Acts: 2:1-2, 1 Corinthians 12: 4-13, “Wild Geese Flying” by Ronald Meredith (Readings below)
 

First you hear it: The faraway honking of geese in flight. Relentless honking, as if to clear the sky ahead of errant sparrows and stray robins, lest they be plowed over by the oncoming steamroll of birds; ceaselessly honking avian encouragements to ‘press on!’ to a destination I would never know.

Then from the north, the vee of birds comes surging into sight high above the buckeye trees: the lead goose, breaking the air and setting the pace, then dropping back as another, then another, leads the way through the ocean of sky.

And then on those evenings when the air is really still, comes the sound of wings: a distant relentless churning of air, mocking gravity’s pull on sleek heavy bodies coursing to their winter home.

It was one of the great thrills of my childhood: Mother Nature sharing a sky-born secret with me – the migration of wild geese. These are the wild geese of paintings and poetry. These are the wild geese of Celtic Christianity.

Did you know that? Not too many people do. Well, The Celts didn’t fancy the classic Christian symbol of the dove – a serene little bird cooing and fluttering from the heavens. Far away from the dominance of the church’s leadership in Rome, those crazy Celts had a totally different take on the character of the Holy Spirit: They felt that the image of the gentle dove was entirely off base. They experienced the Holy Spirit as uncontrollable, something more like a wild goose, a big noisy, totally unignorable, take-up-some-serious-personal-space wild goose. They felt that while the coo of a dove may be sweet and calming, the strident honk of a goose fit the character of the Holy Spirit much better. Strong and challenging– and even a bit scary – the early Christians of Britain sensed that a wild goose came a lot closer than a dove to represent how God’s Spirit can be more than a bit demanding and unsettling.

Think about the story of Pentecost, and the impression the disciples made on the crowd. They were so wild that people thought they were drunk and disorderly! Is that the action of a dove or a wild goose??? Well, before I go chasing any more wild geese, let me stop for a minute and talk about the Pentecost story.

The disciples were in Jerusalem for a couple of reasons. First and foremost is that Jesus told them to stay there: they weren’t to head back home to Galilee. Jesus had told the disciples that while he would not always be with them, they would not be left like orphans to face the world alone. God would send them a helper, an Advocate, a Paraklete — that would always be with them. “Just wait,” Jesus said. “Stay there in Jerusalem and wait.”

The other reason they were in Jerusalem is that they were faithful Jews, and it was expected that fifty days after Passover, everyone who was able to travel would be in Jerusalem for the Festival of Weeks, which in Hebrew is known as Shavuot, and in Greek as Pentecost, because it occurs, well, 50 days after Passover. Shavuot is both a celebration of the giving of the Torah to Moses and it also celebrates the first harvest of the year. The people made bread with the first spring wheat and they drank the new wine made with the grapes of last fall and they stayed awake all night reading the Torah in the hope that God would again speak to the people of Israel.

It was a very popular festival – kind of like Thanksgiving and a great family reunion combined. The city was jammed with people from every region and country, speaking a vast multitude of languages, all celebrating the abundance and generosity of God.

So it was, that on the morning of Pentecost, the disciples were gathered together after a night of praying and reading the scriptures, when suddenly, the room was filled with the sound of a mighty wind and tongues of flame danced over their heads: wind and fire, ancient signs of the presence of God. It was the coming of the Holy Spirit just as Jesus had promised.

And suddenly all the disciples began to create such a noise that people outside the house heard them and before long, a crowd gathered, amazed & perplexed because they heard those Galilean country bumpkins laughing and shouting and speaking their languages. Now some folks sneered and thought that it was just some kind of wild party going on – too much new wine. But Peter said “No way.” It was still only 9:00 in the morning. They weren't full of wine, they were filled with something way more powerful. They were filled with the Holy Spirit!

The coming of the Holy Spirit on that Pentecost morning so long ago was an astonishing gift from God. The hopeless and dejected followers of Jesus were literally goosed by the Holy Spirit and flung out of the shelter of their upper room into the streets of Jerusalem, to tell everyone about what they had experienced with Jesus and what they knew to be true about the amazing life-saving power of God’s love. The Wild Goose of God inspirited the disciples – and that was the beginning of the Church and its mission: the sharing of the Good News of God’s unconditional love with the entire world.

From that day on, the lives of the disciples were totally changed. They never returned to their old homes and ways in Galilee. They began to bring the Good News to everyone – in their own language. And they began to create churches – intentional communities based on the compassion of Christ and his principles of economic justice.

Now one of the things to notice about the sudden out-pouring of God's Spirit on the day of Pentecost is that it was a very inclusive event. Unlike many miraculous moments in the Bible, when most of the people involved were simply witnesses to what happened (like the Transfiguration and the feeding of the 5,000 with a few loaves and fish) everyone in that room was included at Pentecost. The tongues of fire come to rest upon each and every one of the people who were gathered there, and a moment later they all began to speak out and be understood by people they’d never been able to talk with before.

