5:00     A service for children and youth that tells the story of Jesus’ birth with our  highly popular and always delightful ‘come as you are Christmas pageant.’             

10:00   Candles and carols and the meaning of Christmas

This reflective service of candles, music, prayers and poems offers breathing space in what can be a hectic and emotionally challenging season.  Stay after the service if you can for some Christmas (Advent?) cookies and hot cider by the fire.

he saw the heavens torn open

and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.

Mark 1:10

          I was six when I fell from a tree and broke my collar bone.  It was a pretty bad fall, and within seconds my friends who had moments earlier been laughing and playing with me suddenly surrounded me with astonished looks on their faces while I lay on the ground gasping for breath like a fish on dry land.  One friend raced the 1 ½ blocks to my house, where he found my mother working in the garden.  “Mrs. Chambers, Mrs. Chambers!” he yelled, “Come quick!  Danny’s fallen from a tree!  But don’t worry, he’s not dead!”

            A broken collar-bone when you’re six puts a damper on summer plans.  Obviously, my tree climbing days were decisively curtailed.  I couldn’t run around as usual.  And, perhaps most disappointing, I couldn’t take swimming lessons that year. 

            The next summer, my parents were busy building our new house, so I couldn’t take swimming lessons that year, either.

            Finally, the next summer, I could take swimming lessons, but by that time I was eight and I had learned to fear the water.  I loved splashing about in the pool as long as I could touch the bottom.  But, like a cat, I didn’t want to put my face in, which seriously hindered my ability to learn how to swim correctly.

            One cool June morning in Illinois, a young instructor thought a baptism by immersion would be just what I needed to get over the hump.  She pulled me aside from the other kids in my class, and led me from the children’s pool to the deepest end of the deep pool. As I looked down into the dark abyss, the bottom of the pool seemed to disappear from sight.  In retrospect, it was as if I was looking into the very depths of existence itself.  I remember standing by the side of the pool, skinny as a toothpick, shivering, and she, now some faceless instructor in a red bathing suit, stood holding a cold metal pole with a u-shaped hook at one end, looking too much in my mind like the grim reaper. She encouraged me to jump into the deep end.

            The water was cold, the pole was cold, I was cold.  I had images of jumping in and sinking right to the bottom like a lead ball.  How would I come back up?

            “Just hold onto the pole, and jump in,” she tried to coax me.  “I’ll hold onto the pole so you’ll be safe.  Just jump in, and I’ll pull you right up,” she said, as if it were as easy as chewing gum. 

            On other days, in following summers, you wouldn’t be able to drag me out of the deep end of the pool.   My friends and I would play for hours in the water, jumping in with fantastic cannonballs, imagining that our thin bodies plunging into the water created enormous tidal waves.  Every time we surfaced, we were shocked that so much water remained in the pool.  Later, we would climb ladders and dive off the diving boards, and later yet, when we grew a bit older and more confident, we would climb the high dive and double dare each other to jump off.  This was a summer when I remember a lifeguard’s radio playing Simon and Garfunkle’s, Like A Bridge Over Troubled Waters.  There would come a time when the deep end was a welcome friend.

            But, to the exasperation of my swimming instructor, not that day.  Not with that pole and the deep staring back at me.  I shook my head and wouldn’t budge.

            Water plays a strange role in our lives.  It’s part friend, part mystery.  It tickles our senses with the gurgle of a stream or the babble of a brook, or it awes us with powerful waves or cascading waterfalls.  Water cleanses, heals, nourishes.  A cool mountain stream welcomes the foot sore hiker.  The warmth of a morning shower, or the indulgence of a hot bath restores a tired body.  A glass of cold water on a hot, dry day is an oasis.  But also how brutal the flood, the rushing rapid, the tidal wave.

            The people of first century Palestine would be most familiar with the gift and danger of water. The seas provided fish, but sudden storms on the Sea of Galilee would claim the lives of even the most experienced fishermen.  Water gives life, and it can take it away.  We depend on it, and can be destroyed by it.

            Mark says it was just as Jesus was coming out of the River Jordan that it happened.  Just as his eyes were blinking a curtain of water from his face, in this in between zone of water and air, like coming from the womb into the world and taking that first breath, just then it happened.  We don’t know what happened exactly, which is why the three gospels that mention the story tell it a little differently, but whatever it was, it was significant.  It was life changing.  It was the inauguration of Jesus’ ministry.

            If you were a first century Jew hearing this story from Mark, you would likely make meaningful connections most of us miss.

            This is how it happened.  Around that time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee, and was baptized by John in the river Jordan.  That very moment, as he was getting out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart…

            An astute first century Jew would immediately recall the passage from Isaiah (64:1), O God, that you would tear open the heavens and come down…

            Mark is saying that the prayer uttered by Isaiah is in this event becoming fulfilled.  It’s the same verb that’s used later when it is said that at the crucifixion of Jesus, the temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom (Mark 15:38).  Here in Jesus, the heavens are being torn open and the presence of God is being made near and manifest.

