Worship & Prayer
CELEBRATING PENTECOST 2009: BREATHING IN THE SPIRIT OF GOD! - Rev Julia Monaghan
30/05/09
On Tuesday afternoon, I stopped breathing for half an hour well it felt like that!As Sam left the caravan he said – “I think you should lock the door when I go out, the dogs getting smart. She may be able to open it and get out. We don’t want to lose her.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah...she’s so clever now she can open the front door of the van and take herself for a walk. I carried on vacuuming and cleaning the van. 10 minutes later I looked round. The front door was wide open and Jess was nowhere to be seen. I suddenly felt unable to breath. I’d lost the dog and I would have to face an, I told you so speech!
I got her favorite food and ran round the caravan site breathlessly shouting her name. Feeling ill from anxiety and a lack of oxygen, I eventually saw her in the field opposite chasing pheasants. When she caught sight of me, she was thrilled to see me and greeted me as a long lost friend. We got back to the van and both of us collapsed breathless after our adventure both for very different reasons. Sam arrived home 10 minutes later and as he got the shopping in made some positive comment comprehensively I had secured the dog to the front of the van. He was impressed, when he mentioned about locking the door, he didn’t think that I had been listening!
I share this story with you because I have imagined some of you might find yourselves at times also forgetting to breathe, let alone breathe deeply. We go from task to task, from stress to stress, from activity to activity, from need to need. And before we know it, we are simply breathless.
By this point in their journey, the disciples were probably quite breathless themselves. Remember all that has happened in the last 50 days for them. Jesus' goodbye. His arrest and crucifixion - an event itself accompanied by loud sighs and long wails of grief.
But, then, his resurrection and continued ministry with them. Their shallow, grief laden breathing must have become full and robust again as Jesus resumed teaching them about the kingdom of God.
And, yet, just as the disciples caught their breath, Jesus did as he said he would, he left. He was taken out of their sight and returned to the One from whom he came. It must have been heart wrenching. The wind was simply knocked out of them once again. They sighed loudly with stress and fear, the web of chaos winding around their throats.
And so the disciples did what all church people do in times of fear and chaos, they had a meeting. They busily began to try and get their game plan together. There was so much to do. They needed to get organized. They needed to choose more apostles to help them with all the work Jesus had left in their trembling hands.
After all, they were now supposed to tell other people about what God had done in Jesus. It was a daunting mission. Loud sighing must have filled the room as anxious looks etched their faces. They could not believe they were now the ones in charge of continuing Jesus' ministry to the community, to those on the margins, to the poor, to the powerful, to the sick - but all without his physical presence. It was enough to make them scared and breathless.
But before the disciples knew what was happening, out of the blue, they heard a mighty wind heading their way. The wind blew through the entire house, filling each of them with a breath that came from somewhere else, Someone Else. The wind, the breath, filled them with a power they did not understand.
They had not asked for this breath nor expected it.
This power, this breath, this courage filled them up in a way they could have never predicted. And with it, they discovered a reserve of strength they did not know they possessed. They came face to face, lung to lung, if you like, with the gift of God's Holy Spirit, God's holy breath.And so what did they do? Once the disciples realized they could breathe again, once they shook themselves loose from the stress and the anxiety, once they unwound the grip of chaos from around their throats, they found themselves speaking of God's deeds in their lives.
They all burst out in languages they did not even know they could speak-telling the story of how they once were no people, but now they were God's people.
They once had no name, no faith, and no future, but now, they were God's own sons and daughters, given the breath of faith, glimpsing a future in which they were received back to God's own self.
These timid, stressed-out disciples found themselves preaching, testifying, to who God was and what God had done in their lives. And the people listened. The crowd grew. Yes, some in the crowd thought they were drunk. You and I might have assumed the same thing. The crowd had no other way to explain it.
But then Peter gave voice to what was happening. And as he preached, I imagine all of these people-people from near and far, strangers and foreigners, young and old, began to breathe deeper. They started to purposefully inhale some of this Spirit breath into their own lungs.
And the church was breathed and birthed into being. And people far and wide, in all kinds of languages with all kinds of traditions, began to speak of God and how God was at work in their lives and in the world. And the breath of God blew freely and wildly, filling their lungs, giving them courage and a strength they did not know they had. And Christ's body, the church, was knit together and began to move – a belonging, believing and building together of people by God’s Holy Spirit.
And our Gospel reading from John 16, particularly verse 13, tells us that God still works in this way. “When the spirit of truth comes he will guide you into all truth and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” It affirms that our experience is not diminished in any way from that of the first disciples.
Although they were the first to encounter God in this new way, our experience is no lesser than theirs. God's Spirit still works this way. The Holy Spirit, the breath of God, is at work, here and now. Through Scripture and prayers, through music and proclamation, through experience and relationships, God's holy breath challenges us, comforts us, scares us, clarifies things for us.
The story of Pentecost tells us if we are open to breathing it in, if we dare to pray "Come Holy Spirit," we will find our own lungs filled with a courage, a reserve of strength, a passion of faith we did not even know we had to share with others.
And our challenge is not just to lay hold of this in the abstract but in the very practical here and now.
As part of our own 50th celebrations, our own Pentecost – in our case 50 years not 50 days, we are embracing Jesus and the Methodist Church’s call to evangelism – to spread the good news. On the 12th June for 10 days we are engaging in our own mission - Food for Thought, with a team of young people from Cliff College in Derbyshire.
There will be food for others as we engage in outreach to the local schools. Food for ourselves as we contemplate what are our deeply held convictions are and how we share our faith with others. Food for the future how do we plan, ensuring that this is not a 1 off event but that we build for the next 50 years.
So this reading from Acts could not have come at a better time. Like the first disciples, we know we are called to pass on the good news. But like them we can also feel constrained with uncertainty about what to do, feeling foolish, inadequate and fearful of what response we might generate. We can forget to breathe.
From the disciples experience, however, we know that what works is simply to tell out what finding faith - knowing Jesus to be our savior – means to us.
And telling this in a language that people understand. And it is this that the Holy Spirit enabled them and enables us to do. The Holy Spirit did not give them other worldly or magical things to say – but empowered them, emboldened them, to overcome their own inhibitions and limitations (not least the ability to speak a variety of other languages).
The Holy Spirit enabled them to take breath and be themselves. And that is all we are called to do. Be who we are and speak of our own encounter with God. And God will use that to touch others lives.
So as we approach our mission let us pray Holy Spirit come and enable me to tell of you and all that you have done.
Breathe on us breath of God, fill our lungs with new life, so that we may love what you love and do what you would have us do.
Amen