For
several years now, for whatever reason, our nursery school has attracted quite
a large number of immigrant students. Families from different foreign countries
have moved into the West End area for various kinds of jobs, usually in the
technology sector, and the ones who have young children enroll them in a
pre-school somewhere largely so they can work on their language skills. Word
spreads within these immigrant communities, and more and more begin to come. A
great number of these little children end up in the two-year-olds’ class which
is taught by three Epiphany members, Kim Gardner, Jennie Schuetze, and my wife,
Melinda. In the past few years, they’ve had two-year-olds from Turkey, Armenia,
various ethnic groups from within India, China, Japan, and a central Asian
country or two. And, of course, when the parents drop the kids off at the
beginning of the year, the kids don’t know a lick of English. Not one word.
You
want a picture of chaos? You walk into that classroom on the first week of the
year. You’d think they were filled with new wine, which is probably what the
teachers go home and have a glass of each night. Not only are those kids
typically very apprehensive about the whole experience outside of the shadow of
their cultural community, they are also unable to communicate verbally with
their teachers. It’s left to Kim, Jennie, and Melinda to calm them down, ease
their transition from mommy and daddy and also figure out what they want, when
they need to use the bathroom, and what’s making them upset. And to do all of
that on top of commandeering a whole class of two-year-olds who are still
learning their own language skills and the rules of the class. It’s a testament
to the Kim’s, Jennie’s, and Melinda’s love and patience that within a few weeks
they have established some form of order and peace.
A
few years ago they had a little Turkish boy who wouldn’t stop crying. All day
long he cried, from the moment the parents dropped him off until the moment
they picked him up. This went on for several weeks, even as he clung to Melinda
throughout the day. What got him finally adjusted was sending home a headshot
of Melinda, who he called “Minda.” They taped it above the fireplace so that he
could see her face and learn to associate her with comfort in a place he knew
well. They would point to her and say, “Who’s that?” And little David would
smile and run over to it and say, “Minda.” Minda’s loving face was everywhere
with him.
What
goes on at the other end of our church building every fall in the
two-year-olds’ class is like what happens at the initial Pentecost and, in
fact, is what happens here every week. Order out of chaos. Unity from disarray.
At the beginning of the church, the day God’s Spirit is first poured out upon
the apostles gathered in Jerusalem, all these people from all over the earth—all
who speak different languages and come from different cultures—come together
and suddenly begin to understand one another. Even though on the surface they
have almost nothing in common with each other, they are able to comprehend what
the message of the apostles is. The presence of the Holy Spirit, which up to
this point God had reserved for the work of specific people in specific times, begins
to draw all people into Jesus’ embrace. Barriers begin to fall, and it’s really
out of their control.
That’s
main thing that the tongues of fire and the rushing sound of wind communicate, if
nothing else. Both fire and wind are forces that no one can really control. They
contain great energy and great ability to create and transform their
surroundings, but you can’t really tell fire or wind what to do or where it
needs to go. They have a life of their own, and that is who the Holy Spirit is,
and is who is responsible for this incredible unity and momentum right at the
beginning of the Jesus movement. A handful of witnesses to a man’s resurrection
become the seed to a worldwide movement of faith within just a few decades, and
in a time before any kind of mass communication. They go everywhere and to all
people and point them to the face of Christ.
And
every Sunday morning, every time people gather in Christ’s name, it is the Holy
Spirit at work. Now, we here may not all speak different languages, and we
might not all come from different cultures, but we all have very different
stories and very, very different backgrounds, and yet, here we are together. We
come from all kinds of different things that happened to us this week—different
forces and factors that have shaped our lives, that have wounded us or built us
up or broken us down or left us confused. We come from all kinds of different
relationships that have influenced in any number of ways. We come from
different careers and life journeys and different political leanings and yet
we’re all still here! We’re even going to gather at a meal together. The Holy
Spirit is still working to draw us out of chaos, out of difference, out of
disarray to narrate a story of commonality, of unity, of togetherness.