            Heaven has at least two meanings.  Most simply, it means the sky, as one would look up on a clear night and admire the stars in the heavens.

            But heaven also has the meaning of God’s realm.  What God’s realm did not mean for the first century Jew was someplace in the sky, up, up and away.  Heaven, the realm of God, did not mean some “place” where we go when we die.  The Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven which Jesus spoke so much about, was not somewhere else and later.  It was here and now.  It was about the realm of God and the kingdom of earth coming together.  We know this, because every week we echo the prayer of our tradition, “…may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” and as we speak these words we pray to step into heaven and become people of God’s kingdom; people of justice, peace and compassion for all.

            To say the heavens opened means more than a little window opened miles up in the sky.  It refers to a sacred reality behind the world as we usually see it.  It’s as though an invisible curtain, right in front of us, was suddenly pulled back and we see things in all of its grandeur and glory.

            …Jesus saw the heavens torn open and the Spirit coming down like a dove onto him…We often associate the dove with peace, moral purity and gentleness.  But the first century Jew would also hear that the Spirit came down like a dove and whoosh! their minds would flutter back to Genesis of all things, because the dove symbolized the creative power of God.  So to say the Spirit descended upon Jesus like a dove is to say the same creative power that swept over the face of the deep in the origin of it all is at work again, here in the person of Jesus.

            Then there came a voice from heaven, “You are my Son, my beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

            The first century Jew might think of Psalm 2:7, which records these words from a coronation ceremony of a king of Israel who would have been anointed with oil.  And Mark is making his point, “The Messiah, the anointed one, the beloved of God, is here in the person of Jesus, the one who brings heaven to earth, the one who is filled with the same creative power that hovered over the waters at the beginning of time and before time.

            Our baptism is an intentional act that connects us with the Spirit of Christ.  Baptism invites us to jump into the deep end.  Even a little sprinkle of water immerses us in the cleansing Spirit, the healing powers, the chaotic, creative, disruptive, dangerous waters of the Spirit.  As the water touches our forehead or as we rise from the depths of the shore-bound sea, heaven kisses earth.  Then, perhaps the most absurd thing of all, we, in all our failings and shortcomings, with our genetic limitations and our poor judgments, we are anointed into the Body of Christ and hear, “You are my beloved.  In you I am well pleased.”

            In baptism we are invited to jump into the deep end and live as if heaven had already interpenetrated earth.  Baptism is a crazy act, hardly rational.  But rarely is an act of love rational.  Do we get married because it is rational?  Do we have children because it is the rational thing to do?  Do we dance or paint or write or sail or play golf because it is rational?

            Life beckons.  We might be shivering on the sidelines, looking with fear into the deep, but we are called to jump in.  Ready or not.  We pledge our love, we give birth, we work for the well-being of others knowing full well we might get broken open in the process, our plans will probably get disrupted, things will not always go our way.  And yet we jump, because in the waters we find depth, and in the depth of life heaven is torn open and we hear, “Beloved;” we hear, “well pleased;” we hear echoes of love.

            When the curtain is torn open and we see more clearly how heaven and earth are joined, suddenly we see how, in the words of John Muir, “everything is hitched to everything else.”  And even when our vision shifts back into place and all we see is pavement and cars and houses and trees as usual, we live as if what we do matters, because we are joined together, anointed, hitched, beloved to beloved.  The point of it all is to live as if heaven has already invaded earth.

            Heaven is torn open.  The deep beckons.  And we are asked,

Do you believe the creative power of God shudders and hovers, sweeps and dances over the original deep?  Do you believe that this God can address you today, disrupt your life with a pull in the gut, an intuition, an idea, a dream, a burning passion? 

            Do you promise to work in this community of faith, helping cultivate a place marked by love, that through you, others may experience the transformative power of God’s love?

            Do you promise to work against all that would destroy the integrity of justice and creation, and do you promise to explore together, learn and pray together so that we can discern the movement of the Spirit together?

            And do you promise to be formed by the ancient wisdom and allow your life to be shaped by the Spirit of Christ?

            It is not rational.  But from somewhere within us we hear a voice rise from the deep and say, Yes, we do. We do.

            In this promise is hope.  In our ‘yes’ the broken pieces of our lives gradually make their way into a new pattern of beauty.  This is how we dive in and discover we will not sink.  This “yes” is how we learn to trust that something holds us, and brings us to the surface again, where we can freely breathe.   Amen.

Pastoral Prayer

            Ever present God, we may not always know how to pray.  Maybe we can’t find the words, or maybe we’re a little rusty, or maybe we just don’t feel comfortable praying.  So remind us that our sighs are a prayer; our tears and our laughter are prayers; our passion is a prayer; our singing, our generosity, our compassionate action, our embrace, our touching are all prayers.  In our very being we are a prayer.  In all our living, may you awaken the eternal within us.

