When will Pentecost Come to Beaver?

Sermon by Fr. Scott Homer
In the Name of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Most people would not describe me as a wild-eyed liberal or even a progressive. I am pretty conservative in most ways and so it might surpise you to know that I believe that one of the big challenges facing us is a certain dysfunctional unwillingness to embrace change. But I believe that God, especially through the agency of the Holy Spirit is always driving change in the lives of his people. Why would an unchanging God be so devoted to change in his people? Well, because we are not God. We don’t behave like God. We certainly don’t love like God. And most of us don’t even know God particularly well and that means that unless we change we will always be deficient, dysfunctional, and defiant. And so God is in favor of change in our lives—so much so that He sends the Holy Spirit—the great change Agent—to take up residence in our lives in order that we might be changed into the likeness of God’s Son Jesus. Pray for Pentecost in your life. Pray that the Holy Spirit comes over you with power and that our faith comes truly alive, truly driven by God.

There is a significant portion of the Beaver Valley that lives their lives adverse to change. This percentage of folks behave as if it is still 1960, Big Steel still provides a sound economic base for the people (or will again soon), as if Big Box stores have not permanently replaced Ma and Pa stores, as if drug and alcohol addiction are just incidental problems in America that afflict certain ethnic groups other than our own, and as if people everywhere still attend Church on Sunday morning seeking to obey the commandments. These people who live adverse to change seem to believe that the ideas that were dominant in 1960 were good, functional ideas that work as well today as they did then, and in a certain sick way its true. They didn’t work then and they don’t work now. Those ideas never really worked which is why things are no longer the way they were, but be that as it may, they act as if the world still ought to operate the way it did in the old days and of course, it doesn’t. The world has changed and the clock will never be set back. It is a new day, worse in some ways, better in other ways, but the clock will never be set back and if life in the Valley is going to improve it is going to improve because the people who live in the Valley are adapting today to the changes that are occuring today. Where things have gotten worse, working for positive change is the only hope for improvement. Where things have gotten better embracing the changes is the best plan but remaining committed to an old way of life that no longer exists traps us in a world where we are victims, continually frightened and perplexed by the things we see happening around us, and wondering whatever happened to the Good Old Days. If you keep doing what you are doing, you keep getting what you are getting.

I mention this as an illustration only because I am not here to talk politics. I am here to talk religion but the same rules apply. Change is inevitable, driven by God and by the world, and we are called to respond appropriately. In politics there are lots of possible responses but in God’s kingdom there is only one legimate response.

Today we celebrate the Day of Pentecost. It is a very old holiday with roots in ancient Hebrew culture. The disciples were celebrating the Feast of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit visited them with great power. The Holy Spirit actually took up residence in the disciples and as a consequence of the indwelling of God, they declared the mighty works of God to people from every imaginable background, in every imaginable language, even though they were uneducated. People divided by language and culture found themselves actually hearing the message the disciples were speaking in their own native tongue. They found they were listening to the Good News that the God loves them, cares for them, and is inviting them into an eternal relationship. The message was received by Jew and Gentile. It was received by free people and slaves and having heard the Good News in Jesus Christ, in their own native tongue, they came to believe. They were baptized and together they were united into the Church of God in Christ. Today, fifty days after the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Church was born. The Church was born not out of fond memories and not out of sterile ideas. The Church was born out of wind and fire, out of love and passion, out of the active working of God in the lives of all sorts of people. And the same Spirit, that moved through the disciples and into the lives of people all over the world continues to move today. Today God wants to see every person in the world reborn, every Christian reborn, every church reborn through the Spirit of Pentecost.

We aren’t the only people resistent to change. The disciples were still living like they were poor fisherman in Galilee. They seemed content to live in the past. They were ignoring the fact that the world around them had changed and that God was calling them into a new life. The didn’t seem to understand that the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus changed everything. They were adverse to change. ..until the Holy Spirit fell upon them on the day of Pentecost. Then they changed. Then they embraced the new day. Then they began to live out God’s call upon their lives, the call to be the living Body of Christ, to love one another, and to invite people from every tongue and tribe and nation to give their lives to Christ and to live as members of Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. And my question this morning is, when will Pentecost come to Beaver?