What happened at Pentecost was no mystical, inner, personal experience of the Spirit, limited to a few special people. It was an outpouring of God's energy that touched every person there. And you know, what happened at Pentecost is an outpouring that has never, ever stopped.

You see, God has given each of us our own day of Pentecost - a day on which God has – or will – impart to us the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Indeed it is this indwelling, this personal day of Pentecost, is one of the things we as a church for every time someone is baptized.

What we receive with the Spirit is more than strength and support, understanding and comfort, all those things we normally identify with God's presence. And you know, God even gives us more than joy, more than peace, more than patience, and kindness, those things which we call the fruits of the Holy Spirit. God also gives us a set of gifts, gifts designed for the building up of the body of the church and for the individual ministries to which we are called, and for our own spiritual lives.

Today’s readings tell us a bit about them. The prophet Joel mentions some of the gifts that have been granted by God through the Spirit: gifts of vision and dreams and prophecy - poured out upon our sons and our daughters, upon our young and upon our old.

Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost speaks about the gift of tongues - of languages both human and angelic - so that the crowd won’t think the disciples are drunk or otherwise out of their right minds.

And Paul, who ended up having the most experience of all the apostles with the working of the Holy Spirit, he lists some of the gifts that God gives in his letter to the Corinthian congregation about how those gifts can and should be used.

As much as these readings may seem like stories of other times and places, these readings really do pertain to us. This winter, a dozen or so Bridgeporters went to Camp Adams for a leadership retreat and we explored this business of Spirit-given gifts, those special abilities that God gives to us to be used cooperatively for the strengthening of the church, the “Body of Christ”, so that it can better fulfill God’s purposes. As I got ready for the retreat, I found a lot of different lists of such gifts, and while they differed somewhat, they all include the gifts of teaching and helping, discernment and intercession, hospitality and administration, mercy, faith and prophecy.

The experience of Pentecost tells us that these gifts are a spiritual gifts — to be distinguished from the natural talent we each are born with. They are gifts of our faith, our second birth, if you will, and can transform a not-unusually-talented person into someone who has a remarkable ability to minister to others.

Well, the folks who went on the retreat took a spiritual gifts survey and we all agreed that it was pretty interesting. I wanted to give it to all of you this morning, but with all the information it includes, it would take a small forest of trees to print it up for everybody. So I’ll be sending out an email this week with a link to the same Spirit Given Gifts questionnaire we used. It was designed by a minister in the United Church of Canada, it’s got a good format and you can easily make your way through it to discern some of the gifts that you have been given.

Of course, many of you already know all about your spiritual gifts. Some of you are actually using putting them to work here at Bridgeport and in other areas of your lives. But a lot of us are a lot like those tame mallards on the pond in the poem that [ ] read this morning. We have gotten so comfortable that we have forgotten who we are and why we’re here. We hear the honking of the Wild Geese far above our heads, and think “Golly, I kind of think I might recall what it was like to fly up there like them, but gee, why would I want to when there’s so much corn in the barnyard down here?”

Why, indeed. Following the Holy Spirit is risky and uncertain — the Spirit is unpredictable and out of our control. And following the Spirit of God means being prepared for an often unpredictable, sometimes undignified, frequently frustrating and responsibility-filled life. It can mean letting go of our most sensible and logical ideas in preference for the unforeseen urgings of the Spirit. But God has given you remarkable gifts, and you have to be the one who uses them. You have to use them, or you will end up looking like those well-fed and complacent ducks in the pond.

We celebrate at Pentecost that as Jesus gathers us in community, we are empowered by the Spirit to do the works that Jesus does, and even greater works than that, too(John 14:12). We are one Body of Christ living into the truth that all of the divisions in the world have been and will be overcome – and we must do our part.

That's the Good News we've received and that’s the Good News that we are called to share, and what better place to use your gifts, than in this church, right here. We are being called to do great work here at Bridgeport, and your gifts – you – are necessary to do them. So on this great day of Pentecost, this day of Spirit, wind and fire, I pray that that great Wild Goose of God will come honking its way through the skies of your daily life and waken you to the possibilities that await you here. For together, we can do amazing things for God. Amen

 

Acts: 2:1-21

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs — in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power."

All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine."

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "People of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

'In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy.
And I will show portents in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
The sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the coming of God's great and glorious day.
Then everyone who calls on the name of God shall be saved.'

 

1 Corinthians 12: 4-13

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit 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. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

 

“Wild Geese Flying” by Ronald Meredith

It was a quiet evening in early spring,
when out of the night came the sound
of wild geese flying.
I ran to the house
and breathless, announced the excitement.
What is to compare with wild geese across the moon?

It might have ended there
except for the sign of our tame mallards on the pond.

They heard the wild call they had once known.
The honking out of the night
sent little arrows of prompting
deep into their wild yesterdays.

Their wings fluttered a feeble response.
The urge to fly –
to take their place in the sky for which God made them
– was sounding in their feathered breasts,
but they never raised from the water.

The matter had been settled long ago.
The corn of the barnyard was too tempting.