Homily – Pentecost 2004 – May 30,
2004
Piri Thomas in his book, Down These Mean Streets, has a
moving scene in which a prisoner is speaking:
I went back to my cell the night
before my hearing. I decided to make a prayer. It had to be on my knees…I couldn’t
play it cheap. So I waited until the thin kid was asleep. Then I quietly climbed down from my top bunk
and bent my knees. I knelt at the foot of the bed and told God what was in my
heart. I made like he was there in the flesh with me. I talked to him plain…no
big words, no almighties…I talked with him like I had wanted to talk to my old
man so many years ago. I talked like a
little kid and I told him of my wants and lack, of my hopes and
disappointments. I asked the Big Man…to
make a cool way for me…I felt like I was someone that belonged to somebody who
cared. I felt like I could even cry if I wanted to, something I hadn’t been
able to do for years. “God,” I
concluded, “maybe I won’t be an angel but I do know I’ll try not to be a
blank. So in your name… I ask this.
Amen.”
A small voice added another amen to
mine. I looked up and saw the thin kid, his elbows bent, his head resting on
his hand. I peered through the semidarkness to see his face, wondering if he
was sounding me. But his face was like mine,
looking for help from God. There we
were, he lying down, head on bended elbows, and I still on my knees. No one spoke for a long while. Then the kid whispered, “I believe in Dios
also. Maybe you don’t believe it, but I
used to go to church and I had the hand of God upon me. I felt always like you and I feel now warm,
quiet and peaceful like there’s no suffering in our hearts.” What is he called,
“It’s called Grace by the Power of
the Holy Spirit,” the kid said.
We celebrate the beginning on this Feast of Pentecost. This feast
has its origins in the ancient Jewish feast of Weeks which commemorated the
harvest the gift of God the beginning of blessings for a people. The early Church celebrated the gift that
their God gave them – God’s presence – God’s power – God’s love. It was the
gift of the harvest that nourished the ancients and help them to live – it is
the Gift of God’s presence – God’s spirit that enables us to be Church and to
be nourished and full of life.
That early community that we witness in the first reading
were people who accepted the gift of God’s presence. In spite of fear – in
spite of confusion and differences they said Yes to that presence. They wanted
to be made whole.
The result – which we see in the story the unfolds – the
story of the Acts of the Apostles that we have reading in this Easter time is
that they become transformed and they are healed and they heal others. They
have courage and they give courage to others. They are filled with peace and
give that peace to others. It is their realization and acceptance of God’s
presence with them that makes them church – that makes them one. They are cured of their illnesses – the
illness, the sickness of not being whole.
William Sloane Coffin the minister, author, prophet and
peacemaker says in his book Credo, that the central problem of the Christian
church in America today is that most of us fear the cure more than the illness.
“Most of us,” he says, “prefer the plausible lie that we can’t be cured to the
fantastic truth that we can be. And there’s a reason: if it’s hell to be guilty,
it’s certainly scarier to be responsible – response-able, able to respond to
God’s visionary and creative love. No longer paralyzed, our arms would be free
to embrace the outcast and the enemy, the most confirmed addict….No longer
paralyzed,our feet would be free to walk out of any job that is harmful to
others and meaningless to us, free even to walk that lonesome valley with out
fear of evil. Everything is possible to
those whose eyes, no longer fixed on some status symbol or other, are held
instead by the gaze of him who can dispense freedom and life in measures
unheard of….And alas, whether they occupy pulpits or sit in the pews, most
American Christians are sill on the pallet (like the paralytic in the Gospel
story). Like the paralytic, they know they are sinners…But lacking his will to
be cured, lacking the courage to be well, they do not seek the forgiveness that
offers a new way of life.”
The early crowd that we read about in our reading today –
those Pentecost Christians did not fear the cure.
We gather to celebrate not just the end of the Easter season
or the beginning of summer. We gather not just for ritual but for
transformation. We would be followers of Jesus and children of God who know we
are loved and believe that we are visited by our loving God.
And this would cure us of that which gets in the way of our
living our baptisms.
This would make it possible for us to love not just when it
is easy but when it challenges us of makes us afraid.
It would make it possible for us to be peacemakers even when
there is risk involved.
It would make it possible for us to understand one another
even when we are very different.
It would make it possible for us to be church not just be in
church or a member of the church.
Let us, like the early crowd gather in
Let us be then say “yes” and be church.