Happy Birthday Church

Pentecost Homily

          About 10 years ago we went to the baptism of one of my nephews in a church of another denomination.  There was no Eucharist—and as we were leaving one of the children said that didn’t even feel like church; all the others agreed.  I must admit, although I’m embarrassed to do so, I was kind of proud and to be completely honest I felt a little superior.  I’m not sure I actually thought this, but I know I felt a bit like, “yeah we do church right.”  I’m embarrassed to admit that, but I suspect I’m not the only one here this evening who has felt this way.  Honestly, I’m betting that we have thought similar thoughts even about other Episcopal churches—high church, low church, contemporary, Rite I, Rite II—you get the picture.  Church right?  When we say it like that it sounds down right snobby, elitist, and wrong.  That’s because, well, it is.  Who are we to say what is right, what is wrong, and how one SHOULD worship?  Yet “we” have done just that for hundreds of years.  I’m not going to go into all the ways we have done this, but take a look at and think about colonialization.

          Today is Pentecost—the birthday of the Church (big C church).  It’s not the birthday of the protestant church, the Anglican church, the Episcopal church or St. Mark’s church.  In our readings we are reminded of this.  On that first Pentecost, the disciples spoke in many languages and the devout Jews heard and understood in their own native tongues.  They were all devout in their own churches, in their own worship, in their own cultures.  They all heard and were filled with the Spirit—slaves, free, men, women—no hierarchy—no one person received more—all equal.  The Holy Spirit was sent for the whole world in its many cultures.  We are reminded of this and challenged by it.  Challenged to accept that how someone else encounters the risen Christ, worships the risen Christ may be different than how we do—how I do.  Different does not equal less than.

          Yes I know there are some just plain wrong ways—I don’t think anyone here would argue that Jim Jones idea that people could meet Christ through mass suicide was right, but that is not what I’m proposing, reflecting on, considering.  I meet the risen Christ each week in the Eucharist; perhaps someone else meets the risen Christ through dancing in the aisles, and someone else through the sacredness of nature.  Even amongst our own congregation, there are differences in practice—some drink from the cup others intinction (dipping), some genuflect, some pray with open palms.  During one of the recent funerals, I was asked what was the right way to receive communion?  I paused and answered, there is no one right way.  I think today I would add—how one receives is less important than that one receives with an open heart and the expectation to encounter the resurrected Christ.

          We don’t know how that first Pentecost happened.  It’s a mystery—a mystery that is not necessary to figure out.  What we can learn from it is that the Holy Spirit is still present and present for all.  The Holy Spirit comes to us in our particularity in our particular context, in our own ways of understanding.

          Life can be consumed with competition—ya’ll know how competitive I can be.  But in this, we neither need to be nor should we be—we need not compare on a better or worse scale.  We can share our differences, try to understand our differences, be stretched and challenged by our differences, and perhaps mysteriously be transformed through our differences experiencing the power and presence of the Holy Spirit in ways we never imagined possible.  Happy Birthday to the Church—one and all.