Wild Goose Chase

Scripture Reading

New Revised Standard Version: Updated Edition Acts 2

2 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 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. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

5 Now there were devout Jews from every people under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

Peter Addresses the Crowd

14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Fellow Jews and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15 Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 16 No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

17 ‘In the last days it will be, God declares,

that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,

and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

and your young men shall see visions,

and your old men shall dream dreams.

18 Even upon my slaves, both men and women,

in those days I will pour out my Spirit,

and they shall prophesy.

19 And I will show portents in the heaven above

and signs on the earth below,

blood, and fire, and smoky mist.

20 The sun shall be turned to darkness

and the moon to blood,

before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.

21 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

Kids to the Knowing Place

Introduction: Gus and Gertie

Some of you know, we have a pair of geese that have been hanging out around the grounds here at Beulah.

In true ironic fashion, I had been planning for a few weeks to use them as an illustration in this sermon, and then this week they seem to have disappeared.

I’ve literally been on a wild goose chase this week, trying to find a picture of our beloved geese.

But, they do that. They’ll be back!

Stephanie in our office has taken to naming them Gus and Gertie, and I couldn’t love that any more.

A few weeks ago at the nine o’clock service, Gus actually interrupted my preaching.

I don’t know if you all heard him, but he flew right over head, and honked the whole way from the back of the sanctuary to the front.

It felt to me like he was honking “Amen!”, but we’ll never know really, will we?

Believe it or not, Gus and Gertie have a lot to say about our topic today!

Today is Pentecost, and so we’re talking about

The Holy Spirit

For most of us, the symbol that the church has most closely associated with the Holy Spirit has been the Dove.

Matthew 3:16 “And when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him and he saw God’s Spirit descending like a dove and alighting on him.”

The Dove-

Docile

Doves are calm, always cooing, always looking a bit serene.

Peaceful

A dove is literally a symbol of peace.

Just about the whole world over, when you see a dove with an olive branch in its mouth (another biblical illusion), it’s a symbol for the end of conflict.

Calm

This symbol of the Spirit is meant to evoke calm feelings, prayerful moments, and God’s quiet reassurance in our lives.

And all of that is good!

However, I am just Irish enough to be able to celebrate Saint Patrick’s day when it rolls around, and my ancestors saw the Spirit a little bit differently.

Celtic Christians- The Wild Goose

The Celtic Christians have always seen our friends Gus and Gertie as the ultimate symbol of the Holy Spirit in the world.

I told you he was honking “Amen!”

Predictably Unpredictable

Geese follow a really predictable migration pattern, and yet they don’t keep to a schedule.

Gus and Gertie are nesting here on the grounds because geese have been nesting on these grounds for generations.

And yet, they’re not here this week!

They go where they want, when they want, how they want.

There’s no telling a wild goose what it’s plans are.

Aggressive

Ever hear a goose hiss?

I’ll be honest, every time I’m coming in to the building and Gus and Gertie are feeding by the door I’m walking in, I talk to them as I pass.

Not because I’m crazy or anything...

But because I know that if they feel like they’re getting snuck up on, Geese can be nasty!

I don’t want them to mistake me for some kind of predator, because they can be really aggressive when they want to.

Noisy

A friend of mine actually a while back got me in to waterfowl hunting.

Don’t worry, with me in the blind the birds were never in any serious danger.

But one of the things we like best about geese is that when they’re flying, they’re honking.

It’s not often that a goose sneaks up on you.

They make tons of noise wherever they go.

With all that in mind, I think it’s actually pretty fitting that the Celtic Christians chose this bird as a symbol for the Spirit, especially given our text this morning.

The First Pentecost

Nothing about the Spirit’s first appearance is docile

Loud wind, like a hurricane

There used to be an attraction in malls, I don’t know if they still have them.

It was this tube that you could pay $5 or something to stand in, and a huge fan above you would blow hurricane force winds for a few moments, so you could know what it was like to be in a hurricane I guess?

I did it exactly once, was completely underwhelmed, and then never bothered again.