I am praying that Pentecost will come to Beaver. Will you pray with me? The Bible says that the disciples were all together praying and we ought to be doing the same. Are you anticipating an inbreaking of the Holy Spirit in your life? Will you join with me in looking for it, hoping for it, searching for it. The Bible tells us that the disciples were looking for it. Jesus had told them that the Spirit was coming and although they didn’t quite know what that would look like or feel like, still they were anticipating the gift that Jesus had promised. Are you anxious to see what the Spirit will do in our midst? Are we actively seeking the Holy Spirit’s powerful presence or are we content to live in the past, adverse to change?

I have been praying for Pentecost in Beaver for three years now. Ever since I visited with the leadership here in the Spring of 2007 I have been praying that the Holy Spirit would come upon you with power, that acting in unity and love this church would experience the immense joy of declaring God’s mighty acts to the world around us, declaring His mighty acts, not acts that you have read about in books or heard about from preachers but the mighty acts of God that you are seeing and experiencing firsthand. I have prayed that you would experience the gifts of the Spirit, not primarily so that you might become better people, because that is never the primary reason that people receive gifts of the Spirit, but so that you can reveal Jesus to the world, so that you can show his power, so that they might know that God loves them, so that they might believe in the Christ.

For three years now I have been praying for Pentecost here in Beaver because when Pentecost comes, we are changed forever. The old is stripped away and the new comes. God’s kingdom really does come “on earth as it is in heaven.” God ceases to be academic, institutional, and inert. When Pentecost comes, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell—that is to say, God himself comes to dwell with us and in us. When Pentecost comes, we are overwhelmed by the overpowering love of God that washes over us and we know with certainty that God is indeed love and that he loves us! He loves you and me! And not as the world loves us but with a love that is so immense, so remarkeable that in his presence we are reduced to tears of joy and gratitude.

I have been praying for Pentecost in Beaver for three years now because I know that when Pentecost comes church ceases to be a duty and becomes a joy. When the Spirit comes studying the Bible ceases to be a burden and becomes a blessing. When we are overwhelmed by God’s love serving others flows naturally out of the love that is in us. God’s love in us is constantly recreating, restoring and renewing so that our service to others is merely an outflowing of the love we are experiencing. And on the Day of Pentecost we discover that our faith is the only thing that really matters, the only thing required of us. Will you pray for the Day of Pentecost in Beaver?

It is coming soon. In the Bible it says that there were signs that the Spirit was coming—the disciples heard the sound of wind. Wind is often used as a symbol for the Spirit. Remember in John chapter three Jesus said that the Spirit is like the wind? And so, the disciples hear wind—the Spirit is coming soon. And then the disciples see “tongues of fire.” Remember that John the Baptist describes the Spirit as fire but this fire is not a consuming heat, this Divine Fire is an all consuming love. Before the Spirit came and as the Spirit was coming there were signs that the Holy Spirit was coming soon and there are signs that the Spirit is coming to us soon. The wind of change is blowing all around us. We are seeing new people coming and using our space, and that can be a little unsettling. We might worry that our status is at risk, that these new people will destroy the things we love but not to worry. The Spirit will care for all of us, old and new. And there are signs that there is new fire and new vitality. The Spirit has begun to work in our hearts, begun the big thaw, begun to draw us out of ourselves and into the lives on one another, and into the lives of the commmunity around us. The Spirit has begun to loose our lips to declare his mighty works. The Spirit is showering our community with gifts of the Spirit and people are actually beginning to use those gifts for God’s glory and not the glory of men. The Day of Pentecost is coming soon. In fact, it just might be today.

Come Holy Spirit, come. Amen.