Sermon: Unleash the Spirit

The Rev. Maureen R. Frescott

Congregational Church of Amherst, UCC

June 9, 2019 – Pentecost Sunday – Confirmation

Acts 2:1-21

“Unleash the Spirit”

What does it mean to be “spirited”?

“Spirited” is a term we often apply to someone who tends to have boundless energy, passionate views, or a propensity to act out in unexpected ways.

Children especially are said to be spirited when they express themselves vivaciously or strongly at a very young age, or when try as we may we can’t seem to keep them within the confines of what we expect them to be.

A few weeks ago, we hosted six groups of 3^rd graders from the local elementary school as they embarked on their annual Amherst Village History Tour.

The kids visited the town hall and the Wigwam museum, and then each class spent a half hour here – learning about the history of our church.

They saw pictures of this meetinghouse when it was located across the street on the town green and had fun guessing how it was actually moved from there to here (Hint – it didn’t involve 1,000 men picking it up carrying it).

They heard all about our historic Johnson Tracker Organ –

and had a chance to go behind the screen and walk though the narrow passage way to see the 1200+ organ pipes and the interconnected inner workings that fill the room,  when they came out the other side,

one little girl said,  “That was a fun ride, can we go on it again!

And after going up to the balcony and taking a peek up to the steeple,

a lucky few were given an opportunity to ring the church bell -

where they quickly learned if you forget to let go of the rope,

you really will go on a ride - right up to the ceiling.

They asked some pretty insightful questions as well…

One boy in particular spent a good amount of time just staring at the cross in the chancel looking very perplexed and concerned.

Then he very hesitantly raised his hand, and said,

“Jesus is missing from the cross….where did he go??”

Now admittedly, the kids did get a bit overly rambunctious at times.

Quite a few of them had never been in our church before, or any church – so it was natural that they were excited to see and touch and ask questions about the new things they were experiencing – often in a very spirited way.

Their very wise and patient teachers – God bless them - must have felt like some were a bit more spirited in their behavior than they should have been -because a few days after the History Tour I received a handful of typewritten letters signed by the children:

Dear Congregational Church,

    I’m a third grader at the elementary school. I am very sorry for misbehaving at the church.

Dear Church Guide,

   I’m sorry for switching seats in the middle of the presentation and having a loud voice level. This will never happen again and I don’t know why I did it.

Dear Town Church,

   I am sorry for my disrespectful behavior. I never should have been silly and I’m very sorry for this. I regret even doing this and this was wrong.

(I’ve left off the children’s names to protect the innocent – or the guilty in this case)

I fully understand the lesson the teachers were hoping to impart upon the children who were a bit more spirited than they should have been –

to help them learn to be more respectful of the time and space and attention of others, and to learn to say “I’m sorry” and ask for forgiveness when they’ve misbehaved.

But I also can’t help but wonder if we could learn something from these children in return…

and perhaps be a bit more spirited ourselves when we encounter something new or exciting or sacred.

How many of us walk in the door to this sanctuary – or any sanctuary – and run down the aisle while looking up and around and shouting, “Wow!”

How many of us, when asked if we’d like to ring the church bell would jump out of our seat and raise our hands high and yell, “Oooo, pick me, pick me!”

How many of us look at the empty cross and notice that Jesus is gone  –

and are not afraid to ask a deep theological question like, “Where did he go?”

On the Day of Pentecost, there were quite a few of Jesus’ followers who couldn’t help but look at the cross and at the sky above and wonder aloud, “Where did he go?”

Even after hearing about the empty tomb, and seeing the resurrected Jesus themselves - on the road to Emmaus, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, in the upper room, where Thomas reached out and touched his beloved teacher, pressing his hand into his flesh.

Even after witnessing Jesus rising into the heavens, as he returned to God,

Still, they looked up and wondered, “Where did he go?”

And as they sat together on the Day of Pentecost –

going through the ritual of gathering their first fruits and preparing themselves for the festival as they had many times before –

had they given up hope that this Spirit that Jesus had promised to send would ever arrive –

were they wondering, after all they had seen, heard, and experienced,

if anything had truly changed, after all?  

We tell the Christian story of Pentecost, every year.

We celebrate it as the day the Spirit that Jesus promised to send in his place had finally arrived.

Yet still we struggle to define and comprehend what this Spirit is to us.

Which is understandable - our own Christian scriptures can’t even agree on what role the Holy Spirit plays in our world.

The Gospel of John names the Spirit as the Advocate - the continuing and comforting presence of Jesus, and the source of peace within us.

For Paul, the Spirit is that which unites us and makes us into the body of Christ, and gives each one of us particular spiritual gifts for the benefit of the community.

For Luke, the author of the Book of Acts, “the Spirit is the power of God,

the mighty burning wind that blows the church into new and unexpected places of ministry.”

Together we knit together this image of Spirit as unifier and divider,  comforter and agitator, sustainer and expander.

A Holy Presence that gathers us in to heal us and soothe us and nurture us, while at the same time, stirs us out of our settled and set ways

pushes and pulls us outside our comfort zones,

and unleashes us on the world to push and pull it along with us.

On the Day of Pentecost, the believers who called themselves followers of the Way of Jesus were brought together as one –

hearing one voice speaking in their own tongue –

speaking to them about the power of God –

the power of God’s unconditional grace and love –

and the power this grace and love had to overcome the evils of inequity and injustice in our world.

With the unleashing of the Spirit, the followers of the way of Jesus felt compelled to bring this message of hope to those who desperately needed to hear it.

But Pentecost was not a one-day event –

where suddenly the body of Christ was birthed into being,

with clear boundaries to confine and contain it.

Pentecost is an every day event –

And it continues to happen every day, to this very day.

Every day the Spirit moves in our world –

taking up residence in our hearts and minds –

turning us into spirited beings who resist being contained in conventional and confining boxes that restrict our ability to be the children of God we’re meant to be.

The boxes that tell us that raising our voices and asking discomforting questions in sacred spaces is something we should seek forgiveness for.

The boxes that tell us that responding in a spirited way when we encounter inequity and injustice is also a frowned upon offense.  

The boxes that are meant to keep us as refined and reticent and respectful people who resist making waves and rocking boats

by challenging one another - to consider another perspective,

to listen to a story that is different from our own,

to ask ourselves could I be seeing and speaking and acting in a way that is hurtful to others because I don’t yet understand the difference between how I experience the world and how another experiences the world –

because of their gender, their color, their religion, their culture,

because of their disability, their age, their economic status,

because of their trauma, their illness, their addiction,

and a multitude of other identities and experiences that make our stories our own.

Our Pentecost moments come when we’re able to hear the language of another – the story of another – and understand it as if it were our own.

Our Pentecost moments come when someone hears our story and responds not with resistance and confusion, but with comfort and compassion.

We become the church in the world when we see it as our calling to become a vessel for the power of God’s healing love – to carry it to those who need it – and to recognize that we need it for ourselves as well.

We could all stand to be a bit more spirited in our lives.

To ask ourselves how we might create and experience Pentecost on this day.

And if you find yourself resisting this idea that you need to unleash the Spirit within you and be a little less confined and controlled in the world…

I leave you with this blessing and charge

from fellow UCC pastor, Mark Suriano:

"On Pentecost, may you find your heart singing with the spirit of God,

your ears humming with the voice of the Spirit speaking in a language that reaches deep into your soul so that the shackles that have hardened around you may be broken, and God's voice and language set free.

And when the day is done,

may all the world know the love of God

because of you!"

Thanks be to God, and Amen.