IT’S DYNAMITE
Rev. Dr. Dennis Winkleblack
Prospect United Methodist Church
Bristol, Connecticut
Acts 2: 1-21
John 14: 8-17, 25-27
On our next to last day in Jerusalem 15 years ago our tour group went to the traditional site of Jesus’ last supper. This location is also the traditional site, many scholars believe, of the upper room where on Pentecost, 50 days after Jesus’ resurrection and the day we celebrate today, the disciples were gathered. I was leading a tour with two other pastors and we had been taking turns reading from the Bible at the various holy sites throughout Israel. As I recall, in this upper room I almost ripped the Bible from someone’s hands because I wanted to read the Acts account there in that most historic place. Afterwards, our guide said to me, “You read that with such emotion – you’re not a Pentecostal are you?”
Of course, I’m not a capital P Pentecostal such as are members of the Assembly of God Church or at Heritage Pentecostal Church on Lewis St. or as was Oral Roberts. A little known fact, however, is that the Pentecostal denomination in America was a spin off of the Methodist Church in the early part of the 20th century. In fact, in later years Oral Roberts became a lay preacher in the United Methodist Church.
So, anyway, I’m not a capital P Pentecostal. I don’t speak in tongues. I don’t believe God has given me powers to heal. But I must say that I am most proud to be a little p Pentecostal. I do love God’s Holy Spirit.
Today is Pentecost Sunday. On this day we celebrate the giving of this Holy Spirit to the disciples long ago. On this day we also celebrate what is considered to be the birth date of the Church of Jesus Christ. So, happy birthday to us! More important than self-congratulations, however, is that we use this day to give profound thanks to God for giving the Holy Spirit to us.
What is the Holy Spirit? In a word: it is Jesus Christ living in our hearts. With the giving of the Holy Spirit, God made it possible for you and me to have Jesus in our hearts and live more like Jesus.
The Holy Spirit is also a part of God’s tri-unity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. One God whom we know in 3 equal ways. This doctrine of the trinity is complex. Fascinating, but complex. One time in Stamford I preached a sermon trying to unpack this doctrine of the Trinity: God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I thought it was brilliant. But that’s not what most of the congregation said. Way over our heads they said. So, I learned a lesson.
I still have that terrific sermon in my file, I’m sure. But, today I’m not going to try it again. Rather, I want to focus on God as Holy Spirit as God in the present tense: God as power and presence and purpose.
Jesus promised his disciples that after he would ascend to the Father that “power” would descend upon them. I find it interesting that the Greek word used on the Bible for “power,” dynamos, is the same word from which we get our word, dynamite. This is what Jesus promised the disciples that they would receive after he ascended to the Father: dynamite.
We also remember Jesus’ words: “After I go, the Father will send you another counselor to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth. He will teach you all things, bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you and guide you into all truth.”
Another counselor to be with you forever. To be in you, among you forever. An inner counselor. And with this inner counselor, this dynamite inside, the disciples set out to change the world.
Our understanding is that this Holy Spirit, this inner counselor, is conferred upon us at our baptism. So, we all have it resident in us, so to speak. However, for lack of a better image, unless we connect the spirit within us to the source of all our power, our capacity to live with the Holy Spirit isn’t fulfilled.
Another way to put it: Some of you probably remember before cable TV how frustrating it was to depend on an outside antenna to receive signals from certain television stations. Although I grew up living near a large city, Kansas City, none of the three stations there carried the Baseball Game of the Week. But the station in St. Joseph, 70 miles away, did. On a real clear day, our roof top antenna would pull in this station and reveal a few hazy forms on the screen playing baseball while I listened to Dizzy Dean and Buddy Blattner.
Then we got an antenna with a motorized control. I couldn’t wait for Saturday afternoon. A little turning this way and that and bingo! There was the game in living black and white! It was dynamite!
I tell you this story because I think it’s fairly analogous to the Holy Spirit’s power and us. Without being tuned into the Holy Spirit’s signal we’re fuzzy folks. And our whole lives will be fuzzy. Properly tuned, however, and our lives are dynamic, dynamite. Properly tuned and God can work within us in ways that are far beyond our own abilities. Properly tuned and God can work within us, individually, and through us together as church and explode into the community and world in life transforming ways. O, dear God, may it be so now!
