St. Christopher's Episcopal Church: Sermons

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A Sermon Preached at St. Christopher's Episcopal Church, Oak Park, IL
on May 11, 2008, the Day of Pentecost, (Year A, RCL)
by the Rev. Paris Coffey

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 were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them ability." - Acts 2:1-4

No matter where I live, it seems I have to have a fireplace. Not when I buy a house necessarily, since none of the last three homes Michael and I have owned had one initially. They all had one, though, when we left and the home we live in now has two. All have been gas fireplaces with remote-controllable flames, allowing us to turn down the heat if it gets too hot. It's such a sensible system, and although I miss the intensity of a blazing wood fire, I confess the appeal of a warm glow that comes with no mess and little effort.

It is, I suspect, the way we want the Holy Spirit to come - if we want her to come at all. "Come and warm us up a little," we invite. "Take the chill off our heart. Put a rosy glow in our cheeks, but give us the remote so we can turn down the heat if it gets too hot. After all, we want to be comfortable, as suggested when we prayed ever so sensibly in today's opening collect, "Grant us by the Holy Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort."

What a very Episcopal prayer - even if we pray for HER comfort - and how very different from the prayer we just offered in the ancient hymn that says, "Come Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, and lighten with celestial fire." There may be some comfort in this prayer as well, but if so, it's comfort that comes not from turning down the heat but from firing up the furnace within each of us, which is exactly what the Spirit does. She lights a flame that turns fickle faith into a blaze of belief, not for our benefit alone but for the transformation of the world.

This is what the Spirit did on that first Pentecost when she lit a fire under eleven disciples that spread like wildfire, burning away barriers of language, culture and competition so that the language of love could heard. Moreover, it's what she does still, igniting the fire of God's love within each of us individually and the Church collectively so that we might live our faith with zest and commitment, doing the work of mission boldly and imaginatively.¹

Of course, many of us aren't necessarily keen on boldness - or imagination for that matter if it involves something new - preferring to do things the way we've ALWAYS done them. I discovered this when I helped found a new Episcopal Church in the southern exurbs of St. Louis. At the second service - and by this I mean the second one we'd ever held - I watched as a member of our newly formed Altar Guild rearranged the Eucharistic vessels, saying to the person in training, "No, no, dear, we always do it this way." It's a little like the joke that asks how many Episcopalians it takes to change a light bulb. There are variations on the answer but all have to do with our love of the familiar, ranging from "Change! My grandfather gave that light bulb;" to, "Five: one to swing the incense, another to carry the cross, two to hold the torches and one to change the bulb."

We Episcopalians do love a parade, especially a good orderly one that mimics tradition that's hundreds of years of old; and yet the Holy Spirit is not as orderly as we are. Indeed, she can be down right messy, chaotic even, as the Day of Pentecost reveals. As Luke writes in The Acts of the Apostles, "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."

Each year St. Christopher's tries to recreate the power of Pentecost (in our ordered Episcopal way, of course) with the rush of wind from bagpipes, the Bible read in many languages all at once, and, this year, with tongues of fire from church lamps. I'm sure it's a far cry from the event recounted in Acts, and yet the Holy Spirit is no less present with us today than she was some 2000+ years ago. Indeed the promise of Pentecost is that everyone of faith in every generation can be ignited by the Spirit for a deeper encounter with God and more powerful expression of Christian living.² I see this everyday in the stories of parishioners in the pews or strangers in the news who reveal the Spirit's presence. A particularly apt one for today, though, is the story of Mothers' Day which, coinciding with Pentecost this year, happens to be the 100th anniversary of Mother's Day in the U.S. and the 150th anniversary of its first radical roots in our country.

Just so you know, Hallmark Cards - which wasn't founded until 1910 - was NOT the movement behind Mother's Day. Rather the roots of this day began in rural West Virginia as a push for social change by 28-year-old Anna Reeves Jarvis. An Appalachian homemaker, she organized the day in 1858 to raise awareness of poor health conditions in her community. Believing this cause would find its most passionate support among mothers, she called it "Mothers Work Day." What's more, when the Civil War erupted three years later Jarvis expanded the movement to include women on both sides of the conflict, encouraging adequate care for all the wounded. Even after the war the work of these mothers continued as they sought reconciliation between Union and Confederate neighbors, work that fifteen years later inspired Boston poet and pacifist Julia Ward Howe to write a "Mothers' Day Proclamation."

Calling for peace and disarmament, this proclamation - written by the same woman who wrote the words to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" - begins, "Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: 'We will not have questions decided by irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy, and patience. We women of one country will be too tender to those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.'"

Without doubt Anna Reeves Jarvis, daughter of a Methodist minister, and Julia Ward Howe, a Unitarian who believed in "deed not creed," were on fire with the Spirit. No less important, though, is the fact that Spirit burns also in each of us. Oh, perhaps not in dramatic ways that will go down in history books, but in ways that nonetheless can change the world. In decisions, for example, to change our own lives in significant ways, in bold new steps toward commitment and generosity, in deep and loving care for others the Spirit is alive and well.³ She is alive in each of us, but equally importantly in the whole Church; and if she's not, she needs to be! After all, these are changing and challenging times for the Christian Church and so when we sing, "Come Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, and lighten with celestial fire," we pray also for the Spirit to ignite the Church's mission.

As the Rev. Dr. James B. Lemler, former Seabury Dean and Director of Mission for the Episcopal Church remind us, "Things are just not like they used to be. Neither Christianity nor any other given faith tradition is normative in American society any more. We find ourselves in serious competition with other endeavors in our daily life, yes, even soccer practice on Sunday morning. Most of Christianity is aging, and we are not successfully connecting with younger generations. Almost all of the traditional "mainline" denominations are in a gradual but continuing decline in membership. It's not a pretty picture," warns Lemler, adding that "it would be possible for all of us to glide along."⁴

"We still have enough institutional mass to continue," he says. "We can deny or avoid hard issues. We can pretend that we still have the same cultural position that we once had. Or we can be set on fire. We can pray for and claim the ignition of the Holy Spirit at this moment, in this church, in our church. We can become enflamed and inspirited in our work to serve with compassion and invite with fervor as God's people today."⁵

"It is not," Lemler insists, "a time for a tepid or tired church (but) the time for a new church, a transformed church that is a vehicle of the Spirit to transform people and, indeed, the whole world. The primary question for the Church at the beginning of the 21st century," says Lemler, "is precisely the question as it was for the Church in the Acts of the Apostles in the 1st century. Will we become alive and aflame with the Spirit of God? Will we let the Spirit of God transform us into the church of vitality and service, prayer and praise, evangelism and welcome, advocacy and witness that God intends us to be? There was no way the Church in the 1st century could do it itself, and there is no way that the Church in the 21st century can do (so either). It is the Spirit"⁶ - the blazing, wood burning, remote-control-free Spirit - and so we pray this morning for ourselves and for the Church, "Come Holy Ghost, our souls inspire, and lighten with celestial fire!"

Amen.

1. The Rev. Dr. James Lemler, "Ladies & Gentlemen, Start Your Engines," www.day1.net
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.