Loading...The church calender kicks off the season of Pentecost with a splashy celebration of the power of the Holy Spirit that is meant to be so big and impressive it lasts for 24 weeks! The Holy Spirit clothes God’s people with power to fulfill God’s mission in God’s world. Let’s take a closer look at the Pentecost Power from our assigned readings.
First, Holy Spirit power is at work in the prophetic adventures of Elijah. The first reading from 1 Kings is the snapshot of Elijah fleeing from Queen Jezebel after he slaughtered 850 of her favorite prophets of Baal and Asherah in the Wadi Kishon. That contest on Mount Carmel is one of the most powerful moments in scripture and I commend it to your Sunday afternoon reading (1Kings 18). But after killing all her prophets Elijah is scared of Jezebel’s threats of vengeance. He respects her power and flees to another mountain, about the distance between here and Chattanooga, TN.
Mt Horeb happens to be the mountain whereMoses saw the burning bush and then later received the Ten Commandments. Where God spoke to Moses, God speaks to Elijah. If you want to feel God’s power, spend time in the places people have experienced God’s power.
One powerful person to spend time with is Saint Paul who writes about the different roles of Faith and Law in his letter to the Galatians. Faith and Law possess certain powers. God’s laws serve as a custodian until Jesus fulfilled all the law with his faithful sacrifice to God on the cross of Calvary. Jesus’ loving gift dismantles the power differential between tribes so there is no longer Jews and Gentiles, slaves or free, male and female.
The way Paul describes Jesus equalizing the salvation playing field offends many who met Paul and who were invested in the status quo of their power AND it also gave hope both to those who read that original letter and to us that nothing, not even the status of our birth, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Christ Jesus does separate people from powers that can harm. Ask the Gerasene demoniac who is given an entirely new life back at home after being rescued from the legion of demons which had possessed all his power.
After Jesus drives the demons away the man has a new power, to proclaim the freedom from possession given to him by the man asked to leave town. At the outset it seems funny that someone with the power to deliver someone from horror would be asked to leave. Wouldn’t you want to eliminate fear and suffering from your entire city if you could? But what if the cost of perfect health is watching your economy jump off a cliff and drown? There’s a wideness in God’s mercy and sometimes that mercy swallows up the livelihood we might love in order to clothe us in the Spirit of love.
Your vestry leadership, like the Eucharistic Prayer says, is clothed in the Spirit with love. We went on a retreat yesterday to Taylorsville Lake.
After boarding a pontoon boat, we peacefully cruised between rain showers. It was a relaxing time of refreshment. That moment of stepping away together bonded us. Part of that is stepping away is moving from land to water. It’s a powerful moment to change elements. If you’ve ever gone on a boat, you have experienced that moment of abandonment when you are standing with one foot on land and one foot in the boat and you lift the land foot. That moment of lifting is when you abandon one world for another.
Sometimes the power differential between heaven and earth can give a Christian that awkward tippy feeling like stepping into a boat. It’s ok — awkward is how it worked for Elijah and Paul. If I feel awkward I might be in touch with the same power that defeats bad guys and unites those who are separated and frees those who are stuck.
The Holy Spirit outfits St James with power to sail seas of mercy and compassion both in our community and beyond. Loving People. Serving People. is the charter which guides all our ministries. Jesus is our captain — we are his crew. All aboard that’s coming aboard.