            Every day we stand on the edge.  Every moment we’re faced with the deep and are invited to jump in.  Help us to trust that you will not let us sink.  You’ll bring us to the surface and help us float with our face pointing to heaven.

            But sometimes we are afraid.  We find it hard to trust.  Life has bruised us.  Oh sure, we know how to cover the bruises so no one sees and no one asks and even we have forgotten about them sometimes.  But they’re there.  And they trigger in us fear of the deep.  We stand there, on the edge, feeling thin and shivering.  Take us by the hand, we pray; melt our fears, calm our anxieties, help us regain that sense of trust and free floating joy we knew as a child.

            This morning we pray for those whose lives are broken one way or another; an illness, a move, a depression, a shift.  Be with …

            We pray for the world, especially the bruised and broken places that cry out for your justice, your peace, your healing balm, O God.  We pause now to remember the places in the world and the people for whom we have great concern…

            May your Spirit of justice transform this world into your kingdom of heaven, we pray. 

            This morning we also give thanks for Jordan and Victoria, baptized now in your name.  May the world welcome them, be hospitable to them, greet them with wonderful opportunities and adventures.  And when times get tough, as they will now and then, when disappointment and hardship come smashing down on their dreams, as it will now and then, may they be buoyed by your Spirit and held in the love of your embrace, just as they now are rocked in the embrace of mother and father.

            You who know us through and through, inside and out, be with us like a parent who guides, supports, rocks, and folds us in a warm embrace.  Though you are to us like a dark mystery, a fathomless infinity, you are also intimate friend. 

            So we offer this prayer of our tradition, not to bring you closer to us, but to help us realize you are already here, with us; your heaven already is generously scattered on earth and moves us to pray,

            Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever.  Amen.

(Yahweh to Moses)

Exodus 33:21-23

          Decisions.  We make hundreds of decisions every day: what to wear, what to eat, what to do in this moment, right now, how to sit, whether or not to pay attention.  Most of our decisions are so routine we don’t even notice them as they flit by, another decision made.  These are decisions that don’t carry the freight of huge consequences – we may need to choose between making an omelet for lunch or a sandwich, but neither will likely make a huge difference in our day, week or life.

            Other decisions are much more difficult and require careful consideration.  These are the kinds of decision that will significantly affect our life direction, so we give them our full attention.  What university to attend?  Stay with this job or take the higher paying opportunity that also carries with it greater risk?  Stay, or move?  Stay in this marriage hoping that things will improve, or at long last leave it?  These are the decisions that can tear us apart.

            How do we decide?  What’s your strategy?  Do you make a list of pros and cons?  Do you call up your friends and consider their advice?  Or do you just flip a coin – heads, I marry him, tails, I won’t?  When we come up against a tough decision, we may feel like we’re just “going around in circles”, arguing with ourselves, constantly weighing one side against the other, swinging back and forth unable to decide. 

            These are the situations that nudge us to be open for guidance.  Like the ancients who consulted the oracles at Delphi, we yearn for the clues that will direct us – a burning bush, a heavenly voice, a bright star…Please God, some sign, any sign would be nice.  Point us in the right direction.  So much is at stake, we don’t want to make a wrong step.

            Decisions are more difficult to make when we have contradictory thoughts, conflicting feelings, voices of friends and family who implore us to move in opposite directions: Get out of the marriage – you don’t need to ruin your life; Stay in the marriage, it’ll work itself out.  Do the renovation; it’s your home and you should enjoy it.  Don’t do the renovation; the market has peaked and you’ll never get your money back.  It’s enough to give a person vertigo.  How often have you cried out or whispered in the padded temple of your hands, “O God, what should I do?”

            But do you ever expect a response?  What if God answered?  Probably not with a burning bush or a bright star shining in the sky – that’s already been done.  Those signs are sooo past millennium!  But what if you received a response?  How would you know?  What would you look for, listen for, pay attention to?

            Christians believe that we are not alone in our decision making.  The United Church creed begins and ends with that powerful affirmation: We are not alone.  God is present, in the midst of all the situations of life.  As Christians, we believe that God’s involvement in our lives has purpose and direction.  God is that power alive in us that seeks to bring healing, wholeness and reconciliation.  As one high school student shared with me on the retreat yesterday, “I think God is more a verb than a noun.”  (Clearly, he went through a fine confirmation class!).  God seeks to transform this broken world into that New Creation where there will be a lasting peace and justice for all.  Our decisions and our search for guidance takes place in the active presence of a God who is near, who cares about our life situations, who invites us to participate in the divine dance of healing and reconciliation.

            Here’s what we know:  God is beyond us, yes.  God is outside the small playground of our conceptual framework.  God is not an idea, nothing we can imagine, nothing we can fully capture with an image or nail down with a precise definition.  In other words, we can’t get our grubby little manipulative hands on God.

            But we also know this: God is with us.  God is closer than our breath, closer than the blood that runs through our veins.  Every Christmas we sing about this God with us, Emmanuel.  Every Christmas we sing about a God who comes to us, as one of us, here with us.  The prayer of St. Patrick captures the Celtic understanding of God-with-us, as he describes that all encompassing reality: God in front of us and behind, above and below, to the right and the left, within and without. 

