The Wind of the Spirit

Before ordinations, the candidates are often taken on a retreat for a few days to prepare themselves, usually to a monastery or some other kind of retreat center. My diocese did not do this, so I decided to take myself off on retreat. With the help of a friend and a 4-wheel-drive truck, I went to Death Valley. The silence of the desert was deafening and unearthly, and exactly what I needed. But one day we climbed up Telescope Peak, the highest point in the park at 11,331 feet, where I sat for a time under some pine trees looking out over the desert. The wind picked up and blew through the pines, and after all the silence of the desert the sound seemed huge. And in that sound of the wind, I distinctly heard God saying to me, well, are you going to do this, or aren’t you? will you say yes to me? And I said, yes. The memory continues to mark for me the moment when I actually agreed to be ordained – and a few days later, I was, 25 years ago. The wind of the Spirit got its way with me.

So the sound of wind in trees continues to get my attention, and I spend a little time being still and listening to it whenever I find it – on mountains, under palm trees, in city parks, wherever. On one of my pilgrimages to Israel I was thrilled to hear it on a hill outside of Nazareth, in a place called Mt Precipice. (It’s where tradition puts the story of the angry crowd trying to throw Jesus off the cliff after he offended them all in the synagogue. Whether that happened there or not I don’t know, but it is a great place to climb up out of the town to get the view over the Jezreel Valley.) And there, on the side of the hill, are pine trees – with the wind blowing through them. I thought there of Jesus, growing up in Nazareth, climbing the hill and hearing that wind. Hearing that wind and perhaps in it also, God’s voice calling him to his identity and mission in the world. The wind of the Spirit, as Jesus tells Nicodemus, blows where it wills.

Today we celebrate and remember when the wind of the Spirit came upon those gathered believers in Jerusalem, lighting on every one of them and making them speak of God’s deeds of power in languages that everyone in the city could understand. We call it the birthday of the Christian church, but it begins with Jewish tradition. The tradition says that when God gave the Law to Moses and all the people gathered at Mt Sinai, a fire came down from heaven and divided into 70 flames, one for each nation of the world (as they saw it). Everyone on earth received the Law, the way God wanted all people to live.  But only Israel chose to respond, and so they entered into a special relationship with God, to serve as a sign and a blessing for all peoples. And so that event, the giving of the Law at Sinai, is celebrated every year on the feast of Shavuot, which falls 50 days after Passover – this last week, in fact, in the Jewish calendar. In the days of the temple, it was a time when Jews living scattered throughout the Mediterranean would bring the first fruits of the harvest to Jerusalem – and so it was a day of pilgrimage, of returning from wherever they lived to the holy city to give thanks to God for all God had done for them and their people. 

So that’s why when all of Jesus’ followers were gathered together on Pentecost, as Luke tells it, ‘devout Jews from every nation under heaven’ were also gathered together in Jerusalem. A rush of wind and fire comes upon them – just like what happened on Mt Sinai when God appeared there – and the fire divides into a flame on each one of them, and each one begins to speak in a different language. And every Jew gathered into Jerusalem for the feast hears his or her own language being spoken, and they hear and understand the good news of God being spoken to them. And, the story goes on to say, some 3000 new followers are baptized because of this, and the new Christian community begins to grow and grow, and ‘day by day…they spent much time together in the temple…and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.’ The divine flame that had been divided before, now brings all together into one community; the first fruits of the harvest are brought in, one new people for God gathered to Jerusalem from all over the world.

We call it the birth day of the church because it’s the day when the Spirit that Jesus promised, the Advocate, the presence of God, came to the followers of Jesus and turned them into a movement. It’s the day the followers of Jesus stopped waiting around for Jesus to do something and started doing it themselves. The early church as described in the book of Acts shows those followers performing healings, raising people from the dead, and preaching to anyone and everyone around them who would listen and many who would not. They didn’t just sit there in the temple marveling over what had happened – they went off and did things. None of them seemed to sit still after that Pentecost day.

And so here we are, celebrating this feast of Pentecost. We put on our red clothes and we sing hymns about the Spirit – and then what? Really, the Spirit comes blowing along to us in our lives all the time, in all kinds of ways. Maybe you feel it when you’re outside under trees. Or maybe when you hear a stirring piece of music, or when a conversation gets really good, when you’re really connecting. Maybe as you come here to worship you feel it, or in our Bible studies together when suddenly it all seems to spark. These are times when the Spirit comes to feed and nourish us, when we can drink deeply from the Spirit – to be followers of Jesus, disciples, students, learners at Jesus’ feet. With this gathered community we take in what we need for the week, and in our own prayer times throughout the week we refuel, being intentionally in God’s presence, receiving from what the Spirit can give us.

And then we get up and go out. And that’s where we turn from disciples to apostles – from those who come to receive from the well to those who are sent to go out and give to others. Pentecost, you could say, happens every Sunday – every Sunday the community gathers and receives the Holy Spirit. And every Sunday the community disperses back out again, ready to communicate God’s deeds and God’s love in language that everyone else can hear. That is our mission as the church. We don’t get spiritually fed for ourselves alone. We get it so we can give it out again. And there’s a lot of work to be done.

Our challenge is to connect the two. To come and worship and pray and feel God’s presence, and then to take our awareness of that presence out into the rest of our lives. To feed the hungry and work to protect creation and care for the refugee, not simply as do-gooders, but as Christians. To act with integrity in our work and look after others and tend to our families, not just as good responsible citizens, but as people of the Spirit. To hear the voice of God’s call in the wind, in fire, in the stirrings of our hearts, and to heed it, impelled and sustained by the Spirit acting in us in all that we do. That’s really what it means to be the church. Not any less.

The wind of the Spirit is blowing here – and what the Spirit does is change us. Create new things, open pathways to freedom, shake up our routines, blow our minds. I sense the Spirit at work in this place, and with all of us. It may start in small, quiet ways – but sometimes it may feel like a whirlwind, hanging on to where she’s going. But we are all of us being turned into apostles, becoming prophets, being given the language to share what God is about here and in our world. May we hear the Spirit and spread the Spirit in everything we do. Amen.