Your Spirit Within Each of Us
Sermon for the Feast of Pentecost
May 28, 2023
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:24-34, 35b
John 7:37-39
I wanted to tell you a story. It’s a story some of you might have heard me tell before, but I tell it today, because in many ways, I think it’s a Pentecost story.
Before I was ordained, I lived in Boston, where I got to know Bishop Tom Shaw, who was then the Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts. Bishop Shaw was a wonderful person—a monk, in addition to being a bishop, someone who took young people seriously, and whose vision of the church was expansive and inclusive. Bishop Shaw served as bishop for nearly two decades, even after being diagnosed with brain cancer, with which he lived publicly and courageously until it eventually took his life.
In any case, Bishop Shaw once shared a story about an unexpected friendship he struck up with a young man Ryan at the gym where he did his morning workout. Ryan was one of the trainers at the gym And although he knew Bishop Shaw was somehow affiliated with the church, he’d never seen him in his clerical collar or purple bishop’s shirt or large bishop’s pectoral cross or monk’s habit. At the gym, Bishop Shaw wore jogging paints and simply went by “Tom.”
Ryan was someone you might call a “seeker.” He was someone who was intrigued by religion and even by God. Someone who was, you might say, spiritually curious. Who was open to faith and had a general idea of what Christians believe, yet he had never been connected formally with a church or faith community. Well, one day, Ryan became a dad for the first time. And on his first day back at the gym after his daughter Isabel’s birth, Bishop Shaw joined everyone else in congratulating him. But then the bishop took him aside and asked, “So, Ryan… what about a baptism for Isabel?” Ryan had never really thought about baptism before. He tells Bishop Shaw that a baptism for Isabel sounds fine to him, but that he first needs to speak to his partner Laura.
The next time Bishop Shaw sees Ryan at the gym, Ryan tells him yes, they are up for the baptism. So, they schedule a time for Shaw to visit their house the following week to meet Laura and her three children from a previous marriage and to arrange for baptism preparation. One afternoon the following week, Bishop Shaw pulls up to their house. Since this is just an initial meet and greet, he’s dressed casually—no clerical collar, no purple shirt or pectoral cross, and no Book of Common Prayer or Bible in hand. When he gets out of his car, though, he notices a large number of cars are parked in the driveway. “That’s curious,” he thinks to himself. He wonders if perhaps it’s a two-family house or if Ryan and Laura still live with their parents. Then he notices balloons on the mailbox, and a congratulations sign out front. “Interesting,” he says. And then it dawns on him: It’s a party. They’ve invited family and friends. Ryan and Laura misunderstood him. They think tonight is the baptism.
Indeed, when Bishop Shaw gets to the front door, Ryan greets him and introduces him to Laura’s parents and the kids. The food on the dining room table confirms his suspicion: they’re expecting a baptism. “What should I do?” Shaw says to himself. Baptisms should be done inside a church, he thinks. In a baptismal font. By a priest, wearing vestments. And only after months of preparation! “I need to make a quick decision,” Shaw thinks. Then something inside him says: “Just do it.” So, he goes with it.
The family shows him into the backyard, the location they’ve chosen for the baptism. “Not exactly a church,” Shaw thinks. “But it’ll do.” Then someone gets a kitchen bowl and some water. “Not isn’t exactly a stone font, but it’ll get the job done.” As the family gathers around, Shaw asks Ryan and Laura if they’ve chosen anyone to be godparents for Isabel. They say yes, that they’ve picked the baby’s four-year-old brother and seven and eight-year-old sisters. “Improvise,” Shaw tells himself as he asks the kids what they think it means to be godparents. They tell him that it means if anything ever happens to their parents, they’ll be in charge of Isabel. “Well, that’s a start,” Shaw says, trying to explain what else is involved in being a godparent.
It doesn’t take long for Shaw to realize that no one—not the kids, or the parents or the grandparents, are connected to any church. So, he talks a little about what they’re about to do and what he thinks it might mean for them and for Isabel. They pray together and then, right there in the backyard under the stars, they baptize Isabel. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
After the baptism, on the way home in the car, Bishop Shaw remembers laughing at himself. All of a sudden, it had become clear to him how much he relied on all the props of the church and a language that not a lot of people understood to talk about his faith in Jesus with other people. He shakes his head at himself about how inarticulate he was in front of kids who didn’t go to Sunday school, and parents and grandparents who didn’t go to church—good people, who had never had the chance to encounter Jesus before.
This is a baptism story. But I think it’s also a Pentecost story. Because really, Pentecost is all about realizing how we are called by the Holy Spirit to take our faith in Jesus out into the world. It’s about how the Spirit empowers us to share it with people who may never have encountered Jesus before—people who might not speak our “language.”
