Pentecost May 20, 2018
Acts 2: 1-21, Psalm 104
Romans 8:22-27,
John 15:26-27;16:4b-15
St. Thomas the Apostle
The Rev’d Joy A. Daley
As I was reflecting about Pentecost this week, I began to think that so much of the music celebrating the Holy Spirit is really beautiful like the hymns we will be singing today and then my mind thought back to a particular piece I heard for the first time several years ago by composer Moses Hogan. Maybe some of the choir have heard it I’m gonna sing till the music moves in my heart, I’m gonna sing till Jesus comes (Can’t you feel the spirit moving) get on You tube (not now) and watch a bunch of separate choirs sing it and what you will find is that the singers can’t sit or stand still when they are performing it and even as I was listening to it sitting at my computer I was jumping around in my chair. It made me realize that Moses Hogan really understood what the Spirit is all about in that piece because when the Holy Spirit is involved being immobile or staying stuck in the same spot is not part of the scenario. There are forces in the world we know that cause movement in other ways that harm God’s people that take away life, that destroy. We are reminded again and again that evil weaves it’s way into troubled souls and seems to have all the power. But today on this feast of Pentecost we remember that while evil will always be a force to be reckoned with it will never win because the gift of the holy Spirit has been given to us moving us toward the redemptive power of love that many of us heard the Presiding Bishop speak of in his sermon at the Royal wedding.
The gift of the Holy Spirit always leads to this life-giving movement. Now Sometimes the spirit slows things down calms people. Other times the Spirit fires people up lears things out like the gust of the wind. Very frequently The Holy Spirit moves situations or people caught up in confusion and clears the chaos so that a way forward can be seen.
In this wonderful event depicted in the Acts of the Apostles today we see that the fearful and flawed people of God get fired up, renewed by the Spirit. It was a moment in time when everything clicked. They were given a clear voice, courage and direction and in the period of time after the Pentecost event, this small group of men and women as our communion hymn will tell us later, turned the known world upside down. The movement of the Holy Spirit is life-giving and empowering. I know each of us have our own stories of times when we may have felt stagnant or stuck and then suddenly inexplicably everything changed. Maybe something happened on the outside a new connection a change or perhaps it was an internal shift when as with the disciples, everything clicked when somehow there was courage to move or shift or risk but you knew it wasn’t you that did it but the Holy Spirit moving in your life. The Holy Spirit breaks down barriers of all kinds and One of the most powerful parts of Pentecost was that the Spirit broke down barriers created by human words The spirit enabled not only common language but new speech, speech through which the gospel could be heard more clearly. Sometimes words can be confusing especially when everyone thinks that their way is the best way. Listening to the Spirit rather than our own egos can lead to clarity so that the gospel can be communicated more effectively.
I want to share a couple of significant ways this is happening here in our parish. You know we have had a sense of mission in this parish right from the very beginning in the 1950s. A mission statement says what a group does to live out their vision which is always related to sharing the Good News. We’ve had a mission statement that no one remembers. It’s not that the one we had was bad in fact it says a lot of really good things. I’m going to read it to you: To receive all people into one family without reservation providing a sanctuary for self-examination, growth and healing; to celebrate our life in Christ; and to support and minister to one another, thereby empowering us to spread the good news of the Gospel in love and acceptance as a spiritual witness to the community. All good stuff but the thing is no one remembers it, no one can recite it. If someone asked you what our mission is it doesn’t roll off the tongue easily We needed simplification and clarification of what is already happening here. So one of the Vestry’s goals has been to communicate who we are in a way that gets at what we are all about. Ginger Reeder and Charles Mullins worked on this over the past 3 months and this week presented a new mission statement to the vestry which they approved in about five seconds because it captures what we do. Helping hands, Healing hearts, Welcome all. Isn’t that what St. Thomas is all about? Isn’t that what our communities need most at this point in time where evil seeks to distort and wound the human spirit. St Thomas has always been about caring for others and over time the Holy Spirit has helped us live into this role in a variety of ways It is important that we remember and are clear about who we are and who we are called to be God’s Spirit filled people.
The work of the Spirit moves us – clarifies, guides and empowers in a life-giving direction. Some of you have seen the slide show about St Thomas that Fr Leo made that helps us remember how this community has always been about this work. He delved into this binder and sorted through tons of information about the history of the parish and formed it into chapters showing how The Holy Spirit has moved through this parish over the course of over 60 years. I believe that it captured who we are as a parish inspiring those who saw it with the spiritual legacy that we have been given. If you haven’t seen it already I encourage you to click on the link in the doubter and be reminded of who we are as part of the legacy here and to experience how God has blessed what started out as a dream of a Love field area mission; how the spirit moved among that small group of people in the 50s to enable them to take root in this community, how the parish changed and grew during the tumultuous 60s and 70s and in the 80s how a small group became a people touched by the pain of those on the margins of society, a people so moved by the Spirit that they were freed to take the risks of loving and caring for others when no one else would. Helping hands, Healing hearts, Welcome all, was the music playing subtly in the background then and over the years the music has been practiced and perfected and grown in beauty. There is a question in the music by Moses Hogan I mentioned earlier that says “Can’t you feel the spirit move?” And I say if you walk through these doors of St Thomas the Apostle on any given Sunday the answer is, YES. So let us be grateful today for the Spirit moving in the life of our wonderful parish and let us never forget that what really changes the world is the redemptive power of love taking root and that happens when we let the Spirit’s power move us deeper into our mission of Helping hands, Healing hearts, Welcome all.
