The Wind [Pentecost - Acts 2:1-21]

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

Acts 2:1-21

The Wind

They immediately noticed the mighty, rushing wind because, generally speaking, a mighty, rushing wind does not happen indoors.  That is why that wind was so noteworthy, why we are still talking about it so many centuries later.  It was impossible – and yet it happened.  There were no ceiling fans wobbling above their flaming heads in the first century.  There were no industrial strength hair dryers blowing in the upper room.  There was no David Watts standing over a smoking thurible with his gigantic fireplace bellow in that ancient gathering place.  They were inside; and that is not where one typically finds a violent breeze.

Inside, behind closed doors, is not where a mighty, rushing wind even belongs.  It doesn’t work.  It is simply too disruptive.  It messes things up.  It stirs the curtains and twists the sheets.  A mighty, rushing wind rustles the pages of your book while you are trying to read.  When the wind kicks up, you have to hold things down.  Indoors is not where the wind belongs.  And so those 120 followers of Jesus, gathered in that closed up upper room, noticed the wind when it whipped through their space. 

It was a wind without an apparent cause.  A breeze with no beginning.  A holy mystery disrupting their settled situation.  After the whirlwind of emotions that had been their previous month, the followers of Jesus were ready for some quiet.  On one terrible Friday, their Jesus had been abused and killed; but then, shockingly, he was alive again, walking through walls and cooking fish on the beach; and then, just when they were starting to come to terms with their risen friend and his open wounds, he left again – forever gone for the second time in just six weeks.  And so after they watched him ascend out of sight, flanked by angels, they decided to rent a room and close the doors and take a timeout.

But God was not done with them.  And so, after just ten days of quarantine, the wind started blowing.  And it blew those closed doors open.  And it expelled them from their safe space.

We often celebrate this feast as the birthday of the Church; we name Pentecost as the day on which the Church was born.  And that makes sense because birth is about getting what is inside out.  And that is what happened on that first Pentecost.  I’ve seen a couple of births and so I know how it works.  The baby is expelled from a place of safety and comfort into the big, dangerous world – the world in which life and love live.  It is a hard transition – one that comes with no small amount of kicking and screaming.

But babies are not meant to gestate forever; wind is not meant to be locked up; those upper room disciples were not meant to stay behind closed doors – and neither are we.  And so the Spirit points to the exit sign.  The Church cannot live inside.

And yet, honestly, there is something so comforting about being surrounded by stone and stained glass.  Life feels safer and easier settled into a pew.  That is why God gives us Pentecost: to remind the Church that we were born when we left the building.  We need the wind to blow open our doors and blow us out into the world – even if, at times, kicking and screaming.  We need to go back to our roots: to be the Church that runs wild in the streets, that rides on the wind. 

We have been gifted by Jesus a wild Holy Spirit: his own first gift for those who believe.  The same Spirit that blew those first believers out the door on Pentecost, carries us into the world still today, gives us dreams to dream for our world, gives us a vision for what this world can be.

The Church was never meant to be locked up or locked in.  The Church was never meant to be silent or timid.  The Church was not born to waste away indoors.

The Church was born to dream dreams.  To speak the Truth in days of deceit.  To prophesy against the powerful forces of injustice.  To boldly spread love in a world of violence and division.  To dream of the Kingdom come.  To actively imagine the reign of God come true – a reign in which racism, and oppression, and hatred, and violence are uprooted by the mighty, rushing wind of the Holy Spirit.  The Church was not born to waste away indoors; it was born to change the world in the name of the Risen Christ; it was born to make heaven on this earth.  And we can’t do that if we refuse to go outside.

This pandemic has forced us away from our campus; it has caused us to lock our doors.  But locked doors have never once stopped the Holy Spirit.  The doors may be closed, but the Church never closed; we are not on vacation; we are not on a break; because the Spirit of Pentecost is still coursing through the Church.  We are not closed; we are dispersed, currently on an extended deployment; we are living in our mission field.  And I hope we recognize that we are no less the Church away from our building.  Our work is no less important.  Our mission no less urgent.  The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead is alive in you, is alive in the Church, is alive and active in this world. 

One day, in the not-too-distant future, we will again gather in our sacred space.  But remember, our building is not our home; it is our home base.  Our nave is not a place to stay but a place to leave.  We gather on Sundays to be sent out.  The Spirit draws us in like a deep breath – and then breathes us back out the doors to do the work to which we are called, to do the holy work, the work of justice, love, and mercy, for which we, the Church, were born.