The Rev. Roger Bower
St. Margaret's Episcopal Church & School
Acts 2:1-11 | Psalm 104:25-32 | I Corinthians 12:4-13 | John 20:19-23
Good morning everyone. As the song says, “Hail thee festival of days.” You will notice the clergy is all wearing red. Today is the feast of Pentecost. I just love this time of year. I think this is the greatest time of the year for all of us to celebrate. First of all, for many of us who have children or grandchildren it is graduation time! Especially here at St. Margaret’s, we are blessed. This Tuesday night we are going to graduate our first eighth grade class from St. Margaret’s School. Today I want to introduce Barbara Gibson our head of school. Congratulations to Barbara and all the other teachers and administrators for a job well done.
Also, this time of year, many of us plan getaways for the summer. My family is planning some trips. Even Father Robert, our Rector, is taking some well deserved time off. I think though, his confidence in me is waning. Remember last time I preached I told the story of how I caught a church rug on fire during an Easter celebration. When I got into my office the other day, I noticed something I had not noticed before, a fire extinguisher. I looked at Father Robert and asked, “Is this a message?” You know how he looks at you with that little grin. I said, “Okay. But maybe I can use it for fog during my next sermon. Laser light show will be next.” He just shook his head.
Indeed, this is a great time of the year! And today we celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. Today we read the Pentecost story found in the Acts of the Apostles. God’s spirit came to the disciples with a great wind and tongues of fire were laid upon them. This little group of men and women were transformed by the power of the spirit and went out and preached, proclaimed and baptized people in the name of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit. In certain days, the bible says, 2000 and 3000 people were baptized by the Holy Spirit. That is groovy stuff. That is what we celebrate today. We celebrate the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.
Our celebration today reminds me of my last year in New York. The bishop came to me on Pentecost Sunday and asked, “Son is your community baptized by the power of the Holy Spirit?” I took a step back and said, “Is this a trick question? I do not remember that in the Common Book of Prayer. Is it okay for an Anglican to be baptized by the Holy Spirit?” He just grinned at me. For the next year I studied the Bible and read everything I could about the Holy Spirit. You know what I found? It is okay for an Anglican to be baptized by the Holy Spirit.
In my studies, I learned that a community baptized by the power of the Holy Spirit has three basic qualities.
First, a community baptized by the power of the Holy Spirit has a sense of powerful prayerfulness. Second, a community baptized by the power of the Holy Spirit has a sense of powerful giftedness. Third, a community baptized by the power of the Holy Spirit has a sense of powerful peacefulness through the gift of reconciliation.
First of all, powerful prayerfulness. It says in Acts 2, “When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place.” The previous chapter states that all the disciples were there together and they devoted themselves to constant prayer. Is this community powerfully praying for one another? Is your family powerfully praying for one another? The Holy Spirit calls us to be people of prayer.
Jim Cymbala, the pastor of Brooklyn Tabernacle Church recently wrote a book called Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. In 1971 his wife and he started the church with four people. Last Sunday they had 10,000 in attendance. The center of their church is prayer. He started out with a Tuesday night prayer meeting. When the people are upstairs in worship, people are in the basement praying for the success of worship. In the book he states, “A Christian church is where God’s spirit is honored and people are listening to the spirit.”
Throughout his letters, St. Paul encourages us to be powerful in prayer. Ephesians 6:18, “Pray in every occasion as the spirit leads.” Colossians 4:2, “Be persistent in prayer.” I Thessalonians 5:16, “Be joyful, praying unceasingly.” Philippians 4:5, “In all your prayers ask God for what you need.” And for all you men out there, Paul gets a little more specific. I Timothy, “I want men to pray. Men who are dedicated to God and who can lift their hands up not in argument or anger but in kindness and love.” Are we men willing to do that?
Second is a community baptized by the power of the Holy Spirit has a sense of powerful giftedness. The bible tells us in Corinthians 12, “To one is given the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.” The spirit gifts the community with all sorts of things. The spirit is gifting us with the power to transform lives. In our church community have we seen miracles? Have we heard prophecy? In your family are there miracles happening? Are we celebrating faith? Do we have the utterance of wisdom and knowledge? That is the power of the Holy Spirit. Some of you may not have this in your family. Pray for it! It is okay to ask for the gifts of the Holy Spirit! We are called to have that sense of desire so we pray for it. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t say, “Lord, give me the wisdom to understand what is going on in my life and the life of the world.”
The scripture also reminds us that, “It is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.”
Let’s talk about the word, activation. A few weeks ago, Father Robert gave me a gift, a church credit card! It took me thirty minutes to activate this thing! They wanted my serial number, my phone number, address and shoe size. After successfully activating it, I went to Father Robert and said, “Let’s give this puppy a workout and go to Maggie’s corner.” He just grinned, “It has a $27 limit. What can you buy for $27?”
It says that God activates the spirit. The bible tells us that we were created in God’s image. We are created with a sense of giftedness that can transform our families, churches and our world. So let God activate your giftedness. Once the gift is activated, use it for the common good.
Paul says in the letter to the Corinthians, “Since you are eager to have all these gifts of the spirit, you must above everything else make greater use of these which help build up the church of God.”
So discover your gift. Allow God to activate it and to build His kingdom throughout the world.
Lastly, a community baptized by the power of the Holy Spirit knows and senses its powerful peacefulness through gift of reconciliation. It says in the Bible that the fruits of the Holy Spirit are love, joy, peace, patient endurance, kindness, generosity, faith, mildness and chastity. Do you have that sense of peace? In the anxiousness of your life, in the worries of your family and the struggles of our church, are you at peace? Confident in God’s provision we are called to have that sense of peaceful reassurance.
As a people of God, we are called to share the gift of peacefulness. In the letter to the Corinthians, Paul reminds us that we share in the ministry of reconciliation. In today’s gospel, Jesus came into the locked room of the disciples and said, “Peace be with you. If you forgive one another’s sins, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of many they are retained.” When we become reconcilers of the world, that sense of powerful peacefulness will reign in our hearts!
So today, I pray that we will be baptized by the Holy Spirit! Maybe be a people of powerful prayerfulness, powerful giftedness and powerful peacefulness. May the Spirit hover over our church and transform our lives!
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