Astonishing
Acts 2:1-21; Psalm
104:24-34[1]
I don’t know about you, but I’d
say that my experience with 2020 so far has been anything but “normal.” I lost
a mother and gained a granddaughter. I’ve worn a mask over my face and nose in
public places. As many of us have reflected, it feels like our lives have been
completely upended. Of course, much of this is due to the Covid-19 pandemic. My
son Derek and his wife have a collaborative game called “Pandemic.” The idea is
that if you stop the pandemic, everybody wins. If you don’t, everybody loses.
What a concept. It’s been an astonishing year, to say the least.
I find the language that our
insurance companies use for astonishing events somewhat ironic: they call them
“Acts of God.” Hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and earthquakes, are “Acts of
God” that insurance providers may exclude from your coverage. Of course, there
was a time when people believed these unprecedented catastrophes truly did come
from God. There are some who still do. But now we can explain their natural
causes. Much of what at one time would have been attributed to some mysterious
“act of God” now has a completely rational explanation.
This also applies to the way we view
our faith. One of the traits of our branch of the Christian family is an
approach that seeks to explain all things spiritual in terms that everyone can
understand. That’s why the sermon became the focus for Christian worship
instead of the Communion table. In the Catholic Church, the whole point of the
service is the miracle by which the bread and wine become Jesus’ own body and
blood. It is a great mystery, not to be explained, but to be experienced. In our
Reformed churches, however, the point of worship is to explain the faith
reasonably.
In our lesson from Acts, which tells
the story of the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, the response
of the people who witnessed it was not one of calm, reasonable understanding,
but rather they were “bewildered,” “amazed and astonished,” and “perplexed”
(Acts 2:6 ,7, 12). This event, which I would consider a real “Act of God,” was
beyond their ability to comprehend or explain. It left them in a state of
confusion, as the lesson puts it: “All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one
another, ‘What does this mean?’” (Acts 2:12).
Most of us don’t like what we
can’t understand. We feel uncomfortable with confusion. And so some may also
insist that the “miracle” of Pentecost was that the language of the Apostles
was fully intelligible to people of many different dialects. This is one of the
many ways we try to keep God firmly within the box of what we can explain. Unfortunately,
that kind of faith doesn’t have the power to motivate us to live for the peace
and justice and freedom of God’s Kingdom in a world that is so unfree and
unjust.
When the Spirit comes, really
comes, everything changes. We can’t remain in our comfortable ruts because the
Spirit won’t let us! One of the questions I’ve received from the congregation
is about the role of the Spirit in our lives. The Spirit brings the word of
Scripture to life so that it calls forth our faith and love. The Spirit works
in our lives constantly to shape us into the image of Christ. The Spirit
empowers every aspect of our lives as Christians and everything we do as the
Body of Christ. The Spirit teaches us, convicts us, equips us with gifts, calls
us, and perhaps most importantly, pushes us out of our comfortable ruts. When
the Spirit really comes to work in our lives, we should expect it to be
astonishing.
I would have to say that one of
the lessons of Pentecost is that when “God happens,” it will be something
astonishing, like Pentecost itself. If we want to see God at work in our midst,
we need to be prepared for some amazement, some confusion, something beyond our
understanding. If we want our faith to make a difference in the way we live, if
we want our church to be alive with the power of the Spirit, we have to expect
that it will only happen to the extent that the God of Pentecost comes to us
and shakes things up and blows things around.[2]
And when that happens, we should expect to be astonished!
[1] ©Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm,
Ph. D., on 5/31/2020 at Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
[2] Cf.
Leonora Tubbs Tisdale, “The Wind that Blows the Doors Off,” Journal for Preachers 26 no 4 (Pentecost
2003): 56, where she says, because of “This wild Spirit wind of God … everyone
in that room who thought they had God all figured out and safely circumscribed
in their neat and orderly theological boxes, saw the doors of those boxes
completely blown off.”
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