God’s Breath becoming Our Own

May 23, 2021 Day of Pentecost The Rev. Mark Pendleton Christ Church, Exeter God's Breath becoming Our Own There is a famous sketch from Saturday Night Live back in 2000 that features Will Farrell playing in a studio rock band when their manager, the great character actor Christopher Walken walks out and tells the band what the song really needs is more cowbell. Cowbell is not usually the preferred instrument in a rock band. The premise is absurd, which makes the whole sketch so outrageous and classic. Look it up on YouTube and see if you agree. I am not fluent in many technical musical terms, but when it comes to planning a Sunday service with Bruce Adami as our organist, I will often turn to him in a staff meeting and ask him whether his postlude will have - not more cowbell - but some "big bang boom." What I'm getting at is whether his selection after the blessing will be full, fast-past, triumphant and yes, loud. We're talking Widor, Vierne, Bach. The Feast of Pentecost is one of those "big, bang, boom" moments in the life of the early church coming 50 after the Empty Tomb and Resurrection. It changed the trajectory of the followers of Jesus. No longer were they grieving, surprised and confused: now they were thrust out into the world with a mission and energy and strength to accomplish it. We hear of the dramatic scene in Act 2: 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 of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. The event has a little of everything: sound, color, energy, and the diversity expressed through the many languages spoken by the Spirit-filled back-country Galilean disciples. It checks all the boxes of an important moment in Scripture. Many Pentecost services around the church will offer various readings of the Acts stories in the various languages: Spanish, Greek, Latin, Mandarin, Russian, and yes, I have even hear of churches that include pig-Latin, which I never quite mastered in my youth. I admit that we have been a bit scattered to have pulled off the many languages this year. Ours will be our last, we pray, service in a largely empty church. The coming of the Holy Spirit was foretold by Jesus himself when he promised to send an Advocate, or helper. We hear in the gospel John 15 Jesus saying: "Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you." Imagine how different our faith would be if the Risen Christ had continued to appear to his followers over the centuries like he did in the days after the first Easter: walking into crowded rooms, showing his wounds, meeting his followers on dusty roads as a stranger in plain sight and talking to them, meeting them on beaches to cook breakfast and re-explain all that he had said about God and the Scriptures. By ascending to heaven and by sending the Holy Spirit, Christ empowered this new community that would preach his message of a new creation and message of love and forgiveness and mercy near and far. I see this moment as Jesus lovingly nudging his children out of the nest to walk, to live, to fall, to flourish, to risk, to love and lose, with God's living breathing Spirit to guide them. There are times in all of our lives when we need to trust and put that next foot forward, not knowing where it will lead. And these are moments when knowing what the Holy Spirit does and who the Holy Spirit is can carry, guide and support us. This Spirit is God's personal presence, the breath that fills our lungs and the wind at our backs - God infused vitality and energy. And yet, always invisible to our eyes. Paul speaks to this mystery in the passage from Romans we hear this morning: For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. Romans 8:22-26 As loud as is the big, bang, boom of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit is equally quiet and hidden. This event has been described as a time of being both uprooted and deeply grounded. It both sends us out into the world and anchors us on a firm foundation. There is a story about a tanker that was beached on a shore. All day efforts had been made to return the huge vessel to the ocean, but with no success. (You may remember a similar story of a massive container ship that got wedged in the Suez Canal this past March for a week that disrupted trade around the world.) The ship's captain in this story finally told all the crews and companies to stop; he went to his cabin and waited. When the tide came in that night the waters lifted the thousand-ton tanker off the beach and carried it back into the deep. This Advocate and Helper that Jesus sends can help us wait out those dry periods when we too feel as if we have washed upon the shore and are stuck in the sand. Getting unstuck is spiritually as hard as climbing mountains - just moving a few feet forward can be a great effort. I came across an explanation for an adage I'd always heard. It's called the first law of holes. The adage goes: "if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging". Crisis managers and spiritual advisors know this to be true. When you keep digging the hole gets deeper and thus harder to get out of, which becomes a metaphor: stop, think, rest, pray, breathe, wait, look up and around. My hope in this day that you will take a moment to remember the key to all forms of meditation - religious and non-religious. It is breath. Our breath. God's breath. The breath that grounds us is also the wind that uproots to go out into this broken and glorious world. This prayer comes from our psalm today, 104:30: Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created and you will renew the face of the earth. 2