            The Christian practice is to open to that reality; to listen; to attend, to notice the nudges of wisdom.  We have a word for when we open to the promptings of the Spirit.  It’s called discernment. 

            In common usage, discernment is simply the ability to distinguish one thing from another.  A discerning choice is made by a person or group with the ability to choose well.  A person with “discerning taste” is one who has attended to the subtleties of something and can distinguish between an approximation of excellence and the real thing.  Usually we hold a person with discerning taste in high regard, and will seek their opinion on a wide range of things: movies, plays, wine, food, hotels, fashion, music, poetry, coffee, architecture, interior design.  We call them “experts” or “critics” and pay them to offer an opinion.

            Well, as Christians we are to cultivate a discerning taste.  Not so we become critics of worship as a theater critic reviews a play – “well the sermon was a little soft, the communion juice had bread crumbs in it and the congregation a little too rambunctious at the start of worship.”  Our discerning taste centers not so much around the quality of the organ as the presence of God.  The discerning taste of a Christian is to listen for the voice of God, to watch for glimpses of grace, to feel deep in our heart something authentic and good, something that rings true.

            From the cacophony of voices that ring us, we’re called to discern the whispering of wisdom.  Here is the discerning question for a Christian: does this decision, action, practice, way of being, bring me closer to God, closer to life, or farther away from it?  Does it open or close me to the well-being of others?  Does it deepen empathy and understanding, or carry me into a hedonistic, self-centered way of being which may feel good in the short-term, but in the long run will leave ashes in my mouth?  Does this decision connect me to the deepest part of myself, link me to others, affirm my bond with God, or will it further sever me as it is propelled by fear or self-centered desire? 

            The difficult thing about decisions is that you just don’t know in advance how they’re going to turn out.  How many drug addicts knew that when they took their first sniff of coke, their first inhalation of crack, that it would lead down a hellish road?  How many Olympians knew that when they joined their local gymnastics club when they were six, or ran in their first track meet when they were nine, that they would taste glory?  We make a decision, and don’t know how things will turn out.  That’s what makes the decision hard.

            That’s also what I appreciate about the scripture reading this morning.  All Moses is allowed to see is the backside of God.  Even Moses, who talked with God “as a friend” in the “tent of meeting,” even Moses, who didn’t even ask for a burning bush but got one, even Moses didn’t see the face of God.  Only the backside.  It suggests that even the most faithful people of God, the most pure of heart and passionate for God, don’t know in advance how a decision is going to unfold, exactly.  We only know in hindsight.  Often, the best way to receive confirmation of a faithful decision is to look back and make the call. 

            Let me offer two personal examples pertinent to our life together as a community.  The year was 1995.  Janet had finished her three years of seminary education and one year of internship.  She had passed all her exams, flew through all her interviews, completed all the requirements for ordination.  In order to be ordained in the United Church, you need to be called by and serve a community.  Ordination is not an academic degree granted at the completion of an academic program.  It’s a way the church sets apart those who have been trained and called to serve in a particular way.  Janet had been settled in a church in the Lower Mainland; unbelievably, I had been called to a church 15 minutes away from where she was being settled. 

            At the same time, I was in the middle of an interview process for a church in Berkeley, where Janet also had the idea of going on for further study and doing her PhD in theology.  So we had a decision to make.  One week before our wedding.  Janet was in Vancouver, I was in Southern California.  Would we take the amazingly good opportunity to serve two churches in the Lower Mainland, or would we let that go, which also meant let Janet’s ordination go, and continue with the interview process at the Berkeley church, and hope Janet would be accepted in the PhD program?  To make short a long, stressful, anxious decision-making process, we let go the sure thing and chose the uncertain, more risky path, as it also seemed like a greater opportunity to expand our vocation.  In doing so, we also let go Janet’s ordination, which was very difficult at the time.

            How do you make a decision like that?  So much is on the line.  What if I hadn’t gotten called to the church in Berkeley – after all, there were some 40 applicants, it’s quite possible I wouldn’t have.  What if Janet didn’t get accepted into the PhD program?  Let me tell you, this would have made a rough start at the beginning of the marriage!  It’s possible we could have let-go a very fine opportunity, and ended up in limbo.

            Did we know we were making the right decision?  Not at the time.  Months passed before we knew for sure about the PhD program and whether or not I would be called to the church in Berkeley.  In that week before we got married, when everything was still fuzzy and highly uncertain, Janet needed to make her decision.  Would she accept the settlement and be ordained, or not?  All we could do was listen.  Listen to the voices of friends, the tug of the heart, the pull of life.  All we could do was pray, let go, and jump into the abyss of uncertainty, trusting that one way or another, we would land well.

