Blowin' on the Wind

 

 

Scripture

John 3:7-8

 [Jesus said to Nicodemus] ⁷ Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’⁸ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”  (NRSV)

Acts 2:1-21

¹When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

⁵Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. ⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. ⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? ⁹Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes ¹¹Cretans and Arabs — in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” ¹²All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” ¹³But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”  (NRSV)

Devotion

I love Pentecost.  I love the music and the way people don red clothes.  I love congregations' special traditions like flying kites or eating birthday cake.  This year, I decided to introduce my congregation to a tradition of my own tradition of creating tissue paper flames.  

Usually, I decorate the sanctuary with dozens of tissue paper flames as a symbol of the Holy Spirit that burns within each attendee.  Towards the end of the service, I invite folks to pick a come to the front and pick up a flame to take home.  Since are currently meeting in our church's garden, I diligently made enough flames to lay out on a table for people to pick up as they arrived and then hold during the service.  I planned to arrange others in a clear bowl near  my portable lectern and then place others in strategic spots throughout the space.  The image was going to be striking.  There was just one thing: I forgot about the possibility of wind.

I'd like you to imagine a service with 30ish paper flames blowing across the grass.  And rustling around my feet.  The 40 or so that people were holding rustled in their hands with each breezy gust.  After the service, a few folks and I had to spend some time chasing down bits of tissue paper flames all throughout our garden.   While the flames were still visually striking, my plan had gone slightly awry.   

As a bit of tissue paper skittered across my foot mid-sermon, I found myself thinking, I should have had twisted up a couple marbles inside the tissue paper.  Then, things would have stayed nice and neat like I planned.

There is a lesson to be learned here.  A lot of us like to keep things nice and orderly...to plan for every eventuality and leave nothing to chance.  And yet, at Jesus explained to Nicodemus, the Spirit blows where it will.  We do not always where it will come from.   Nor can we accurately predict where it will take us.  And when it disrupts of our nice, orderly notions about how things are supposed to be, we have little choice but to adjust to God's will and let ourselves be taken with the breeze.

That is certainly what happened to believers on Pentecost.  In a single moment, people who had been quietly sitting and praying were suddenly empowered to speak in other languages and called by the Holy Spirit to tell everyone around them about Jesus.  That moment when the Spirit began blowing them around must have been shocking to not only the witnesses around them but also the newly empowered believers themselves.  And yet as Peter and the others continued to speak, and members of the crowed began to believe what they were saying, the fire of the Holy Spirit began to spread.  

That Pentecost flame would continue to spread as the people who bore witness to these unexpected events returned to their homes and the apostles found the Spirit blowing them further and further out into the world.  The flame was confusing and disruptive. It appeared disorderly at times. Still, it was spread by will of God.  And though we the apostles and those around them didn't always understand why they were being sent to a particular place or being called to set up a certain ministry, they followed the Spirit's prompting.  The more they did so, the further Christ's Gospel went.

What would happen if instead of trying to resist or contain it, we trusted Jesus enough to let the Spirit blow us where it will?  Where might we end up, and what unexpected Gospel flames might take off in those places?  I don't have the answer for all this.  What I do know that it might not be a bad thing for well-meaning Christians like myself to let go of some of our desire for order.  After all, spreading the Gospel can be messy work.  If we become so obsessed with order that we never let the Holy Spirit do anything new or unexpected with us, then what is the point of the point of Christ sending it to us?  

When I set my annoyance at my own lack of fore-sight aside, tI had to admit that there was something lovely about how the breeze scattered my little paper flames through our garden. People I expected to be critical of the mess laughed about how those symbols of the Holy Spirit had made it over retaining walls and taken rest in bushes.  How children chased them across the lawn.  How one seemed to head straight for a certain person while another escaped down to the driveway only to be picked up and carted off by someone on their way home.   It was as if each flame that blown by the breeze had been stirred by the very breath of God.  And as one person pointed out, what difference did I think a few marbles would have made during some of the wind's gotten stronger gusts?  The Spirit was was going to blow those flames where it willed.

This week, I'm going to try to set aside some of my penchant for neatness and order so that I can the Holy Spirit to blow me around a little.  And I hope that I can be more open to the disruptive or "disorderly" ways in which the Spirit moves others as well.  Will you join me in this commitment?  And if so, where do you think the Spirit might send you?

 

 

Prayer

 Come, Holy Spirit.  Blow through me and stir me to live according to your will.  I trust that wherever you take me and whatever you call me to do, that you will help me meet the challenges of today's world.  Amen.