Imagine

The Day of Pentecost (RCL, Year B)
May 31, 2009

The Reverend Paul Abernathy

“It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is of no avail.”[1] So says the Johannine Jesus, making the point that God alone, who is life, gives life. Even more, making the deeper point that what a thing does not possess ontologically – in its beingness, in its intrinsic nature – it cannot give. Still more, making the demonstrable point that outward form, shape without inward fire, spirit is lifeless.

On this last score, I think of that idiomatic expression “going through the motions,” descriptive of an action motivated by expectation or habit, without deep interest, inner passion, or even belief performed mechanically, routinely, lifelessly.

Imagine a choral or instrumental performance that demonstrates technical proficiency, but so lacks the quality of virtuosity that the audience, hardly having shared a transcendent, spiritual experience, is left to applaud with hesitance, literally, in ambivalence, sitting on its hands.

Imagine a speaker or a preacher with delivery flat, affect, minimal, and content, shallow whose oration lacks substance and spirit leaving the congregation coldly uninspired.

Imagine a congregation gathered for worship outwardly observing the prescribed rites and rituals, yet, with little inward and shared sense of sacred sign and meaning, little in the way of the fire of pentecostal spirit.

Imagine a relationship in which compassion’s flame has been extinguished, the outward appearances masking an inward dearth, verily, death of spirit.

Imagine.

Yet, there is good news. The spirit continues to bring life, even out of death. This I know for the Bible tells me so.

The dry bones of Ezekiel, perhaps the most poignant prophecy in Hebrew scripture, points to a time of restoration from death.[2] Not resuscitation from “mere” death – meaning expiration, the cessation of breathing – where a still, inert body comes back to life. What Ezekiel portrays in vivid detail is a revival (even greater than the resurrection experience of Jesus on that first Easter Day) from a state beyond mere death – not of a body, not even a skeleton, but disjoined and scattered bones. What Ezekiel portends is a reconstitution, literally, a re-membering, a redressing from the starkest state of nakedness where the last article of attire discarded is the first to be put on until one again is fully clothed. The bones come together, then sinew, then flesh. Yet, still, all we have is a dead body. In order for there to be life, God’s breath – in the Hebrew, ruach, in the Greek, pneuma – must blow. And so, as the prophecy goes, it does and life begins anew.

But for what? Is life to be had for only life’s sake? Here, too, the Bible speaks. New life is granted to re-membered bones so that they, now individual bodies, stand together as a vast multitude.

So it is on the Day of Pentecost, we celebrate the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to his disciples of the coming of the God’s Spirit to bind them, though many, together as one body. So it is on this day we baptize, acknowledging our first birth as individuals into our human families and now, in baptism, celebrating our rebirth, our second birth into a community, a spiritual family whose surname is “Christian.”

The Spirit gives life to make a people, a community, a family. That’s the for what.

But to do what? Here again, the Bible speaks. According to the Book of Acts, to give utterance as the Spirit gives ability.[3] According to Jesus, to testify to the truth.[4] To bear witness, with the words of the lips and the deeds of life, to the truth of Jesus. To be and to become a community where the doing of his love and justice constitute the lingua franca, the common language binding all together as one.

We, you and I, live in a decidedly, perhaps even increasingly consumer culture. No new news in that. Each of us has, is a carbon footprint of constant, at times, inchoate and, at other times, clear want and need. Often, still, we look to our communities of choice, including our churches, to fulfill our individual wants and needs, judging the relevance of our communities, our choices based on our perceptions of how well or poorly our aims are satisfied. Nothing wrong in this.

Yet, the other side of the relational equation is equally important. That is, what you and I give to our communities. For what? So that our communities can better serve our needs? Yes, that and more. So that our communities can serve the needs of others. So that in and through community, we together may serve a world of want and need outside our doors.

So, imagine. That each of us, yes, asks and continues to ask what can St. Mark’s do for me? Yet, equally so, let us ask what can I do for St. Mark’s and what can we do together?

[1] John 6.63

[2] Ezekiel 37.1-14

[3] The epistle appointed for the day is Acts 2.1-21.

[4] The gospel passage appointed for the day is John 15.26-27, 16.4b-15.