Pentecost, May 15, 2005
Father Wray MacKay

A true but funny fact.
In olden days, Celtic Christians chose the wild goose
as a symbol representing the Holy Spirit.
It is still the symbol at Iona.
A wild goose is one noisy, bothersome bird.
I like this image of the Holy Spirit as a wild goose
because it jars us out of our complacency.
A wild goose is windy, got a fiery temper and it squawks!

Keep the Celtic wild goose Spirit in mind as we look at two images today.
For the first image, we look at ourselves as the answer to Jesus’ prayer.
Then, as Acts tells us, we meditate on the image of being all together in one place.
First the answer to Jesus’ prayer.

An apocryphal story recounts some angels talking with Jesus.
They ask what are his post-Ascension plans
for commissioning someone to carry on his work.
They ask him just who are to be his heirs, the ones who will tell the story.
Jesus answers, Well, I've called out a small community,
where the women are all strong, the men are all good-looking,
and the children are all above average.
(I’m sure that's where Garrison Keillor got the idea.)
The angels fall into a respectful silence.
Then one blurts out, "Is that all? What if they fail?"
"Yes," Jesus answers, "that's all. I have no other plan."

No other plan. Only the grandest plan of all.
A loving community of reasonable people
imagined into free being by God to be respectful of God and God’s creation,
and, of course, imagined equally as free not so to be.
The grandest plan of all and for which... God waits.

Can you imagine that?
A plan in which the same God who lit the fuse for the Big Bang
simply waits, waits for us to say "Yes."
Of course God has been and is actively involved in that creation.
Instantly ready with grace -- amazing grace -- to help us, guide us.
But still God waits for us do use the grace.

Waits for us to become a community bound by love, not documents,
by covenant, not by canon law,
by hope and faith, not by race and neighborhood and sex,
by compassion, service and humility,
not by budgets, chains of command and fear,
and even in conflict nourished by mutual respect,
not by the simple merit of our circumstance in life,
and certainly not by orthodoxy,
 but simply by the grace of God
and for those who move over, let go and let God.
Such is the language of grace.

 

That God would leave so much in our hands,
would so be willing to commission us,
should not now at this late date surprise us.
After all, over and over again, God surprises us.
Jesus picturing himself as a shepherd,
a reckless shepherd who would abandon ninety-nine nearsighted sheep
to go after one.
Jesus as a vintner
who would pay a full day's wages to a grape picker
who worked only half an hour at sundown.
Even Jesus’ Father allows him
to drop off for a nap on the fantail of a boat at sea during a hurricane.
Jesus even commissions an internal revenue agent named Matthew
to take more interest in our salvation than in our income tax.
And the stories go one and on.
No, we should not be surprised at God’s commission.

We are merely the current installment
of that splendid wild and crazy ride down the kingdom road,
which is intensely -- the yellow brick road of irony.

And then, after the commilssioning of wind and fire,
Peter, speechless in conventional terms, not knowing what to say, reaches for the holy word of scripture.
After disposing of the charge of drunkenness
                        by the simple logic of the time of day,
he reaches deep into his spirit finds and quotes the prophet Joel.
            In the last days it will be, God declares,
            that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh
            and your sons and daughters shall prophesy
            and your young men shall see visions
            and your old men dream dreams
            Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
            in those days, I will pour out my Spirit;
            and they shall prophesy.

An extremely powerful and egalitarian vision of God’s people,
            the church,….us.
A supremely powerful challenge for God’s people, the church,….us.

So let us not merely become proficient in that language of grace,
but let us come to understand it, live it, breathe it.
Let us not be satisfied merely to be a religious people,
but let us become a faithful people
a people who dare to risk ourselves as Jesus' only plan and ultimately --
ironically -- the answer to Jesus’ prayer.

The other image from Acts: all together in one place it says.
Today we are like those who were all together in one place.
Somehow, being all together in once place,
released the wind, sparks the tongues of fire.
On the day of Pentecost, those all together in one place
created a power, perhaps a window for power.

I recall a Peanuts cartoon I’ve used before.
Linus is watching televsion.
Lucy comes into the room and changes the channel.
Linus asks what give you the right to do that?
Lucy balls her fingers into a fist and says, this gives me the right.
Linus looks bleakly at his open hand and asks plaintively,
            why can’t you get organized like that?
Oh the organization of being all together in one room, praying,
tightly bound to each other,
creating, releasing the power of the Spirit.
That’s what happens when we are all together in one place.
We are told earlier in our Acts lesson, that the group with Peter, who met regularly,
            was a diverse group.
It consisted of John & James and Simon the Zealot and Judas son of James
and Mary the mother of Jesus and other women and Jesus’ brothers;
indeed, about one hundred and twenty altogether.
Well, there is diversity among us today.
Few if any of us know everyone here.
There are always strangers, newcomers, guests.
And there are always differences, sometimes sharp.

