4 June 2006
Carolyn L Roberts
Acts 2.1-21

When I was a junior in high school, our family moved from central to eastern Washington. It was not an easy time for me-I left behind many close friends, a church and youth group I loved, and a school that I was enjoying. My new school was twice the size of the old school. And during those first few weeks, I was feeling pretty out of it. So when a classmate invited me to join her at her church for their youth group meeting, I was pleased to be included.

I don't remember anything about the meeting itself. What I do remember is that there were lots of youth-about 80-100-and that at the close of the meeting, we were each seated on a gym floor and instructed to enter into a time of prayer in which we were to invite Jesus into our hearts. And if we had repented of our sins, and invited Jesus into our hearts, we were to raise our hand. It was a very long time of prayer. My cheeks burned and my eyes were shut so tight they hurt. I was sure that everyone around me had their hands high in the air. But I didn't. My head was bowed and my eyes were shut, and my hands stayed folded in my lap.

The speaker kept saying over and over that Jesus would forgive our stubborn hearts. That we just needed to turn our lives over to Jesus. I remember wondering how, if we were all supposed to be in prayer, the speaker knew that at least one of us didn't have our hands up. I remember thinking that I was never coming back. That I felt as though I was being wrestled to the ground and expected to cry 'uncle' so I could be released. I remember feeling as though something wasn't quite right with the whole setup. And I remember thinking that when I was confirmed, I'd already committed myself to following Jesus, and that I didn't need to stick my hand in the air just to satisfy the speaker. Eventually, the speaker gave up. The prayer ended, and we went home. I never went back. But there was a minuscule part of me that yearned for the absolute certainty that speaker projected.

In time, I found a church and a youth group that made me feel much more at home. A congregation that accepted and nurtured and loved me. A hunger for the Bible and its stories-stories that challenged and comforted and confused me. An opportunity to serve in mission projects. A place where questions were encouraged, and laughter and play were expected. A place where questions of faith and issues of justice were warp and woof of the same fabric. What I didn't find was the kind of faith that was so certain it had all the answers that it was like the little girl during children's time. She had brought her friend to church with her for the first time, and as they went forward to children's time with the pastor, she whispered, "It doesn't matter what question the pastor asks, the answer is 'Jesus.'"

At the end of this year-long confirmation class, I asked the confirmands to write a statement of faith-a statement of how they understand their faith at this point in their journey. Their statements are inserted in your bulletin. This is not an easy assignment, and one of the confirmands responded that she wasn't sure what to write; that she was confused because she didn't know what parts of the Bible are factually true and which parts are not. She knows intellectually that the Bible is neither a history book nor a science book, that Jesus above all people wouldn't tie faith to the ten most critical points of history or the twelve most fundamental proofs of science. But her response articulates our yearning for certainty-and what she has in hand are stories of mustard seeds and empty tombs.

Today's scripture is yet another story. It talks of the mighty power of the holy Spirit, poured out upon fearful disciples gathered in Jerusalem. The story is filled with wondrous images of fear transformed to boldness, of the ability of very ordinary people transformed into consummate linguists, capable of communicating the depth and breadth of God's love into the language of all who have the ears to hear. And right in the middle of the story comes the most amazing question: what does this mean? How do we make sense of such a story?
It's the question of the scriptures. And so often we get it wrong. We are so saturated by the framework of scientific method that we think the most important question is: is this how it happened? Is this factually accurate? But the real question for faith is, what does this story mean? How does it speak to my heart? How does it make me better understand the God/human relationship?

Here is how I hear this story today-which may be different from how I will hear it tomorrow. I'm not sure that the birth of the church happened exactly the way the writer of Luke-Acts describes it, but I do know that the story is true. God's loving presence spoke to the hearts of Jesus' followers so deeply, so powerfully, that the fear that had kept them hiding in small rooms and back alleys melted away. At first, they talked only among themselves about what to do, about how to continue to live in the ways Jesus taught. But our still-speaking God would have none of that! The same Spirit that baptized Jesus in the wilderness filled their hearts. They were impelled, driven forward, forced, filled to bursting with the impulse to share the good news of God's love with complete strangers. The contagion of fear that kept them isolated and removed from those least like them was transformed into the effusion of love so intoxicating that those overwhelmed by its passion seem to be drunk.

These disciples didn't 'get it out of their system' the first time they spoke to someone. Instead, the experience they shared was contagious-so many others experienced God's living, loving, transforming presence made known through Jesus the Christ that the language of love crossed religious and cultural boundaries. The news of that love spread from Jerusalem to Egypt to Rome to Germantown, Maryland.

The first Christian writer in our scriptures is the apostle Paul. He tells that same story in even more compressed form: In Christ Jesus there is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female.[Galatians 3.28] Or elsewhere, the gospel came to the Jew first, and also the Greek[Romans1.16, 2.9,10]. Regardless of its form, Paul's letters and our story make it clear that the gospel is intended for all people. All people. All people.

Laurel and Caitlin and Jenna. The faith you confirm today has been inspired by that same Spirit which touched the lives of Jesus' followers nearly 2000 years ago. This world-transforming Spirit offers us abundant life in this world. This fear-banishing Spirit challenges us to consider how we will live responsibly in this world so that abundant life is possible for all people. Egyptians and Mexicans. South Africans and Indonesians. Afghanis and Americans. Because that Spirit doesn't discriminate between borders or economies or political systems. Recognizing that, the question becomes how we live in this world in a way that does not separate us from all those others among whom God's Spirit is blowing. There are no easy answers to that question. As Wendell Berry says, "may heaven guard us from those who thing they already have the answers."[1,27]

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[1] "The Burden of the Gospels," Wendell Berry, The Christian Century, Vol 122, No 19, September 20, 2005.