            Now, safely in the cleft of the rock we can look back and see the backside of the decision, the backside of how God has moved on this path.  Our experience in Berkeley was wonderful, our life exuberant.  We worked hard, had challenges, learned much, and were deeply blessed.  With the help of God and a gracious, generous community, we landed well.

            Here’s a second example of discernment from our personal lives that again pertains to our life together as a community.  This one is as recent as last weekend. 

            It was Friday, the first morning of the three day general meeting of BC Conference at Capilano College.  This is the meeting where all active clergy in the province and lay leaders gather together to worship, reflect, and do the business of the Church, such as how we maintain our Church camps, and how we make decisions together as a Conference body.  Around 8:30am Janet approached me at the business table and said, “Bob’s going to ask you a question.  I think you should say ‘yes.’”  I knew what she was talking about, and my first response was fear and an internal shaking of the head, “No way.” 

            Sure enough, a few minutes later, Bob Burrows approached me and said, “Dan, would you consider letting your name stand as Conference President?”  Now, Bob has a way of asking that can be very persuasive.  You don’t want to say “no” to Bob right away.  So with great doubt and disbelief, I told him I’d think about it.  “Fine,” he said.  “You have six hours to make your decision.”

            Six hours!?  I need six days!  Six weeks!  But my decision, along with a brief biography, needed to be into the Conference Office by 3:30 that afternoon. 

So I first talked with Doug Goodwin, the Executive Secretary of BC Conference to find out what the job description is for this position.  Then I talked with past Presidents of Conference to find out what their experience was like and if, now that they could see the backside of the situation, they had any regrets.  None did.  All said it was at times challenging, extremely busy, and sometimes trying…and it was also a highlight of their ministry.  I talked with Janet, of course, and a few close friends.  Then I got on the phone and talked with some trusted leaders of St. David’s to get their opinion. 

            I felt a lot was on the line.  Being the Conference President is a huge responsibility and a significant time commitment.  I didn’t want to do anything that would put more stress on my family.  I didn’t want to accept a position that would mean the congregation that I serve and love suffers from my absence.  I wasn’t at all sure I’m competent for the work of President of Conference, and didn’t want to accept something I couldn’t do well.  In short, I didn’t want to let down my family, the people of St. David’s, or the people of BC Conference.  It was not at all clear to me what I should do. 

            If I had to make the decision in isolation, if Bob had asked me to go to a cave to think about it, probably I would have come out of this quiet time and said, ‘no.’  Probably I would have come to the conclusion that this was a life complication I just didn’t need.  Let someone else take the job.  I’m not ready.

            But because I spoke with others and found out more about the position and heard encouragement, I was moved to say ‘yes.’  I’ll let my name stand, and if I’m selected as Conference President, I’ll serve the church in this way; if I’m not selected, I’ll be greatly relieved.  Later in the meeting, we would sing a song called, “I heard God’s voice in your voice.”  It’s a song that absolutely stops me, because it rings so true.  As I spoke with others, I discerned the voice of God in their voice.  Underneath their words, I heard the Word.

            Saturday morning, the other candidate found me to tell me he was  withdrawing his name.  So that left me, by default, as Conference President-elect.  That morning I was interviewed before the gathering, and received with generous applause.  In years past,  I had looked upon those who had said “yes” to being Conference President, and thought to myself, “Are you insane?” followed by the next thought, “God bless you!”  Now it was my turn to feel the foolishness of this decision, and pray for guidance and blessing.

            I don’t yet know if this was a good decision.  Last Saturday morning,  I mostly felt overwhelmed, a little stunned, quite intimidated, and honoured.  A few days after the decision was made, I felt growing enthusiasm for the possibilities; ideas began to flicker through my mind; life stirred.  A good sign.

            The more I talk to people here at St. David’s, the more I think this can be an enriching time for this community as well, a fertile time for spiritual growth and deepening trust.  An opportunity for expanded ministry and greater involvement.  A time of mutual blessing.

            Discernment is our attempt to make decisions that help us live more deeply in the freedom, the joy, the light and the love of God.  I share these two personal examples to communicate that this kind of decision making often feels messy, uncertain, unsure.  All we can do is bend down, listen carefully, attend to the yearning of our heart, and when the time comes, let go.  Let go of all the “what ifs” and “if only”, the lure of ego-attachment or the siren of anxious worry, and jump with trust.  We trust that God, Yahweh, wasn’t lying when he told Moses, “I’ll be with you.”  We trust that Christ wasn’t just trying to mollycoddle his disciples when he said, “I will not leave you orphaned…I will be with you, always.”  Trust that we are never alone.

            This week, you’ll have decisions to make.  Every day, decisions.  When you come up against the more important ones, especially, the ones that can set you spinning, you may want to invite God into the conversation.  Listen for a word that “rings true” in the words from your family or friends.  Watch for the nod of approval that arises from within.  For God is not a recluse hiding somewhere in the cosmic dust.  God moves in us.  As one friend from the South said, “Listen to your gizzard,” because if we don’t stay true to our gizzard we can’t stay true to God.

