The Good News Proclaimed
Preached by the Reverend Doctor Durrell Watkins at the
Sunshine Cathedral on Sunday, May 31, 2009.
Late in life my great-aunt Gladys became a fan of Norman Vincent Peale and
started following his example of saying positive things to herself to increase
her faith. Affirmations we call them, but I don’t think she really understood
how to use them. I found these affirmations tucked away in her bible. She had
written, “God’s angels guard me, but still I carry mace.” “Today I will share
my counsel and advice freely, because nothing is sweeter than saying, ‘I told
you so.’” “I will laugh today at as many people as possible.”
My spiritual journey has been a winding road, rarely dull, and very
fulfilling. It has taken from Catholicism through the Charismatic Renewal
movement to the Episcopal Church and finally to MCC. Along the way I explored
Unitarian Universalisism, Religious Science, and even Buddhism. And, I became
a fan of Methodist turned Dutch Reformed minister Norman Vincent Peale and
some of the New Thought philosophers who influenced him.
But it was Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC) that exposed me to the
most ecumenical worship experience of my life… where Baptists and Catholics
and Pentecostals and Wesleyans and Unitarians and Jews and Buddhists and
Mormons and Anglicans and Presbyterians and New Agers and others all get
together, and worship together, and like one another (for the most part), and
are free to discuss and have various view points on almost any imaginable
theological position; where the free and open sharing inspires growth and
experimentation… where Baptists begin to cross themselves and Catholics start
to raise their hands in praise. Such radical and inclusive ecumenism can only
be a movement of the Spirit.
MCC has allowed me to test and prove Jesus’ words, “seek and you will
find.”
In my honest, open exploration of spirituality, I have found the
life-giving spirit of hope and love every place where two or more fellow
seekers have gathered with open minds and hearts. I have discovered the spirit
blows where she will, and is not limited by creed or culture, doctrine or
dogma.
I have experienced the Presence in which we all live and move and have our
being to be endlessly responsive, willing to appear in whatever way I might be
willing to experience. I have found the Omnipresent Reality to be just that…
omni-present… everywhere, part of everything, inclusive of all life, leaving
no one out for any reason.
Pentecost was a harvest festival, so in Acts Luke is talking about a Jewish
feast day already long in existence. But on this Pentecost, something new
happens: “1When the day of Pentecost had come, they were
all
together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there
came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it
filled the entire
house
where they were sitting. 3Divided tongues, as of
fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.
4All of them were filled with the holy Spirit
and
began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”
Isn’t that the way it ought to be? People coming together, using different
religious vocabularies, symbols, and stories, but ALL being fired up,
energized by the wind of the spirit that fills the whole house, the whole
world, leaving no one out. It’s an exciting story… and it is our story today.
One of the things that I love about this Pentecost experience as Luke
imagines it in the book of Acts, is that it is a story that has been building
throughout our scriptures, and it continues throughout our lives.
When Luke imagines weaves Pentecost narrative, he affirms the sacredness of
diversity. There is a diversity of speech and a unity of purpose, and when
people begin to embrace the power of this diversity, the power of speaking in
new and inclusive ways… ways that welcome women, ways that welcome same-gender
loving people, ways that welcome racial and ethnic diversity, ways that
welcome religious diversity, ways that welcome transgender people, ways that
allow God to be seen as more than a celebration of maleness but as the
all-embracing Love in whose image all people are made… when the church learns
to speak the seemingly new language of inclusion, the experience is powerful
like a wind blowing through the house or like bursts of flames appearing in
the air: Powerful, scary, disturbing, dangerous, renewing, life-giving,
miraculous.
Elijah, the prophet of God, is whisked away to another world in 2 Kings 2,
but his disciple, Elisha, receives the spirit of the prophet. This was
confirmed by other prophets who declared, “The spirit of Elijah is resting on
Elisha.” The spirit of God, through the prophet of God, continues to be active
in the life of a follower of the prophet. Luke repeats this theme, but instead
of one disciple receiving the spirit, everyone gets the gift!
The Psalmist prays, “Do not banish me from your presence; do not deprive me
of your holy Spirit” (Psalm 51.11). Luke says, the Spirit is not withheld from
us… it’s too powerful to be withheld, it’s like a mighty rushing wind, it
fills the entire room; it fills every person.
The prophet Joel imagines God saying, “…I will pour out my spirit on all
humankind.” Luke shares that vision today.
The prophet Ezekiel has a dream about skeletons, representing his own
people who feel tired and exhausted from years of oppression. And in his
dream, he hears the question, “Can these bones live again?” And Ezekiel
continues to dream that he prophesies to the wind, saying,
“Approach from
the four winds, Breath, and breathe on these… that they may live.”
And in
his dream, the bones come to life, and God says to Ezekiel, “I will raise you
up, my people… I will put my spirit into you and you will return to life…” Ez.
37. Luke seems to believe that prophecy has come true on the day of Pentecost,
or at least he hopes it has come true and believes that it can.
In Ephesians we read, “The church is Christ’s body; it’s the fullness of
the One who fills all creation” (1.23). Luke is suggesting that God is filling
the church, its individual members, as well as the whole earth with the spirit
of life and vitality. This is a story that is being told over and over in
scripture, and Luke brings it together in a very dramatic way.
Luke, familiar with most or maybe even all of these stories, seems to weave
them together to help fire up his community to be all they can be and to dare
to at least try to change their world.
Luke imagines Jesus ascending on the breath of the spirit, like Elijah, to
the eternal presence of God, and returning at Pentecost as the spirit giving
life to his new body, the church.
As Elijah ascended to the heavens and his spirit descended on Elisha, Luke
imagines Jesus ascending to the heavens and his spirit descending on his
followers.
The psalmist prayed for a continual experience of God’s spirit. Luke
imagines that prayer being answered with the spirit of Christ filling every
person.
Joel could imagine a day when God’s spirit would enfold every person,
regardless of gender, social class or status; Luke can imagine that such a day
has already arrived.
When Ezekiel’s people felt defeated and lifeless, he dreamed of the divine
Breath filling them and renewing them. When Luke’s people are feeling defeated
and lifeless, he, too, dreams of the Breath of God, the wind of God, filling
and renewing them and sending them out to help and heal others.
For Luke, the Ascension, Pentecost, and the Parousia (or return of Christ)
seem to be all one story, the story of the spirit at work in OUR lives here
and now. Luke says Jesus was empowered by spirit, and by following Jesus’
example we are the ones to continue his healing, inclusive, life-affirming
message. Christ has returned to us as us, by the power of the spirit,
and we are now the hands, the body of Christ meant to bring hope and healing
to our world.
We are filled with God’s spirit and therefore, we are the resurrected,
always present, body of Christ. Christ returns every time we follow in the
footsteps of Jesus to comfort the sick, offer hope to the suffering, speak
truth to power, demand justice and equality for all, extend forgiveness to
others, not because they deserve it but because they need it, and because we
need to be free in ways that only forgiveness makes possible.
Luke is saying the Jesus story is our story. It’s time to embrace it, to
let it fire us up so that the spirit of divine living can work through us to
bring hope and healing to a world that still needs it very much. The spirit
has not overlooked us, has not passed us by. In fact, it is here right now!
Don’t you feel the wind of encouragement? Don’t you sense the flames of
possibility? The spirit is here to fire us up and to do great things through
us… US. This is the good news. Amen.