THE MESSAGE, PART ONE
Rev. Robert J. Brink, M.Div.

Today the church celebrates Pentecost. Like most of our holidays, it builds on what came before, in this case, the Hebrew festival of Weeks. Why is that? Can’t we come up with something original? Actually… no. We really can’t.

Suppose Jesus were to appear out of nowhere and say, “Behold, the lamb of God.” What does that mean? God is white and fluffy and not so bright? God’s hair is curly? Words are symbols, and symbols only have meaning in context.

Certain elements of the Christian family have chosen to ignore the Old Testament in order to focus on Jesus. That sounds wonderful on paper, but in real life it means it’s oh so easy to insert your own story into the text. The Old Testament is our answer to that problem. It keeps us in check.

So what does the Old Testament say about Pentecost? It was the harvest festival. Seven sevens plus one after Passover, seven full weeks plus a day, you would bring your first fruits to the temple.

Right now, we could walk down to the grocery store and buy fruit and vegetables out of season. We grow them in greenhouses. We ship them from other continents. Any day of the year, you can buy fresh apples.

Imagine if there were a law that said you could only eat apples in September? How good would that first ripe crisp apple taste after going without one for a year? And what would the store look like? People would be lined up outside, elbowing each other to get the first ones. Prices would be three or four times the usual cost.
That's first-fruit. That's what the Hebrews were required to bring to the temple. And when they collected those first crops, they weren't allowed to harvest it all. To be a member of God's chosen people meant you had give some of your very best to the Temple, and you had to leave some in the field for the poor.

On Pentecost, everyone was equal. If you were rich and you wanted a drink of water, you had to get up off your couch and get it yourself. If you were a servant, and your master tried to make you work, it was your religious obligation to tell them no.

That's Pentecost. And now the Holy Spirit fills that old festival with new meaning. God's fields are ready for harvest, and we are the first fruits. This church is a foretaste of what is to come.

This is the day of the Lord, and on this day anyone can hear God in their own language. Do you get that? It's not that everyone miraculously understands Hebrew and becomes the same. They hear good news in their own language, their heart's language, and they take it home with them when they go.

Now that story lives in you. Will you give of your best? Will you care for the poor? Will you speak love to people who are different than you in words they can understand? Will you honor the Spirit within you by keeping your life clean? Will you honor the Spirit in others by listening more than you speak?

The fields are ripe for harvest. The people spiritually hungry. But they're not looking for people who honor Jesus. They're looking for people who resemble him.

Romans 8:22-27

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves,
who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness;
for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
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THE MESSAGE, PART TWO
Rev. Barry W. Szymanski, J.D.

When I read a passage like this one, I hear what Paul is telling me. But I also get caught up in the language he uses. Why does he use the word groan? It is an extremely descriptive word. And he uses it in three different ways!

First, he says that “the whole of creation” groans. Second, he reminds us that all people in pain groan, just like a woman in labor groans. And third, he says that each of us groan as we wait to be truly united to God. I tried to remember when I heard the created world groan. I recalled when I was alone in the woods when I hunted deer. When I was still-hunting, especially during a strong wind, I heard trees creaking. They were groaning. Anyone who camps, bird-watches, photographs, or simply walks in the woods on a very windy day hears the groaning of creation.

Recently I saw a TV special on the pictures taken by the Hubble telescope. They showed that, as we are here today, new stars are being born in this absolutely vast universe – and stars are dying. Connected to those stars are planets whose very existence depends on those stars. Life and death is occurring in outer space. The universe is groaning.

Just a few months ago I learned in an article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that a large earthquake occurred at Yellowstone Park. I went onto the web and I learned that each year 1,000 to 3,000 earthquakes occur within Yellowstone National Park. It is one of the most seismically active areas in the U.S. Our earth is groaning.

Paul states that just as we groan in pain, -- which is a change in our bodies, the world around us is changing also. Then Paul talks about our souls – and the change which must come about as we grow up. For if we do not change as we grow older we become museums. Instead of being a fossil, Paul wants us to live and grow in Christ.

The essential groaning we are to realize is that we are waiting to be united to God for eternity. To share in the resurrection of Jesus. In this letter Paul talks of hope. Hope in the resurrected Jesus. We hope in patience for that which we cannot see. But, even though we cannot see God, we pray to God.

What I found most important in my life, is that when I could not finds the words to pray, I found that I could rely on the Holy Spirit to pray for me. When things go very wrong in your life, or you are depressed, or anxious, or feel that there is no one to talk with, or feel alone in the world, or that the word hope just flew out the window, that is when you will “not know how to pray as [you] ought” and that is when God’s Holy Spirit can intercede for you with sighs too deep for words!