But
the Spirit’s goal is not just unity for unity’s sake. We’re all being drawn together
to see the face of Christ hanging on our mantle, so to speak, above our table. We
are being led by the Holy Spirit to understand that Christ has redeemed us, has
given true value to our lives, and pulled us out of all that hopeless division.
This
is absolutely crucial in this day and age because there are forces out there that
are desperately trying to drive us and keep us apart. In places like London and
in Manchester and in Syria and in Iraq those forces are actually using bombs
and terror to blow people apart, to keep the world in as much disarray as
possible. There are also forces in our own country attempting to label everyone
by how they vote and where they stand on certain social or political issues. There
are powerful forces of apathy and complacency at work against each of us (in
the church!) when it comes to sharing and showing our faith. And yet the fire and wind of the Holy Spirit
cannot be controlled, and they are always working to show people the face of
Christ, to show us he has the power to be anywhere in all of his creation.
What’s
interesting is that when Jesus himself speaks of the Holy Spirit, he does not
use the metaphors of wind or fire but water, which is another element that also
has great power and is difficult to control. What’s interesting about water is
that it doesn’t just have the ability to give life and flow and cause change, but
that it provides continuity and consistency to everywhere it goes. It seeks
other water and becomes one with it. It’s able to spread out, but it’s also pools
together, part of a whole—be it a cloud, or a puddle, or the ocean—winding up
in one place when it’s all said and done. When Jesus says that living water will
flow right out of the believer’s heart, he means that each person who has once
taken a drink from Jesus Christ, each person who has come through the waters of
baptism, whether that was in a bit of water here in a metal bowl or centuries
ago in the Jordan River, will be able to share this life-giving force with
others. We’re all really connected, despite how many different languages we
speak and how many different stories we embody.
 |
| Pentecost (El Greco, 1596) |
Two
weeks ago for Ascension Day Pastor Joseph and I hosted a series of meetings
around the Richmond metro area. Around fifty people of all ages and stages met
us for a meal or for coffee and shared conversations with each other. One of
the questions we asked people to think about and share was when in your life
have you been most certain of Jesus’ presence. We heard all kinds of answers, as
diverse as the people who were around those tables with us. At one of our stops
we had a woman in her nineties sitting next to a one-year-old—who, as it
happened, shared the same birthday—and we all listened intently as the woman offered
up that the day she was sure of Christ’s presence was the day her husband died.
She related with great detail what that day felt like, even though it was
decades before, and how still she felt amidst the grief because Jesus was with
her. The Holy Spirit cannot be controlled. It is able to bring Christ’s face
into any kind of situation, and has an uncanny knack for doing that in
situations of sorrow and loss. Often enough the Holy Spirit is going to bring
other people right with it, too.
There
is a recent song by the Irish rock group U2 that is about identity and feeling
distanced from everyone even within a crowd of people. The song’s title is
“Invisible,” and I think that’s how many people often feel these days, especially
with the forces of disunity and despair at work in the world. To some degree,
invisibility is what the Holy Spirit is working against on Pentecost, making
the work and faith of small group of believers suddenly visible to a whole
world. And that small and growing group making Christ visible in the things
they do and say. The song by U2 ends with the same words repeating over and
over again:
There is no them. There’s
only us.
There is no them. There’s only us.
There is no them. There’s only us.
I’ve
come to think of that as the refrain of the Holy Spirit as it moves through
creation like fire, or wind, or water. The Spirit’s goal is that all languages,
all peoples, all stories should feel less like a “them” and more like an us…drawing
us together as one, beyond our control…drawing us to see the face of Christ, hanging
there upon the cross, for you and for me.
There is no them. There’s
only us.
From
chaos into order. That’s what happens wo people who see Jesus and hear his love
for them, his forgiveness of their sins. We find out that despite all our many
differences we’re in the same class and we’re learning his language, and that
it’s the only real saving way to talk.
And
here’s the best part: we start to speak it to the world.
Thanks
be to God!
The Reverend Phillip W. Martin, Jr.
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