"Pentecost: Many Gifts, One Spirit"

A sermon by The Rev. Keenan Kelsey
Noe Valley Ministry, Presbyterian Church (USA)
Sunday, May 15, 2005

1 Corinthians 12:3b-13

³ Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says 'Let Jesus be cursed!' and no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit. ⁴ Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; ⁵ and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; ⁶ and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. ⁷ To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. ⁸ To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, ⁹ to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, ¹⁰ to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. ¹¹ All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. ¹² For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³ For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body - Jews or Greeks, slaves or free - and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

VENI SANCTE SPIRITUS... Come holy spirit come!

Do you suppose those disciples, waiting and praying in an upper room in Jerusalem, really knew what they were praying for? And if they knew would they have continued to pray?

At Pentecost, we are invited to let our souls overflow with rampant, uninhibited, hope-filled optimism, enflaming and empowering us. We invite the Spirit to get us all fired up," "lifted ten feet off the ground," "flying high," And Holy Spirit says to us, "hang on to your hats," and "fasten your seat belt."

We say this with earnest trust and eagerness. But truth be told, if we think about it, we probably say it with trepidation, even dread, as well. For how many of us really want to be spun around with exhilaration and passion? To be inspired to do something and be someone different, someone bold and daring who might venture forth without worrying about propriety or reason or appearances or even outcome someone who receives and trusts the spirit so completely that nothing else matters?

Do we actually understand that receiving the Holy Spirit might mean sharing our faith with someone at the office or at school? Or letting our initial inclination or reluctance be surpassed by a courage and determination to do the right thing, inspired to act boldly even though the action is unpopular or uncomfortable?. Do we realize that receiving the Spirit means using your voice not to tout your own greatness, but rather to breathe with the wind that sets the waves in motion, breathe until you are filled with wonder at the gift of wind in your lungs, then use your breath to build up the gifts of the whole community?

Receiving the Spirit means that the next time you are getting ready to tell a joke that reinforces stereotypes and plays to the racism that divides our society, you must instead breathe until you are filled with wonder at the gift of wind in your lungs, then use your voice to overcome alienation and conflict. It means that the next time you are getting ready to claim vengeance, you must instead use your breath to forgive and to reconcile.

The point of Pentecost is that the gift of tongues is to be both privilege and responsibility; it is to allow yourself to speak of God's love in whatever tongue makes sense to the people around us, and to let the others around them talk about God's love in whatever tongue, medium, music and form of expression makes sense to them. The gift of tongues is not so much the ability to speak in Aramaic or Greek or Tagalog or Arabic. It is the ability to speak Baby, to speak Child, to be fluent in teenager, to know the language of Seniors and of the Sandwich Generation. The gift of tongues is to be able to relate to the seeker, the skeptic, the conservative, the evangelical. The Holy Spirit opens the way to speak with body language and music and compassion and caring, with smiles and tears, with all communication that spans words and worlds. No one present is excluded from this display of God's grace. But if we pay attention, we know that the Holy Spirit is more than a unifying force. First Peter, in Acts, then Paul, remind us that this force brings with it responsibilities, and consequences. The Letter to the Church at Corinth is about more than keeping discord at bay or warning household units about trying to invalidate the spiritual perspectives of their neighboring unit a few blocks down the street. Pentecost means that something positive has come into our world. It also says to us: Something positive is expected out of God's people. Corinth, for all its secular and religious problems, was a place that was blessed. Its people brought to any endeavor a fine array of spiritual blessings, from knowledge to preaching to ecstatic tongues. Yet Paul asks: how will your gift build up the body of Christ? These things can be a blessing or a curse. Do they build up, edify, and serve the body of Christ?

Paul is concerned lest the new Christians return to their pagan ways, when they were led astray to "mute idols." These new Christians knew how to cooperate and have fellowship from having belonged to the various voluntary associations, philosophical schools, and households which were part of the Corinthian world. Paul is not as concerned with the means by which the Christian community is founded as he is with its purposes. This concern parallels, interestingly enough, our contemporary concern with so-called New Age spirituality. Mute idols are idols which have no purpose other than being privately adored by their worshipers. Meditation is a wonderful exercise. But it makes a mute idol if it is only for the worshipper. Celtic harp music is relaxing, even spiritual. But it is a mute idol against injustice.

Pentecost is about being called to claim your spiritual gifts then use them! The variety is what contributes to the up building of the faith community. Trouble brews only when diversity becomes hierarchy, in which the more dramatic gifts reigned over those that seem more ordinary. Unity is never uniformity. But diversity without purpose is to misunderstand what goal diversity serves.

The Presbyterian Church adopted a new creed in the midst of reconciliation. Drawing on the work of Dr. King and others, the church chose in that troubled time to dream once more a Pentecostal dream, where racial and cultural distinctions among people would no longer matter. We said in the Confession of '67 that the barriers we build based on differences of race, ethnicity, and nationality "resist the Spirit of God and bring contempt on the faith which (we) profess, (for) God has created the peoples of the earth to be one universal family." (Book of Confessions, 9.44)

If that was the dream, the Spirit-filled Pentecost dream, it has yet to be realized. The noise and wind of that long-ago event offer a fiery reminder of the work we have cut out for us. There is unfinished Pentecost business, globally and right here at home. Someone has to do the heavy lifting when it comes to dreaming of a new world and then building it together, and it might as well be us in the church. When the differences among human beings will be seen not as barriers and threats, but as parts of a whole.

Mind you, The Spirit does not always manifest in flames and wind.. .There is power in a seed. It can split concrete, change the foundations of a building, all very quietly and unobtrusively. The gentle touch of a baby has the power to change the lives of parents. The gentle brook has the power to carve a path across a meadow The gentle impact of non-violence -- Rosa Parks, for instance-- has the power to wake up a nation.

The Holy Spirit empowers the church to be the agent of change in the world, a counter-cultural entity. The task of the church is to breathe in the Spirit and be inspired by the Spirit to act on behalf of God.

But the church has been waiting to exhale far too long. As the Spirit of God flows into us, it also ought to flow from us in the way we treat one another, the way we speak to one another, in the way we treat others in our community, in the way we live out the new life we receive when we follow Jesus.

My question for you is, have you been letting God's Spirit work in you? You are called to use your gift of breath for supporting the gifts of life, love, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Then more than the grasses and the waves, the trees and the seeds, will be set in motion. Hearts will bend and bow, will be lifted up and buoyed along on the wind-spirit-breath that is renewing the whole creation.

Thanks be to God for Pentecost. Use it well.