The Rev. Robert Lundquist Pentecost A 5/15/05 St Paul’s, Ft Collins

St George’s Episcopal Church, in Arlington, Virginia, is where I grew up. My grandparents and parents have always been active in the ministry there, and it’s where I was both baptized and confirmed. It’s been 25 years since I was a member there, but of course I continue to stay in touch, mostly through my parents. When I was growing up St George’s was a suburban parish in a residential neighborhood. Now it is an urban church, with a Metro stop just across the street, and a forest of high-rise offices and condos surrounding it.

A few years ago a young woman from Africa found herself in the Washington DC area on Pentecost, over the weekend before she could visit the Immigration office to complete her paperwork. She felt very alone in this strange city and got on the Metro to ride into Arlington. Since she was Anglican she thought to enter St George’s for services – not because she could understand the language, which she couldn’t, but because she felt a deep need to be with people of faith celebrating Holy Eucharist. St George’s has a tradition, as we did today, of having Scripture read in different languages, reminding all of the many tongues that the Spirit enabled on that first Pentecost. The young woman, lost in her own thoughts and prayers, was absolutely electrified to hear Scripture in her own language! It was as if God had reached through the haze of homesickness in a strange land to touch her very heart: “I am with you.” We know this because she sought out the reader of her tongue to excitedly share her story.

Ah, the gift of tongues at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit’s empowering of the apostles to proclaim the Good News without barrier or inhibition! Remember the tale of the Tower of Babel? The sons settled in Shinar and decided to build a tower with its top in the heavens. The Lord confused their language and scattered them over the earth, so that they in their arrogance would not make themselves gods. - Online Text -

In Pentecost Babel is reversed. The obstacles to communication are swept away, and everyone hears the Good News, regardless of language or nationality. No barriers, no impediments – the Spirit is loose in the world!

The Spirit is loose:

As ruach, Hebrew for wind

As flame, tongues of which rested over the heads of the disciples

As dove, descending upon Jesus at his baptism in the Jordan River

As understanding between diverse peoples

The power of the Spirit of God is unleashed, is set free at Pentecost. It is said of Michaelangelo that, upon receiving a large block of marble for a commissioned sculpture, he sat for days staring at it, walking around it, touching it gently, caressing it. “What are you waiting for?”, his friends asked. “I’m looking for the angel that wants to come out,” he told them. God’s Holy Spirit is in you! And that Spirit wants to come out, in power and passion. You are wonderfully made in the image and likeness of God, and God’s Spirit dwells within you. Don’t be afraid to let it out.

The Spirit is, of course, part of the Trinity of God, with the Creator and the Christ. St Augustine referred to the Trinity as Lover, Beloved and Love. The Spirit of Love, binding the Lover and the Beloved together, may be seen as that which enables the openness and energy of God’s people, and at times it is subtle. I recently heard the story of the teens at the end of their first date. Standing on the porch at her front door, the young man works up his nerve, blushing and stuttering: “Can I kiss you?” She gazed into his eyes and merely smiled. “Oh, uh, sorry, I mean, may I kiss you?” Again, she silently smiled and gazed. Flustered, he blurts out, “Are you deaf?” To which the young woman replied, “Are you paralyzed?”

And I ask you, “Are you paralyzed?” Are you waiting for God to make the first move? Listen again to Paul, writing to the Christians at Corinth: There are many gifts, but one Spirit. A variety of gifts are given to the Christian community. Just like a body is apparently made of different parts, the Christian community is in fact one Body partaking of one Spirit. I am absolutely convinced, St Paul, that God gives to each community the gifts that are necessary for carrying out the ministry with which God has entrusted it. God does not leave us comfortless! That means that we have the gifts and the resources to do much more than survive, but to thrive. God has sent the Holy Spirit that we may not feel ourselves paralyzed in the face of the call upon us. Remember, we have received from the risen Christ peace, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and the power of and the warning about forgiveness.

The Holy Spirit is here, sisters and brothers. That Spirit binds us together in the Peace of Christ. That Spirit is with us as:

A wind – ruach

A Word – for all to understand

A flame – the bush in Sinai that called to Moses, the pillar of fire in the dessert leading the children of Israel, called down by Elijah upon the prophets of Baal

The Spirit is loose indeed. Are you paralyzed? I pray not. As we “go forth rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit,” let us be aware of going forth in the power of peace, in the power of forgiveness, in the power of reconciliation, in the power of the Good News. For it is God’s intent that we help change the world. “Your kingdom come, your will be done…”

Amen.

A Parish For All People!