Rector's Sermon - Sunday, 4 June 2006

First Reading	Psalm	Epistle	Gospel
Ezekiel 37:1–14	Psalm 104:25–35	Acts 2:1–12	John 15:26–27, 16:4b-15

         Legend has it that when the Ten Commandments were first given to Israel, the tribes joined hands and surrounded the holy mountain of Sinai. As all looked up at Moses holding the tablets, every person, from the youngest to the oldest understood at their own level of comprehension, what God had written.  

       The Book of Acts records that when the earliest Christians gathered for Pentecost, something was revealed far beyond the ordinary words of their own language. Christians learned that the Gospel was not only intended to be meaningful to them, but was truly good news for people everywhere. The disciples in some inexplicable way found themselves able to communicate the Good News of Jesus to people in every foreign land. Wherever people of faith might go, there would be fertile soil for the Gospel. The Gift of Pentecost was therefore not merely an intense inner or personal experience but a sign of the virtual universal potential of the effect of God’s love.

       As some of you know, I am not a particularly competent gardener, but two things grow very well for me: chives and mint. I can brag that I have already harvested some first fruits of my garden. The chives start to come up even before the forsythia blooms and by this time they are tall and juicy and even beginning to produce flowers and seed. They are signs of promise and of things to come, at least in other people's gardens.  I've considered introducing chives as a symbolic fruit of Pentecost, for if chives grow in Snyder’s garden and survive the ravenous hunger of deer they can flourish in anyone’s garden. In similar manner, if God’s love can grow among us here, God’s love can grow among anybody, anywhere. Pentecost ties together the wonderful promises of God and the new birth of Easter, and unites them with the welfare of the whole world.

       Most of us are in a quandary about how to communicate the Gospel today, especially to people of different cultures from ourselves. Many of the past methods and justifications for spreading the Gospel to others have been called into question and rightly so. Today the word "missionary" for both those inside and outside the church more often than not has a negative connotation. This is all a reversal of fifty or sixty years ago when if a parish wanted to raise money it brought in a missionary to speak. If a parish could not find a missionary, the word mission or missionary was used in the title of the program the parish wanted to initiate, and that ignited the fire.

       There is some truth in the joke, "what do you get when you cross a Jehovah’s Witness with an Episcopalian? Someone who knocks on doors, but when the door opens, remains silent and never has anything to say." People of faith today are called to consider very carefully how one shares the Gospel message with others.  It tends to be a difficult and thankless task, but nonetheless a very critical one.

       Despite the world's suspicion, God’s grace is for everyone. Salvation has not come for a small clique, or those who adapt to one certain culture, or only those who will think like us. Differing languages, races and cultures have led to terrible misunderstanding and been the excuse for discrimination and inhumanity for centuries. Pentecost exposes those flimsy and phony excuses the world uses to separate and degrade people. Pentecost proclaims that differing language and culture pose no ultimate barrier to God’s love or to our ability to communicate that love. God accepts no excuses for stripping people of their basic human dignity. The sign of the Holy Spirit speaking in all languages is another sign to us that God intends to leave no one out.  Pentecost reveals first fruits of a new understanding that seeks to unite and heal the wounds of the world.

       So for Pentecost, you might consider planting some chives (or if you have some chives giving a new neighbor a clump of yours). Perhaps one year, our Pentecost cake will be frosted with cream cheese and chive icing. Whatever you do this afternoon, remember that in some way you will take the Gospel out of here with you, even if you go to Stewart Park.  The peace of God’s love isn’t meant to be contained among us, nor is it meant to be forcibly imposed on others. However it is meant to be shared. All of us have gifts to offer, even if we can’t speak a couple different languages. True gifts of the heart never have to be forced or imposed, for as the early disciples learned, the Holy Spirit will inevitably penetrate the most formidable of barriers. 

      And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.