(Mark 4.21-23)
A sermon preached by Dave Shull
Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ
Sammamish, Washington
Pentecost Sunday: May 31, 2009
Today is Pentecost. The word comes from a Greek word that means 50th day. Today is the 50th day after Easter. And it is the day in the Christian calendar when we remember a story. People from all over the known world were gathered in one place in Jerusalem. And suddenly a force like a mighty wind came upon them. This force was a force Jesus had promised would come after he was killed. It is the force the Christian church calls the Holy Spirit. In Greek and Hebrew, sprit, wind, and breath are all the same word. On this day, God's Holy Spirit, God's Holy Wind, God's Holy Breath came upon a group of people. That spirit/wind/breath filled them with God. It filled them with love and filled them with a call. To go out into the world, into their communities, their homes, wherever they were. . . to share and live the love of Jesus Christ. Many religions speak of a Divine Spirit. For Christians, it is Christ's Spirit we receive again on this day. It is Christ's spirit, wind, and breath that fills us with love and fills us with a call. To follow Jesus. To get to know Jesus. To walk with him, challenge him, question him, argue with him. To bring him out of the pages of the gospels into today's world. So we who want to follow him can live and share his love in this world. Wherever we find ourselves.
Jesus promised his disciples that God would send this spirit after he was killed. He called it by different names. One of those names was the Spirit of Truth. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says to his followers, "When . . . the Spirit of Truth [comes], [the Spirit] will take you by the hand and guide you into all the truth there is" (John 16.13, The Message).
It is this Spirit/Wind/Breath of Truth that we need to have blow over, around, and through us this day. For Jesus is going to call us to do something that many of us have a very hard time doing. And if we want to do be who we say we are every week, if we want to share and live the love of Jesus Christ (Purpose Statement, Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ), then we need all the help we can get!
Listen for the Word of God.
Jesus said, "Does anyone bring a lamp home and put it under a washtub or beneath the bed? Don't you put it up on a table or on the mantel? We're not keeping secrets, we're telling them; we're not hiding things, we're bringing them out into the open.
"Are you listening? Really listening?" (Mark 4.21-23, The Message)
May God help us hear and live this word. Amen.
Not a lot of words. But more than enough to remind me what Jesus demands from those who want to follow him.
I like the first part of what Jesus says. About each of us being a light. Every person on earth is God's beloved daughter and son. Each of us has a piece of God in us. A light. This light proclaims every person is sacred.
It's the second part of what Jesus says that leaves me kind of reeling. We're not keeping secrets, we're telling them; we're not hiding things, we're bringing them out into the open. To make matters worse, he follows this with, "Are you listening? Really listening?" Which is Jesus-speak for Don't even think of watering down what I just said..
One of the lines I hear most often from people in recovery from addictions is, "We're only as sick as our worst secret". Which may be why Jesus tells us it's so important to stop hiding them. Because they weigh on us and lock us in dark places of shame and fear and self-loathing. Let the secrets out, Jesus says. Stop hiding things, Jesus says.
A number of years ago I was sitting in a coffee shop in Seattle. I was waiting for a friend, and while I waited I was planning a class I was teaching. I was reading this book with the word Jesus on the cover in really big yellow letters. Usually when I read I hold the book up (more and more these days I hold it out as well as up!). As I was reading I suddenly realized that everyone around me could see the big yellow Jesus on the cover of my book. I thought, Their going to think I'm a Christian. And they're going to think I believe what Jerry Falwell and James Dobson believe. Smack! I slammed my book onto my table . . . which made a couple of people who hadn't even noticed I was there suddenly become aware of my presence. But my secret was safe. No one could see what I was reading.
The Spirit of Truth blows through this place today. And fills us. The Holy Spirit is the force that creates and keeps alive the Church. This church. I believe this spirit/wind/breath is calling us to make this church a place where we can practice radical truth-telling. A place where we can imagine bringing out into the open any secret that saps life from us. Or drains hope from us. Or keeps us from believing we are God's pride and joy. I think the Spirit of Truth wants us to practice being the Kingdom of God by practicing radical truth-telling. Because in the church we do things differently. In the church, we try to share and live the love of Jesus. And that means we help Christ's Spirit build the Kingdom of God.
Over and over in the gospels, Jesus says he came to help create what he called the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God isn't a place, it's a way of being. It's a way of being that is so different from the way things are now. And what I hear Jesus telling us in today's Bible reading is that the Kingdom of God is about telling the truth. If we're going to practice being the Kingdom of God in this place, we risk being real. We risk being ourselves. We risk bringing to light what we have kept inside for so long. Stories of violence, fear, failure, rejection. Stories of loves and passions we have never dared to name. Hopes and dreams we have carried for weeks or years but never voiced because we didn't want people to laugh at us.
But we are products of a culture that encourages us to keep secrets. A culture that encourages us to lie when it's convenient or when we think we'll get away with it. And a culture built on secret-keeping and lying is a culture that is culture that is dying without even realizing it. The culture tries to convince us this is the reality we face, so everybody who wants to get ahead and stay head has to do it. No one's paying attention anyway. They're all looking out for themselves.
The British songwriter David Gray has seen the truth underneath the secrets and lies. He sings:
[A]cross the fractured landscape I see the same things
Tired ideas, broken values, many with the notion that to share is to lose
A hollow people bound by a lack of imagination and too much looking back
Without the courage to give a new thing a chance grounded by this ignorance . . .
We think we've done such a good job fooling everyone. We convince ourselves we're not really keeping secrets; we're not really lying. Which works for a while . . . until someone dares to tell the truth. Someone dares to expose the injustice, the deception, the lies. David Gray uses an haunting image from nature to show what happens when the truth comes out:
A hollow people bound by a lack of imagination and too much looking back
Without the courage to give a new thing a chance grounded by this ignorance
(and the cat comes)
We're just birds without wings (David Gray, "Birds Without Wings", A Century Ends, © 1993 and 2001, Virgin Records, Ltd.)
When the cat comes – when the secrets and lies are exposed for what they are – we're just birds without wings. Trying to escape. Wondering how we got caught. How it all fell apart.
The church of Jesus Christ, born and fed by the Spirit of Truth, needs to be a place where we practice bringing things out into the open. A place where we practice sharing secrets that for too long have kept us from soaring. Hiding, silence, shame, and fear sap us of so much energy and life. They keep us from knowing we are the pride of God's life. They keep our light hidden. Telling the truth, asking the hard questions, knowing we are builders of God's Kingdom, we let our light shine. And no darkness can overcome it.
Let us pray.
Come and be light for our eyes
be the air we breathe
be the voice we speak!
Come be the song we sing,
be the path we seek! (David Haas, "Be Light for Our Eyes," © 1985 GIA Publications)
Amen.
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