Loading...Alleluia! Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia!
Hear these words from Acts. You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witness in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Acts 1:8
And from Paul’s letter to the Romans: The love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. Romans 5:5
Today is considered the birthday of the Church. It may not have been given such a name at that time (“church”), at least not in the ways we might consider Church to be. Rather, this was the day the Holy Spirit came to the disciples and blew holy breath onto all those people gathered with them, bringing everyone, all of them, into community.
Over centuries, many people have come to believe that churches should look a certain way on the outside, often based on the architectural design that represents a certain era, like gothic or mid-century modern, or perhaps identifies a certain denomination, like the red doors we see on many Episcopal churches.
On the inside, church sounds a certain way, where people might prefer choirs, organs, pianos, bells, or guitars and drums. Voices of people, praying in unison, chanting psalms, singing hymns or praise music, or remaining in silence. Sounds of praise, of gratitude, of thanksgiving and of sorrow, grief, and pain.
It smells like certain times in history, or even holds scents from the past in hints of perfumes, burning wax and oil, flowers, and incense. And let’s be honest, sometimes the inside of a church can smell dusty and musty.
It looks a certain way, with an altar, pews or chairs, particular color schemes, stained glass or clear windows. The people serving the congregation, in the choir, or at the altar, dress in ways that set them apart—or maybe not.
But that’s not really what Church is. It isn’t about physical attributes, or specific sounds and smells, that have often been embedded within us through our experiences or through nostalgia.
I mean, some people do not realize or choose to not accept that some churches are in storefronts, or have stadium seating, or might represent a more modern architecture. Honestly, what a church looks like does not define church.
No. Church, a Christian Church, is about building a community of people who strive to live and act like Jesus. And that starts with realizing who we are and what we bring into community as individuals varies. We are not monoliths, we are not a block, and we certainly are not clones.
We are individuals with different life experiences who come together to build relationships that, if all goes well, creates, as Matthew Myer Boulton wrote in his blog, “a dynamic community of people following Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit to carry out God’s creative mission of healing, liberation, and joy for the sake of the world.”[1] …A dynamic community…
Dynamic. I like that word. It is active, colorful, full of potential, opportunity, and possibility. To be dynamic means we must include others, recognizing first that the Holy Spirit breathed on ALL people, or, like we heard in our reading from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, that we are each given unique gifts from the Holy Spirit. We are encouraged to discern them, develop them, and use them—yes, individually, but even more so, together, blending our knowledge, interests, and abilities with others.
My mind races with opportunities when I think about what a dynamic community can and does look like. Here at St. James’, there are so many examples of our own dynamic ministries, implemented and shared by a group or a team of people with a specific purpose, but utilizing varying abilities. Some people are great at planning. Others can gather people together. Some can communicate about the ministry. There are worker bees and there are leaders. No single person can do it all, but many people can do something, as the Daughters of the King motto reminds us:
For His Sake… I am but one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, I ought to do. What I ought to do, by the grace of God I will do. Lord, what will you have me do?[2]
But ministry, being the Church, is bigger than what happens within our own walls or behind our red doors. Being Church starts with our commitment to building the body of Christ through living in ways that express what he taught. And today, on Pentecost, we are reminded that God has bigger plans.
Today is the day we remember when God blew the wind of the Holy Spirit into a lot of people. People representing all nations under heaven. People with different languages, different customs, different ways of understanding how God works in the world.
It wasn’t always that way. Let me remind you what happened, according to the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1-9:
Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.’ The Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the Lord said, ‘Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.’ 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore it was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.
But here, centuries later, in this reading from Acts, on this Jewish day of Pentecost, a day celebrated fifty days after Passover, during this Festival of Weeks, called Shavuot, the disciples have gathered, with many other Jewish people from different cultures and places, with different languages, to celebrate the harvest.
I do not think the disciples expected their Jewish holy day to become the birthday of the Church. They likely did not think that this violent wind with tongues of flame would bring with it a unique sense of community. They certainly could not have anticipated that they would be able to communicate with all those present and begin a movement. A Jesus Movement.
Again, my mind races with opportunities and examples when I think about what a dynamic community can look like. As I quoted before, the church is “a dynamic community of people following Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit to carry out God’s creative mission of healing, liberation, and joy for the sake of the world.” Our diversity, our differences, our uniqueness, our stories, cultures, histories, education, and experiences provide all of us with such potential to make a difference in this world.
I think about how the South Oldham Inter-Church Council, what we lovingly refer to as the SOICC, functions in this part of the county. How not one of the faith communities involved in this organization could do alone what we do together to make a difference in the lives of our neighbors. From the collaborative efforts of providing food at the Mission House to collecting food to fill holiday baskets for specific families, to giving people an opportunity to do all their laundry, and especially their bulky laundry, for free once a month through Laundry Love, we share what we have, who we are, what we can do, to make life a little easier for those who are going through a rough time.
I think about how you all make a difference for individuals and programs in the Louisville area and beyond when you contribute to Deacon Mary’s or my discretionary fund each month. We can help with utility bills or rent because of your generosity. We can send checks to organizations like Crusade for Children, Kentucky Refugee Ministries, All Saints Camp, Home of the Innocents, The Episcopal Church Home, Episcopal Relief and Development, and so much more, to help the people who work and serve in these programs use their Holy Spirit-given gifts, talents, knowledge and abilities to improve the lives of others.
Being the Church is different than being in a church. We need the diversity found in the many varieties of faith communities to be able to express the numerous ways we understand how God works in the world. We need one another to impact the world. Pentecost is just one reminder of the holiness of that diversity.
As we imagine the holy breath of Spirit blowing into that gathering in Jerusalem, of people from places near and far, may we feel the power of that day, remembering that the Holy Breath of God still gives us life—and that each one of us carries at least a spark from that unquenchable fire, enough to kindle the love of God within each unique one of us, to be shared with and to positively impact this vast, beautiful, diverse world.
Amen.
[1] https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2020/5/25/understand-and-connect-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-pentecost Retrieved 5/20/2-26
[2] https://www.doknational.org/page/AbouttheOrder Retrieved 5/21/2-26.
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