Outrageous

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

May 15, 2016

Pentecost

         Birthday cakes are a very big deal at our house.  I do not remember when or how the tradition started, but I shipped birthday cakes to Atlanta, Georgia and Ada, Ohio when our sons were in school.  Now cakes get sent to Cincinnati and to upstate New York.  I drew the line at shipping a birthday cake the year our older son Slocomb lived in Ecuador, so he took a big piece with him when he left home.  Slocomb and Caldwell’s girlfriends knew they had become part of the family when they received a birthday cake in the mail.  More than the gifts or the birthday dinner, in our family the birthday cake has become the focus of birthday celebrations.

          The birthday cake is not gorgeous by any means, but the cake is rather outrageous.  The cake recipe starts with fairly ordinary ingredients-flour, sugar, cocoa, oil, eggs, vanilla, and so forth.  Not too long ago, I discovered black cocoa which adds an even deeper, richer flavor to the cake.  Once the batter is whipped up, which is a pretty easy matter, and poured into the pans, an entire bag of dark chocolate chips is sprinkled on top of the batter and the cake is baked.  Once the cake has baked, come out of the pans and cooled, a generous layer of natural chunky peanut butter is spread over the bottom layer, then some of my mother’s recipe for chocolate icing which involves a ridiculous amount of butter and cocoa, then the second layer, then the whole cake is iced.  The finished product weighs about 5 pounds and the center is an amazing combination of chocolate chips, peanut butter, and icing.  While the cake is rather outrageous, so is our love for the person whose birth is being celebrated with such decadence.

          Pentecost is God’s outrageous gift of the Church, born of the Holy Spirit.  In fact, Pentecost is often thought of as the birthday of the Church.  In the gospel reading, we heard Jesus promise that God will send the Advocate, the Spirit, to be with the disciples forever.  The Advocate will teach the disciples everything and remind them of all that Jesus has said to them.  On Pentecost, that promise is fulfilled as the Holy Spirit descends on the disciples with a mighty wind and flames of fire, giving them the ability to speak the gospel in languages that can be heard and understood by all people in their native languages.  On Pentecost, an unlikely group of frightened disciples was turned into the Church, into the body of Christ, and given the gifts they needed to bring the gospel alive for all people.

          The story in Acts tells us that the disciples were all together in one place when they received the Holy Spirit.  Peter was not out on his morning run.  John was not at home making breakfast.  James was not on his way to the office.  The disciples were all together.  Part of Pentecost is everyone being together.  The story also tells us that the Spirit is not tame nor did the Spirit come to do the disciples’ bidding.  The Spirit arrived with a rush of violent wind and tongues of fire to change the disciples. Part of Pentecost is an experience of the unleashed power of God that changes us.  Lastly, the story tells us that the gift of the Spirit, the ability to speak in other languages, made the gospel accessible to all people, bringing together that which had been scattered in the story from Genesis.  Part of Pentecost is the recognition that the work of the Spirit unites that which has been divided.

          Unlike our birthday celebrations with cake and gifts that focus on the person being celebrated, the birthday of the church calls us to come together as one body, to experience the Spirit’s power at work in our midst and allow the Spirit to change us, and to use the gifts the Spirit has given us to focus on the world around us. The Spirit gives us the ability proclaim the gospel to those who have not heard the good news in a language they understand.  The Spirit did not make the Parthians, Medes, and Elamites learn Hebrew or Greek in order to hear the gospel.  The Spirit gave the disciples the ability to speak in the languages the people would recognize.  I wonder what languages the Spirit gives us and calls us to use today.  I’m not thinking about Chinese, Spanish, and German.  I am thinking about a language that brings the gospel alive for those who are lonely, those longing for meaning in their lives, those who need hope for a better future.  How do we speak the gospel in a language people understand?  Pentecost tells us that our work as the church, the body of Christ, is to make the gospel intelligible to those who have never heard it rather than expecting others to learn our language.

          Pentecost is one of two primary baptismal feast days in the church. The other is Easter.   The disciples were baptized with wind and fire to do the work they were given to do.  We are baptized with water and the Holy Spirit so we can do the work we are given to do, which is the same work the disciples were given.  This morning, we will renew our baptismal covenant, and in that renewal we will promise to take our place in the Pentecost story.  We will promise to be faithful in worship, to come together as the disciples were together.  We will promise to repent and return whenever we sin, recognizing that the Spirit’s power to bring us together is greater than sin’s power to divide us.  We will promise to proclaim the gospel in word and deed, working to make the gospel accessible to all people.  We will promise to seek and serve Christ in all people, just as the disciples were sent to seek and serve Christ in all people, and we will promise to respect the dignity of every human being, recognizing the unity of the whole human family.  Once we have renewed those promises, I will bless some oil and invite you forward to be anointed with oil and the words “you were sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism and marked as Christ’s own forever.”  If you have not yet been baptized and wish to come forward for a blessing, just cross your arms over your chest and I will know that. 

          On Pentecost we celebrate God’s outrageous gift of the Church, born of the Holy Spirit, which empowered the disciples and empowers us to do more for the world than we could ever ask or imagine, and to do more together than we could all do individually.  Pentecost is the birthday of the church, but what we mark today was not a one time event.  Pentecost happens every time the body of Christ comes together, allows itself to be changed by the unleashed power of God, and goes out into the world proclaiming the good news with words and deeds everyone can understand.

                                                          Amen.