All that fire

"Were not our hearts burning within us?"


It's one of my favorite quotes from the Bible and it comes from Luke's story of two people walking the road to Emmaus.  A  stranger joins them on this journey and pretty soon the stranger is talking scripture (the Hebrew scriptures or what we Christians would call the Old Testament since that was all that there was).  It turns out that this stranger is the risen Jesus and he is connecting the dots in the scriptures .....which, I would guess firmly point to him as God's Messiah.  When the two companions finally figure it all out, one says, "Were not our hearts burning within us when he opened to us the scriptures?" Apparently, God's Word and fire are not uncommon. Luke 24.32

In the book of Exodus, Moses encounters a bush that is burning but not consumed....the famous 'burning bush' story.  As Moses comes closer to inspect this phenomena, a voice says,  'take off your sandals.  You are standing on holy ground'.  Yep, that was God, calling Moses to be God's servant and the liberator of the Hebrew people.  Exodus 3.1ff

The prophet Jeremiah is another example.  In the 20th chapter, after having endured consistent and nasty responses to his faithful preaching, Jeremiah has had all he can take.  "You have enticed me, and I was enticed" Jeremiah cries.  [There are some very interesting variations on the translation of that word 'enticed']

If you have read all the previous 19 chapters you would probably agree with the crowd; Jeremiah, who is known as the weeping prophet, is a buzz killer.  As a result, he was called names, called out, ostracized and pushed around, and just because he is doing what God called him to do (see chapter 1), that is, to speak the words that God put in his mouth.  No one likes the message, so they want to get rid of the messenger.

Jeremiah wants to get rid of the Word of God that is constantly coming to him; he wants to retire from his job as prophet.  So he says,  "If I say, 'I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name,' then within me there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot."  God's Word was a fire in his bones.  Wow.  Jeremiah 20.9

When the disciples gathered after Easter for the feast of Pentecost, the Spirit of God came among them like tongues of fire with a tongue of fire resting on each one present.  Soon everyone was speaking and hearing languages they didn't otherwise know.  Hmmm  Acts 2.3

When was the last time God's Word lit a fire in your belly?  When did it compel you to speak?  When did God call you to be a servant and liberator of others?

I would guess there are times when a gentle nudge is no longer enough to get God's people moving.  Sometimes it takes a little heat, applied wherever God believes it will do the most good.

Have you felt the heat lately?

Called, gathered, enlightened and sustained

It's the season of family reunions.  All those relatives, many who live at great distances, some whose names are lost in memory, gather in one spot to drink coffee (and most times beer) and to eat 4 kinds of potato salad and try to catch up.  "My Lord how the children have grown!"  is a favorite refrain to each greeting.

It's all a bit awkward at the beginning....there are new in-laws to introduce and that search for a safe topic of mutual interest.  There's a lot of talk about sports teams and children's graduations, the weather and golf games, and if you happen to be related to me, Tim Hortons.  But if the stars align just right, and God smiles on your gathering, you will begin to share family stories....the buried treasure of every family.

There is the story about mom chasing the kids with water pistols on the first really hot day of the year.....in the house!  Then there is dad's love for anything plaid.  Great-grandma's sour cherry pie and Uncle Carl's crankiness.  There will be the detailed re-telling of someone's birth, and the sadness ladden story of where each one was when they heard of Great Grandpa's death. There are happy stories, funny stories, scary stories, and of course, sad stories as well.

It takes about 4 hours to get comfortable enough with one another to begin to tell the sad stories, and just possibly if everyone hangs in there long enough, you can get to those stories of conflict and crisis. If you get that far, you will have managed what many never do - to speak the truth about your lives together, your shared history, and have gained some insight into how meaning has been formed in you.

You might just take a moment, quietly, off to yourself, to realize that managing this life is beyond challenging; that the road is twisted and rocky and often dangerous; that having someone else know your story gives you strength and resilience; and in the end, there is so much for which to be grateful.

My daughter is taking the lead to plan our family's small reunion this summer.  I doubt that she has given a moment's thought to Martin Luther's explanation to the work of the Holy Spirit in his Small Catechism who 'calls, gathers, enlightens and sustains' the church.

Would we not paint our family reunions with a different color if we saw the Spirit moving among and through us to bring others to life.....to abundant life.......in the midst of joy and sorrow and evil and anger.........this Spirit works to sustain us.....in this frail collection of flawed human beings.......where we can practice being life for one another?