Nevertheless, at the root of it all, we are all together in one place.
And at no time more than today.
For like those at Pentecost, we have a deeper union.
In one way or another, we are baptized into this community
            maybe not yet by water,
but we all have been given breath and our wings by the Spirit.

And, I think, because we are all together
God wants to be generous with us all -- not just with some.
God wasn’t parceling out the Spirit in different doses --
Peter got a gallon, Thomas the Doubter a quart,
the servant women a teaspoon.
Same today -- the clergy, the bishops,
even the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Pope
don’t have more of the Spirit than anyone in this church.
They all may have more advisers, but not more of the Spirit.
So a refreshing breath, rather a driving wind, urges us on,
get us out of our confined and narrow space so that we can fly.
God, through the gift of the Spirit,
opens our imaginations to see the possibilities for new life
and the freedom of new flight.

Indeed, haven’t we already noticed that the Spirit of Jesus is here, now,
has taken flesh in our lives? Right here?
The Spirit blows when we find ways that help our families be and do their best?
When we took one arduous step at a time
towards breaking old and destructive patterns of behavior?
When we, who felt freshly wounded, are helped by being here at worship
and by other believers who are further along than we?
When we find ourselves speaking up for others,
defending rights of children or a coworker and those with no voice,
with an eloquence we didn’t think we had?
This is a church of the Holy Spirit--- not just the church in general---
but this local community, which has gathered all together in one place.

In this same vein, Anne Lamott says:
First find a path, and a little light to see by.
Then push up your sleeves and star helping.
Every single spiritual tradition says that you must take care of the poor,
or you are so doomed that not even Jesus or the Buddha can help you.
You don’t have to go overseas.
There are people in this country who are poor in spirit,
worried, depressed, dancing as fast as they can;
their kids are sick, or their retirement savings are gone.
There is a great loneliness among us, life-threatening loneliness.
People have given up on peace, on equality.
They’ve even given up on the Democratic Party,
which, she says, I haven’t, not by a long shot.
You do what you can, what good people have always done:
you bring thirsty people water, you share your food,
you try to help the homeless find shelter, you stand up for the underdog.
And then she adds:
I secretly believe that this makes Jesus love you more.

But, at the same time,
we mkust not ignore the realities of being all together in one place.
For we are all together in one place in other ways as well --
raw and offended, sorrowful, and angry, puzzled and struggling.
Living in a place where the future is yet to unfold; where anxiety can overcome.
We wish these weren’t our realities as we offer worship.
We wish our hearts were strong and pure.
But they are not, at least not all the time.
We find ourselves panting for a refreshing breath in a church, a communion,
            that is split by divisions, shamed by scandals, embarrassed by passivity.
Yes, we are breathing together the same air and incense,
but too often feeling a shortness of breath and a panicky feeling.

Yet for all that, all needs we place before God today
are waiting on the Spirit’s renewed arrival.
On this Pentecost we profess again our faith,
though, like the disciples, we may feel huddled together
in a room that’s got its doors shut and lacks fresh air.
But there is no stopping the Spirit,
even when the atmosphere is limited, cramped by secrecy and cover-ups. While we may feel the Spirit isn’t around as much as it was on that first Pentecost,
or that her wings are crimped.
The reality is that this Spirit is a driving and purifying fire
and nothing can prevent her from blowing through each of us and all of us,
to start still one more fire
So with all the breath within us,
let’s invite the Spirit to come and refresh this community.
We abide for just one hour in this all together in this place --
well, an hour and a half.
But here is the sacred spaced where we admit our need,
let down our guard and stand together with outstretched arms
waiting for a gift we cannot get on our own,
but which God wants passionately to give us.

We want genuine passion and faith and those are gifts our willing God has for us. Like a woman in labor let’s breathe deeply during our prayer.
Who knows, but God might notice us, come over to us
and breath new life into our lungs—and spirits.

I end with an image of this Holy Spirit given by a Lakota Episcopal priest.
He writes:
When the title "The Holy Spirit" was translated into the Lakota language,
the translator, with the help of knowledgeable elders,
came up with the words Woniya Wakan.
The English translation for Woniya is "breath."
When broken down further, niya means "to breathe,"
and wo, a prefix, signifies that the action is accomplished by blowing.
Woniya, then, is life, or that first breath we take
when we come crying out of our mothers womb.
Wakan means sacred, holy or something incomprehensible
having or giving, which means having spiritual power.
My mind can get around and understand this meaning of the Holy Spirit,
perhaps just like my ancestors, who converted to Christianity.
The Word was spoken and the sacred breath of God came upon them
and they had new life.

I like that. May it be so for us this day.
May we hold in balance the wild goose,
            that makes us the answer to Jesus’ prayer
            and holds us all together in once place
and the sacred breath of God, breathing gently, quietly, new life into our souls.
Amen.