“Kindred
Spirit/s: But If 2 & 2 & 50 Make a ‘Millions’ . . .”
We want to thank the city for such a
scintillating simulation of the first Pentecost weekend -- when thousands
got the Holy Ghost and leapt, kayaks and all, into the bracing waters of
baptism and the swirling birth of the church! It’s likely to be “that kind
of summer” for us as we proudly proceed to become what the paper calls
“America’s Adventure Place.” It is a wonder this ancient Spirit-led body we
are remains so alive and well, at work and at play for Jesus in downtown
Reno! The Spirit makes us all kin, all related in Christ and connected to
faith-promise, faith-people everywhere -- every class, color, condition,
nation, and tongue. The equally ageless spirit Pete Seeger sings the song,
“Just my hands can’t tear a prison down / Just your hands can’t tear a
prison down / But if two & two & fifty make a million / We’ll see that day
come round / We’ll see that day come round.”
The verses continue, ”Just my hands can’t
build a bridge of peace,” “Just my strength can’t ban the atom bomb,” “Just
my heart can’t turn this world to love,” “Just my eyes can’t see the way
ahead, -- with as many new ones as we’d like to add! I changed “million” to
“Millions” in my title to make mention of the unusual film still showing in
town. We are so preoccupied as a culture with death and disaster, evil
spirits and leavings behind. This film through the eyes of a child who just
wants to trust life and do good in the world is filled with the spirits of
approachable saints, an awe-inspired Christmas pageant, and just enough of a
vulnerable villain and special effects to keep things moving. What a
privilege to offer our children alternative living presents and futures for
them to invest in!
Pentecost is God’s version of the end of
the world. The Spirit comes as the very and powerful presence of the absent
Jesus -- again, alive and well, at work and at play in our lives and the
life of his body the church of every way, shape, and form in the world. The
Spirit comes to challenge us always to choose between giving up on this
world, or giving life to this world. Giving up on this world, or giving
life to this world. No other world, no other life is coming save what we
make of them now -- beginning each one by ourselves, baptized and called,
but spreading like wind and fire, till “If two & two & fifty make a million
/ We’ll see that day come round / We’ll see that day come round.” This is
the fiftieth day, the Jubilee Day of Easter! All is forgiven, all is made
new – on earth as it is in heaven! The story says, “Suddenly from heaven
there came!” There came a “new creation,” and every thing we need to see
and hear and say and do “earth” in a brand-new way! Suddenly out of the one
word comes every language!
Every one of every age finds their own
vision and voice, dreams their own dreams, proclaims them and acts them
out! Even to “the ends of the earth.” The Spirit pours pure gifts of grace
upon everyone! God no make no junk of us! “To each is given the
manifestation of the Spirit for the common good!” The Spirit gives wisdom!
The Spirit gives knowledge! The Spirit gives faith! The Spirit gives
healing! The Spirit gives miracle-working! The Spirit gives
prophecy-speaking! The Spirit gives discernment for finding the Spirit of
Jesus in our own spirits! The Spirit gives language, gives all kinds of
tongues, but also translation and interpretation! What an endless
excitement of earthly enthusiasm!
Jew, Greek, slave, free, male, female,
young, old, gay, straight, biological, adopted, red, brown, yellow, black
or white – all precious in God’s Spirit-sight! Religion professor Gail
Ramshaw encourages us to acknowledge, “One could trace the history of the
church by following the ecclesiastical discussion concerning whether God’s
Spirit is operative among the Gentiles, women, people with dark skin,
children, homosexuals, the faithful of other religions, now even the animal
kingdom. Throughout our debates, as the Hebrew and Greek nouns [ruah
and pneuma] remind us, God’s Spirit blows where it will. The divine
Spirit is a mysterious wind, which we realize without seeing, which we honor
without understanding. The good news is that the Spirit of God is always
higher, always lower, more powerful and pervasive, than we have yet imagined
it to be.”
On the other hand, the New York Times
reports, on the investigation into proselytizing of students at the Air
Force Academy, “The Air Force’s chief chaplain expressed displeasure at the
object lessons dramatized in a multi-denominational educational video tape.
