Past Sermon

Sermon Title: "Surprised By the Spirit "
Date: May 27, 2007
Minister: Rev. Charles E. Ensley, Jr.

Lesson:  Acts 2:1-8, 11-18

“Hallmark Holidays”:  don’t you love them?  Nothing can beat Christmas, Valentines, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Mother’s Day two Sundays ago, and, oh yes, Father’s Day three weeks hence.

Even the workplace has its own days now with “Administrative Assistants Day” (used to be Secretary’s Day) in April and “Boss’s Day” kind of canceling each other out.  There’s even a “Pastor Appreciation Sunday” in October.  In my entire career of 34 years, I’ve received three cards for that one!  That's one card for each church!

Some have disparagingly called the burgeoning number of card-worthy days “Hallmark Holidays” after the greeting card company that seems to invent new ways to obligate us to celebrate relatively ordinary stuff.  But does that make these ever-increasing card-buying events “holidays” by definition?  The very word “holiday” comes to us from “holy day,” which would imply that some kind of religious observance is involved.  But other than the “biggies” like Christmas and Easter — the ones that bring out the crowds — most religious holidays don’t get a slot in the rack at the card store.  I have never found a card observing today’s holy day of Pentecost.

Now, you would think a greeting card giant like Hallmark would be all over this holiday.  After all, what’s not to like?  You’ve got your fire, your wind, your speaking in other languages, your birth of one of the great religious movements in history, your bright red, orange and yellow colors, your built-in holiday Spirit — all the stuff that makes for a memorable event.  It even lends itself to great slogans like “Hope you get fired up this Pentecost” or “More (Holy Spirit) power to ya!”

But the shelves of your local card shop are empty of Pentecost cards, just like most churches have less worshippers attending on Pentecost than Christmas or Easter.  At a clergy luncheon last week, one pastor said his congregation didn’t even know what Pentecost was!

In some parts of the world Pentecost weekend is still deeper in the consciousness of people.  In mainland Europe, for example, the Monday after Pentecost is still considered to be a bank holiday or, to put it in American terms, a “three-day weekend,” just as it happens to be when it so conveniently falls on Memorial Weekend this year.  In Europe, it’s one of the last holdovers of Christian culture, but it likely has more to do with the day off than with any consideration for the Holy Spirit.  People take the day off, but they’re not likely in an upper room waiting for the Spirit to fire up a church-themed birthday party.

So, has Pentecost simply been passed over in favor of more time off in the spring or is there something more at work here?  Should we be making a bigger deal out of this day when the Christian movement was stoked by Spirit fire and three thousand persons were baptized?  Will we ever be successful in promoting it as another holiday for our people to come back and fill the pews?

Maybe.  It is, after all, pretty awesome to think about what happened that day and to come into a sanctuary splashed in blazing red.  But then again, maybe the whole idea of Pentecost is less about celebrating the past event and, instead, embracing the present reality.

In Luke’s account of the events of that Pentecost fifty days after Christ’s Resurrection, he uses these descriptive words:  “suddenly…bewildered… amazed and astonished…”  I like to think the crowd was surprised by the Spirit.  For I believe that is how the Holy Spirit works.

Instead of spending the rest of this sermon talking about a recollection of an event that happened nearly 2,000 years ago, why not talk about what the Holy Spirit does today…often surprisingly?

Each month before our church’s Board of Stewards meeting, the moderators and ministers meet to go over anything from the last month we need to share, and to plan the next Tuesday evening’s board agenda.  A year ago, we had a request from Christian Outreach in Action—COA, where we serve our monthly dinners to the hungry and homeless—for assistance in paying for a new roof.  The cost for the roof was $10,000.  As I placed COA’s appeal as an agenda item, I almost wrote a suggested $2,000 beside it.  But I didn’t, and when that item came up on the floor of the meeting, the first figure mentioned by a board member was $5,000, and almost before I knew it, it had risen to $10,000!  If that wasn’t the Holy Spirit working, I don’t know what is.  I was surprised by the Spirit.  I also learned not to presuppose how much the Board is willing to give.  I’ve been surprised the other way too, but more often than not they choose to be more generous than I originally expected.

But that’s not all.  Unbeknownst to us, it seems the roofing bid COA had was from a roofer who was a church member and who has replaced all our roofs here, and the one at our Sky Forest Retreat just last week.  When Robert Miranda heard Bay Shore Church was paying for COA’s main roof replacement, he threw in another small $700 repair on another building at no additional charge.  If that wasn’t the Holy Spirit working, I don’t know what is.  I was surprised by the Spirit once again.

Decades ago, in my first church, back when the pastor just called without first making appointments, I knocked on a member’s door.  She answered, looked at me with a startled look on her face, and asked, “How did you know?”  “Know what?” I responded, just as surprised.  “My father just died," she said.  Luck, coincidence?  I think not.  It was the Holy Spirit.

In my second church, a story I know I’ve told you before, I went to call on a member at the apartments next door one afternoon.  It took forever for her to answer the door.  She was limping, I inquired, ended up calling her doctor, who had me transport her to the emergency room where he met us and admitted her after diagnosing phlebitis.  Luck, coincidence?  I think not.  Surprised by the Spirit yet again.

When I was creating the litany of dedication for the harpsichord we will shortly use, I was perplexed about how to word one paragraph.  I started to talk of the souls of master musicians and their compositions, inspired by the Holy Spirit.  I originally meant the musicians, but the more I looked at it, I meant the compositions just as well were inspired by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit also prepares us for that which we are not prepared.  A young minister, just three months out of seminary, the day after the senior minister left on a mission trip, found himself faced with a terrible tragedy that befell one church family.  The father accidentally backed over their toddler, who died by the time he reached the hospital.

The young pastor wrote, “I entered that home to the wailing, horrible sounds of those young parents.  I knew how badly they had wanted a child, how long they had waited [to adopt].  It was just terrible, those howling, grief-filled screams,” he said.

“I entered the living room and she reached out to me and I just lost it.  I cried, wept with them.  Eventually, I said, ‘Would you like to have a prayer?’  They said yes.  I began to pray, my voice cracked, I broke down again and the mother put her arm around me and tried to comfort me!  It was terrible.  Horrible.  I left that home feeling like the biggest failure as a pastor.

“Two days later we had the funeral.  After the funeral, the mother said to me, ‘Your ministry was such a comfort to us.’”

“A comfort?” I thought.  “I was terrible.”

“‘When I saw that you were just as heartbroken as I was, it really helped me,’ the mother said.  ‘I felt that I could go on as long as my pastor really felt how terrible all this was.’”

Isn’t that amazing, surprising even?  In groans, in “sighs too deep for words,” the Spirit really does help us.

The coming of God’s Holy Spirit is a present, active reality—one that motivates us to work, to act, to represent Jesus in the world.  You just can’t confine that to one day a year.  Sure, we need to gather on Pentecost Sunday and be reminded.  I think my clergy friend who is addressing something else this morning because his congregation doesn’t know what Pentecost is is missing a great opportunity.

Every day should be a new Pentecost:  ready to be surprised by a fresh wind of the Spirit and a firing up of our desire to serve God with our whole hearts.  And you don’t need a Hallmark card for that!