pan style=”font-weight: 400;”>Today, we celebrate the birth of the church. Today, we come and gather here in one place for a birthday party, and it is a dangerous one. In fact, this party has been a dangerous event from day one.
Our story begins on an ordinary day, roughly 2,000 years ago when a small group of despairing believers isolated themselves all together in one place. These disciples huddled together in isolation because they were afraid. It is quite likely they were afraid of outsiders, so they stayed clustered and cloistered together as one group. Now, honestly, had they known what was about to happen, they would likely have separated and spread out. You see, after all they had been through, what was about to happen would have freaked out even the bravest amongst them. As they clustered together in their small group, they were in danger but not from outsiders. The danger they were in as they huddled all together in one place, was from a God who was about to crash the party and bring in everyone they were trying to avoid.
Yes, God did crash that party and, with the force of a mighty wind and flames and voices speaking in many languages, God brought into that gathering of early believers people from all nations. And, in the midst of their bewilderment, their amazement, the chaos, and the cacophony of voices, that gathering exploded into the church – something the world had never before witnessed. It was a whole new creation!
Quite frankly, I think the present-day mainline church has, at times, been gathering in fearful isolation from society, from culture and from the world. By keeping ourselves isolated from the world and not connecting with others, we try to keep our little gatherings comfortable, cozy, neat and tidy. In some ways, certain things have not really changed all that much from that gathering 2,000 years ago. You see, people are people, and we still live in fear.
We are living at a time when so many things about our culture and our world create despair and fear among us. We fear gun violence. We fear COVID-19. We fear those we perceive as “other.” We fear the changing climate and all that is coming with that change. We fear speaking out and speaking truth. And, as we gather in our cloistered settings, we find all kinds of people. We gather as the flawed, the broken, the smug, the self-righteous, the confused, the amazed, the hurting, and the fearful. But, in this gathering of broken, diverse people and personalities, we discover we are the very people to whom God sends the Spirit. And, guess what! God has not changed! And, God still crashes our parties, abolishes our carefully chosen guest lists, breaks into our despair, transforms our fears, and invites into our gathering the people we often try to avoid. And, yes, the people God brings into our midst are going to change us! You see, when God enters and works in our midst, we are always going to be changed! We may want to always have a nice, warm, peaceful, secure, fuzzy feeling kind of a gathering. But, when God crashes our party, warm fuzzies are not what we get. I love what Lutheran pastor, Nadia Bolz Webber, says about this. She writes:
The Spirit, while called the comforter, does not bring the warm chocolate chip cookies and a night-night story kind of comfort. The Spirit brings the comfort of the truth – and if you’ve had any experience of the truth whatsoever you can testify that it’s not exactly cozy.
Friends, as we gather, we are so much like those early disciples: fearful, flawed, confused, and even amazed. And, yes, we are the very people to whom God sends the Spirit to mess everything up! God has not changed, and God is always going to be crashing our comfortable parties, messing things up, and moving us into God’s future where God’s guest list includes all people. We, as a Faith community, are being changed as we open ourselves to welcoming the stranger, as we welcome and care for refugees, as we intentionally work to engage the greater community, as we feed the hungry in our community, as we open ourselves to diversity, as we celebrate our Reconciling In Christ identity during Pride month, as we intentionally work to do a better job at caring for creation and even learn about an amazing solar opportunity for this church, and as we speak out against gun violence, white supremacy, racism, and all the isms that permeate our culture. We are being changed by the Pentecost Spirit of truth that continually moves in our lives and draws us into God’s future.
Yes, God still crashes our parties and invites us to be changed as we live the truth of God’s love for this world. As Nadia says, “This is the thing about the Pentecost Spirit of truth: it feels like the truth might crush us. And that is right. The truth crushes us, but the instant it crushes us it puts us back together into something real. Perhaps for the first time. Because the radical and mysterious and dangerous thing the Spirit does has always been to form us into one the Body of Christ. Sometimes despite us, sometimes against us, but always for us. Because it is only the Spirit who can turn us from a ‘they’ into a ‘we.’” And, that we, the Body of Christ, can change this broken world through living God’s redeeming, transforming love.
Seniors, as you now graduate, as you go out into the world and move into a new chapter in life, remember that this same Spirit that crashed the party when the church was born became very present to you when you were born and when you were baptized. When each of you was baptized, that same Spirit was very much at work in your life. When each one of you was baptized, the pastor prayed these words while laying hands on your head:
We give you thanks, O God, that through water and the Holy Spirit you give your daughters and sons new birth, cleanse them from sin, and raise them to eternal life. Sustain, Adele, Owen, Griffin, ____ with the gift of your Holy Spirit; the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear (the love) of the Lord, the spirit of joy in your presence, both now and forever.
So, as you move into this new chapter in life, never fear going out into the world because that ever-present Spirit is with you and will never leave you. Never fear sharing God’s gracious and redeeming love with others. Never fear being open to others, those who are different from you, and learning from them. Never fear serving others in Christ’ name. And always, always remember your baptism. Remember the Spirit of God who is so ever present and ever welcoming will never ever let you go.
Today, God continues to crash our party to change us, love us, and work through us to make this world a better place. It is the same Spirit that crashed the party of that community of believers 2,000 years ago. God’s Spirit has been loosed into the world. And, that Spirit opens us to newness, challenges us, changes us, and utilizes our authentic voices, gifts, and skills to love and serve others.