The Day of Pentecost, May 23, 2010

Sermon for Pentecost C, May 23, 2010

 Guest Preacher: Marie Harkey

 It's hard to prepare people for your own departure.

I've been a student at Episcopal Divinity School for two years. Last year, as my friends were getting ready to graduate, I kept asking, "What will we do without you?" I couldn't imagine the small EDS community without the influence of Steve, who, it seemed to me, single-handedly ran the chapel. Or without Theresa, who knew the answer to any question about any class, professor, assignment or academic conundrum that I had. Or without my own girlfriend April, who seemed to provide pastoral care to almost everyone on campus. I couldn't imagine how the school would manage without these folks who seemed integral to its very functioning.

I was baffled when my friends answered that "What will we do without you?" question with only knowing nods and smiles. Why weren't they hurrying to impart all their knowledge about the operation of the chapel, or the "adult learning" pedagogy, or the ways of navigating through the maze of community life onto us? Weren't they worried about us? We were going to be left here at EDS without them! Didn't they care?

Somehow, EDS survived without those people who were so dear to all of us. Other people took roles of leadership, re-shaping the community and leaving our own mark on it.

This year it was my turn. My colleagues and friends who aren't graduating said, "What will we do without you?" And I smiled wisely and shook my head.

"The Holy Spirit will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you. I leave you with peace. Do not let your hearts be afraid."

If only it were that easy, huh? It's hard to lose someone we love. It's hard when people move on and aren't with us anymore. That loss leaves an ache, a hole, a void. We ARE afraid. How can Jesus tell us not to be? To be peaceful? How are we supposed to prophesy and dream the dream of God when we're feeling bereft and abandoned?

A year or so before my Grandmother's death, I went to see her. I was sitting in her living room and noticed a marked up pamphlet next to me on a table. My grandmother was always one to annotate books, poems, church bulletins, newspaper articles, anything that meant something to her. Then she would send these artifacts on to me or my brother or my Mom or Dad. Some of my most treasured possessions are books that she annotated with notes just for me, and gave me as gifts.

So I picked up this pamphlet with a sense of joy and anticipation. Then my heart fell. It was one of those sheets of instructions that come with any electrical appliance that you buy. The one that most of us toss and don't bother reading, with the warnings about the risk of electric shock, and plugging the appliance into a grounded outlet.

And my grandmother had underlined the most frightening words and phrases in the pamphlet. ("Risk of death!") She had written notes in the margins about checking to make sure her clock radio wasn't plugged into an extension cord. She had used a red pen and while the underlines and writing were as neat as always, the numerous exclamation marks and the red ink betrayed her emotion. She knew the world as a fearful place.

For me, there was a deep sadness that came with the realization that my grandmother was gone. When I was at her house we never tired of watching the chipmunks play on her lawn. When I was just a toddler she would hold me up high and let my chubby two-year old hands flutter through her glass wind chimes. Throughout my school career, she was happy to satisfy my nerdy penchant for "good" pens and paper with surprise gifts of wondrous notebooks and fountain pens. As I went through serious teenage awkwardness, she seemed to value me as much as (or maybe even more than) my popular younger brother, and as I grew older she supported and encouraged my crazy liberal political notions that made my parents angry and left me feeling alone and isolated from my family. She was always, always, always on my side, no matter what. She was a constant loving presence in my life. THAT woman was gone and without her, the world felt less safe for me.

She died a few months after that visit and I was honestly relieved. I hated the idea of her living in such fear of the world.

And something strange occurred after her death for me. I began to have this feeling that my Grandmother was suddenly all around me. I felt her presence, most especially when I heard wind chimes or saw a chipmunk. It was like the woman I had missed for years before her death was with me again.

When I was talking to Margaret, one of the older women at my church, about this development, I was a little sheepish. 

Margaret took it in stride. "It's funny, isn't it," she said to me, "it's like you get them back after they die."

"The Holy Spirit will come and make everything plain, and teach you and remind you of all the things that I have told you." "You know the Spirit of Truth. She abides in you."

Still, I wonder if this is a fair trade. Humanity loses the presence of Jesus among us and we get the Holy Spirit. We lose a flesh and blood human being and we get

tongues of flame

peace

a violent wind

a friend

an advocate

the Truth within us

a teacher

a spirit of adoption

a reminder of all that Jesus said when he was here.

I'm not sure about that trade off. Jesus, God incarnate: that's what makes Christianity work for me. The Holy Spirit? Kinda nebulous, kinda filmy and vague and contradictory. I might actually opt for having Jesus stick around in the flesh, if I were given the choice.

And I imagine that when Jesus' friends were hanging out in that room, waiting for the "Holy Spirit," the power, that he had promised them, they weren't expecting gale force winds and fire and new languages issuing forth unbidden from their mouths.

But here's the thing. The Spirit of Truth abides in us. The Spirit is what makes Incarnation possible in a post-resurrection, post-ascension world. God is in us...incarnation + responsibility.

A spirit of adoption means that we are siblings with Jesus. As such we are called to live a spirit-filled life, bold, and adventurous, not waiting beside a grave for someone who is gone. God's spirit isn't dribbled upon us, it's POURED OUT on us. With it we can dream dreams, we can see visions, we can prophesy, we can live that adventurous, risky, spirit-filled life because we know that the Truth of God dwells in us.

It's hard to live like Jesus in a world that seems devoid of his presence. It's hard to be peaceful, to be courageous, to take risks, to be bold and to not live in fear. Budgets are tight, oil is gushing into the ocean, people are dying in airplane crashes, the environment is always in jeopardy and we're constantly reminded of a "war on terror." The world is a fearful place. An admonition not to be afraid seems naïve, somehow.

And yet... The incarnate God is now incarnate through us. The strength, courage, daring that we might have thought was outside of us actually abides in us.

How does that reality transform a fearful world? What happens when we human beings, filled with the Holy Spirit, dream dreams, see visions and prophesy?

Big things happen! The Civil Rights movement, the movement for the full inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church and the world - The arc of universe is bending, however slowly, towards justice. I believe these are Spirit-filled movements.

And Spirit-filled things happen on a smaller scale as well - hungry people are fed, troubled people are soothed with care and a listening ear.

I have a friend who hosts potlucks to get his friends together to write letters to prisoners. At the same time, he works tirelessly for the abolition of the entire prison system.

Jason's passion for justice infuses his whole life - he speaks out on behalf of those who are most marginalized, organizing rallies and letter-writing campaigns to defeat the proposed legislation to force prisoners to pay for their incarceration, to protest the new immigration law in Arizona ...anywhere people are being oppressed and pushed aside, it seems my friend Jason is there with a challenging word that's hard to ignore. He literally shows up to speak truth to power on Beacon Hill with a megaphone in his hand. He prophesies. He dreams of a better world. He is filled with the Spirit.

I end with a poem by one of my favorite prophets, Nikki Giovanni. She calls it "How to Save the World in 100 Words."

For me-it is the realization that I cannot save the world.

The world is neither time nor money.

For me, it is that thing in front of me:

The man in prison for a horrible crime

who has become my brother.

My neighbor's sons who talk football to me

over the back fence

The yellow jackets who have made their home by my deck.

All the things I say I don't have time to do but really

don't have time to don't do.

For me-it is the joy of being alive.

For me-it is the living.

I clock this in at 99 words. I wonder what I missed.