A Reflection and Poem for Pentecost
May 15, 2016 Thomas
E. Wilson Southern Shores, NC All
Saints’ Episcopal and Emmanuel Lutheran
Beginnings
This is the Feast of Pentecost, the end of the Easter Season
and the beginning of a new season. The church year is divided into two cycles
of Preparation, Celebration and Implementation.
These cycles are reflected in the progression from Advent to Christmas
to Epiphany and from Lent to Easter to Pentecost. It is a little like any
committed relationship where we have a courtship phase and a celebration of
commitment, followed by determining how
we live a life together in this world. We see in today’s lessons stories
of different approaches to unity with
God.
The Book of Genesis contains a series of stories which try
to relate accounts of pre-history. Because these are pre-historic stories there
is no interest in relating facts; their interest is in telling truth to explain
how they dealt with everyday life. In the story of the tower of Babel, the
people look up at the heavens and say “There is something about it that speaks
to me. I know that it would make me more complete.” So far so good; we have an
honest moment of attraction that can lead to a vision of being united. It is
like the beginning of any relationship. But here is where it goes all wrong as
the inner dialogue continues: “You know, we would like to live in this heaven
and have it for ourselves. Let’s build a way up there and take it by force.”
This was the way the culture around them always resolved opportunities for
greed, by conquering and taking what they wanted by brute force. But if you
want to do brutish things, you become a brute and start arguing like brutes,
and leave in ruins the path that could have been created.
This basic myth of attraction descending into ruin is
repeated several times in the Book of Genesis and the rest of the Bible - the
Fall from the Garden, Cain and Abel, the Evil leading to the flood, Sodom and
Gomorrah, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers, Pharaoh and the Hebrew
children, the Golden Calf, Sampson and Delilah, David and Bathsheba, Jezebel
and Ahab, and it keeps on going in the scriptures just as it does in today’s
daily life.
In tension with that mythic structure of those stories,
there is another theme of attraction ascending into community - Abraham and Sarah, Moses, Ruth
and Naomi, Isaiah and Jerusalem, Hosea and Gomer, Jesus, Peter and Paul to name
a few. The Psalm for today is a song of awe at the mystery of God and entering
into relationship with that mystery.
The story of the Pentecost experience follows that structure,
with the Disciples longing for the relationship they had with Jesus, opening
themselves to the deeper implications of that relationship, moving them beyond
the man Jesus to openness to the God and Spirit to whom Jesus kept referring. They
move from longing in the Upper Room, to move to the places outside their
comfort zones and share that love that is within themselves. Their relationships
with each other and the sacred space between them gives them the strength and
the will to touch the lives and hearts of others. They were not interested in
building an institution but in living a full life of community where
differences are respected and gifts are honored.
The Pentecost story is a story of how a group of people
become a church. The word church comes from the Greek word Kyrie, meaning Lord;
the church is that which belongs to the Lord of all creation. There is first a
longing coming from an awareness of an emptiness. We then gather together,
sharing our incompleteness and the longing. The longing becomes connected to an
object - a person, place or thing. If the longing is for a person, like a
preacher, then the descent into ruin begins, for people will always leave or
disappoint. I remember Miller Maxwell, a woman parishioner I grew to love, say
to me when she first met me as her new Pastor, “I was a member of Grace
Memorial long before you came here and I will be one long after you leave.”
Years later I presided at her memorial service, but each time I return in the
20 + years since I left, her spirit is still there because her commitment was
to something deeper - a vibrant spiritual community that made a difference in
the world outside the building.
If the longing is for a thing, like a ritual or a building,
then the descent into ruin begins as things always fall apart and wear out. There
is an old joke about Episcopalians, and maybe Lutherans too: “How many church
members does it take to change a light bulb?” “Change? My grandmother bought
that bulb!” Miller Maxwell had been a member of that church before it sold its
old building and moved to the suburbs in 1928, just before the depression hit,
and they worked hard to pay off that mortgage. They loved the 1928 Prayer Book
and they loved the 1928 Building, and we doubled the size of that physical
plant and changed the liturgy because the commitment was to something deeper -
the giving away to others the faith we treasured.
If the longing is for a geographic place, like the Outer
Banks, then the descent into ruin begins as places change, and we could waste
much of our energy trying to keep it from changing. I remember when I moved
here, it only took me a couple of weeks to complain about how all the visitors
coming in on Saturday were ruining the place. But this church kept reminding me
that we existed to welcome and care for all who are in the larger community,
for all of them are brothers and sisters of our Kyrie, our Lord.
One of the things the Vestry at All Saints is doing this
year is to devise a 5 to 10 year Strategic Plan for this church, and they will
want your input as they revisit the Vision and Mission statements as this
church moves into the future. We have all, like Falstaff, heard the Chimes at
Midnight, and there are new days coming for our churches, new days allowing us
to continue making a commitment to something deeper than ourselves. Every day
is a new beginning, a new Pentecost.
Beginnings (poem)
Beginning with a hint of wonder;
there is something there I want,
reminding me of what I lack,
drawing me to desire to unite.
You will fix me,
but it will be on my terms,
existing for meeting my wants,
my desires, me.
What; no my NEEDS!
You will be MINE!
If you will not be mine;
then you will be a no one
and no one's.
Until I search in the ruins
for another something.
OR
Beginning with a mystery of awe
There is some part of me longing
to be with you.
To listen to who you are,
sharing who I am,
who we are in each other,
who we are becoming,
creating together sacred
places and neighbors.
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