So, this is the power we’re talking about. What about presence? How is this power of God known as Holy Spirit present with us? This is the easy question to answer. This is the most familiar way of God’s being known – as a source of love, of comfort, as a guide for our lives in times of uncertainty or disappointment or grief. Whenever someone says, “I couldn’t have made it without God,” they’re talking about God as Holy Spirit – as God with us now.
Of course, the Holy Spirit is also present with us in ways we may not always give God credit for. For example, if this sermon or any sermon or any anthem or any hymn touches you in a deep place and causes you to draw closer to God then give credit to God’s Holy Spirit connecting in you, sometimes comforting you, sometimes convicting you to return to God’s way.
More: You know that person you can’t forgive but also can’t forget? That’s God’s Holy Spirit working within you with the aim of reconciliation. And when you do forgive, don’t forget to thank God for the newfound reconciliation.
And more: There’s the matter of courage. The Holy Spirit alone gives us courage to live counter-intuitively. To go against the grain. To do the right thing even though others might think we’re crazy.
As Walter Burghardt writes: “Only in the power of the Spirit can you believe the unbelievable, hope for the grace beyond your grasp, the glory beyond the grave, love with God’s own love poured into your hearts. If you walk by the Spirit, you will be kind and good, grow gentle and prove faithful, experience incomparable peace, a joy that the world cannot give.” There is indeed power in God’s presence!
But, of course, we shouldn’t be misled. God loves us and want to fill us with his spirit. Yes. Because God loves us. But because God loves us so much God also wants to complete his joy in us and that comes from accepting our purpose for life.
And what, dear preacher, is my purpose for life? Are you going to tell me on this 23rd day of May whether it’s Pentecost or not, what my purpose is for life? Yes I am! Your purpose in life is to let God fill you with God’s very presence, the Holy Spirit, so, connected to this power, you can help God love the world. This is your purpose in life.
Now, this actually would be bad news if God didn’t provide a way for us to fulfill our purpose. But God has. He gave us each other and the Holy Spirit – which is the church. The church, a body, a collection of people held together by their baptism, who want to be better than we are and who agree that our purpose in life is to do what God wants us to do. A body, an imperfect body, to say the least, but a body of people who know they’re not all that good, but who rejoice that God forgives them so they can live another day to try, try again.
The church. Sacred and sometimes profane. The Church, heavenly and earthly. The Church – good, bad and ugly.
How does this church work? Through an almost miraculous distribution of talents among the people in the church. I have this gift, you have that gift, and she has that gift and on and on and pretty soon together we’re a functioning, dynamite church. Where God makes a Church God gives the gifts and the power.
Of course, we don’t have to accept the gifts and the power. We can deny them. But, if a church is God’s church, it always has the gifts it needs to be the church God wants it to be.
The Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis is a giant, enclosed domed sports stadium where the roof is supported not by beams as are other stadiums, but by streams of air. The roof is 10 acres of Teflon coated fiberglass and is held up by 20 giant fans each blowing with 90 horsepower.
What is further interesting about this stadium is the experience you have when leaving. Apparently, as you descend the walkway to get out of the Metrodome, you experience vividly a law of physics not usually experienced.
That is, as the air pressure from inside the dome mixes with the air pressure outside, you experience a mighty push of wind that propels you to the outside. Sort of a lift to your step. About the Metrodome one person wrote: “A physicist would be needed to explain this phenomenon. Something about the controlled pressure of the dome clashing with the prevailing pressure outside. But the outrush is strong and unmistakable. It has thrust. It propels. Exiting this sports arena is an event in itself.”
To me, this is a perfect image for us to have as we leave this place whenever we leave this place. As if we were propelled.
And you know why? Because we are. God’s Holy Spirit intends to do precisely this when we rise from our knees in worship: to propel us into the world to love it as God loves it. To just whoosh us through the doors.
Think about it: what if week after week the rushing wind of God’s Holy Spirit would come upon us making the flames of the candles on the altar leap up high, sucking bulletins out of our hands, and, God forbid, mussing up our hair? And then propelled us out of here – to do God’s work!
It could happen. The God of Power who is present to us and who calls us to help with his purpose, and thus gain a purpose for our lives is just waiting to blow through this church in new and exciting ways.
But will it? I don’t know. But here’s what I do know: If you will tune your antenna and I tune mine – it could happen.
