A Holy Disturbance

Acts 2:1-12 (The Message)
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”

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Once again, we find the disciples had gathered together in a secluded, private,  room… It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone at this point, because this is a scene that we have witnessed before in previous texts. We only have to look back at the Easter story, in which the disciples fled and hid after the crucifixion of Jesus. They were afraid of the teachers of the law, the Roman Empire, and the people who shouted out to Pontius Pilate, “Crucify him, crucify him!” But this morning Luke doesn’t tell us why the disciples had come together in Jerusalem…  All we are told is that it was the day of Pentecost, which was a time of feasting and celebration for the Jewish people, and that the disciples were present with each other in one place.

With everything that was going on, it must have been noisy… Imagine the streets of Jerusalem is filled with people from all different places, conversations could probably be heard through the windows, which must have made it all the more terrifying when that sound of a rushing, violent, wind filled the place where the disciples were staying. However, the sound of the wind that flooded the place they were staying, must have seemed pretty minor in comparison when they saw the tongues of fire descending upon their heads, it was undoubtedly a “holy disturbance.” This disturbance wasn’t planned, the disciples probably weren’t ready, but one way or another, they went out being filled with the Holy Spirit. The question for us this morning is how will we react to this holy disturbance when the Holy Spirit comes into our presence and says, “Come, follow me, be inspired, be challenged, and know that I am here with you.”

We aren’t always good with disturbances, or maybe I should say we aren’t still good at dealing with change that pushes us to go beyond what we have come to know and find comforting and reassuring. Yet we see this recurring throughout Scripture… God reached out to Moses from the burning bush calling Moses to leave behind the life he had made for himself… God asked Jonah to go and proclaim the good news to the people of Nineveh whom Jonah had despised… God asked Mary to take on the task of conceiving a son that would be named Emmanuel, God with us… God asked the disciples if they would drop what they were doing and come follow him… And God asks the same life disturbing question to us today. But it’s hard to answer the call, to feel the presence of the Holy Spirit kindling a fire inside us when we erect a sanctuary, a safe haven, a refuge for ourselves to keep the world out of the space we have created for our own pleasure.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like if the church, this church, didn’t have any walls or ceilings… What would it be like for us to worship in a space where we were completely exposed to those around us? How would we handle ourselves in a situation where we could look out to see our neighbors passing by on the sidewalk or strangers driving down Washington Street? Would we welcome them? Would let them in? Would we let them into the “one place” where we gathered to seek God, or does the Holy Spirit need to descend and push out into our community like it pushed the disciples out into the streets of Jerusalem?  Now Mary Sanford, our church historian, might have some words for me if I started taking a sledgehammer to the outside of the church, but I want us to really think about what it would look like, what it would mean for us and others, if we acted, lived, and worshipped like the church was not a building, but a way of life.

Recently I attended the changing of command ceremony for Lt. Col. Jeremy Gwinn up at Ft. Drum. I don’t come from a military background, so my volunteer work with the USO and going to events such as this has been a great learning experience… I’ll say that I thought Presbyterians used a lot of acronyms, but we fall so short in terms of the number of abbreviations our armed forces use… Getting back on track, each time I go to Ft. Drum, I’m greeted with the 10th Mountain Divisions motto “Climb to Glory.” I think this is a fitting phrase for us today as we gather during this season of Pentecost. As the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples, we are reminded of how God continually meets us where we are, and in response, we take the gifts that we have received and “climb to glory” by being faithful in our words, deeds, and actions… It’s a holistic perspective. One that reminds us that while we should use our brains, we need to use our hearts and hands as well.

God didn’t call the disciples to go to the places that they thought were comfortable. God didn’t call the disciples to be arrogant or angry. God didn’t call the disciples to only care for those people who were like them. No… God called them to go to places where God’s own heart hurts the most. God called them to go and to be with the widows and the orphans, to go and welcome the stranger who came from a foreign land, and to go and to be in the places where there is so much hurt and pain that those who live there are either forgotten about or pushed far off into the extreme margins of our society. It’s not here where God calls us to be… It may be a part of what it means to be the church, but it’s out there where God indeed calls us to be… That is where we are supposed to be the church. The church isn’t a place where you gather on Sunday morning, but it is found in the divine interactions, the moments of grace, forgiveness, healing, and reconciliation, that we have with one another.

