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Past
Sermons
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4th June 2006
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Being Carried Out on a Stretcher
Acts
2:1-21
William
Willimon tells about a church in a town he was
visiting years ago. According to the newspaper, the church was having an
all-day meeting of the church’s “medical auxiliary.” Willimon
figured this was a meeting of church folks who occasionally volunteered at
the local hospital. He was wrong.
A
friend of his, someone who knew more about the church and its denomination
than he did, told him that this was not the case.
He
said “the medical auxiliary consists of those persons who handle the
stretchers, help carry people out, and try to revive people who have gotten
so heated up, or emotionally overcome in the Sunday services that they need
medical attention.”
I
don’t think I’ve ever been in a worship service where people got so
overwrought that they had to be carried out on stretchers. I have thought
about employing paramedics to check out some people to see if they are
still alive in worship services I’ve led, but that’s another story.
Actually
I prefer worship a touch more reserved, and yet, as I come to this
particular Sunday in the church year and as I think of that church long ago
on that first Christian celebration of Pentecost, I wonder if we haven’t
lost something in the church.
It
would be nice to have the joy, the togetherness, the sense of divine power
that characterized that group of people so long ago.
You
know the story. It happened almost 2000 years ago. It was the day of
Pentecost. Pentecost was actually a Jewish festival. To the Hebrews it was
known as the Festival of Weeks.
The
word Pentecost comes from the Greek word meaning “fifty.” The festival began
fifty days after Passover. This festival was always celebrated in Jerusalem,
and Jews poured in from all over the known world for the festivities.
The
Scriptures tell us how the Festival of Weeks was to be celebrated. In
Leviticus 23 and Deuteronomy 16 we learn that each person was to bring to
God a special gift in proportion to the blessing the Lord had given to him.
All
daily work was to be set aside. The people were to gather and worship and
rejoice before the Lord.
Who
was invited? “You, your sons and daughters, your men servants and maid
servants, the Levites in your towns, the aliens, the fatherless and the
widows living among you.”
In
other words, just about everyone was invited. No wonder Jerusalem
was crowded on that first Pentecost. No wonder so many different languages
were being spoken.
On
that day, the disciples were all gathered together in one room. Suddenly
they heard the sound of the wind blowing fiercely. This mighty wind was not
blowing outside the house, but inside.
Even
more amazing, as the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks like wildfire
they all began to speak in other languages.
Suddenly
those cosmopolitan Jews from various nations of the world were hearing the
disciples of Jesus tell their story. And strangely, each of them was
hearing the story in their own language. Without interpreters.
And
they were both amazed and baffled. “Aren’t these all Galileans?” they
asked. Galilee
was Hicksville
as far as they were concerned. Where did these simple followers of Jesus
learn to speak in various languages? It was all a mystery.
Some
people, of course, were turned off by all the raucous activity and accused
the disciples of being drunk. But they were not drunk. The scripture says
simply that the Spirit of God had come upon them.
Over
the centuries, many symbols have been used to illustrate the mystery and
power of the Holy Spirit. However, Rev. Mickey Anders of Pikeville,
Kentucky
has discovered what may be the most unusual symbol of all, the wild goose.
Anders
says he made this discovery when he was studying Celtic Christianity, the
name for that unique brand of Christianity found in Ireland.
Actually, the cross in the courtyard is a Celtic cross.
Celtic
Christians chose the wild goose as a symbol to represent the Holy
Spirit. It sounds strange to us, but it has a long tradition in Ireland.
Anders
contrasts the image of the Holy Spirit as a wild goose with the image of
the Holy Spirit as a dove.
“When
you hear of the Spirit descending like a heavenly dove on you, you hear harps
and strings softly playing and get a peaceful feeling.
The
image of the Holy Spirit as a dove has become so familiar and domesticated
an image that we pay little attention to it.
“The
image of a wild goose descending upon you is a different matter altogether.
A wild goose is one noisy, bothersome bird, jarring us out of our
complacency.”
A
wild goose stirs up feelings that are quite extraordinary. I wonder if it
isn’t time for a wild goose kind of Christianity?
