St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church, Owings Mills MD
May 19, 2024
Year B: The Day of Pentecost
Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104:25-35, 37
Romans 8:22-27
John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15
Propelling Us from Fear to Faith
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
It’s hard to believe, but it’s been fifty days already since Easter Day.
Fifty days since Charlotte and her daughter Rose were baptized together, one of the all-time most joyful baptisms, for sure.
Fifty days since our church was packed with people – people we see all the time, people we don’t see very often, and people we’ve never seen before – all here to celebrate the best news ever – that death has been defeated forever – that new life has dawned:
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
And so, for the past fifty days, we’ve been reflecting on the Resurrection, thinking about what this New Life means for us, individually, and together as a community.
And lately I’ve been wondering… what do you make of all this?
I can’t see inside your hearts – I can’t read your minds.
Well, not usually, anyway!
So, what do you make of all this?
Is it just a fanciful story cooked up by people who couldn’t or wouldn’t accept that Jesus had been killed?
Or maybe it’s all a metaphor? Not something rooted in historical experience but a tale that points to deeper truths: that God is always creating new life – the new life we see in nature, especially this time of year – the new life that we experience in our own lives.
I don’t know what you make of all this.
But I’ll tell you what strengthens my faith.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, if I were writing the Easter story, the Risen Jesus would no longer bear the wounds of the Cross.
They would have been wonderfully erased.
A much better look, I think, right?
But that’s not how the story goes.
The truth is that the Risen Jesus continues to carry the scars of suffering into his new life, still bears his wounds, even in heaven.
That feels true to me because it matches my experience, our experiences.
With God’s help, we move forward into new life. But the scars remain, reminding us of what we have endured, reminding us of strength that we might not have even known we have, reminding us of how far we have come.
Another thing that feels very true to me is that, as usual, the disciples are a mess.
Again, not the way I would’ve written the story.
I would have made the disciples heroes, overjoyed by the best news of all time. Once they had seen the Risen Jesus, they would now have more than enough courage to get out into the world and spread the word.
But that’s not how it went down.
Instead, as we’ve heard during the Easter Season, the disciples are still fearful and confused, they don’t always recognize Jesus, and at least one doubts that any good news is possible.
And in today’s first lesson from the Acts of the Apostles, the disciples are still together, still in one place, waiting – waiting for the strength and courage, at last, to get out of the house and into the world.
And today we remember what – or, rather, Who – gives them that strength and courage.
On the first Pentecost, the disciples received the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit is like a gust of wind, like tongues of flame.
And the Spirit propelled the disciples out into the world, able to share the Good News in ways so that everyone could understand, so fired up that people thought they must have been day-drinking, setting off a wave of love that would eventually crest all around the world.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
So, I don’t know what you make of all this.
But what I know is that a group of frightened and confused people with not the best track record were transformed into bold messengers, risking and, in many cases, sacrificing, their lives to let people know about Jesus.
I don’t think that “just happened.”
No, that’s the power of the Holy Spirit.
Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about the power of the Holy Spirit, and not just because I knew we would be celebrating Pentecost today.
First, as some of you know, it was my birthday the other day.
And, especially as the years start to pile up, birthdays get me thinking about the improbable journey that I’ve been on, all the unexpected twists and turns that have brought me to this point, to this place.
So, I was already in a reflective mood when we had a couple of unexpected guests at last week’s 10:00 service:
Althea Maynard and her daughter Patrice (and later they were joined by other family members).
I had no idea they would be here.
It was a wonderful surprise.
The Maynard Family have been pillars of our former church, St. Paul’s in Jersey City, for decades.
Althea has served in just about every leadership role at the church, from Senior Warden to running the summer camp.
Patrice grew up at St. Paul’s and when I was Rector she was Senior Warden, certainly the youngest one in the Diocese of Newark at that time, and maybe ever.
Sue and I were members of St. Paul’s long before I was ordained, so we’ve known Althea and Patrice and their family for about 25 years – that’s a lot of history – we’ve been through funerals and baptisms, death and life, together.
Thinking about Althea and Patrice and our long history together, I remembered something – a particular event – that I haven’t thought about in years.
After Sue and I had been members at St. Paul’s for a while, I began to sense a call to the priesthood. I had thought about that when I was younger, but it just hadn’t felt right somehow.
But I came to believe that maybe I was being called now.
It was hard to know for sure, though, because I certainly liked being a teacher and I enjoyed teaching at my alma mater with a lot of good friends.
Following this call would be inconvenient and risky, it would mean leaving the classroom where I taught and going to seminary, becoming a student again.
Plus, the road to ordination is long and winding with lots of tests and requirements and hurdles.
One Saturday morning, I had to head out to the diocesan headquarters in Newark for a conference where I would be asked lots of rather personal questions about my spiritual life, my sense of call to the priesthood. And then the people asking those questions would make a recommendation about me to the bishop:
Yes, No, or Not Yet.
So, early on that morning, I went to the station to take the short train ride between Jersey City and Newark.
I’m always early for everything, especially big stuff like this, so it must have been pretty early in the morning.
As I came down the escalator, my stomach churning with nerves and uncertainty, I looked across the nearly deserted platform and who happened to be standing there but Althea and Patrice.
I don’t know why they were there so early. They certainly didn’t know they would run into me. But just seeing my fellow parishioners, my friends, who had been so supportive of me calmed me down, settled my stomach, gave me the sense that I was on the right track, that God was with me, no matter what.
That morning on the train platform, there was no gust of wind and no tongues like flame, but I could feel the power of the Holy Spirit, propelling me forward, from fear to faith, forward to that conference in Newark, forward to seminary and ordination, forward, eventually, to be here with all of you.
The power of the Holy Spirit.
And now, after fifty Alleluia-filled days, the Easter Season draws to a close.
But the power of the Holy Spirit continues gusting through this old holy place.
We’ll feel the power of the Holy Spirit this afternoon when nine of our parishioners are confirmed by Bishop Carrie.
We feel the power of the Holy Spirit strengthening our bonds to each other, drawing new people to our community and holding us close to those we see no longer.
We feel the Holy Spirit giving us strength to take on new work, forming new partnerships with our neighbors.
We feel the Holy Spirit comforting us as we grieve who and what we’ve lost, as we nurse our wounds and carry our scars, and as we face a future yet unwritten.
I don’t know what you make of all this, but I hope that you can feel it.
I hope that you can feel the power of the Holy Spirit, propelling us forward, propelling from fear to faith.
Alleluia! Christ is risen!
The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
Amen.
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