15 May 2005

Sermon: Matthew Acts 2:1-11 (Pentecost)

The Rev. Robert C. Lamborn, Rector

^NRSV Acts 2:1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ² And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³ Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴ All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. ⁵ Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. ⁶ And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. ⁷ Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸ And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? ⁹ Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰ Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, ¹¹ Cretans and Arabs-- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power."

            “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind . . . .”  Pentecost is the day 120 or so followers of Jesus receive the Holy Spirit, and proclaim God’s deeds of power in the understanding of visitors of many languages.  It’s often called the “birthday of the church.”  Indeed Pentecost is the event that turned the followers of Jesus from cowering between experiences of Christ’s resurrection to evangelism and mission in the wider world.

             But Pentecost is not a birthday with cake and ice cream and games.  “Suddenly from heaven came a sound like the rush of a violent wind.”  Pentecost is the day of birthing for the church with plenty of birth pangs.  Nor is the Holy Spirit God’s gift to the church in any sense of, “Ooh, what a nice present!  It’ll look great on the mantel, or, “It’ll really help in the workshop, or, it’ll go great with that outfit I got for my birthday.”  No, the Holy Spirit is not a gift to an already-existent church, it is the gift that calls the church into existence, that empowers the church to be the church.  The Holy Spirit is the very breath in the lungs of the church. The church without the Holy Spirit is about as useful as a sailboat without wind.

             After the sound like the rush of a violent wind, divided tongues, as of fire, rest on the followers of Jesus, and they are filled with the Holy Spirit.  Wind and fire, signs that accompany the coming of the Holy Spirit, are powerful forces, forces that can be beyond our control – fire can easily get out of hand, and the wind is never under our control.  But you and I live in a world that loves being in control, or at least thinking it’s in control.  Now a sailboat does a wonderful job of harnessing the power of the wind, but it can’t change the direction or force of the wind, or cause the wind to blow where there is none.  No sailboat can sail directly into the wind, either.  If you’re trying to go upwind, you have to tack back and forth in a zigzag pattern, at roughly 45-degree angles to the wind. It’s not a straight line, but you eventually get where you’re going – it’s just part of accepting the power of the wind.

            In his book, First You Have to Row a Little Boat, Richard Bode writes about the life lessons he learned at the same time he gained experience as a sailor.  Early on, Bode would try to sail as directly as possible toward his destination.  As he sailed across the Great South Bay to a place called Saltaire, he was so focused on sailing as directly as possible that he was trying to sail too close to the wind–it’s called pinching.  Even holding the tiller with a death grip, he periodically lost hold and lost control of the boat, and finally crashed into the boat of an experienced skipper.  This skipper taught him how to “climb the wind,” to pay attention to the wind and judge how closely to sail, to hold the tiller lightly between his thumb and forefinger, so that the boat could respond to changes in the wind’s direction and speed.  It was like a musician playing a finely-tuned instrument.  The keys were to pay attention and steer gently; Bode describes it as being “one with the wind.”

            Not long after he gained the confidence to climb the wind he persuaded a beautiful young woman named Martha to go for an outing on his sailboat.  It turns out she wasn’t as interested in being with Richard as she was in other people seeing her in her bathing suit on the boat.  But they set out upwind for Saltaire, where they could beach the boat and walk across the narrow barrier island to swim in the Atlantic. As Richard went about tacking the boat toward Saltaire, Martha started to complain: “Won’t this boat go any faster? And why are you going off in this crazy direction? Can’t you see that Saltaire is over there?”  Bode writes, “ I almost made the fatal mistake of trying to explain why I couldn’t sail faster, why I had to tack.  But there are moments when we sense that explanations are futile, and this was one of them.  I snapped back, ‘I tell you what, Martha.  Why don’t you find yourself a guy who owns a speedboat.  Then you can buzz around the bay any old way you please.’ With that, I sailed back to shore and dumped her on dry land.”  The next time Richard saw Martha, she was indeed with a boy in a motorboat, and they sped all over the bay, in all different directions, never paying attention to their surroundings or the elements.  “I may have been going slantwise and at a different pace,” he writes,  “But I knew where I was going,  which is a lot more than I could say for them.”

             The Holy Spirit is the breath in the church’s lungs, the wind in our sails.  Now motorboats can be plenty of fun, and diesel-powered ships are more efficient than sailboats, but  the church doesn’t operate under its own power.  And we’re tempted to succumb to the illusion that we do operate under our own power, because in so many other parts of life, gains in technology and prosperity have given us power over so many things.  Plenty of things in our world have responded to technological fixes–medicine, sanitation, communication, transportation – the list of growing human influence and control goes on and on.  You can see this tendency in the church, too – there are more and more books being written and seminars offered on the steps or keys or how-tos for becoming what’s called a “successful” church. The implication is cause-and-effect: if you do these things, you’ll be successful – and quickly – in ways that can be measured and analyzed, like growth in membership and increases in budget.

             The Holy Spirit is the breath in the church’s lungs, the wind in our sails.  If we get overly focused on how-to's for success we can start to think of the church as a powerboat rather than as a sailboat.  Pentecost, though, can teach us that it is great news to be a sailboat, that much about God’s work is beyond our control, and that’s a good thing, calling us to be faithful and responsive, and leave the rest to God, not focusing too much on numerical results.  We heard today about 120 or so followers of Jesus on Pentecost proclaiming by the Holy Spirit God’s deeds of power to pilgrims gathered in Jerusalem, but the reading ends before we hear what happens next.  Some people think they must be drunk, but Peter denies it – it’s only nine in the morning – then he preaches a sermon.  Acts tells us that about three thousand persons were added that day.  Now I expect that if Peter had gathered the disciples that morning and said, “All right; we need to get 3000 more people today, how are we going to do it?” that two things would’ve happened.  First, he would’ve been laughed out of the group, and second, I don’t think they would have gotten 3000 people if their goal had been to get 3000 people.  The amazing results came not from human plans and strategies, but from being passionate, being responsive, and being bold, then leaving the results up to God. 

            Now there is nothing wrong with plans and strategies–we make good use them as a church in the service of God, but all of our planning and strategizing can’t control the Spirit any more than we can control the wind, and we are wise to recognize that and to stay responsive. In the same way, when we baptize Nicholas this morning, we won’t be able to plan his life, or tell him what he will face, but we can give him a good set of sails and teach him how to climb the wind, give him examples of making good decisions in a variety of external circumstances.  Let us rejoice that the church is a sailboat powered by the wind of the Holy Spirit rather than a motorboat that may go fast but will eventually sputter out of gas.  Let us pay attention to the wind of the Holy Spirit and hold the tiller lightly, so that we, too, can be passionate, responsive, and bold  in our faith; and let us receive with thanks the results that come not ultimately from our own power, but from God.