Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
May 11, 2008

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Last weekend, as many of you know, I attended the annual meeting of the Pacific Northwest Conference of the United Church of Christ. Some of you have heard me complain about those meetings being boring, and some of them have been. This one had its boring moments too, of course, but it also had some good times and some useful events. It felt especially good this year to reconnect with many of my friends from around the Conference and from Seattle U. There were useful workshops, and I have passed along or will pass along some material from those gatherings to some of you. Most especially, the closing worship on Sunday morning was touching and inspiring. I sang in the annual meeting choir, led this year by Dennis Coleman, choir director at First Congregational UCC Bellevue and director of the Seattle Men’s Chorus. That was a special treat, as was partaking of Communion, for which Manny baked the bread for all of us, without presiding myself for a change.

The most powerful experience I had last weekend, however, came after I left the meeting and was heading home. I was riding with Sue and Manny, and we stopped for lunch in Ellensburg. As I sat in that restaurant by the freeway I was powerfully struck, as I have been when leaving other Conference annual meetings, by the feeling that I didn’t want to come back. I didn’t want to return to the world of everyday life. I think I know why. In his sermon that morning Conference Minister Mike Denton had used as a sermon illustration the line from the hymn Blessed Be the Tie that Binds that goes: “The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above.” As I sat in that restaurant early Sunday afternoon the truth of that line was crystal clear to me. It was such a joy to be apart from the world for a couple days with kindred minds, kindred souls.

Not that everyone who was at that meeting agrees on everything. Far from it. But that old hymn says “kindred minds,” not “identical minds. There were differences of opinion among us to be sure, but the people at that annual meeting shared at least a common faith, Christianity, understood in a more or less progressive way. Despite our differences most of us would agree on some general political principles too—that war is wrong, especially the current war in Iraq, and that collectively we should care more for the poor and the vulnerable—and for the environment—than as a rule we have over the last thirty years or so. Most of us at that meeting shared values and perspectives on the world tht, while majority views in that gathering, are minority views out in the world.

Those shared values and perspectives made me feel comfortable and safe at the meeting, much more comfortable and safe than I do most of the time out in the world; so as I ate lunch in Ellensburg, I wanted to go back. I didn’t want to come back into the world to deal with its addiction to violence, from spanking children to capital punishment to war, all of which are immoral but which American society on the whole accepts and even embraces. I didn’t want to come back into the world to deal with our greed is good, just look out for yourself ethos. I didn’t want to come back into the world, where religion is most commonly anti-intellectual, literalistic, judgmental, and preoccupied not with being God’s voice and hands working for peace, justice, and the wellbeing of the earth, but with getting individual souls to heaven. I strongly reject all of these characteristics of contemporary American society and culture, as I am positive God does; and I didn’t want to come back into the world where they are so prevalent.

But. There’s always a but. Life would be a lot easier if there weren’t, but there always is. Today is Pentecost Sunday, and the Pentecost story from Acts addresses my experience last Sunday in a way that won’t let me withdraw from the world the way I would so often like to. The connection between that story and my experience may not be obvious, but consider. On that Pentecost day, Jesus’ followers were all gathered in one place. They were in a place apart with kindred minds, kindred souls, as we had been in Yakima last weekend. That’s when the Holy Spirit came upon them. It didn’t come upon them out in the world but when they had withdrawn from the world to be by themselves. That’s been my experience too. It’s a whole lot easier to experience the presence of the Holy Spirit at times like that than it is out in the hustle and bustle of daily life. In that place apart the first disciples felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in a unique way. There the Spirit could, and did, come upon them in its fullness, directly, and powerfully. I imagine they would have liked to stay there in that experience. They were energized and inspired, so inspired that they acquired powers they hadn’t had before, specifically the power to speak foreign languages they had not previously known. It was what we call a peak experience, sort of like Peter’s experience at the Transfiguration. He wanted to stay on that mountain top forever. Those disciples gathered together on that Pentecost morning probably felt the same way.

But—there’s that but again. But they didn’t. They couldn’t. In Luke’s Pentecost story as soon as the Holy Spirit came to the disciples, the world came to them. A crowd made up of people Luke calls “devout Jews” from all over the world gathered around the house where they were staying. The disciples had to go out to them. They had to engage with them. They went out and began proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ in all the languages of their world, from Rome to Arabia. They were thrust into the world. They even had to defend themselves from it, as when Peter had to assure the crowd that Jesus’ followers weren’t drunk, for it was only nine o’clock in the morning. (I’ve always wondered what Peter would have said had it been nine o’clock in the evening, but never mind.) Soon the disciple community was out spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ all over the Roman Empire. They may have wanted to stay holed up in that house, but they couldn’t.

Neither can I, neither can we. Our call is like the call to those first disciples so long ago. Now as then the world needs the Good News of Jesus Christ. It needs the good news of God’s unconditional love and grace. It needs God’s prophetic word of peace and justice for all people. It needs God’s prophetic word that the world of which God has made us stewards is in peril, and we need to act. God needed those first Christians to get out of the house and get out working in the world. God needs us to do the same. God is active and at work in the world Godself to be sure, but God is active and at work in the world mostly through people like us; so we can’t withdraw from the world. We need to engage the world.

The eighteenth century English philosopher and statesman Edmund Burke famously said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” We can paraphrase Burke and say that the only thing necessary for God’s word and work to fail in the world is for us to do nothing. So we don’t get to sit in our lovely fellowship of kindred minds and enjoy the presence of the Holy Spirit that we find there. We have to take our experience of the Holy Spirit out from that place and into the world. We have to go out into the world and try to find the Holy Spirit out there too. Most of the time I’d rather not. It’s too hard. It can even be dangerous. But—there’s that but again—the earliest disciples didn’t get to stay within their community, and we don’t get to stay within ours. We can take strength and inspiration from it, as they did. Then we have to get up and get going. We have to be disciples out there, too. So let’s get going. Amen.