Pentecost c.07                                                    May 27, 2007

On Pentecost, the Spirit God did something new and wonderful.
The Spirit had not been floating in a galaxy far away until then.
When the earth was without form and void,
        the Spirit blew across the face of the deep.
When Adam was a lump of lifeless clay,
        God breathed his own Spirit into Adam to make him live.
Throughout the history of Israel, the Spirit descended
        upon prophets and kings, inspiring them to act bravely.
The Spirit empowered Mary to conceive the Christ,
        and the Spirit came upon Jesus at his Baptism.
The Spirit is ever-present and ever-active.

The Greek word for “Spirit” is pneuma which literally means breath or wind.
“The wind blows where it wills and you hear the sound of it,” Jesus said,
        but you do now know whence it comes or whither it goes.”
We know the Holy Spirit through its actions in our midst.

It blows through our lives like a chinook wind through a western canyon,
        speaking with mysterious voices.
The word from the Latin versions of the Creed use a wonderful word
        to describe the Spirit – immensus.
It is the root of our word “immense” but it means more than big.
It means the incomprehensible, something that cannot be measured
        or contained in finite thought.

The Spirit fills us as breath fills our lungs and infuses our blood,
        but the air we breath extends around the world
                  and far into the sky.
The Spirit is vastly larger than we are.
It permeates us but we cannot contain it.

Just as the Spirit was Present before Pentecost,
        the Spirit is present and active in our lives
           whether we know it or not, whether we are feeling spiritual or not.
God’s presence and power do not depend on our moods.

The Spirit is always acting in the world,
        but on Pentecost the Spirit did something new.
The Spirit formed the Church as a great unity within diversity.
That’s what we spoke of last week,
        as we considered the nature of the church
        in the midst of current international controversies.

But the nature of the church as a unity within diversity
        isn't just about relationships among different institutional churches.
It’s about how we go about being church locally.
And it’s about how we live our lives.

When the Spirit blew into the Jerusalem on Pentecost,
        it didn’t empower the crowd
                 of Parthians, Elamites, Medes, and the rest
                 to all understand the same language.
The Spirit empowered the apostles to speak all the languages of the crowd.

The Spirit is the unity among us manifests in infinite diversity.
The manifold variety of nature
         reveals the Spirit’s delight in difference.
We experience the diversity of creation as beauty.
Just think of the delightful multiplicity of form and color
         among the species of fish at an aquarium.
Jonathan Edwards called the diversifying Spirit,

         “the beautifier, the one in whom the happiness of God overflows,
         . . . the one who bestows radiance, shape, clarity, and enticing

         splendor. . . .”

Spirit is the breath of God.
Spirit breathes out in the creation, and especially in the Church,
         as diversity.
Spirit breathes in as unity.

But what is the nature of the unity?
How do we experience unity?
How do we practice unity?

It isn’t lock step conformity to dogmas.
Paul give us the answer in 1st Corinthians.
The Spirit gives us a diversity of gifts
         to be used in service to each other.
The Spirit gives different gifts to each individual,
         but then draws the gifts and the individuals
                  into a community of mutual service.
The greatest gift, Paul says,
         is the love that draws all the lesser gifts
                  into our participation in community.

The Spirit infuses us with love
         that draws us outside ourselves and orchestrates our other gifts

         – such as the gifts of teaching, charity, or leadership,
                 into service of others instead of our own egos.

The unity of the Church resides, not in agreeing with each other,
         but in caring for each other, in serving each other.
And this is the key to Christian spirituality.
Our faith leads to resurrection – not just after our physical death,
         but resurrection now as a foretaste of the resurrection to come.
And Resurrection is the action of the Spirit.
It was the Spirit that brought Jesus up from death
         and it is the Spirit that brings us up from death.

How that will happen in the Last Day is a holy mystery.
But how it happens now is something we can experience first hand.
The Spirit draws us outside ourselves.
Life in the Spirit is a life lived for others.
Life lived for self is actually spiritual death,
        from which the Spirit raises us.
The Spirit’s manifestation in difference and diversity, “gifts differing,”
        is directly related to the Spirit’s drawing us outside ourselves
to enjoy, appreciate, and care for those who are different from ourselves.
Our differing gifts mean we need each other
        and we are each and everyone of us
                 able to help the community.

So we are stepping out of death and into life
        in countless little ways as we go about being the Church.
When we offer an education program that we, ourselves,
        don’t want to attend – but someone else might –
or when we make room for people to worship in ways
        that don’t suit our own tastes,
or when we make room for each other on the calendar    

        – this is practicing sacred unity in sacred diversity.

As we get free of our egos, as we step out into spiritual life,
        we will find ourselves able to do this
                 not just in Church but everywhere.
We can let our family members be their eccentric selves,
        and learn to enjoy our co-worker’s idiosyncrasies.
We can cross the lines of race, religion, and political party
        to work for a better life for everyone in this county.

We can set aside ideology to do what must be done
        to feed the hungry and befriend the lonely.
And in doing these things, not just in church but everyday,
        we will discover ourselves more fully alive.

We will discover that life is more interesting than we knew,
        that people are more delightful,
                 that the days are brighter and the breezes more inviting.
All this the Spirit does in us and for us
        as it breathes out in diversity, and back into unity
                 over and over now and forever.

                                                              Amen.