The Rev. Keri T. Aubert Acts 2:1-21

All Saints Episcopal Church, South Burlington, Vermont  Psalm 104:25-35, 37

May 31, 2009 Romans 8:22-27

Day of Pentecost, Year B, RCL       John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

When we say God, it’s a short-hand reference to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, at least as stated in traditional terms. In the Episcopal Church, we don’t tend to talk a lot about the Holy Spirit. Before you start to disagree with that, imagine our Pentecostal and even evangelical brothers and sisters, who frequently invoke the power of the Holy Spirit. In offering worship that is much less structured than ours, I suspect that they would say that the goal is to leave room for its workings. In contrast, in worship we, the famously “frozen chosen,” leave little to chance. Even so, I suspect that the result we’re seeking is the same, even if our methods are less dramatic. We might not shout for the Holy Spirit, we might not speak in tongues. But the purpose of our worship is still, I think, to open spaces for God to come among us. And, whether or not we say it explicitly, the God that comes among us is God the Holy Spirit.

On Pentecost Sunday, we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ disciples. The Book of Acts tells us that the disciples’ “baptism in the Spirit” takes place in Jerusalem on the Jewish feast of Pentecost. Jews still celebrate this feast, though it’s now more commonly called Shavuot. For Jews, Pentecost or Shavuot, then and now, remembers events in the Book of Genesis: fifty days after the Hebrews escaped from Egypt, God gave the Law to Moses at Mt. Sinai. Jews celebrate the feast of Pentecost or Shavuot fifty days after Passover. Christians celebrate the feast of Pentecost fifty days after Easter. We might hear in all this echoes of the apostle Paul, who talks about moving away from life under the law and toward life in the spirit.

But we have to be careful here about creating too sharp a Jewish/Christian Spirit divide. The Spirit is present in the Hebrew Scriptures from the very beginning, as the bearer of positive and creative life-force. Genesis describes the Spirit as “the wind of God” sweeping over the face of the unformed waters. Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, the bestowal of God’s Spirit gives a person the gift of strength, wisdom, prophecy, or power. And as theologian Elizabeth Johnson puts it, “The Jewish tradition explicitly acknowledges the Spirit as the prime shaper of the community. The Hebrew Scriptures credit all of the gifts that build the life of the community to her inspiring, resting upon, or moving within different persons.”[i] And so it is perhaps no accident that, for the young community of Jewish Christ-followers, it is only after the newly powerful coming of the Holy Spirit that the disciples begin the work that will build the Christian church.

In the days leading up to the events described in today’s reading from Acts, the disciples must have felt like they were on a particularly cruel roller coaster ride. Jesus’ powerful life was followed his tragic death, which was followed by his triumphal resurrection. But Jesus’ physical return was short-lived, and ten days earlier, Jesus had ascended into heaven. The roller coaster was again poised at the top of a very long free-fall. We have the benefit of history, but on that first Christian Pentecost in Jerusalem, the disciples can’t have imagined the future that awaited them or their budding church. Being human, they may have seen only the great chasm formed by the ground sloping away under their feet. But what they soon learned was that God wasn’t finished with them. Returning to theologian Elizabeth Johnson, she states that “. . . the biblical narratives of origin show that Christian life is unthinkable apart from the presence and activity of the Spirit who animates and makes holy the church.”[ii] On the first Christian Pentecost, with the gift of the Holy Spirit, the disciples are given everything they need. But the Holy Spirit is not just about the church of two thousand years ago. With the gift of the Holy Spirit, we too are given everything we need.

In a few minutes, we will baptize Madelyn Drake Joan Wallis. Remember, we define sacraments as outward and visible signs of inward and spiritual grace. In baptism, water is the outward and visible sign. “The inward and spiritual grace in Baptism is union with Christ in his death and resurrection, birth into God’s family the Church, forgiveness of sins, and new life in the Holy Spirit.”[iii] This new life in the Holy Spirit is a life we all share. Theologian Jürgen Moltmann offers this: “Through the Holy Spirit, God’s eternal life brims over … and its overflowing powers and energies fill the earth. Life which is experienced in this overflowing Spirit is divine life, life in eternal community with God, holy life.”[iv] He goes on to say that “no one can ‘make’ this life… . But one can let it be and let it come.”[v] And “… we can clear away the hindrances.”[vi] 

An acquaintance recently told me a story about a Roman Catholic Benedictine nun she knows who leads workshops for groups. This nun made a large jigsaw puzzle by cutting out pieces of wood. In her workshops, she mixes up the pieces and then asks participants to assemble the puzzle. What the participants don’t know is that she cut out the puzzle so that the pieces don’t fit together exactly. When the puzzle is assembled, there must be spaces between the pieces. As they begin to notice this, she explains that it is in the spaces that God is found. On this Pentecost Sunday, I might add that it is in the spaces that the Holy Spirit has room to do her work. In our lives, the puzzle pieces never fit together exactly the way we expect them to. You might say there is no perfect puzzle. But you might also say that the puzzle is exactly the way it needs to be. Rather than despairing, we might call it fortunate. It leaves a lot of space for the Holy Spirit, if only we don’t stand in her way.

Our lives are filled with spaces, spaces that are not always easy or comfortable. I think the puzzle exercise helps participants talk about times when they are called to be in relationship with others with whom they match imperfectly. It suggests that they should understand the resulting spaces as providing room for the Holy Spirit to move between them. I think we can all relate to this. But there also are many other spaces in our lives, spaces that can leave us feeling empty. For individuals, the loss of a job, a loved one, or a physical ability can leave us with a painful gap in our life. For a community, the loss of a leader can lead to a similar place. Imagine the space left in the life of a disciple by Jesus’ ascension. The disciple who filled that space with a substitute messiah or too much wine left little room for the workings of the Holy Spirit.

Empty spaces are always hard, but when we are tempted to fill them with the first thing we can find, it’s usually not a good idea either. When we fill the spaces in our lives with busyness or bad habits, we end up blocking out God. I think that God asks us to be comfortable with silence and at ease with ambiguity. Into such spaces the Holy Spirit can enter. Even when we are least certain about it, God the Holy Spirit is with us. In filling the spaces of that ill-fitting jigsaw puzzle, the Holy Spirit provides the glue that holds it all together.

As we consider how the Holy Spirit fills the spaces in our lives, we might go back to the fifth century and Saint Augustine of Hippo. In his classic version of the Trinity, “Augustine designated Spirit as love itself, the third which binds the first two together as lover and beloved.”[vii] Let’s hear that again: Father, Son, and Spirit becomes Lover, Beloved, and Love. This Love is not limited to the Lover and the Beloved, but pours forth into the world, binding us all together with one another, with all creation, and with God.

On Pentecost Sunday, we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit to Jesus’ disciples, and we celebrate the continuing coming of the Holy Spirit to us. The Holy Spirit is present, even and most especially in the spaces in our lives. When we clear away the hindrances that distract us, we make room for the Holy Spirit to move in us and through us. Only then can we hear the sound like a violent wind and see the tongues like fire resting upon each one of us. Communicating beyond the words we think we know, we too become channels for God’s love and carriers of God’s Kingdom.