We in the church need to be shaken out of our complacency.
We
need to be shaken from our sanctuaries and into the streets. It’s so
easy to use church as a retreat. Perhaps the image of the Spirit as a wild
goose will do that for us.
The
great philosopher Kierkegaard told a parable of the wild goose. It
left its flock flying in formation in search of food. It was weak and
starved. By happy providence it found a barnyard filled with good
food, ate until full and slept.
When
it awoke it was alone, no fellow birds in sight. Then he heard the sound of
geese honking above. The sound stirred his spirit, but the comfort
and plenty of the barnyard kept him there.
The
next day he heard the birds in flight, the stirring inside him was still
there but fainter. And again he resisted the calling of his spirit
and stayed.
One
day the birds flew by in “V” formation honking their call in flight.
And the wild goose felt nothing.
I
wonder if we have so tamed the Holy Spirit that we cannot hear the call of
the wild goose. Have we failed to listen to the Spirit so long that
we feel nothing?
Christ
has called us to serve the world for which he died. Worship is that
time when we strengthen our spirits for service to the world.
When
worship becomes an end in itself, we are not being what Christ has called
us to be. We need to be shaken from our sanctuaries and into the streets.
We
need to be shaken from our safe relationships and into contact with people
who need Christ. One of the reasons people come to church is to develop
friendships. And that’s good--that allows us to build one another up.
But
what happens if we restrict our friendships only to people at church? In order for us to have an impact on our
world, we need to have contact with people who are in the world.
There
are people around us with all kinds of needs, but how will we know those
needs if we do not know them?
Some
of you are familiar with the Glide
Memorial
Church
in San Francisco.
Glide Memorial has numerous outreach programs in its community, but its
most effective ministry may be its addiction-recovery programs.
In
the late 1980s, drug and alcohol addiction rates skyrocketed in San
Francisco, especially in the
inner-city neighborhoods. Glide’s pastor, Cecil Williams, decided that his
church would offer the best addiction-recovery program available.
But
how would the church get the word out about their recovery programs among
the addicts? Pastor Williams organized a march on Valencia
Gardens,
San Francisco’s
most crime-ridden public housing project. Over six hundred people gathered
to invade Valencia
Gardens
with a message of hope.
Marchers
carried sign boards reading “It’s Recovery Time” and “Welcome Home to
Recovery.” Those who didn’t have sign boards carried platters of food.
Imagine
what it was like for the residents of Valencia
Gardens,
the most crime-ridden, broken-down neighborhood in San
Francisco, to witness this
invasion of hope?
To
have more than 600 people march down their street singing songs of praise,
bringing gifts of food, and announcing the news of a much-needed drug
rehabilitation program?
Imagine
how they received the good news when it was presented in this manner.
Actually seeing all those people striding into their neighborhood singing
and laughing and bearing gifts probably seemed like Pentecost.
I
wonder if the police stopped them and gave them Breathalyzer tests?
We
need to be shaken from a nominal faith to one that has a real impact in the
world. Here is where a wild goose Pentecost can help us most of all.
See,
many of us are in a rut spiritually.
Our faith has become routine or, perhaps, even quite anemic. We’re
going through the motions, but our hearts are not really in it. We need to
reclaim the fire of that first Pentecost.
When
the Holy Spirit came upon the followers of Christ in Jerusalem
on that first Pentecost, they were totally shaken out of their complacency
and apathy.
Suddenly
they understood their mission and they embraced it. They became a force to
be reckoned with.
They
became a fellowship unlike any the world had known before, and they became
determined above all things to raise high the banner of Christ for their
generation.
The
Holy Spirit is just as real in this place as in that house long ago. And if
we open our hearts to its power and presence, we, too, can leave here
empowered, with a new determination to do the work of God.
I
don’t necessarily want to assign people with stretchers outside our worship
service to haul away people who have passed out from excitement, but it
would be wonderful to experience the joy, the enthusiasm, the commitment
that characterized the early church.
And
I believe it can be ours if we let the goose loose. And then respond. Then the Holy Spirit
would flood this room, and who knows what might happen then.
There
it is … I think I hear it honking now!
Amen.
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