As Christians, as a community of faith, may we cultivate our discerning taste for the life-giving wisdom of God.                              

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.

 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind,

and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.  Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled

with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages,

as the Spirit gave them ability.

Acts 2:1-4

Introduction to the Scripture

Given that today is Pentecost, our scripture reading tells the story of what happened to the disciples who were gathered in Jerusalem.  The city was filled with devout Jews who had traveled great distances from many countries to be in Jerusalem for the celebration of Shavuot, a Jewish holy day celebrating the first fruits of the harvest.

            This event took place 50 days after Jesus died.  It seems the disciples were still trying to get their bearings, which is no surprise, given that their rabbi and leader was tortured and executed, only to appear to them in a variety of ways a few days later.  All that grief and all that amazement can be overwhelming.  It naturally took a while to sort through this strange mixture of profound grief and weird hope. 

            So they stayed together as a community in transition, a community in the wilderness of unknowing, a community waiting to hear, to get a nudge, to get a sign - something - just waiting for something to happen that would show them the way, point them in the right direction, help them figure out again who they were and where they were going.

            They prayed.  They probably discussed and strategized, argued and reflected on what they were meant to do now.  They didn’t know.  They probably had a lot of ideas, but somehow none of them seemed right.  So they waited.

            Then it happened.  Out of the blue.  No advanced warning to get their things in order because something incredible was about to happen.  No announcement that it was now time to fasten their seat belts and return their seats to an upright position because they were about to take off.  Nothing.  It just happened.  Boom!  Like that.

            Listen.

(read Acts 1:12-14,  2:1-13)

            I’m going to tell you something that I think is true, but I’m not absolutely sure it is.  There are four or five other clergy in the congregation with us today, very probably brighter and more experienced than I, so you may want to check-in with them after the service and get their perspective, or, bypass the clergy and go directly to one of the many wise ones of our congregation and see what they think.  You don’t have to take my word for it, that’s for sure. 

            But here’s what I think is true: I think Pentecost happens in at least two different ways:  Pentecost can be huge, powerful, something you could never miss and never forget.  And Pentecost can be subtle, quiet, very easily missed, yet life-giving all the same.

            The disciples experienced a Pentecost of the large order.  That first Pentecost reverberates even today through our collective memory.  It was a Pentecost of high drama, the Holy Spirit pulling out all the stops and letting her rip!  A powerful wind, tongues of flame like fire, inspired speech so all could understand, each in their own language.  Wow!  The story has that religious quality of blending the terrifying with the life-giving, the bizarre with the beautiful. 

Of course, to an outside observer closed to wonder, it can be coolly dismissed.  They were there, too.  Those who looked on from the periphery and said with derision,  “Ah, those religious fanatics, they’re just filled with new wine.”

            And they were.  Not with the wine from the vine.  They were filled with the wine of life, the wine of the Holy Spirit.  But like that other wine, it can bring us to act in ways the detached observer may find slightly embarrassing: people touched by the Spirit tend to lose inhibitions because they’re in the grasp of something larger than social decorum; people filled with the new wine of the Spirit become more vulnerable, more trusting, more willing to risk.  We become open. 

            This kind of Pentecost that comes with wind and fire is extra-ordinary.  Literally, it’s outside our ordinary experience.  We can’t really liken it to anything from our daily routine, because that’s just it - it’s not like anything in our daily routine.  It’s like being embraced by a non-burning fire.  It’s like walking inside a wind tunnel and getting turned inside-out and upside down.  Wham!  Something’s hit you with the force of life.  Whoosh!  Suddenly, at least for a while, you find yourself all cleaned out, baggage gone, burdens lifted. 

            The Pentecost the disciples experienced in Jerusalem wasn’t subtle.  It was BIG.  It took over their whole body; it loosened their tongue so they could speak in a language all could understand, Parthians, Medes, Elamites and more.

            Sometimes this kind of experience will throw the person to the ground and they shake like they’ve just stuck their finger into a sacred electrical outlet and got a jolt too great for the body to receive and remain nonchalant and discrete.  Some say that’s how the Quakers were given their name: towards the beginning of the movement that became known as the Society of Friends, it was fairly common that some of its members, overtaken by the Spirit, fell on the ground and trembled under the power of it all. 

            However, the point of Pentecost doesn’t lie in the experience.  That kind of extraordinary experience can get in the way.  If we become too focused on the experience, we miss the real miracle that Pentecost is.  The point of Pentecost is that it leaves us changed.  It’s as if we’ve been sitting by a lovely ditch all our life.  We’ve admired the small purple and white flowers growing in the spring along the banks.  We’ve watched leaves float by carried by a small stream of muddy water.  We’ve been fascinated by the worms and bugs that frequent our ditch, and sometimes we’ll handle the rocks and see what happens when we make a dam with cold mud and sticks and leaves. 

