The Good News Proclaimed
Preached by the Reverend Durrell Watkins at
the Sunshine Cathedral on
Sunday, May 11, 2008.
Have you ever experienced something that was dramatically, off-the charts
new and different? Have you ever experienced the presence of God in a way that
was new for you? Did you try to talk about it? Could you do it without seeming
a little odd?
I want to tell you about a time in my life that Something showed up for me
in a powerful and dramatic way. I choose to call that Something “God”, and I
doubt if you would have noticed it if were sitting right next to me. In fact,
people were sitting and standing all around me and my experience still was my
own, alone. You see, miracles can be experienced, but not really explained,
and your miracle is just that… YOURS. As powerful as it was, others may not
have noticed it. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t profoundly real and
profoundly important.
I share this story knowing that it sounds a little odd, and a little less
academic than my sharing tends to be; but my hope is that if I share my story,
you may wind up embracing your own, and THAT’S the story that has power for
your life.
I was 19 years old and I had discovered the Charismatic renewal movement.
I’d go to my “high” church on Sunday mornings but on Sunday and Wednesday
evenings, I’d go to the Northside Assembly of God. It was college — I tried a
lot things. But I’m 19 years old, struggling with the realization that I am
gay. Now, this wasn’t really news, but up until this time, I assumed I would
out grow it, and as it turns out, I didn’t! It wasn’t a phase, and it wasn’t
going away on its own.
I visited this Pentecostal church because I heard that people were
sometimes dramatically healed there, and I wanted to be healed of my
same-gender attractions. There was of course an altar call, and I went
forward. Ministers asked me what I wanted prayer for, and I was too ashamed to
name it. I just said, “I can’t talk about it but I want God to fix it.”
Four women in their 70s descended on me like the Green Berets, and after
what was a very new way of praying for me, I found myself drifting to the
floor in a trance-like state. We sometimes call that resting in the
spirit… skeptics might call it hypnotism or collective behavior… I don’t care
what it was, it was intense. Lying on the floor, eyes closed, experiencing
some sort of altered state of consciousness, I heard a voice deep within… that
still small voice within that we in the West rarely slow down enough to ever
really hear, that voice that I at the time attributed to God said very clearly
in words I remember like I heard them just now: NOT EVEN GOD CAN HEAL WHAT IS
NOT SICK!!! Whatever the experience was, it changed my life, and that was the
very year that I officially and finally “came out” and have never regretted it
since.
Each time I have been open to an encounter with the Spirit, something “new”
has happened in my life. I experienced something new, something that would
change me for the better, something that would give me hope and courage and
energy to continue forward. Isn’t that what the story of Pentecost really is?
In the second chapter of Acts, our Pentecost story is illustrated for us.
The story tells us:
“1When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they
were all in one place together. 2And suddenly there
came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire
house [where they were]. 3Then there appeared to them
tongues as of fire which parted and came to rest on each one of them.
4And they were ALL filled with the holy Spirit and
began to speak in [new ways] as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim…12They
were all astounded and bewildered and said to one another, ‘What does this
mean?’ But others said, scoffing, ‘They have had too much new wine.’”
(Acts
2.1-4, 12, New American Bible).
They were gathered for Pentecost (which was a Jewish festival), but they
experienced it this time in a new way. They experience a driving wind, like
the wind that divided the waters of the sea that allowed the Israelites to
escape from Egypt. But that wind divided the waters; this is a new experience
— this wind fills the entire house and fills every person. This wind doesn’t
divide; it includes.
They experienced the power of God as tongues of fire. In the Hebrew Bible
God appeared to Moses as a burning bush, and later appeared to the Israelites
as a cloud of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night. Fire symbolizes
God’s presence exploding onto the scene of one’s life.
Trevor Stewart, from our Board, wanted me to listen to a speech given by
Lesley Jordan — you may know him as Beverly Lesley from Will and Grace, or as
Brother Boy in Sordid Lives. He has a powerful story of how he came to a life
of sobriety and service, and in his testimony he says that he doesn’t believe
in a god that does things for us or to us, but he believes in a god that
shines through us. We are certainly free to disagree, but I found that image
quite beautiful… God as a loving presence, a divine light that empowers us to
help ourselves and one another by shining through our lives. That divine light
is shining in the story of Pentecost — shining as flames burning in every
life.
The story says they were ALL filled with the holy Spirit… the Spirit of
wholeness. ALL… not just people who believed certain things, not just the men,
not just straight people, not just people of means, not just one
nationality… they were ALL filled with the spirit that blew like a wind through
the ENTIRE house, causing divine light to shine like flames in EVERY life.
They each were offered their miraculous, affirming experience… their encounter
with Spirit.
And then, people started talking in new ways… ways that seemed so odd, so
crazy, so over the top, so not the way we’ve always done it, that some people
tried to dismiss it as just drunkenness (craziness).
In the story of the Tower of Babel , speaking in new ways separates the
people; but in this story, the differences are manifestations of the one
spirit, and the new ways of talking are meant to include more kinds of people.
The newness is actually empowering, healing, liberating.
They experienced the divine presence, it left no one out… but sometimes an
experience can be too new for a closed mind… and we try to put that genie back
in the bottle. But the scoffers didn’t quench the spirit; they only denied
themselves the joy of what She was offering to everyone.
It’s a new day; it’s always a new day. The past is over. St. Paul told the
Corinthians, “Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation; the old is gone; the
new has come” (2 Corinthians 5.17).
One of the contributors to the book of Isaiah experienced God as saying,
“See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”
(Isaiah 43.19).
We can never go back; we can only go forward. Scoffers will tell us we
don’t know what we’re doing; we’re crazy, naïve, mistaken, or stupid. Let ’em!
Do they really think we haven’t experienced the grace of God, or are they
desperately afraid that we have? God is always doing something new if we are
open to the experience. Be empowered by the new day, the new moment, the new
possibilities, the new movement of the spirit in our lives.
At Sunshine Cathedral, the wind of grace is filling the whole house and
every person in it. We are learning to speak in new and inclusive ways, ways
that celebrate human diversity, human love, and human potential. Sunshine
Cathedral MCC is a church where Pentecost happens because it is a church where
the spirit blows everywhere, offering divine empowerment to every person. Not
everyone will embrace their divine power, but everyone can. EVERYONE, can.
This is the good news. Amen.