I think this is exactly what’s happening in the Pentecost story we heard this morning from the Acts of the Apostles. This is a story about how some of the very first believers were called and empowered to share their faith in Jesus with people who didn’t speak their language: who literally didn’t speak their language! This was kind of a miracle. Because not long before, this group of believers, of disciples, had been a pretty sad, self-conscious little group. Remember, Jesus had just left them and ascended into heaven. Right as he was leaving, he had told them to make disciples of all nations: to tell the whole world about him. But then he disappeared—for good it seemed. And they were totally lost. Wondering how they would ever tell the whole world about him.
How much easier it would have been for them to just hunker down and reminisce among themselves about the good old days with Jesus. But of course, this wasn’t what Jesus had commanded them to do. He didn’t tell them to start a fan club or to only talk about their faith among themselves. If that had been the case, the whole movement would’ve fizzled out pretty quickly! No, he’d told them to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth. To tell the story of God with people beyond the inner circle. To take the love and mercy of Jesus they had experienced for themselves and find ways to share it with people very different from themselves—people who didn’t look like them or talk like them. And don’t fret about how you’ll do this, he told them while he still among them. Because I’m going to send you some help. I’m going to send you an Advocate. A comforter. My Spirit! And my Spirit will give you the words you need to tell the story to others.
And sure enough, after Jesus had left them, and just as they may have been tempted to despair, his Spirit shows up! And boy does the Spirit show up! There is a rush of violent wind that fills the house where the disciples are sitting. And then divided tongues that are on fire rest on each of them until finally, they are so full of the Spirit, that they begin to speak in other languages! And people from many different places hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power through Jesus in words they can understand, in their own languages. And some people are amazed and astonished. And some people think they’re just plain drunk. But many more people come to know Jesus for the first time. In short, the Spirit takes that sad, self-conscious little group of believers, who must have been so tempted to just turn inward, and she sends them out. Out to share the good news of Jesus in places they never could’ve imagined. Out to share it among people they never could have imagined—people who didn’t look like them or talk like them.
This is why Pentecost is called the birthday of the Church. Because it’s when the Church was first called into being. I’m not talking about a church building here. I’m talking about a community of people who were called. This is what the word for church in the New Testament literally means. Ecclesia. It means “called out” or “called forth.” The church wasn’t a building with pews and an altar and an Episcopal church sign out front! It was a community of people who were called out and called forth to share the love and mercy of Jesus that they themselves had experienced with the whole world!
This is what the church was all those years ago, and it’s also what the church is today, in 2023. Our calling as the church is the same as those first believers: to share the good news of Jesus with people. To share his love and mercy with those who need it most. And not just with one another in church on Sunday morning behind the safety of these four walls. Don’t get me wrong, these walls are important. They give us a place to gather together and to worship and to share in fellowship. But they’re not what makes us the church. What makes us the church is what made those first believers into the church: And that is the fact that we are “called out” of this place and into the world.
We don’t come here just to find solace or just to be comforted or so that we can feel spiritually warm and fuzzy. We come here to be fed and strengthened, and most importantly, we come here to be called out. Called out of our “comfort zones.” Called out among people who might not speak our “churchy” language. Called out into places where we don’t have our church “props.”
Like those first believers, we might find it easier to just hunker down in this place and talk about Jesus among ourselves. Perhaps like Bishop Shaw, we might feel inarticulate. We might feel self-conscious without our church “props” to lean on. We may find that we have to improvise! And you know what? That’s ok! Because however inarticulate or self-conscious about sharing our faith we may feel, the Holy Spirit always promises to meet us. Wherever we are, she promises to show up. To give us the ears we need to listen. To give us the words we need to say. To give us the courage we need to say them. To give us her power and comfort when we need them most. And most importantly, to give us hearts of flesh that are open, and tender, and ready to give and receive love. The truth is, when all is said and done, it’s our hearts that are the important prop we need.
I wanted to close with a favorite prayer of mine from the Ecumenical Christian community of Iona in Scotland. It’s a prayer I often pray myself—it was on the cover of the bulletin when I was installed as rector here, and I think it’s the perfect prayer for Pentecost too. So let us pray:
O Christ, your Spirit is within each of us.
It is not just the interior of these walls:
It is our inner being you have renewed.
We are your temple not made with hands.
We are your body.
If every wall should crumble, and every church decay, we are your habitation.
Nearer are you, O God, breathing,
closer than hands and feet.
Ours are the eyes with which you, in the mystery,
look out with compassion on the world.
So take us outside, O Christ,
outside holiness, out to where soldiers curse
and nations clash at the crossroads of the world.
So shall our buildings continue to be justified.
Amen.
—The Reverend Edmund I. Harris
Image Credit: Descent of the Holy Spirit, Ivanka Demchuk