! –What is happening to us? After all – we are all part of His body, not only or firstly Canadians or Lutherans or men and women or boys and girls. We are firstly and most importantly children of God, grafted into the very body of Christ who loves this crazy mixed- up world.