Sermon for Pentecost XXIII,
Proper 25C
St. Philip’s In The Hills Parish,
Tucson, AZ
The Rev. Vicki K. Hesse, October
27, 2013
Lectionary readings for the day,
click here.
Sermon based on Joel
2:23-32
“O Children of God, rejoice and
be glad,
for God will pour out God’s
spirit upon all flesh.”
Amen
Good
morning. It is good to be with you today
and
always a
joy to share in a baptism!
Our
readings today are so rich.
The Hebrew
Scripture from the prophet Joel is the same text
that Peter
used on Pentecost when
“suddenly
from heaven there came the sound
like the
rush of a violent wind…
and all
of them gathered were filled with the Holy Spirit.”
This
scene appears in the book of Acts and
recalls
Joel’s prophetic news that
God
would pour out God’s spirit upon all flesh.
Bishop
Gene Robinson[1] tells
the story of a time when
"…A
priest in a large church in Florida…
decided
to dramatize the Holy Spirit coming like wind
in a
spectacular way.
The
priest got [an] engine out of
one of
the boats used in the Everglades—
an
airplane propeller attached to a big gasoline engine—
and
mounted it in the choir loft high
in the
back of the church.
{The
idea was that} wind from the propeller
would
blow out across the congregation
when the
story of the coming of the Holy Spirit was read.
It
seemed like a great idea.
The
priest and an usher gave it a dry run
on
Saturday afternoon, and although it was incredibly noisy,
it
worked just fine, and promised
a
spectacular effect for Sunday morning.
So when
the great moment arrived,
and the
lector read,
"And
suddenly from heaven there came a sound
like the
rush of a violent wind and it filled the entire house,"
well, at
that moment, the engine coughed once and
then
howled into life.
But the
effect was a little different
than it
had been at rehearsal.
The
sudden screaming gust of wind sent sheet music
and
bulletins flying out over the congregation.
Coiffures
came undone and hair streamed out from faces.
The
preacher's sermon notes were gone with the wind…
Everything
was messy, and noisy, and
absolutely
unpredictable.
And
that's just the way it is with the Spirit.
It's that
part of God that
refuses
to be contained in the little boxes we create
for God
to live in,
safely
confined to the careful boundaries
we set
for God's Spirit.
The
problem is--and the possibility is—
God just
won't stay put.
And God
won't let you and me stay put,
content
to believe what we've always believed,
what
we've always been taught,
what
we've always assumed…”
.
Today, in
Joel, we read about God’s offer of plenty, of promise, of possibility.
But it
wasn’t all good news in the book of Joel.
See, in
a nutshell,
the book
tells how swarms of locusts came
as a
punishment to the people.
Joel called
the people of Israel
to
repent by worship and fasting.
(In
fact, we use verses from chapter 2 in our
Ash
Wednesday service to guide us
in
worship and fasting before Lent.)
Joel says
that if Israel
repents and returns to the Lord,
that
army of locusts will leave and never return.
Not only
that, Joel announces,
God will
respond to those lamentations in a kindly way.
Joel’s
initial message of woe is replaced by
a
message of hope.
Joel’s
message of trouble is replaced by
a
message of possibility.
“O children
of God,
be glad
and rejoice in the Lord your God…”
for God
has given early rain, full threshing floors,
overflowing
vats, satisfying banquets and inspiring worship.
Joel tells
the people to rejoice
not only
over restoring the fertility of the ground,
but even
more importantly over
restoring
the covenant relationship with God.
The
restoration of the covenant with
God.
Joel’s
message for the people was all about
restoring
relationship
with God
and with
each other.
And, the
God who promised, in free grace,
to
restore abundant life to Joel’s people
is the same
God who offers us salvation;
the same
God who pours out God’s spirit onto all flesh;
the same
God who will pour out the Spirit onto
During
the liturgy of the Baptism,
take
note that we invoke God’s Spirit
more
than a dozen times.
By this
initiation into the Church,
into Christ’s
Body,
a holy
and life-giving spirit will again be poured out
and our
relationship with God will be restored and refreshed.
As we
renew our own Baptismal Covenant, recall for yourself: how and when God first
poured God’s spirit into your heart, how and when you felt that
new exhalation of divine breath, how and when you felt God’s love and
forgiveness deep in your bones.
*pause*
“Then
afterward,
I will
pour out my spirit on all flesh;
your
sons and your daughters shall prophesy…
On
everyone,
God
says,
I will
pour out my spirit…”
With
vibrant, inclusive language,
we hear one
of the few times in the Hebrew Scripture
of women
who prophesy.
And God
has big plans for us.
Just as
Joel called the people to be glad and rejoice in plenty,
Joel calls
us to retrain our vision away
from trouble and lack,
toward possibility,
and
toward
the promise of God’s Love.
Who are
we to know what God is about to reveal?
What if
God is about to do something good
and we miss it because we are too scared to look?
How is
God calling us, this day,
to use our
plenty, our possibilities,
to work
for the coming of God’s justice in the world?
·
Perhaps
God is calling you to take part in
the cleanup effort of schools in the budget-weary TUSD
through the Adopt-a-School program or
by helping build homes in partnership with community
members and low-income families through
Habitat for Humanity.
·
Perhaps
God is calling you to teach or
offer homework tutoring with the ASMP, or serve on Altar
Guild, or pray in fellowship with the DOK.
·
Perhaps
God is nudging you to use your well-educated
voice towards immigration reform or for the eradication
of extreme poverty and hunger.
·
Perhaps
God is guiding you to pledge a tithe this year
in connection to a deepening of your faith and
an awareness of God’s love in your heart?
God has
big plans for us and pours God’s spirit on us,
giving us
the strength and hope
for the
coming of God’s reign here on earth.
Joel
proclaimed God’s promise,
“You
shall know that I am in the midst of Israel,
and that
I, the Lord, am your God and there is no other.”
We hear
this echoed in John’s Gospel that
“the
word became flesh and dwelt among us and
we have
seen his glory, the glory as of the father’s only son.”
God is
in the mist of us, here!
Today, God is calling us to use our
gifts, our plenty, to work for the coming of God’s reign.
Today we are called to imagine what Joel’s
vision of salvation
means in
our day – to imagine the possibilities.
Today, God promises that everyone
who calls on
the name
of the Lord will be saved.
May we,
this day, respond to God’s plenty,
God’s promise
and God’s possibility – and
become
re-enchanted with the world that God has made.
God has
big plans for us to make it even better.
Rejoice!
Be glad!
Amen.
[1] The Rt.
Rev. V. Gene Robinson, In The Eye of the Storm: Swept To The Center By God
(Seabury Books, 2008) 9-10
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