[Propertalk] Pentecost

[robertpmorrison at charter.net]

I came across this quote today. It might be worked into a sermon for 
this weekend, but I don't think it fits what I've written. It's about 
Congresswoman Giffords :
"She is borrowing upon other ways of communicating. Her words are back 
more and more now, but she's still using facial expressions as a way to 
express. Pointing. Gesturing. Add it all together, and she's able to 
express the basics of what she wants or needs. But, when it comes to a 
bigger and more complex thought that requires words, that's where she's 
had the trouble." --Pia Carusone, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' chief of 
staff, on Giffords' frustration in relearning how to speak.
    THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY    		 
THE DAY OF PENTECOST – A
ACTS 2:1-21				      	       		       12TH JUNE, 2011
1 CORINTHIANS 12:3b-13					               PSALM 104:25-35, 37
JOHN 20:19-23

	Talk about strange! “When Karen Butler came out of sedation after oral 
surgery a year and a half ago, her mouth throbbed and her face was 
puffy. But that's not all that had changed. When she spoke, the words 
tumbled out in a thick and foreign accent.

	“‘I sounded like I was from Transylvania,’ she said.” 1

	That’s unusual, and perhaps upsetting, enough. But there’s more.

	“The 56-year-old tax consultant from Toledo, Ore., has found her life 
transformed by the dental procedure, which left her with dentures, and — 
depending on whom you ask — an Eastern European, Swedish or British 
accent.” 2

	As noted authority Yogi Berra would say, “It’s Pentecostal déjà vu all 
over again,”

	There IS a similarity between what’s going on down on the Central 
Oregon Coast right now and in the streets of Jerusalem two thousand 
years ago. Neither Karen nor Peter and the bunch of disciples were 
faking this. If you can believe the stories about each, they simply talk 
the way they do and did because that’s what was necessary in order to 
communicate.

	That’s the point. Karen may be amused – her friends and clients 
certainly are; and Peter’s friends sounded amused. Neither asked to talk 
that way, yet, they did so in Jerusalem so that foreigners could get the 
message about Jesus. As for Karen, apparently time will tell whether 
this is it for the rest of her life. But it can’t hurt her business, 
since she’s been written about in papers and journals and been on TV.

	Life CAN be interesting, and God, fortunately, has a sense of humour. 
One of many sentences in the newspaper reports caught my mind. Karen 
said, “Before I was just an ordinary person. Now everybody is intrigued. 
They want to know where you're from. So I’ve learned in the last year 
that it’s OK to be social. I like it actually.”

	That may be pretty much what the disciples felt when they started to 
speak in all those different languages. Each of them may have felt as if 
he or she was just “an ordinary person”. Probably that’s what caught 
people’s attention. It was ordinary people who took on an extraordinary 
task and began an extraordinary journey. Just think of the people they 
must have met, with whom they may never have had any sort of 
relationship without the gift of the Spirit. And all this came upon them 
so quickly.

	Actually, the Gospel reading adds a bit of confusion to today’s 
celebration. According to John, the transformative power of the Spirit 
came upon those gathered in the upper room on the evening of the Day of 
Resurrection. The Book of the Acts of the Apostles, on the other hand, 
has the disciples waiting for fifty days before they were empowered.

	On the one hand, John may have wanted to show the importance of getting 
the Easter message out right away. I can appreciate what this means. 
There’s an urgency about letting people know as soon as possible that 
God is doing something incredible for everyone on earth.

	This gives us a strong sense of our vocation. The baptismal covenant 
talks, among other things, about one of the Five Marks of Mission 3, 
about which you’ll be hearing more in the weeks ahead – and if you hear 
it several times, then so much the better. In our baptismal covenant we 
agree to proclaim by word and example the good news of God as revealed 
in and through Jesus. Our first job is announce the good news that 
death, sometimes referred to as the final enemy, has been overcome.

	If you or I, or anyone whom we love, received news about something 
stressful – you’ve been chosen to give a speech tomorrow in front of 
some exotic group; your health care provider called to say that she 
wants you to come to the office tomorrow; a son or daughter calls to say 
that you should come right over to his or her house; if any of these 
happened, none of us would like to be told – “Well, wait for several 
weeks, and we’ll give you something to help you cope with the stress, 
and the disappointment, and the anxiety.” We’d all want to know right 
away that we were neither alone nor without resources to face whatever 
was coming up.

	There is STILL a sense of urgency about this gift of the Holy Spirit. 
We need Her RIGHT NOW! Even if whatever we have to do today and tomorrow 
isn’t as drastic or challenging as we first feared, we need to know 
about the Spirit today. THAT’S why John described the blessing Jesus 
gave on Easter Evening.

	News about the power that is ours is much too good to hold back, even 
if for only seven weeks. If we need hope, we want it right away. If we 
have to stew for a while, then we can blow all sorts of misconceptions 
out of proportion, and really foul up our lives.