I am reassured to know that when I can’t put prayer in words, that God hears my prayers! You will also find this most comforting!

I served in the Chaplain’s offices at two hospitals, and I have seen people who are suffering beyond what I can imagine. They are groaning and sighing in their hospital beds even with the most powerful of drugs. It is a consolation to know that at those times the Holy Spirit is helping us – because God constantly searches our hearts. It is a relief to me to know that none of those people were alone – for the Holy Spirit of God was there with them.

And that when those suffering people were in distress, they were not alone. You must realize that you are never alone either.

When those extremely stressful times come in life, and I hope that they are far, far apart for you, but when they come -- and you can only groan inwardly, it is my prayer that you know that the Holy “Spirit will intercede for you with sighs too deep for words.”

Paul tells us that God knows what is in our hearts; that encourages me!

My prayer for you today, on this day when you confirm your faith and hope in your God, that you are comforted in knowing that when you don’t know how to talk to God – that God knows what is deep in your hearts.

THE MESSAGE, PART THREE
Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.
[text: John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15]

But when the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me: and you also are witnesses, because you have been with me from the beginning.

One of the things Tony Robinson has said that I like – and, actually there are many – is his observation of how Protestants tend to be ‘Unitarians’ of one or the other person of the Trinity. Most mainline Protestants are Unitarians of the Father; while Evangelical Protestants tend to be Unitarians of the Son, and Pentecostal/Charismatic Protestants are Unitarians of the Holy Spirit. What Tony points out is that we get caught up in one or the other, for want of an easier understood word, revelation of the Persons of the Trinity. As a result, we get stuck and miss the fullness of what God wants to open to us. What I’d like to emphasize in this third and final sermonic act on Pentecost Sunday is that the Spirit – the Counselor or Advocate (the Greek Paraclete – one called alongside to help) – proceeds from the Father and sent by the Son so that we can be drawn into and kept in the truth of God’s loving will-to-relationship revealed in Jesus Christ.

Our brothers and sisters in the Christian East describe this mutual interdependence of the Divine Persons of the Trinity with the word perichoresis, which literally means to “go around” and also describes a Greek folk dance. The contemporary British theologian Alister McGrath has written, "allows the individuality of the persons to be maintained, while insisting that each person shares in the life of the other two. An image often used to express this idea is that of a 'community of being,' in which each person, while maintaining its distinctive identity, penetrates the others and is penetrated by them." [Christian Theology: An Introduction, 3rd ed. Blackwell, 2001.] What I believe is that in God becoming one with us in Jesus, we are then kept in that oneness through the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Divine dance continues and expresses itself in us as we grow and witness in God’s love. The Counselor, the Advocate, then, is the source of the dance, the movement toward oneness with God.

I came across a story recounted by the late Jesuit spiritual writer Anthony de Mello in his book The Heart of the Enlightened. He recounts how:
Many years ago, a bishop on the East Coast of the United States paid a visit to a small religious college on the West Coast. He was lodged in the home of the college presi- dent, who was a progressive young man, a professor of physics and chemistry. The president one day invited the members of his faculty to dinner with the bishop so that they could benefit from his wisdom and experience. After dinner the talk turned to the future, and the bishop claimed that the “millennium” could not be far off. One of the reasons he cited was the fact that everything in nature had now already been discovered, and all possible inven- tions had been made. The president politely demurred. In his opinion, he said, humanity was on the threshold of brilliant new discoveries. The bishop dared the president to mention one. The president said he expected that within the next fifty years or so humans would learn to fly. This threw the bishop into a fit of laughter. “Rubbish, my dear man,” he exclaimed, “if God had intended us to fly, He would have provided us with wings. Flight is reserved for the birds and the angels.” By the way: The president’s name was Wright. He had two sons named Orville and Wilbur—who became the inven- tors of the first airplane.

Wright, by the way, went on to also become a bishop and have a distinguished career in the church. It goes to show us that even people of faith can sometimes be scoffers.

There are some who want to consign Pentecost and what it stands for to the pages of history; an unrepeatable act. Could it just be that the One who would “lead us into all truth;” the One, as the early teachers of the Church said, points us to the face of the Father and the Son, is among us? I think so. And I also think, believe, am convinced that the Church – and I mean across the board – needs to recover the wonder of the presence of the Counselor. If we are not as animated or as powerful as we should be in making a difference in the world, it is because we lack the breath – the pneuma, the ruah – of God in fullness within us.

The finale of this sermon in three acts asks us – as followers of Christ, people of the Spirit – to open ourselves to the Counselor, to listen to what God’s Spirit has for us and to live accordingly – dance, fly, make a difference.