Graduations, Baptisms, and the Spirit - Sermon for Pentecost 2016

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Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who

It’s a busy day today! Graduation! Baptism! Pentecost!

It reminds me of two big things, especially this Pentecost as we celebrate the Spirit’s coming upon the Disciples, how much we need the Spirit to give us rest and strength, and also how much the Spirit sends us to do so many things in this grand world God created. Today I want to spend our time looking at some ways that the Spirit gifts us and works in our lives

Let’s start with Pentecost, it’s on this day that the disciples are still gathered in the Upper Room, where Jesus told them to wait, when suddenly the sound of a wind comes whipping around them, some have imagined it’s like the sound a tornado makes when close by, described by some as if a train was going right passed your window. When suddenly tongues of fire all appear over their heads, and they are filled with the Holy Spirit. They are driven from that space out into the streets where everyone hears them talking in their own language. All of those long names each hearing as if they were in their hometowns and it was the person who taught them how to speak talking to them, as clear as you can possibly imagine. 

That’s the first thing I want to lift up about the Spirit working in this text and our lives. It’s not just that the Spirit gives the disciples the ability to speak in other languages, the Spirit is just as much at work, if not more so, in allowing each person to hear them in their own language. There are 17 groups listed here, probably more languages than that, and while they are back to 12 disciples at this point, having replaced Judas with Matthias, it’s still not enough to fill all languages. Now, who knows, maybe they're speaking multiple, but it makes just as much sense for the Spirit to cause those listening to hear as well. It’s this idea that shows us a great gift of the Spirit, the gift of interpretation and communication. The spirit gives us the ability to understand one another, to work to make each other clear. The Spirit gives Peter the ability to read the passage from Joel, and interpret it to the people listening, so that it can take on new meaning for them where they are then. It’s the Spirit that works among us here right now, in my speaking and my hearing. I’m always amazed at the times when I preach on a text, and in my mind talk about it one way, only to have someone else come up and tell me about what they heard in the text. Neither of us wrong, but the Spirit allowing just to hear and see different things that connect to us deeply in the way that we need there and then.

Next I want to talk about Baptism. In our Baptismal service when we first speak to the parents we ask them, “Called by the Holy Spirit, trusting in the grace and love of God, do you desire to have your child baptized into Christ?” We declare that it’s through the Spirit that the call to baptism comes. That it’s not the parents decide on the baby’s behalf, or even when it’s an adult baptism, we address them like this, “Name, Called by the Holy Spirit, trusting in the grace and love of God, do you desire to be baptized into Christ?”, it’s that the Spirit initiates this deep connection between God and baptized Child of God. The Spirit initiates the relationship that we find with God, and through that it’s the Spirit that initiates relationship between each of us.

Later in the Baptismal Service we hold a blessing on the Baptized, “Sustain Name with the with the gift of your Holy Spirit: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, the spirit of joy in your presence, both now and forever. Amen.” Through baptism, the Spirit rests upon us, like Jesus in the Jordan, and gives us gifts, wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge, fear of the Lord, and a spirit of Joy. In baptism we are seal with these gifts, given to us by God, so that we may seek to discern, still with the Spirit’s help, what is the will of God in the world, and how we may best use our gifts to become God’s hands in the world.

Today we celebrate our Graduates, congratulating them as they finish one stage of their life and as we talked about are sent out into the world by mother and father, Grandparents, siblings, friends and neighbors, all with gifts that they have received from all those loved ones. And, with those gifts comes a great promise that they are sent out with the Spirit as well. Just as the disciples are sent out into the street by the wind of the Spirit, so too are these graduates today sent out, the Spirit pushing them towards all they are called to. In our blessing that we will have in a few minutes we will be calling upon the Spirit to give them gifts and that the Spirit will go with them. We will ask through the Spirit that these graduates will tend to the world and make it right again, that they will add to the beauty in God’s world, that they will be nourished and renewed by hope, the good news that God is God, that Jesus is Lord, that the powers of evil have been defeated, and that God’s new world has begun.

And finally, we will bless them, The Lord Bless and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine on you and be gracious to you, the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.

Today is Pentecost, it’s the day we celebrate the Spirit coming upon us, showering us with blessings and gifts, take the time today to give thanks that you were the Spirit rested on you in baptism, that you were sent out in Graduation, and that you have the gifts to interpret who God is to you to the rest of the world, and rest comfortable in knowing that the Spirit gives others the gifts to understand you. And this week, I pray that you take time to look at all that the Spirit has done for you, see what the gifts are that you have received, and that you may know that you walk, not alone, but with the Holy Spirit with you.

Amen.