	On the other hand, though, you don’t need me, far less Jesus and the 
disciples, to tell you that things don’t just fall into our laps. 
Waiting is part of everyone’s lives. Learning how to deal with this, 
then, is part of the experience of growing up in our faith.

	There will ALWAYS be things we don’t understand. There will ALWAYS be 
things we wish we could do, and say, and experience right away. I’m not 
intending to take a cheap shot at Howard Camping when I say that there 
are probably thousands of others who, like him, wished  that  everything 
in creation had begun the process of wrapping up three weeks ago. 
Whatever the consequences, we’d much rather deal with that than with 
expectation. Expectation, after all, CAN heighten the pleasure when the 
situation arrives, but it can also make one wonder whether or not it 
will happen.

	Waiting, therefore, even if for seven weeks until the Day of Pentecost, 
CAN provide us with a strong lesson in how to deal with the people and 
things we love as well as those which disturb us. Every last one of us 
has to learn to
trust. How long ago did the Gospel passage reiterate Jesus’ words, 
“Don’t worry. My Father has a plan, a place for you. Trust Me.”

	In the light of what God did for Jesus, we can hold on, knowing that 
God wants nothing but the best for us and everyone else in creation. 
Besides, we can use whatever time we have to think about why we’re here. 
I mean, Albany is pretty nice, but it’s not the centre of the universe! 
Why ARE we here? What is it that the gift of the Spirit can do for us?

	The simple answer, of course, is that the Gift of the Spirit can help 
us accomplish things that are tremendously exciting.

	For one thing, it’s important to note the way in which each of the 
disciples spoke in different languages. There IS no cookie-cutter way of 
being a Christian. So just because human beings hold different opinions 
and interpret things in different ways doesn’t mean that we have to give 
up on however we see our vocations as spokespeople for the Gospel. After 
all, what ARE people for?

	Wendell Berry came up with a marvelously succinct way of answering 
this. He wrote, "Rats and roaches live by competition under the laws of 
supply and demand; it is the privilege of human beings to live under the 
laws of justice and mercy." 4 THAT should be the common goal we share in 
ministry, then. THIS is the goal of the Spirit, as She comes to us to 
fill us with Life.

	As Christians, God expects us to live at odds with the ways of the 
world. That’s what Jesus’ prayer addressed last week. We’re not to 
withdraw from the world in any way, shape or form. But OUR ways of 
living are to conform to the example and command of Jesus and the 
urgings of the Spirit.

	It’s not easy living out the baptismal covenant. There have been, there 
are and there will continue to be many times when this waiting thing 
will drive us crazy. Our mission, however, is, in the first place, 
simply to get the word of hope, of love, of the possibilities that every 
one of us can accomplish – our mission is to get this word out there. If 
someone wants to talk to us about it, well and good. If someone wants to 
challenge our assumptions, that’s OK too. But if people shrug, and 
smile, and make polite noises before getting away from us, that’s OK 
too. Our job is simply to speak, to act, to BE the agents of 
transmission. The end result is guaranteed – not the timetable – just 
the result.

	What we need to do, every day, with each heartbeat, is simply to pray 
that God “With the Spirit’s gifts empower us for the work of ministry.”

	Thomas Smith put it this way:

	On this day, Pentecost, I believe:
	That God changed his address
	He relocated
	He decentralized
	He chose me as a dwelling place
	He chose you as a dwelling place.
	The Spirit moved into us
	It's a pity that we so often segregate Him to our hearts!
	The Inhabitant is the Great Interior Designer
	And yes He is interested in your heart
	But he would love to redesign your head, your arms and legs
	He will extend your hands to touch the others
	Your mouth to bless the others
	Our Great Interior Designer will upset you,
	And afterwards you will know that he has blessed you.

		Thomas Smith

	Just remember, there ARE no ordinary people any more. Pentecost HAS 
happened.

NOTES:

1 	“Newport woman wakes up after surgery speaking with British accent” 
by Lynne Terry, “The Oregonian”. Published: Saturday, April 30, 2011, 
9:55 PM Updated: Saturday, April 30, 2011, 9:59 PM 
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2011/04/newport_woman_wakes_up_after_surgery_speaking_with_british_accent.html

2	“Oregon woman develops foreign accent after surgery” By TAMI ABDOLLAH 
Associated Press The Associated Press. Sunday, June 5, 2011 8:53 PM EDT 
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2015241991_accent06m.html?syndication=rss

3	http://www.anglicancommunion.org/ministry/mission/fivemarks.cfm

4	“Economy and Pleasure” in “What are people for?” by Wendell Berry. 
Published 1990 
http://www.amazon.com/What-Are-People-Wendell-Berry/dp/0865474370

Robert P Morrison
Interim Vicar
The Episcopal Church of St Alban
PO Box 1556
Albany OR  97321   541-921-1076 (cell)