The Breath of Pentecost Acts 2:1-11, 1 Corinthians 12:4-13, John 20:19-23 May 30, 2004, Year C, The Day of Pentecost The Rev. William V. Livingston, Rector Church of the Resurrection, Starkville, Mississippi Much of the summer of 1998 I spent working on an archaeological dig and traveling in Israel. Yes, I found visiting significant biblical sites both educational and spiritually transforming. Yet, the one thing that I remember being most acutely moved by as it occurred was standing in the middle of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, a large, first millennium church constructed over what are claimed to be the crucifixion and burial sites of Jesus. Being in this proximity of sites associated with Jesus' death were not what affected me. What gripped my awareness was hearing the Stations of the Cross simultaneously in innumerable languages. The via delorosa, the Way of the Cross of Jerusalem begins and ends in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. So, as I stood in the center of this shrine, my ears were treated to the melodic words of the Stations of the Cross from the groups immediately around me, from those at a distance, bouncing off the high vaulted ceiling and from the stone walls, from small groups of 4 or 5 to groups of more than 100, in European, Asian, Middle Eastern, and African languages. While I could not understand a word they said, I knew exactly what they were doing and the very words they said. The experience has given me a glimpse of what that first Pentecost Day must have felt like to someone standing in that Jerusalem crowd. Today's Acts reading may have given you a glimpse of what this was like. For us to fully grasp the significance of Pentecost Day in our corporate life, we need to have that sense of chaos of the Acts reading. We need to disrupt our normally staid liturgy and find in the midst of that chaos people far different than we but still celebrating that together we share wonderment of God's deeds of power. We need to comprehend that if we are walking the path we claim we walk, that the gifts we receive, or as Paul when writing to the Corinthians refers to them, the manifestations of the Spirit and our material abundance are give to us not because we deserve them or earned them but for the common good. We need to inhale the breath of Jesus as he breaths on us and says, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven." Listen carefully to each of these readings because in each we find reconciliation and in reconciliation we find the kingdom of God. Scripture talks very little about Heaven, however, it talks a great deal about the kingdom of God. Do not confuse Heaven and God's kingdom as being the same thing. Perhaps no other Sunday proper better emphasizes this than today's readings because each - independently but especially when taken together - says this is what the kingdom of God looks like. It looks like a world of oneness - oneness of the human family, oneness of humanity with God, oneness of creation - in which all we have is for the common good, and it looks like a reconciled world as gentle as a breath, natural and free. It looks like a world in which we are not burdened by the sins of the past, but are set free, a world in which you can set those past mistakes, harms, injuries down right now, and that will be the end of it. Today's readings tell us there doesn't need to be anything in between us and God's love any more, not ever again. We have the power to connect with God's goodness anytime we want. But then that's where the rub comes in. Maybe the problem is that we don't really want to. Maybe we've come to depend on our separation. Maybe we've gotten used to our estrangement from God and one another, and maybe we really don't want to be any closer than we are. Maybe we don't want our gifts to be for the common good. Maybe we want to hold on to our hurts and resentments. Maybe we just want to be left alone and to keep our gifts, talents, and possessions for ourselves. Maybe we'd rather be descendants of Babel than of Pentecost. You see, Pentecost undid the harm of Babel. Do not allow biblical literalism to hide the meaning of the tale of the Tower of Babel. It is not about a tower but about our desire to be the god of our lives and our unwillingness to know and listen to one another. As a result, we reject those who cannot speak our language - be it our English language or professional, religious, or sub-culture jargons we create to ever narrow down those who can be like us. As a result, we reject, torture, murder those different from us, and different from us can be different language, nationality, skin color, gender orientation, political views, religion - the list of differences are limitless. Babel is about being bound by those differences unless we are reconciled via Pentecost. Thus, Pentecost gives us a glimpse into the kingdom of God, not Heaven, but as God calls us to live now, today, in Starkville, MS. Pentecost invites us to be shaped by a wind, a breath, that calmed distraught apostles hiding in a locked room following Jesus' crucifixion and that stirred those gathered in Jerusalem. No wind, no breath once set in motion ever comes to an end, it only creates ripples that gradually spread around the world. John Polkinghorne, a quantum physicist, Anglican priest, and President of Queen's College, Cambridge, as a scientist explains how a butterfly flapping its wings in Africa can cause a change in the weather in Europe. Whether we desire it or not, we are all related. You and I are not separate from one another and we are not separate from anyone on earth. For good or evil, we feel the ripple of the starving faces of Sudan, the violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Israel - the violence of armed troops and religious zealots with bomb laden vests strapped to their bodies. We feel the ripple of the Desmond Tutus of the world who advocate reconciliation rather than punishment of those who committed the atrocities of apartheid or the Mother Tereseas of the world who served the lowest, most ignored people of this world. But, just as a butterfly in Africa can influence the weather in Europe, we must also be aware everyone feels the ripple of the smallest of our actions. Our choice of clothing determines whether a child is locked in a third world sweat shop. Our choice of coffee determines whether a South American farmer will be able to feed his children tonight. Our vote determines whether there is justice and peace in the world, our nation, Mississippi, Starkville. Our choice of greeting a stranger in this space determines whether that person will hear the Good News of Jesus Christ. Where our actions cause injuries, that fact is ever before us. But the remedy for the injury is also always before us. You can set your sins down right now, right here on this altar, and that will be the end of it. You can come to share "God's deeds of power," not to put up barriers before those who are different from you. Be reconciled with everyone, forgive in advance those who fight against you. Act on the principle of the reality of the oneness of the human family and all creation. Will it be easy, will you have immediate success? No, but let the ripple of good continue through you. The ripple of the wind that overcame the separation of Babel on Pentecost, the ripple of the calming breath which Jesus breathed over his terrified disciples hiding in a locked room, still travels through history, touching everything in its path and giving us glimpses of the kingdom of God. By the power of the Spirit, you and I do not have to be part of the injury. We can say no and act in a way to transcend our aloneness. We can create ripples that rather than do injury, are for the common good. Pentecost is not about good liturgy. It is about experiencing the Holy Spirit in the chaos, the messiness of our lives. It is about putting away differences and being reconciled. It is about recognizing that whatever our abundance, it is not for us alone, but for the common good. It is about the breathing in the Holy spirit and forgiveness overcoming our terror. Receive the Holy Spirit, breathe in the breath that calms distraught souls, that blurs our divisions, and then breathe it out again into the world, and let the reconciliation begin.