"Getting Out of Hand"  Ben Johnston-Krase, UPC

Acts 2:1-21

This morning we celebrate Pentecost.  It’s been fifty days since Easter.  Can you believe that?  Fifty days already—seven weeks—and here we are once again, celebrating Pentecost.  And so we join with churches throughout the world and throughout time—long before Christ, actually, as Pentecost is rooted in the stories of Moses.  Of course, the Pentecost event so clearly etched in our collective Christian conscience is that of those first disciples, mentioned in the book of Acts.  The story begins by telling us that “they were all together in one place.” 

I don’t know about you, but I’ve often pictured the post-crucifixion/post-resurrection disciples to be sort of a timid bunch.  Without thinking too much about it, I guess that for me, the predominant image of the disciples during the weeks that followed Jesus’ death is one of resignation.  I imagine a scared little group, gathering every day in an upper room here or there.  They’ve got each other, which is good, but sometimes they wonder if anything’s going to come of any of all this.  At times, maybe, they think about throwing in the towel—going back to fishing. 

But Luke, the gospel writer, is also writing the book of Acts, and the way he begins challenges this idea of a timid, hide-away disciple group.  In the first chapter, we read that the disciples were constantly devoting themselves to prayer.  They were men and women, they met regularly, they prayed together.  Seems like they were handling things quite well. 

And in the closing verses of Acts, chapter one, we learn that they’ve responded to the fact that Judas is no longer in the picture.  Apparently, they’ve formed themselves a little nominating committee and got themselves a replacement disciple.  Which sort of begs the question, “What else have the disciples been up to these fifty days?”  Did they form a session?  Do they have a mission statement?  I wonder if they’ve set some objectives with measurable goals?  (Or is that goals with measurable objectives?)  Perhaps they’ve formed a few subcommittees and task forces already and maybe even laid some groundwork for that first capital campaign.  Maybe not.  But certainly we see some evidence in Acts that these early followers have been picking themselves up by their sandal-straps.  They’re ready to work to make this thing go—to get some momentum behind their Christ movement. 

But then, something happened.  In the midst of all this, the church was born.  Practically right out from under them—in spite of them and because of them—the church was born!  Nobody voted.  No charter was signed.  There was no church constitution.  I don’t even think they had approved a budget quite yet.  No, it was much, much messier than all of that.  Much messier, much less predictable, certainly not quantifiable—things just got way out of control, out of hand, out of the disciple’s hands.

Which is all really par for the biblical course, isn’t it?  It’s a wonder if we’ve come to expect anything less at this point.  After all the floods and burning bushes and wrestling with angels.  The lion’s den and the fiery furnace, dry bones rising up.  A baby born to a virgin, thousands fed with a few pieces of bread, Lazarus walking out of that tomb, the stone rolled away…  It’s all gotten a little out of hand, hasn’t it? 

So it’s no surprise that this Pentecost—this birth of the church—doesn’t follow a calculated plan for congregational growth.  There’s no neighborhood marketing strategy, no plan for the integration of new members…  It’s a messy birth.

The first question I take away from this birth story is this:  Am I willing to let things get out of hand?  Are we willing to let things get out of hand?  A question that might follow:  Is there a place in our daily lives where we might completely allow ourselves to be given over to a spirit-filled moment? 

I recently read a chilling quote.  It’s from a man named Victor Lebow.  He was a commercial retail analyst in the 40’s and 50’s, and he and his contemporaries were trying to figure out how to ramp up our nation’s economy in those years following the Depression and World War II.  Here’s what Lebow said:  “Our enormously productive economy . . . demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption . . . we need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.”

I generally avoid outlet malls and shopping centers if I can.  But I tend to think that there’s something altogether twistedly Pentecostal about a Bed, Bath, and Beyond on the Friday after Thanksgiving, don’t you?  Our economy’s master plan is geared to lure us into moments when things get out of hand:  when it’s new, when it’s at the lowest price, when we can finally have it.     Fiery human pilgrimages descend on Targets and Ikeas speaking in tongues of want and need and things get out of hand.  Without thinking about it, we join our consumer culture in this act of manufacturing spiritual experience. 

Don’t get me wrong—I don’t want our church to look like a Bed, Bath, and Beyond on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  But I am aware of this:  I often walk through these doors because I like it here.  I’m comfortable here and I like being comfortable here.  I know what to expect here, more or less.  I’m pretty sure that, while I’m sitting here in the pew on Sunday morning, I won’t do something I’ll regret.  I certainly won’t buy a stack of towels just because they’re on sale.  But I also won’t necessarily take the gospel completely seriously.  I won’t walk out of here and seriously entertain the thought of selling everything I have (or even a sizeable portion of it) and giving the money to the poor.  I won’t seriously invite the stranger in—to my home that is. 

