Sermon for 5/23

May the words my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you O Lord, our strength, and our redeemer. Amen

Today, obviously, is Pentecost Sunday. We see red paraments, a lot of you are wearing red. We celebrate Pentecost fifty days after Easter. We celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on this day. Sometimes we even say this is the anniversary of the church. We celebrate the fact that we, too, that we have been visited by this same Holy Spirit.

As you know, Luke wrote a continuation of his gospel a book that is known as the Acts of the Apostles. It probably should more correctly be called “The Acts of the Holy Spirit.” That describes more accurately the actions in the book. It’s about the Holy Spirit working in and through the lives of the men and women we read about in this book.
If we take a look at the first two hymns today, we get the idea that the Holy Spirit is a calming, soothing Spirit. We rely on it when things get hectic, and we need to slow down. We get that from a lot of hymns about the Holy Spirit. And it certainly can be and is a calming Spirit.

Luke describes that fateful day as suddenly from heaven there came from heaven a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. That sounds more like the Sending Hymn: “God of tempest, God of whirlwind, as on Pentecost descend! Drive us out from sheltered comfort: past these walls your people send!”

There was a story of a man, his wife, and three children. He was a cotton farmer. He worked at the local cotton mill and tended to the fields in the afternoons after work and on Saturdays. After the children were old enough, his wife took on a job at the mill, but they still grew cotton. It was the children’s job, after they got home from school, to do the chores. The man and his wife went to work early; they had leave about 6:30 and would get home about 3:30. During the summer, this left the children home by them-selves to get their own breakfast and lunch and to get finished with the list of chores on the list that was always left on the kitchen table.

The children would look at the list when they got up, figure out how much time it would take to finish it and wait until the last possible minute to begin and, of course, get finished just in the nick of time.

On this particular day, the job was to begin hoeing the cotton. It was about 11:00 and the children were sitting around drinking Kool Aid and watching the Cisco Kid and Hopalong Cassidy on the TV. Well, Mama had gotten sick at work and came home early. She saw no one in the field and as she entered the back door she grabbed the fly swatter and began clearing house—literally. She had come in like a whirlwind swinging that fly swatter chasing after the children as they made their quick exit outside. They ran in all different directions, but it seemed like she was behind each one of them, barely missing the child in front with her swings.

We can imagine the disciples, all gathered into one place, cooling it, looking out the window at the crowded street. And suddenly that whirl wind came and drove them out into the streets in all kinds of directions. The Holy Spirit had given them a job, the ability to do it, and then drove them out into the street so that they could get busy doing the job.

On this day, the Holy Spirit is more like an angry mama than a sweet baby or dove or gentle breeze. We remember that at the Ascension, Jesus had given the disciples the Great Commission—to go and make disciples of all nations. And so far, the church had about 120 members.

On this Pentecost day, after the Holy Spirit got the disciples out into the streets, Luke records that about 3000 were added. That is a day’s work! With the Holy Spirit driving them, they increased their membership 25 times. See what happens when the Holy Spirit gets involved.

What is that telling us? What is that telling us now in 2021, hopefully and prayerfully coming out of a pandemic? What are we imagining what church looks like now and what are the possibilities of reaching out to those who maybe have discovered that they now need more in life? What does it mean to us who are gathered in one room wondering what’s next?

Now is the time to pick up where we left off just over a year ago. Now is the time to regain that momentum and enthusiasm we had when attendance was climbing each Sunday. Now is the time to regain that joy of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ. And the Holy Spirit is after us like Mama is with the fly swatter. The Holy Spirit is after us to get out into the world and witness to others God’s mercy, love and grace. It’s after us to show and tell how all this works through God in Jesus Christ. It’s about living the life to which the Holy Spirit is calling us to live. We all know who needs the love of God. So now we allow the Holy Spirit to guide and direct us to proclaim the good news.

So the question now is: Are we going to go voluntarily, or is Mama Spirit going to have to make us go?