May 31, 2009
Edwards (Knox) United Church
Pentecost Sunday
Ezekiel 37:1-14
Read the passage: The Message or The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
Acts 2:1-21
Read the passage: The Message or The New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)
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The Rev. Dr. George Hermanson
My mother, having grown up on the Prairies, hated the sound of the wind. If you have read, Who Has Seen The Wind, you will identify with that experience. For my mother the wind brought dust storms and the stronger the wind the worst the experience.
Our relationship with the wind is always full of ambiguity. We know the fresh breeze that removes the pollutants from the air. The gentle breeze that moves the sail boat. Then there is the destructive force that destroys a city. Yet the wind is a strong metaphor for the activity of God, blowing a new reality into being.
Ezekiel has a vision where the scattered people are brought back from the four corners of the world by the wind. Here the wind is restorative. It is a resurrection experience, for the metaphor tells us that the nation is being restored. Those whose experience was all dried up, scattered, are now whole and dancing. In the image of a community being restored means ones identity is found in community. As the community goes, so do you. If the community is broken, so are you. One cannot abstract themselves from the well being of a community - you cannot be whole if the community isn’t. This means the resurrection experience is not an individual experience but one is raised with a raised community.
We have forgotten that reality in our individualistic age. We think self improvement is for the individual and only for the individual. We can be ok even if our world isn’t. This is called the autonomous self. In religious terms, it becomes a question of being saved apart from a world being saved. It is an extreme personal experience.
While it is true we have a personal experience of God, it is always within a tradition and a community. Resurrection happens to both the community and to the individual. We see this in God raising Jesus, and then the experience of Jesus in the upper room.
The Christian view is we are a self-in-the world. We have a dynamic relationship with others. Our identity is formed in relationships, in family, and in society. So the individual is never a person without community. The implication of this is, creation and individual salvation are tied together. You cannot have one without the other. To sustain an individual you have to sustain creation.
In our Acts passage we get the marching orders for the church. We may puzzle over the meaning of the coming of the spirit. They did then. The watchers ask if the disciples were drunk.
It is called ecstatic speech. We all have some experience of this when we are so excited we cannot get out our words or they tumble over one another. Then there are times the moment of awe is so great we say nothing. There is nothing magical about this experience and the writer of Acts uses colorful and metaphorical language to tell of a moment when the world changed. The importance was not ecstatic speech but to speak in one of the different languages of the time.
The experience was a tipping point and a new narrative about history is created. This is caught up in the phrase, go with the flow. This is a common experiential state that comes from deep involvement. From sports to music the experience is described as flow. Flow denotes holistic sensation present when we act with total involvement.
We flow with fire and wind. Wind and fire are good metaphors to explain tipping points. For the wind is uncontrollable. Fire purifies. Both rage on and on, changing the contours of physical time and space. After the event we regroup and ask what now?
In Acts they go back to the tradition. Visions will come to all - to all age groups - to all classes of people. It is the vision of God. It is the dream of God. This dream is for a world and for individuals to be healed and restored to right relationships. It is a dream of sustainable creation and inclusive community. The people are invited to join this dream. They are invited to be the hands and feet of the dream. They are invited to make it real.
The wind of fire and Spirit asks us to go beyond our comfort zone. In that moment of experience that which was experienced as broken was now made whole. The story of many languages refers to the problem of Babel. There hubris drove people away from the source of love. Here, in the many languages, is an affirmation that the dream of God is one of pluralism. Many colors. Many voices. Many languages. What is offered is consolation, which is the experience of genuine happiness and spiritual joy. Now one can move forward in doing good. This comes after much disciplined attention and practice.
We find the practice in the metaphor of speaking in many languages. This is to pay attention to the context. To know another language is to know what is at stake for the other. One has to walk in the other’s shoes. The message is not one size fits all but is shaped by the context and the needs of the context. It is to listen deeply before one answers. It is to listen to the question of the other and take that question seriously.
I have said many times that we are in time of the great rummage sale. How we have done church is up for grabs. We need to rethink our faith. This is crucial for the church today. Our message must address the felt needs of our context, personally, societally and globally. Each context will shape our response. In the practical life of the church it means understanding culture and how it changes. New occasions do teach new messages.
One implication is that spiritual care is now the meaning of pastoral care - what is it that itches the person? What are deeply felt issues about meaning that are being asked? How is one with God? Before we answer we need to hear.
From the personal we move outward. What are the issues of our society? We respond with food banks and grain banks. This is important care and it also demands us to ask why are there such needs?
How we organize our world needs to be addressed so such care is not needed. In the United Church we have many other programs that press in on us. We are working on, what does it mean to have right relationships? We seek ways to hear.
Finally, there is the question of being an inclusive church. We need to address the misuse of scripture used to tear our society apart. The issue for many is to move to affirmation of same sex marriage. That will speak to our neighbors. This will change others, for we will show that we value all members of our society. It is to be a voice of inclusion which means by symbols of inclusion.
On this Pentecost Sunday we are called to speak in tongues of love that will move the fire and wind into healing and welcome. We are called to find our voice in this time of change. We are to show our faith by our living.
George Hermanson,
www.georgehermanson.com