            Then one day everything changes.  One day, someone asks what we’re doing, and we say, “I’m admiring this here ditch.”  And they say, “Oh, that’s a fine ditch you have yourself there, but let me show you something over here.”  And they take you by the hand, lead you across the street, and take you to the edge of the Grand Canyon.  It’s evening, and the sun bathes the sandstone rocks in a deep red and burnt orange.  And you see this expanse that drops down for a mile and across like a sea and the wonder of it all takes your breath away.

            I suppose there are some detached observers who could look at the Grand Canyon and say, coolly, “Big ditch.”  In fact, Cay Holbrook was there a few years ago, standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, when a couple got out of their car and wandered over to the edge.   A few seconds later, the woman said, “Frankly, I’m a little disappointed.  I thought there’d be more colour.”

Sometimes a skeptic is no more than a person without the eyes to see or the ears to hear.  There are always those who can look at the Grand Canyon and ask, “Is that all?” or witness Pentecost and dismiss it; “Ah, they’re filled with new wine.”

But those open to the Spirit of Pentecost are taken by the hand to the very edge of a new reality.  The eyes of our heart have been opened and nothing remains the same.  We may still love our little ditch, but now we’ve seen something that changes everything.  

That’s one kind of Pentecost. 

But I wonder if it’s the only kind.  I wonder if big and stunning and extraordinary is the only way the Spirit of Pentecost reaches us.  I suspect not.  Because Pentecost is all about the Spirit of God, and Jesus himself said that the Spirit is like the wind - no one knows where it will blow, where it comes from and where it goes.  It just doesn’t seem the nature of Spirit to operate in a monotone, predictable way.  Pentecost isn’t about big, bold and dramatic; it’s about the work of the Spirit of God in us, and I think that can happen just as profoundly in quiet, very ordinary ways.  The Spirit of Pentecost can reach us through the still, small voice when we bother to stop and listen.

You’ll remember the story.  The prophet Elijah was in a cave, feeling so desolate he was ready to give up his life.  He was on the run from King Ahab’s soldiers who were out to capture and kill him.  From the dirt floor of his cave, he asked the all powerful, Lord of the universe, Source of all life to draw near, to help him, to give him guidance.  And a huge wind blew so strong it split mountains and broke rocks into pieces, but God wasn’t in the wind.  And after the wind, an earthquake thundered, but God wasn’t in the earthquake.  And after the earthquake, a fire flashed around him, but God wasn’t in the fire.  Then after the fire, the sound of sheer silence, and in the quiet Elijah heard God in a still, small voice.  (I Kings, 19:1-19)

            Notice that both the disciples and the prophet Elijah were in desperate situations.  The disciples had their life purpose and plan shattered when Jesus was arrested and executed.  Elijah had watched his fellow prophets get slaughtered under King Ahab, who worshipped the Canaanite god, Baal.  Then, Elijah ran 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness to reach Mt. Horeb, a sacred place filled with the power of God.  The point is, both the disciples and Elijah had their lives broken open; both were pushed into a vulnerable place not of their own choosing.  Neither would say things were at all going to plan, in fact, everything was coming unraveled.  Both had to, in effect, fall on their knees and beg for God’s help.  The disciples received the response of a dramatic, not-to-be-missed explosion of the Spirit; Elijah heard the voice of the Spirit rise out of the silence.  Both had their life restored.

            I would suspect most of us are more familiar with the quieter movement of the Spirit.  While several if not many people here have had extraordinary, unusual, hard-to-explain experiences of the numinous, most of our days are filled with things to do and schedules and work and play.  Most of us dig through the very ordinary soil of loss and grief, struggle and heartache in search of a seed of life, a sign of promise. 

            That’s where Pentecost finds us - as we’re digging through our days and have dirt under our nails.  The Spirit of Pentecost can work in quieter ways, in gradual integration and awakening, like the slow ripening of fruit, like the unrushed bloom of a flower.  We may think nothing is happening.  We may think Pentecost has completely passed us by…again.  While in truth the Spirit slowly works within. 

            We may be ready to give up.  We may be ready to throw in the towel.  After all, we’re surrounded by a business and scientific community that shouts in repeated chorus, “I want to see results!”  “I want to see proof!”  “Show me the profit margin of this last quarter!”

            Well, the ways of the world are not the ways of God.  The sooner we take that to heart, the more we’ll be able to trust a God whose ways are not our ways.  When it comes to Pentecost - either kind, the dramatic or the quiet - one thing is for sure, our ego is not in control.  We don’t dictate the circumstances or set the schedule.  All we do is fertilize the soil and give the seeds enough water and allow grace to do its work.

            As an undergraduate in university I remember hearing some good advice that came from our Eastern spiritual neighbors.  I was a young man quick to compare myself with others just to see how I was doing.  Though filled with youth, I yearned for the spiritual maturity of a sage, rather than the neophyte I was.  So I had to smile with recognition when I heard a tease that came from the Taoist tradition, “A person impatient with the work of the Spirit (Tao) is like a farmer who goes out to his field cloaked by the dark of night to tug gently on his plants to get them to grow faster.”  All these years later I return to this image of a farmer sneaking out at night to tug on his plants, and I’m reminded to trust - the plants will grow in nature’s good time. 

