Sermon Text: Acts 2.1-21; Psalm 104.24-34, 35b;
Romans 8.22-27; John 15.26-27; 16.4b-15
4 Jun 06, Installation of Rev. Dr. Roger Sizemore
Theme: With Sighs Too Deep For Words
These are the last instructions Jesus gives the apostles. Pentecost heralds an intrusion into our ordinary days. We are not too sure we are ready for this.
There is intensity in this scriptural report, a sense of urgency and passion, which is why, today, the liturgical colors signal "red."
"It is 'necessary'... for the scriptures 'had' to be fulfilled." The unfolding story speaks of right-now-time, the "things fulfilled among us," (Luke 1.1), that which is palpably real, calling forth a response of an utterly new "boldness" and "kingdom of God" reach, signs and wonders, driving us to the "ends of the earth."
Such a narrative encounter leaves us breathless. And we have to ask questions. For, today, many things stake their claim, to "take our breath away."
This same author of Luke and Acts is here reshaping and re-interpreting his own sacred tradition. We are looking in on some first century church interpretative work going on here. Peter preaches a sermon (Acts 2) based upon Hebrew scripture and we are, today, attempting a sermon based upon that....an interpretation of a text, which is an interpretation of a text, which today advances yet another. This is hard work. We must "wrestle" with this together, as Jacob did with the "night force," (Genesis 32) in order to find its blessing.
The "falling" of the Spirit upon "each one" makes being "charismatic," (with a small "c") not merely some privatized gift. The "tongues" in many languages are the gift of discernment of scriptural tradition, now passed on from the apostles to the church and to "all the saints" . . . each of us is called to be a teacher, now, so we had better get ourselves to school and to study, together. Scripture "forming" us (and not merely "informing" us) made alive as it is read, together, in the community of faith. Do not trust private interpretations, as Paul speaks elsewhere of "speaking in special languages," (I Corinthians 12ff). Here in Acts, we have something very different taking place.
Pentecost may be the reversal of the "curse of the Tower of Babel," as some interpreters have suggested; but it certainly signals the re-gathering of the lost twelve tribes, and "all the nations," from exile (which is why a twelfth Apostle had to be selected after the betrayal of Judas. Acts 1.23f)
So what does it mean to be led by the Spirit, out of our exile? Now, the problem with 'exile" and "wilderness," is that we don't know we are "in it," and even further, we don't know that we don't know. There is some comfort (amidst the pain) in the familiar, even while we know at some level that we are stuck in some "far country."
The entire book of Acts --- which is really an account of the "Acts of the Holy Spirit," not the "Acts of the Apostles" --- is about what "God is up to," in the world. The experienced "Presence" or "Spirit" of God is always in motion, and even here reported as violently throwing the church out into that world (sometimes "kicking and screaming") "starting at Jerusalem" into the "far corners of the earth" which at that time was symbolized by Rome.
Luke-Acts does some correcting of past theological assumptions, making certain that we "get it" that there must be a rich continuity and an understanding of Hebrew Scriptures in order to be fully Christian. The "end of time" fascination requires refocus, with an awareness of what God is at work doing "right now." So it is also the case that we, today, in our "teaching office" of the church, must do some "excavating in old emotional museums" to see if what we are most certain is "the way it is," may just require sending us back to school, together. Studying in church, together, is about "as safe as it is going to get."
But this for sure! We must be about a form of, what one theologian has called a "Spiritual Chiropractic," realigning ourselves with God's Spirit and mission for the world, so that we may be "naturally" healed. And this is more than living a "purpose driven live." It is what scriptures describe as a "call." The "call" upon our life will come from God's "Presence," or "Spirit" and when this takes place you will experience and know that you have been released from exile. If you are not living a "called" or "aligned" life, you will be "out of sorts" and miserable.
How do we begin? Perhaps we can be instructed by the lives of Judy Garland and Josephine Baker, both of whom, enjoyed huge public acclaim, and then significant eclipse. They both spent tortured time in "exile" and the "far country."
There were great similarities in their careers, but, in their lives a significant difference. Josephine Baker went DEEP; she grew DOWN. Later in her life, with her career in sharp decline, and fighting poverty, she was one of the early participants in the Civil Rights movement; she helped the poor and the outcasts; she adopted eleven children from different nations who were of many colors, and she assisted in the French Underground, war resistance.
In her last public performance in Paris, she received a thirty-minute-standing ovation ("the people did not want to leave the theatre"), which was acclaim also for her long and slow history of growing down into the world of social evils, racism, abandonment of children and injustice.
Judy Garland's was a heroic and sad decline into collapse. Her loneliness and longing is captured in her signature song: "Somewhere over the Rainbow" ... with the song's last, yearning question..."Why, oh why can't I?"
So when this text talks about the Spirit intervening with our Spirit, "with sighs too deep for words," it may be instructing us in a way out of our exile and wilderness...but, it requires going deeply enough, and with the companionship of comrades in a faith community, which is instructed and led by that Presence...to live out the "called" life.
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