It is in the back yard, eating hamburgers and cole slaw, playing horseshoes or corn hole and waiting for the fireworks to start that the Spirit is working to call and gather God's holy people into one body...in Jesus' name, out of love, for the sake of each one.

Perhaps I need to re-think my approach to this year's hot dog extravaganza; it's a lot more holy than I realized.

#feelthewind

They are called hashtags.  We oldsters called them pound signs, but there is no difference beyond a couple decades of technology.

In any event, they are used to establish the topic for a Twitter conversation that is open to anyone who wants to jump in.  A hashtag is both commentary and summary.  The same event might carry several hashtags depending on the variety of views out there in the social media world.

So......here's ours for Pentecost.  #feelthewind.  If you are inexperienced at these, you need to separate the words into  feel. the. wind.  It's a great hashtag for Pentecost, the day of rushing wind, tongues of fire, and accusations of excessive drinking at 9 am.

#feelthewind sets the tone.  What is our message?  What do we want to say to the world about that great rushing wind and the incredible Holy Spirit?  Twitter restricts comments to 140 characters so we would have to be brief, but this provides us with the great opportunity to hone our message about God's appearance as Spirit among us, moving us forward, granting us words to speak, setting us on fire.

According to the gospel of John the Holy Spirit comes as comforter, encourager, strength in faith, fearlessness in telling the story.  The Spirit is our advocate and our teacher; it is the teller of truth.  It is the power of the Holy Spirit which raised Jesus out of the tomb into new life.  Just saying: we're not dealing with some draft from a faulty window.

We are talking about the power of new life moving across the void of darkness and bringing life into being.....and it is happening today all around us.  With a little practice will we recognize the movement of the Spirit wherever there is healing, forgiveness, compassion, truth telling, and strength of faith.

What would you say in your tweet about Pentecost?  Let's try a few
    Could that woman giving lunch to that guy on the corner be the Holy Spirit at work?  #feelthewind

    Saw a child and dog playing and running and laughing.  Holy Spirit at work  #feelthewind

   Elderly mother and adult child holding one another's hands in silence at hospital.  Holy Spirit bring comfort  #feelthewind

Notice how our tweets sound suspiciously like prayers of awe and praise and intercession?  Just by tuning into God moving and working among us, our prayer life (which IS our relationship with God) grows and grows.

The Holy Spirit is on the loose, moving and shaping the world; it comes as both wind and fire.  Where have you felt the wind lately?

#holyspiritatwork
 

What was the point of all those fireworks?

I think it is a legitimate question and goes to the heart of the raison d'etre of the Christian Church.  Why were we blessed with such an amazing display of fire and rushing wind?  What was God trying to accomplish with this first Pentecost?

Of course the Church has developed answers to this question throughout its 2000+ year history.  Martin Luther in his Small Catechism says that the work of the Spirit is to call us into faith and then form us as the Church

'I believe that I cannot by my own strength or understanding come to faith but the Holy Spirit calls me through the gospel.....just as it calls, gathers, enlightens and sanctifies the whole Christian Church.'  [a paraphrase of the explanation to the 3rd article of the Creed.]

But that begs the question of why the Church in the first place.  The Greek word for 'church' is ekklesia or 'the called out ones'.  So those who are gathered to be church are called out for some purpose......and it apparently took some wind and fire to get us moving.

Because it appears that it is about us moving, not staying.  It is about us talking with one another, and with every other Tom, Dick and Harry we meet about what we have seen and heard.  It is about what we are to do next and it has to do with other people, not ourselves.

This dynamic movement of Spirit and Church has gotten a bit lost in our last century as we foolishly believed that everyone already knew about the person, presence and power of God.   Too many believers began to believe that just believing (and there have been some very low standards around what 'believing' means) was the goal of the church.  Somehow we lost sight that the believing was intended to be the first step of telling someone else the story.  

Frankly, if you had been there and felt that wind, and saw those tongues of fire, and heard all those people talking........well, you would just have had to tell someone else about it all....right?

So, perhaps the fireworks were just for that purpose......to get us up off our ......couches/pews......and get the word out.  THIS is our God and THIS is how powerful that God is and THIS is the Jesus who showed us what it all looked like and THIS is the Spirit that is always moving among us to bring out new life.

So what is the story that God has given to you to share with the world?  Where have you felt the rushing of the Spirit?  Where has the fire of God's passionate love shown up in your life lately?  That's your story.  That's your fire and wind.  That's your call to tell the story.  Your story.  God's story.  The story of salvation for the world.