Voices

Can you hear a voice in the wind?  On this Pentecost Sunday, let’s reflect a little about wind and the messages it may bring to us ..  And about reclaiming Pentecost as one of our favorite church holidays!

 Voices

Acts 2:1-21; Romans 8:14-17 

How many roads must a man walk down before they call him a man?

How many seas must a white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand?

How many times must the cannonballs fly before they’re forever banned?

The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind; the answer is blowin’ in the wind.

Bob Dylan, 1962

It was the first song I learned to play on the guitar,

and it seemed to say everything that needed to be said in the summer of 1962. Of course most of us didn’t really know how much was “blowin’ in the wind,” – the civil rights movement, the anti-war movement, the women’s movement, and eventually the gay rights movement. It took the artist (Bob Dylan) to raise the prophetic voice, the voice of someone who can see what is front of the rest of us, but somehow hidden from view.

It is not easy to hear the future, blowing in the wind. Some of you know that I drive a convertible, and put the top down as soon as the weather permits (or maybe a few days before that!). I love driving with the wind blowing in my face, but there is one disadvantage to all of that sunshine vitamin D: it is very hard to hear the radio or your companion. The same thing happens on sailboats, I think, and on motorcycles, and sometimes even on bikes. The curious thing is that some sounds, some voices, are much easier to hear than others: the voice of someone you love who is talking to you.

I think that is what happened to the people who were gathered in Jerusalem on Pentecost. They were surrounded with a sound “like the rush of a violent wind.” Even though we usually think of Pentecost as being about the wind, the text actually just tells us that the sound was like the rush of the wind. And it is noise like that that makes it so difficult to hear voices.

We live in a world filled with noise that is like the rush of the wind, too. Some of it is physical noise: traffic, machines, furnaces and fans, music, conversation. But more of it is emotional noise: affections and disaffections, attraction and revulsion, misunderstandings, grudges, resentments, disappointments. It is hard to hear the voices even of those we love in the midst of all of that cacophony.

So I wonder, on this Pentecost Sunday, about the voices that are speaking to each of you in the windy world we live in. I wonder who is speaking to you in and through the roar that sounds like a violent wind. Let’s take a moment – in the comparative silence of this place – let’s take a moment to listen for the voice that is calling you, for the new life that is blowin’ in the wind …

[pause]

And since it is Pentecost Sunday, and since the story we heard this morning not only talks about noise that sounds like the rush of wind, but tongues that seem to be “as fire.” I have never been able to quite get a mental picture of that that doesn’t seem either cartoon-like or very frightening. The idea of tongues of fire – bits of flame scattered around a crowd – seems very odd to me.

What does not feel odd is the experience of watching someone light up, as though his/her soul had been ignited. I think of a parent holding his baby for the first time, or the artist enthralled as she works; I think of a lovers’ reunion or a scientist’s discovery; I think of an runner who has found her stride or a reader who has entered a new literary world. The inflammation of joy is not displayed by tongues of fire on our hearts, but by bright eyes, intent gazes, and radiant smiles.

So I wonder, on this Pentecost Sunday, about the flames of life and inspiration that are burning in each of you. If I could come and hold up a spiritual mirror in front of your face, when would I have to do that to catch your expression of joy, love, accomplishment, and freedom? Let’s take a moment, in the bright light of the sun and our stained glass windows, let’s take a moment to recall one of those moments when your spirit was on fire.

[pause]

The voice that speaks to you out of the wind, and the voice that invites you into times and places of joy and delight, is the voice of someone who loves you. It is a divine voice, and the process of listening for it and then hearing it is the story of Pentecost. I am sad that the word “Pentecostal” has come to refer only to churches whose members express their faith by speaking in tongues (which is not what this story is about, by the way), and by dancing and singing with abandon.

We are people of the Pentecost, too. We are people who gather and are surprised by the Spirit, surprised by the voices we can hear over the clamor of everyday activity and moral uncertainty and existential anxiety and looming calamity. We are the people who gather and are surprised to look around and see the flames of compassion and commitment and companionship. We are the people who are so worked up that other folks might think we are drunk – even at 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning.

Honor requires that I remember – and remind you – that not every voice that comes on the wind is good, and not every thing that inflames us is holy. So we might notice, on this Pentecost Sunday, that the Spirit came to the people when they were gathered together to worship. And we might notice that they were misunderstood. And we might notice that it was Peter – the same Peter who misunderstood Jesus and denied Jesus – it was Peter who stood up and defended his friends. And we might notice that this is our story, about the voices we are listening for, and about the fire we are longing for, and the advocate we are hoping for.

So let us claim for ourselves the same blessing we offered Addison and Zachary this morning: The Holy Spirit be upon you, child of God, disciple of Christ, member of the church.

Amen.

Prayer for May 23, 2010

Almighty and everlasting God, creator of all things seen and unseen, hear now our silent prayers, as we open our hearts to you in the sacred quietness.

God of faith and hope, we bring before you our prayers for those we have named this morning – we especially remember … Bring to each of them the gifts of mercy and grace that are most needed, according to your wisdom and love.

God of new creation, we offer you our prayers today about the glories of spring time and our love of the earth you have created.

We give you thanks, O Lord, for the beauty of the earth. We are heartened more by the springing up of bulbs and flowers than by any lesson in words. Help us, we pray, to grow in our understanding of your grace by our appreciation of the extravagance of your creation – which comes to us as a free and fragile gift, unearned and yet deeply longed for.

We give you thanks, too, for the many humans who act as stewards of the land, the water, and the air. Bless all of those who protect the landscape, the flora and fauna that are around us, and bless, too, all those who preserve it for us in painting, sculpture, poetry, and the other arts.

Yet we must also confess to you, God of all that is, that we have not always shared in this good stewardship. We have used the land for our own advantage, rather than sharing it with one another. We have taken more from the earth than we have given back. We have squandered and wasted treasures that you trusted us with. Forgive us, we pray, and transform our love for the land into actions of preservation, restoration, and reconciliation.

We do yearn, O Holy One, to see the healing of the earth – a task too great for us to undertake without your power and presence. And so we ask you to strengthen in us the virtues of patience, persistence, humility, selflessness, and to help us set aside self-centeredness, greediness, and laziness. Build up in us the strength to confront systems of economics that focus only on monetary gain, and to replace them with systems that value the health and well-being of all your creatures, even if that requires some sacrifice on our part.

All these things we pray in the name of the one who loved the good earth so dearly that he lived among us and savored its delights, even Jesus the Christ, and we pray together now in the words that he taught us …

(May 14, 2006)