I might visit someone in prison—that is, if the situation presents itself, I might.  But beyond that and a few other things?  I mean really, if I’m honest, I can't love all my neighbors as myself, can I?

I love Annie Dillard’s language in Teaching a Stone to Talk.  She says, “It is madness to wear ladies hats and straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets.  Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews.  For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offence, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return.”

We may like to think that when it comes to our religion, we don’t like to let things get out of hand.  Decently and in order, and all of that.  But the birth of the church wasn’t in the disciples’ hands.  It took them by storm when the Spirit pushed them past a point of no return.  And it makes me wonder if the ongoing birth of the church isn’t in our hands either.

The Holy Spirit—God, the Creator, the Sacred, the Source of Love and Goodness and Joy, the Christ, the Way… The Holy Spirit moves through and beyond our best attempts at understanding, explaining, or containing.  And even if we can summon the language that does somehow speak to the depths of God’s love and direction, God’s sacred way of breaking into our lives and in the world is seldom facilitated by our grasp of the Divine.  It’s much more wonderful and ridiculous than that!  It’s more like tongues of fire that appear dangling over our foreheads, flooding our minds and our mouths with terrifying new words—words that connect us to one another in ways we never thought possible—words that push our theologies and theories out of the way in favor of human relationships. 

One of my favorite poems is by Hafiz, a Person poet of the twelfth century.  It’s called, “The God Who Only Knows Four Words.”

Every child has known God,

Not the God of names,

Not the God of don'ts,

Not the God who ever does

Anything weird,

But the God who knows only 4 words

And keeps repeating them, saying:

"Come Dance with Me."

Come dance with me.  Let your life get out of your hands.  Imagine the Church—born in your midst...

Sometimes that's trickier than it sounds, I guess.  But I'm reminded of a story that was given to me by a member of this congregation.  It comes from a classroom in Colorado where a woman teaching 4th grade was just finishing up a unit on C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the first of his Narnia series.  The movie had just come out, and the children were infinitely excited about the story.

She'd gotten a hold of a big empty refrigerator box and decorated it to look like a wardrobe.  Early one morning, she brought it in and put it in an empty classroom just off the school's library.  Her students arrived and when they finished their last lesson, she told them that she had a surprise for them.  "I'm going to take you to the land of Narnia," she said. 

She led them out of their room, down the hall, through the library, and into that room, empty except for the box.  The kids came in, a few at a time, and walked into the wardrobe.  Before long, they were lost in play as characters in the story.  They were fawns and centaurs and elves and talking animals.  And before too long, they got pretty loud!  They made such a ruckus that the librarian finally had had enough.  She came into the room and scolded the class.  "The level of noise in this room is inappropriate!" she declared.  "And I want it quiet!  Don't you know where you are?"  Well I guess the correct answer was, “A library,” but one of the children peeked her head around the corner of the wardrobe and spoke up.  "I'm in Narnia," she said.

Carried away.  Out of hand.  I'm in Narnia!

It's a fun way to imagine the church, isn't it?  Carried away so much that we actually start believing and living the stuff we say around here, like "Love your enemies."  "The first shall be last and the last first." 

God says, "Come dance with me."  Feed the hungry.  Clothe the naked.  Heal the sick.  Visit the imprisoned.  Seek justice, love kindness, walk with me humbly. 

Of course, if we start dancing with God, we'll have to prepare ourselves for the world to come crashing through that door with the questions: "Do you really think you can make a dent in world hunger?  Are you really so naïve to believe that love is going to make a difference?  That we can change things?  That we can stop fighting?  That swords and spears, bombs and guns, can be made into plowshares and pruning hooks?  Please!  Just where do you think you are, after all?"

And we can simply say, "We're in the Kingdom of God."

It begins with a birth.  And it continues with rebirth after rebirth after rebirth.  I think that’s the Spirit’s Pentecost invitation for us.  We all tend to be tongue-tied, but there are words we all need to say and hear—to ourselves, our families, our neighbors, our world. 

Try this.  Next time you see a homeless woman, see if you can make out the flaming tongue of fire hanging just above her head, inviting you to come closer to hear a language you just might understand—a language of suffering, of hope, of disillusionment, of trust. 

Next time you sit at the dinner table with your spouse, your family, your children, fan the flames of conversation and listen for words of grace and light.

Next time you sit in this place of sanctuary, or maybe even now, see if you can feel the wind and hear the Spirit’s fiery voice.  Look up above your own head, find the flame, and then hear the Spirit.  Hear yourself say it.  "Get out of your own hands!  Come dance with me!  I am birthing the church here and now."