“Indeed these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning.”
So, we’ve made it to Pentecost, the Fiftieth Day of the Great Fifty Days of Easter!
And we have this weird, wild story of people just hanging out, having fun at the Feast of Weeks in Jerusalem, a celebration of the day the children of God received of the Law of God.
Over the centuries it had turned into a harvest festival, so thousands of folks from all over have streamed into the town to eat, drink, party, and worship. But this year, something different occurs. There's a bunch of oddballs mingling in among the crowd, a bunch of Jews who had been following the strange, loving, miraculous man named Jesus.
Fifty days had passed since those awful events on Friday, since those astounding events on Sunday. Fifty days when Jesus was rumored to have popped up now and then, appearing to the Apostles, guiding them, teaching them, getting them ready for what was to come.
Perhaps many of these followers were here, hoping that maybe they would be on hand for another miracle.
Little did they know what was about to happen. Little did they know that the whirlwind that suddenly blew into their lives, lighting a fire in their lives, confounding their lives – little did they know that that crazy whirlwind would continue blowing even till today. Especially today!
The Birthday of the Church. The beginning of our role as Christians in the world. Our Lord has risen, the Way has been made clear, and the time to go forth and do has come.
We have been celebrating, rejoicing, giving glory for the miracle of Easter.
Now, as we turn our focus to the journey through Ordinary Time once again, the time to learn and live into that which we have been celebrating so joyfully has come.
It's time to wrestle with the Holy Spirit like Jacob did the angel.
Because the Holy Spirit of God is not just a fine ghostly mist that floats around in our lives, popping in and out like some ghost at Disney's Haunted Mansion. The Holy Spirit is real and purposeful.
In our worship, in our lives, when the Spirit moves, we feel a difference: it’s the joy of Easter or the sorrow of Good Friday. Chills at the Eucharist or tears when we reconcile with someone at the Peace.
Spirit-filled worship feels like something is going on. And Spirit-filled lives look like something is going on. And sometimes, it’s a little crazy. And it doesn't always feel like a nice gentle glow that makes us feel all cuddly and comfy.
Because the Spirit rushes in like a violent wind. It makes all creation groan. It sows confusion and causes people to look at us with wonder. And this is how Christ prays that we will live, in a whirlwind of love, a storm of action, not just sitting around, soaking it all in, like our covenant with God is a week at beach, a day off from work. Because it IS work!
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, in a sermon he gave a few years ago, dared the church to live into it’s Spirit-filled life together, especially today, on the Church's birthday.
He argued that Jesus was, to say the least, a bit out of the ordinary, even crazy by the standards of the day. And we, as followers of his Way, are to be a little crazy, too, and with the help of the Spirit, we walk that crazy path.
He said, “We need some Christians who are as crazy as the Lord. Crazy enough to love like Jesus, to give like Jesus, to forgive like Jesus, to do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God -- like Jesus.
Crazy enough to dare to change the world from a groaning nightmare that we've made it... into something close to the dream that God dreams for it. And for those who would follow him, those who would be his disciples, those who would live as and be the people of the Way?
It might come as a shock, but we are all called to craziness.”
Called to craziness. Crazy Christians. On this day, we tell the world that God sent us a priceless gift. God sent us God-in-us.
A guide, a companion. A Spirit to show us just what we are made of.
A Spirit bestowing us with gifts we can't even imagine.
Gifts not just for us, but to immediately be given away. And that’s crazy. We don’t work for ourselves. We work for others. And that's crazy, too!
Giving away food to people we hardly know? That's Crazy!
Throwing the doors wide open for who knows what to just walk in? In this day and age? That's Nuts!
Standing up for those who have nobody to stand up for them? Fighting for – and sometimes dying for – the oppressed and enslaved around the world rather than protecting our own? That's insane!
Loving those who are different simply because they are made a God who made them different? That just...well, that's just Christ-like, isn't it?
And yet, sometimes it's still so hard to let loose, to give that Spirit free reign. To get out of the way and let the Spirit move us. But imagine what would happen if we did. Imagine what the world would be like.
We need “Christians crazy enough to believe that God is real and that Jesus lives. Crazy enough to follow the radical way of that Gospel.
Crazy enough to believe that the love of God is greater than all the powers of evil and death. Crazy enough to believe, as Dr. Martin Luther King often said, that ‘the moral arc of the universe . . . bends toward justice.’
We need some Christians crazy enough to believe that children don’t have to go to bed hungry;
that the world doesn’t have to be the way it is;
that there must be a way to lay down our swords and shields. . . . because every human being has been created in the image of God, and we are all equally children of God.”
This is the challenge of Pentecost, the Way of Christ, and the work of the Spirit.
The church was NOT born on this day to give us nice places to hang out on Sunday.
THIS is why the church was born! To let the Spirit blow through our lives, changing us, and whipping us along to touch another, then another, then another. To spread Christ's love.
It's as simple as that. It's as crazy as that.
Because we are not drunk. We are Christians!
Amen.