            We can’t measure the work of the Spirit, how far we’ve come or how far we’ve fallen behind.  I believe the life of the Spirit is not all that different from the children’s game Snakes and Ladders.  Do you remember playing that?  My girls are too old for it now, but I spent a spate of evenings on our living room floor playing Snakes and Ladders.  The game is brilliantly devised so that just as you think you’re pulling way ahead, just as you think you’re going to win and you have this game in hand, you hit a snake and slip-slide way back.  Or, the reverse: just as you think you have no hope, you’re going to lose, you’re going to finish dead last, you land on a ladder, and get a huge boost forward. 

            What a great illustration of life.  Just when we congratulate ourselves for pulling ahead, something happens and we slide back; and just when we find ourselves falling way behind and feeling desperate, we get a boost forward.  So the Zen master will say, “Hoe your own row.”  Don’t worry about whether the person in the row next to you is hoeing faster or slower than you.  Just hoe your own row.  Pay attention to your task at hand.  Trust the slow, quiet work of the Spirit that may be entirely hidden from you at this moment.  But one day, without your noticing, without fanfare, you may find anxieties receding into the background, the return of hope, a sense of freedom, or, because of your own challenges and flaws, increased patience and compassion for other flawed human beings.

            The Pentecost we usually talk about is big and bold, impossible to miss, though easy enough for the skeptic to dismiss.  The Pentecost we usually talk about is unnerving and disturbing to our normal routine, it lifts us out of our ordinary circumstance and in that moment changes how we see the world.  Though it’s most often a dramatic, once-in-a-lifetime event, it usually stays with us our whole life long.

            The other Pentecost, the quiet one, is the slow work of healing, the unpretentious work of a quiet Spirit that restores life. 

            Either way, Pentecost is about life restored.  It’s about breaking through barriers that divide us from each other and from God.  It’s about connection. 

Either way, the big, bold or the quiet Pentecost is a movement that brings us together, because we’re in touch with something authentic, genuine and real.  When we live from that place, others sense it.  And even if they speak a foreign tongue and come from a different place, even if they’re Parthians, Medes or Elamites, somehow we find we’re speaking the same language.  In the Spirit of Pentecost, at a gut level, we can understand each other.  When we’re made vulnerable, when we’re open and willing to risk lowering some of our defenses that protect us but also keep us from each other, in that eye to eye contact, we know we’re in the presence of something real, and sacred.

            Whether Pentecost reaches you in tongues of fire and spills you onto the street, or in the ordinary quiet of your day, may you trust the work of the Spirit.  It brings us all to life.  Amen.

Pastoral Prayer

            Take a moment to soak in the silence - oasis - just be - relax and settle…

To stay still long enough to allow God to find you…

            God of wind and fire, God of quiet splendor, if we linger in apathy, unsettle us.  If we fall into a placid disposition, disturb us with your wild and holy ways.  Move us to care, we pray: to care for others, to care for the earth, to care for the well-being of our own soul.  Lift us from dark and lonely valleys that can lure us with their siren song into a settled depression.  Fill us with your grace, that your life and light flow through us freely.

This morning we pray for those who mother.  As they hold a child in their arms, as they care for a child sick, as they love the imperfect child, as they clean up after and feed and wash and kiss their child, may they more fully feel and understand the love you have for us.  And when feelings of inadequacy or feelings of guilt arise, may the mums receive support from family, friends and community that helps them walk the steep grade of parenting more appreciatively and confidently. 

            We also pray for those who would like to be mothers and are not; may they find fulfillment in other ways, and may their love be shared with many. 

            We remember those who were neglected or abused by their mother.  May their heart learn to trust enough to give and receive love through the compassionate care of others. 

            Be with those who suffer grief, depression, chronic pain, the grip of addiction.  Be with Betty McCarthy in intensive care, and with those who struggle with cancer. 

            This morning we pray for the people of Burma, who suffer not only from a horrible cyclone, but from a military junta so calloused they won’t allow international aid workers to offer assistance.  What can we do but pray?  We pray for the families of  the 60,000 who have died, for the 1 million people homeless, for those veering close to death from injuries and disease.  We pray the criminals who pose as politicians have a very short career and soon find themselves unemployed. 

            The human heart and mind can house such greatness, O God, and such evil.  You have created us with the ability to be agents of your compassion and missionaries of your blessing, yet so often we ignore this gift and allow our heart to become hardened to stone, our mind to become dull to suffering. 

            Calm the fear in us that drives us to destruction; straighten the desire in us that is self-centered, that we increasingly desire what is life-giving for all. 

            These spoken prayers and all the whispered prayers of our heart we lift up to you, O God, trusting that your Spirit intercedes on our behalf with sighs too great for words.  Bless us this day, as we sing the ancient prayer of our tradition…