Greater Things
In the last days, God declares,
I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your children shall prophesy,
and your young people shall see visions,
and your elders shall dream dreams.
This is Peter, quoting the prophet Joel, in response to the wondrous event that has happened on the feast of Pentecost. Everyone had gathered in one place, as they would have gathered every year on the Jewish feast of Pentecost, as Jews still gather on the Jewish feast of Shavuot, and as we are gathered today.
And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like a rush of violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Can you imagine? It makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up when I think of it. It could happen here. It could happen anywhere that disciples are gathered.
This dramatic story has been interpreted in many ways, in so many churches. Before we knew how bad helium was for the environment, lots of churches used to have hundreds of balloons, either white ones or red and orange ones, to release into the atmosphere during the service. I heard of a church that would rent a bunch of white doves and release them on Pentecost. The Spirit speaks to us and through us in ways we often cannot understand at the time. But it happens. It is happening now. Without the wind. Without the fire. We should expect this. It may sometimes be dramatic, but more often, not so much. We can celebrate Pentecost without the liturgical dance or the processional kites. The Spirit sometimes surprises us, but the Pentecost experience, the Joel prophecy that Peter rattles off without benefit of a bible in his hand, should not be surprising. It should be what we expect.
Jesus’ promise is that the Spirit—also known as the paraclete, or the advocate—will be with us always, not just when things are exciting, and not just in our feelings. This Spirit, this paraclete, which means literally one who comes alongside, guides us ever outward, to witness and action in the world, drawing from the power of the Spirit to make the world look more like the Kingdom Jesus preached about.
Have there been times in your life or in the life of this parish where you have felt the Spirit moving? Where have you felt called to step into a new reality? Or where have you let a new reality surround you right where you are?
We worry—I know we do—about our weakness, but together, we are strong. You all have done amazing things, and we, as Jesus says in the Gospel, can do greater works than these. Kind of like Peter watching the people understanding each other’s speech in foreign languages and saying Oh, yeah, this is what Joel was talking about all along.
The Spirit is not just the source of dreams and visions, but also the source of power. Here’s a nerdy statistic for you: the word power is mentioned 272 times in the entire Bible. Eighty of those times occur in the Book of Acts.
One of my very favorite Anglican theologians is Richard Norris, who died about 15 years ago. I was privileged to have him in a class at seminary and he was a priest associate at the church where I did my field ed, so I was able to hear him preach occasionally. He wrote a lot about the Holy Spirit and I could’ve just read aloud from his book for ten minutes instead of preaching this sermon. But here is a quote for us to remember:
The Spirit of God, which is the abiding interior power of life in humanity ..., is also the power which comes upon people from time to time and enables them to rise above themselves to new heights of heroism and dedication.
In other words, the Spirit enables—empowers—ordinary people to do extraordinary things.
It is hard for a small community like ours to do something extraordinary in a world where big is better, where size always matters, where financial stability is glorified, and risk is a dirty word. Luckily, as citizens of God’s kingdom and followers of Jesus, we know a different way. Luckily, we have the examples of the first disciples, scrappy and few and sometimes clueless, who kept on keeping on, gave away everything they had, did great deeds of power despite themselves, and took one leap of faith after another. They learned all of this from Jesus, empowered by the Spirit.
Luckily for us, we have the Spirit as the wind beneath our wings and the glue that holds us together. Listen to the work of the Spirit in our Baptismal Covenant:
The Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
The Holy Spirit is everything. The holy Spirit is present with us in baptism as the Spirit was present with Jesus in baptism. The Spirit is part of our identity as followers of Jesus. The Spirit helps us live out our baptismal promises, and the Spirit will be with us in all the ways that God blesses us and calls us.