‘Why is it that the Christians never win?’ the chief, Major General Charles
Baldwin, demanded to know after watching the give-and-take of instructional
encounters. General Baldwin had segments cut out on such non-Christian
religions as Buddhism, Judaism and Native American spirituality.” The
chaplain who showed these interfaith tapes to students, a woman, is
reportedly relieved of that duty. Is there some “other” (ether?) world to
live in today? Or is this only world where the Spirit’s action is and will
be forever?
It does not matter what story we tell
ourselves of instant or insistent access to heaven as some other and
deathless realm of our lives. Those whom we call “fundamentalists” of any
faith tradition seem to end up more willing to act with reckless abandon
toward the lives and resources of earth -- out of self-serving assurance
that they are not made and meant for this world but for some other? The
“Rapture” by whatever name denies ourselves, one another, the church, and
the Spirit of Jesus all over this earth. Katha Pollitt finds the “life of
Rapture” in some other world to be like a let-down left-out version of the
“life of Riley,” as she puts it in this poem called “Rapture” from last
week’s New Yorker –
It is just as they knew it would be:
/ the proof / of their rightness spread around them / like grass or
sidewalks
among the bland custardy palaces /
and picnic tables / of their reward. The air
smells of children and coconuts.
Truth / blares from every station on the dial.
Do they miss the dogs, the black /
squelch of November, bittersweet
wringing its red hands? Are they
saddened
to meet an old love without pain /
in the gilded silent grove
that lately, come to think of it, /
has been looking rather dusty,
and where less and less often they
feel someone watching?
The angels are kind, like waiters,
but not very talkative.
No wonder they gather, like exiles /
straining toward faint reports
Crackling up from below -- / war,
disaster, stars plunging into the sea.
God, it appears, is elsewhere, even
here.
God, it appears, is elsewhere, even
here. Is that why we are asked on resurrection morning whether we seek the
living among the dead?! Is Jesus always risen? Always “not here?” Always
not any one place or time, among any one people very long? But always going
before us! Always heading out on his own, the cutting edge, making a way
out of no way! Calling us to come out, come out, wherever we are, wherever
we are -- in bondage to Egypt, or dead in the tomb -- to follow him! This
rebirth of the earth from above this day – this “new creation,” this
“second coming,” this “always coming” of Jesus, again and again, every day
in every way -- is a coming in Spirit we can no more capture, conquer,
contain, or control than we can the wind or the fire! Our culture can so
exploit Christmas and Easter, first legs on the journey to Trinity next
Sunday. but it has not a clue to Pentecost! Do we? Only the very Creator
of All can make and can keep such a day! Who on earth are we to limit the
work of this day?
I want to address us all -- members and
friends of this particular Spirit-filled body of Christ called Reno’s FUMC –
by addressing those who are joining the church today: Welcome to the
kayaking ride of your lives! We promise you will go under any number of
times -- with us and even without us. We also promise with God it always is
possible to come back up at least one more time than we go down – Can I get
a witness?! We invite you to look at yourselves, in the context of looking
at us, both as we are and as we are becoming! What an unlikely kinship!
Only a loving, and fun-loving, Spirit could join such a mixture together! It
may take a little longer for some of us to figure it out about each other,
but the Spirit of God is in each of us! Each of us is given one or more
gifts of the Spirit for this congregation, for this community, and for this
whole world and creation itself. (Come watch the PBS film called “The
Congregation” after worship next Sunday!)
Thanks to Val Chappel, I am working
toward a speech to the Reconciling Ministries luncheon Saturday, June 18, at
Annual Conference in Sacramento. I’d love for some us to attend. I had to
submit this title in advance – “If Everybody Is Somebody Then Anybody Can
Be!” Now I’d like help to know what it means and where to take it from
there! All I know is the body-filling, heart-warming, mind-boggling,
spirit-turning power and promise of this day! By our baptisms -- not only
once and forever with water as John baptizes, but also again and again with
fire and spirit as Jesus baptizes -- we now embody the very Spirit that
Jesus embodies! The Spirit of whom we call the Christ, the Messiah!
Because we believe, and even act like we believe, that with God even here,
even now all good things are possible for all peoples! This day Jesus gives
us his very own world-changing kinship to God! Just my hand can’t share the
gift of life. Just your hands can’t share the gift of life. “But if two &
two & fifty make a million, we’ll see that day come round. We’ll see that
day come round. Amen.
Rev. John J. Auer
