A new way of seeing

June 04, 2017

Day of Pentecost

 

Today we hear two different stories about Pentecost—the first is the more dramatic and familiar one, in Acts. Fifty days after Easter we see tongues of fire; we hear a violent wind, and then multiple exotic languages. Liturgically, this is the Pentecost story we emphasize each year; we wear red to symbolize flame; we invite parishioners who speak foreign languages to read aloud. We claim the Acts story as "the day the church is born"; some churches even serve birthday cake.
Then we have what is sometimes called the Johannine Pentecost, our gospel story today. This telling occurs at a completely different time in the narrative of Jesus's life. John's story happens earlier than the one at Acts—at Easter. This is Jesus's first appearance to his band of disciples after his death and resurrection, the encounter that Doubting Thomas misses. There is no violent wind, there are no tongues of fire, no foreign languages, or crowds of strangers. There is simple reassurance, the granting of peace, a quiet exhalation, and the gift of authority and mission. Two starkly different stories for a crucial, pivotal moment for Christianity.

If you come to church with any regularity, if you read the Bible, you may not be surprised that there are multiple versions of Pentecost. The Bible is not the sort of cleanly produced, highly edited story we are used to consuming in films and advertising. There are inconsistencies all over the place. And these inconsistencies may bother us, especially when people challenge our beliefs. Details that don't match up, an incoherent story-- these can be signs that a source is not reliable, that we are not getting the truth. Why can't the Bible offer us one reliable, clear, consistent story?

But let's be even bolder. (This is Pentecost, after all.) When you get right down to it, Scriptural inconsistencies may be the least of our problems. What about the things the Bible actually says? --countless, improbable, stories and events—angels, healings, dreams, prophecy, bones that grow sinews and muscle and come to life, fire that burns but doesn't consume, bodily resurrection, people speaking in languages they don't know. Much of the Bible is incredible. We are educated, sophisticated people. Can we really believe these things?

Imagine, for a moment, that we are transported back in time to Jesus's Jerusalem. And we are trying to explain to the people of ancient Rome what it is to use a smartphone. Some of us are old enough to remember that far back-- life without smartphones; but to explain it across the centuries, across vastly different cultural contexts, would be nearly impossible. Our individual attempts to explain and describe would likely vary; the details we offered might not cohere. In the end, I suspect that the ancients would declare us all fools or liars, or even say that we were "filled with new wine".

I would not fault those ancient people for not believing me. Our human horizons are always constrained by what we know. And here we arrive at crux of the challenge for us as people of faith.
This God that we claim—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and Rachel and Leah and Sarah-- we cannot belong to this God if we are only willing to believe what is already known and experienced and proven. This God we claim is the God of Creation—that is, the God of radical newness and possibility. God tells Moses, "I am who I am," which can also be translated, "I will be who I will be." Our God is a god of freedom, a God who speaks unknown and unexperienced life into the world.
In the beginning, God brings forth something that never existed before. And this God of Creation continues to bring new life into being; new life is always God's goal. Our God is the great creator and revealer of new things. "new things I now declare; before they spring forth, I tell you of them. (Isaiah 42:9)
These jumbled stories of the Bible, and the stories of Pentecost we read today, these are stories of revelation. They are attempts to reveal who God is and what God is doing. The Bible, if we take it at its claim, is trying to tell us, even now, across the centuries, the story of how a wild, unpredictable, and unmanageable God—the one who tells Moses "I will be who I will be," enters into history and even into human form. The Bible recounts moments in time, in the lives of real, concrete people who lived and died long ago, when something neither they nor we could predict or know or understand, something radically new and other, entered in. How could anyone possibly explain those encounters in neat and tidy ways? How could anyone explain them at all?

All of humankind shares this one created Earth we know and inhabit, this world which has been given. But people of faith are called to live into a different world as well, an alternative future, a way which is promised, hinted at, but not yet fully known. We hear in the book of Isaiah (43:19), "I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?" We are given glimmers of that newness—in Bible stories, in prayer, in our own lives and in our lives together. People of faith are called to trust, remember, and share those glimmers as best we can. We are called to see the world differently, to envision human community differently, to hope in a different sort of future. We are called to believe that new life is possible and true and real, and then to offer that hope to others.

Whether God comes to us as a violent wind, or as a gentle, encouraging breath, God finds a way in to his people, even through locked doors. "Harden not your hearts," Scripture says. When God finds hearts turned to Him, hearts open to possibility, he fills them with his disorienting and creative purpose. Time and time again, Scripture tells the stories of people who are subjected to startling, confusing, mind-altering encounters with God that unnerve and confuse them.
God continues to search for people who will let God's spirit unnerve and discomfit them, people willing to open their eyes to a different way of seeing, to have their understanding challenged. God is even now looking for people with imagination, people who can envision God's new way, and boldly pursue it.

Before I end, I would like to share with you a quote from a modern-day prophet, a prophet of science, Albert Einstein. "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we already know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire universe, and all there ever will be to know and to understand."

Today, may the Holy Spirit breathe power and purpose into your imaginations. May God pour out His Spirit upon your flesh; may you prophesy and see visions; may you dream dreams of God's goodness. May God claim you as his own.