Except! Those suckers were loud!

They made it next to impossible to enjoy your Cinnabon in peace!

Imagine that in a tiny house in the first century.

Luke (who wrote Acts as a sequel to his Gospel) says that a hurricane force wind started blowing in the house.

I bet that grabs your attention!

Or at least if that didn’t, the next part would for sure!

Tongues of Fire

I love trying to look through Presbyterian art at the picture of Pentecost.

So many paintings and images have these peaceful guys with little pilot lights above their head.

If a bit of flame showed up above my head right now, even like a candle sized flame, we’d all call the fire department, right?

But then, chaos.

Speaking every language at the same time.

This Holy Spirit love riot spills out on to the streets.

Jerusalem at this point in time is a central hub in the world, where people from just about every nation around had gathered.

And everyone can hear the disciples speaking in their own language.

And between that, the wind, and the fire, the crowd has one of two reactions:

Two Reactions:

Amazed and Perplexed

Some are overwhelmed at the moment, trying to soak it all in.

Some are convinced that God is up to something.

Some are trying to make sense of this brand new thing that’s happening right in front of them.

But others have a slightly more rational explanation, however wrong it was:

They’re drunk!

These guys must have been hitting the wine a little bit today, and they’re going crazy!

Which, on the surface, seems a bit odd.

Drunk people usually have a hard time communicating in their own language, let alone everyone’s language!

But it does speak to the fact that when the Spirit of God is moving, there is a healthy number of people who will try to dismiss it as something else.

That’s not the Spirit of God, that’s just coincidence.

That’s not the Spirit of God, that’s just how science works.

That’s not the Spirit of God, they’re drunk.

And so, Peter stands up to address those who would dismiss them, and offers something really special!

The First Sermon

We’re not drunk! That comes later.

Sometimes I worry that my seminary professors are going to hear one of my sermons and say that I make too many jokes.

But Peter starts the very first sermon of this thing called the church with a bit of a zinger.

We’re not drunk! It’s only 9:00 AM!

The implication being “We’re not drunk! We do that later in the day!”

But more to the point, Peter wants to make sure that people aren’t outright dismissing what’s going on here.

We should have seen this coming.

Peter quotes from the prophet Joel, and in verse 17 Peter tells us that there are a few things that we should have been looking for when it comes to the Spirit.

Prophesy

So often from movies, we get the idea that Prophesy is predicting the future.

Like a prophecy about the end times or that Harry Potter is the chosen one or something like that.

But the Greek word literally translates “To reveal something.”

It’s like if you ever went to a statue unveiling.

There’s something under that sheet.

You might even be able to pick out a rough shape, kind of sort of guess what it looks like.

But it’s only when the sheet is removed that you fully see what’s going on.

The prophets are busy pulling the sheets away from God’s world.

The things that we have managed to cover up with our own hubris,

the beauty of the world that has been covered by our own greed,

the love of God that has been covered up by our own sin

that’s what the prophets are revealing.

And that used to be the work of very specific people.

A prophet was an office, a vocation, something that only a select group could do.

Joel and Peter both are telling us that now, in the age of the Spirit, that’s everyone’s job.

Your sons and your daughters, they will prophesy.

Visions

Young people will see visions.

Specifically here the Greek word refers to a transcendent sight, seeing the world above our own.

The Spirit comes along and allows the young people among us to start telling us what heaven could look like in the here and now.

And look, as a former youth pastor, and someone who very much supports children and youth ministry here at Beulah, our young people have, do, and will see visions.

Young people will tell us not about the world as it is, but about the world as it could be.

Young people will tell us about how the Kingdom of Heaven is breaking in to our world in the here and now.

Young people will tell us what they’re seeing, and how it’s different than what we’re seeing.

And a church that believes in the Spirit, we ought to listen when we speak.

If we take the Spirit seriously, when young people start telling us how they see the world we ought to pull up a chair.

If we take the Spirit seriously, we ought to be about creating a space for young people not purely for their benefit, but for ours.

If we take the Spirit seriously, we ought to listen to the visions that they are casting about the future of the church.