So where are God’s heart hurting the most today, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow? Where is God’s heart hurting in your own life and in the lives of those who live around us? Where is God’s hurting heart calling us to be? We do a lot of excellent mission work… We’ve established sustainable and healthy programs in Malawi, we’ve gone down to Mexico to work with bricks and mortar, and we’ve gone to Europe and the Middle East to cultivate our spiritual lives, so we’re already taking a step in the right direction. Though I’ll that, it’s easy to find the places where God’s heart is hurting if they are far away, but it’s more challenging to answer the question of where God’s heart aches when we have to look around our own community. Yet that is also where the Spirit of God is calling us to be… It’s more than just writing a check, it’s more than wishing people luck in their endeavors, it requires blood, sweat, tears, and experimentation to cultivate the lasting relationships that make a healthy community of faith, a city that fully embraces the idea that each and every one of us is created in the image of God.

If we dare to let the Holy Spirit be our guide we will be led by love, we will be led by grace, and we will be led by a God who has walked in our footsteps… If we dare to let the Holy Spirit be our guide, we might find that our swords may truly be beaten into plowshares one day… If we dare to let the Holy Spirit be our guide, then our actions and our passions will speak in sweet harmony with the Gospel that Christ has given us. If we dare to let the Holy Spirit be our guide, we will then be fully aware that as soon as our feet hit the ground in the morning that what we are doing is church, that in the conversations we have with one another we are praising God, that in the moments of grief that we share we are turning to a Savior who has also  grieved and died, and in the moments we go and care for our neighbors, loving them and letting them love us, that the words of the Jesus are being fulfilled at that moment… If we dare to allow the Spirit to guide us perhaps we will rekindle the flame that already exists with our souls, maybe then we will revive our love for one another, our love for God, our passion for real justice and peace, and our rediscover the beauty that comes from unexpected places. But that is only if we dare to let the Spirit be our guide and disturb and disrupt us. Are we will willing to trust the Spirit of God to lead us into the unknown, into such a challenging place?

Following the Holy Spirit does not mean everything will go our way… There will be a lot of failures… Just look at Scripture! The New Testament recounts the numerous shortcomings of the disciples as they went out on their missionary journeys throughout Asia, Africa, and Europe. In our following of the Holy Spirit, we won’t get everything right. Ministry is messy, life is messy, this thing we call the church is messy, but the beautiful part is that God loves every last bit of what we have to offer. In the spills and mishaps that life brings God is co-laboring with us, encouraging us, sharing in our joys and sorrows… Are we ready for the chaos and messiness that the Holy Spirit brings? I don’t know… I don’t have the silver bullet that provides a reassuring answer… But I do know this, that in our striving to be active and faithful followers of Christ the fears of what the future will be are soothed by the knowledge that there is a community, a family of individuals, who are wrestling with the struggles of life as well.

At the end of our passage from the Book of Acts, we find the those who bore witness to the disciples speaking in different tongues were left in a state of amazement, and that they asked one another, “What does this mean?” This summer, we’ll be exploring select passages from the Acts as we ask a similar question, “What does it mean for us to be a spiritual led, spiritually transformed, church?” There’s no one answer, which may be hard for some folks, but that’s only because the Spirit of God cannot be contained by a single dogma, a different religious practice, or church building… The Spirit of God has to be let free… It has to be allowed to work in ways that surprise us, that brings us to the darkened corners of our communities, and show us how in our loving of others we too are loved.  Get ready… Because I hope that we can go on a journey together… A journey that invites the Holy Spirit to be present in a way that is familiar yet challenging. May we welcome the holy disturbances that can be found in Pentecost. Allow yourselves to get caught off guard… Because you may be surprised at what the Holy Spirit allows us to uncover. Amen.