But don’t worry. The young people aren’t alone in this.

Dream Dreams

Old folks are going to dream dreams.

I tried to come up with some super hidden Greek meaning behind the word dream, but…it just means dream.

Still though...

Older folks often times have a reputation for just coasting.

Coasting toward retirement.

Coasting toward relaxation.

Coasting toward their heavenly reunion with God.

And if you take the Spirit seriously, Peter and Joel say, there’s no coasting allowed!

Older folks are going to have dreams for what tomorrow is going to look like.

Older folks are going to have a role to play in making those dreams come true.

Older folks are going to be interested in seeing the Spirit take flight in the here and now.

To be bold enough to dream is to insist that your best days are ahead of you, rather than behind.

To dream a dream is to insist that tomorrow is going to be better than today.

All you have to do is call out.

Peter ends this section of the sermon (he goes on for quite a while actually…) with the most perfect line:

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Once again, I tried my very best to come up with some deep dive Greek meaning here, but the word “Everyone” literally means...”everyone.”

Jesus is not an exclusive club for the select few.

Jesus is not only for those folks who look, think, act, and love like us.

Jesus is not something for any particular group of people to grab hold of and claim as their own.

Jesus is for everyone, everywhere, every time, always.

And if in the power of the Spirit you call out for Jesus, he’s there for you.

No questions asked.

What should we do today?

This isn’t crazy!

I meet with a group of friends every Sunday night for a Bible study and prayer group.

One of the members of our group for the first couple of years we met was struggling with breast cancer.

We would get together each week and pray over her and for her.

And when those prayers were answered, when she felt calm, or took a big step in her recovery, or sensed the presence of God, she would come back to us and report on what happened.

And she would begin each of those little reports the same way:

This is going to sound crazy, but...

So we made a rule in our Bible study that I think ought to be a rule for us as a church:

It isn’t crazy.

It isn’t crazy when the Spirit shows up in your life in a powerful way.

It isn’t crazy when something mystical and spiritual happens to you that feels beyond our normal explanations.

It isn’t crazy when our prayers are answered.

And it isn’t crazy when we feel called to pray for big things.

In our post-enlightenment, rationality driven world, we have to be careful that we’re not part of the crowd dismissing the actions of the Spirit as New Wine at nine am.

To be sure, we can stand amazed and perplexed!

But it isn’t crazy.

Wild Goose Chase

If the Wild Goose Holy Spirit is showing us where we can find Him, I want to chase Him!

Prophesy

I want everyone, not just fancy pastor types, to be able to reveal what’s really going on in the world.

I want everyone to be able to tell me where they see God moving.

I want everyone to be able to point at the evidence of God in our midst.

I want everyone to be able to reveal the truth about our loving God.

Chase Visions

I want to sit down and listen to our young people.

I want to seek out the wisdom that only children can provide.

I want to put myself in situations where teenagers can tell me how the world ought to be.

And then I want to take them seriously enough to do something about it.

Bold Enough to Dream Dreams

I want to be bold enough to insist that my best days are ahead of me.

I want to dream big dreams for my life.

I want to dream big dreams for my church!

I want to imagine what the Spirit could do around here if we let it loose.

I want to see those days with my own eyes.

I want to be bold enough to go on a Wild Goose Chase, to seek after prophesy and visions and dreams in this place.

Do you want to join me on that?

Call on the name of the Lord.

One of the best things that the Spirit gives us the ability to do is call upon the name of our Lord Jesus.

The Holy Spirit allows us to experience the salvation of Christ.

The Holy Spirit gives us the ability to cry out from our own failures and find the forgiveness that Christ offers.

The Holy Spirit hears our prayers, even when we don’t know what we’re praying for, and offers them to Christ on our behalf.

All we have to do is call out.

Yes, the Spirit is a bit chaotic.

The Spirit is noisy.

The Spirit is predictably unpredictable.

The Spirit can be aggressive.

The Spirit can seem crazy in our world.

But the Spirit is worth the chase.

Who’s with me?