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“Pentecost and Patriotism”

Wilton Presbyterian Church

May 27, 2007

All of us are inclined to become the victims of our abstractions, so much so that we forget the texture and smell of those experiences to which the abstractions refer.

I want to illustrate this by recalling two scenes—one religious and the other secular, one from the church and the other from the state; one of Pentecost and the other of patriotism.

The first scene is from the church. It is one of life’s most puzzling yet enduring facts of life that people claim to love Christ but find it really tough to love Christians.

“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…Divided tongues…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…All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?” but other sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’” (Acts 2.1-2a, 3-4, 12)

It was a mixed crowd that had gathered in Jerusalem. Along with countless others, Jews had come to Jerusalem from all over the Middle East to celebrate the Jewish holy day of Pentecost 50 days after Passover. These Hebrew tribes came with names different from one another, from different cities (some that had never been mentioned before in Scripture—like Antioch, Seleucia, Paphos, Iconium), and each with different languages cultures, and ways of practicing their faith.

And in the midst of this crowd there is a wee group of disciples of Jesus still trying to make sense of one man—Jesus, his life, his words, his death and his resurrection.

Then something begins to move among these disciple--a sense of something stirring, like a little breeze that tickles your hair and lifts it with its presence. The breeze becomes a gust and the gust a storm. A violent wind shakes the room and tosses them about as if they were on a pitching boat. A power is loose among them and the disciples feel it with every cell in their bodies.

In the midst of this power there is a vision of the energy present. An aura, if you will, glowing and pulsing like flaming tongues, hanging there as a kind of gift of power and a benediction. Jesus had promised that he would send the Holy Spirit among them to live in them. And this energy must be it, the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise that, when he taken away from them, they would not be alone. “I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you,” Jesus had said. And here it takes form. The same God whom they had seen in the love of Jesus was present to them now in a Holy Spirit that had come to dwell in theme and set their hearts free from the sorrow and fear that had gripped them. They must be Easter people now, these disciples—as free from the sorrow and fear gripping them as Jesus had been freed from the prison of death. And so out they rush into the streets trying to tell people of this spiritual experience of freedom in Christ.

Which presence in the disciples sets the stage for a still-stranger thing that happened that Pentecost. For the people they met outside their own small circle, the people in the streets, with strange names, different languages, different cultures, and maybe even different religions somehow understood what the disciples were saying about the love of this man for God and for others. And so the Christian church was born of one spirit yet of very language and words more than the disciples could name or number.

We understand those differences as Christians. We feel, think, and speak those differences in the church. It’s tough being a mainline Protestant church these days, buffeted as we are by clamors from the right and from the left. It’s tough hanging on to Christ in the midst of such different, and often dueling Christian interpretations. To be a Christian in church and world is to experience at least two voices: your own and at least one other person telling you that you’re wrong. “But what does this mean?” all asked of the experience of Holy Spirit. How much diversity can unity withstand? And the answer is: a lot, as long as we are like the Greeks coming to Jerusalem for Passover. They had asked Philip, ‘Sir, we would see Jesus.”

“If you love me,” this Jesus had said, “you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another—an Advocate, a Comforter, a Paraclete, to be with you forever.” (John 14.15-16).

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another,” Jesus said (John 13.34) Not as you love yourself: Jesus doesn’t say that. “”As I have loved you”: that’s what he says. As I have taught you. As I have prayed for you. As I have lived for you—have died and risen for you. As if to say, keep before you a as clear a picture as you can of who I am and the life I lived in the Gospels, and then you will know when and where are the tell-tale signs of the presence of the Spirit who abides in you and lives in you and what this Spirit invites and

calls you to be and do out in the world.

Of course, the Spirit of Jesus presence may well prompt in me a different voice that the Spirit of Jesus may prompt in you. Our stories, our affections and our faith will differ in our interpretations. Our tongues may be divided. But the presence, the voice, and the work of this Holy Spirit will knit us together in Christ as Lord and Savior.

Being a Christian isn’t easy. Within the church—with so many voices—it is tough to love both Christ and Christians. But the Gospel’s vision is of all gathered together in one place with a common commitment to Jesus Christ. It’s of a world where each is free to speak in his or her own voice and where each is free to learn one another’s experiences of God without violating our own. Where we know one another as religious beings. Where lives are lived, truths are discovered, and decisions are made not only on the basis of economic facts, or political convictions, or intellectual dogmas. Indeed, the Gospel sees people inquiring of one another what each person’s god would want, what each person’s religious heritage would way, what each person discovered the night before while communing with Jesus, or Yahweh, or Allah, or the Talking God or that someone/something that is greater than all of us. In Christ we are free to affirm and respect those Christians with whom we hold a common faith but sometimes sharply different ways.

That is the first scene—of the disciples so filled with the love of Christ they are free from the shackles of their own—and oftimes self-centered--interpretations, free to learn from others, free to love one another free to love friend and enemy alike, all in the name of Christ, whose Spirit embraces us all in the Father.

That is the first scene; and the second is like unto it. But it is not about Christ and Christians; it is about America and Americans. How is it that so many people love America but find it tough to love Americans?

It is one of the final scenes in the movie, The American President.

Andrew Shepherd is the incumbent president whose re-election has been challenged by a candidate contending that his character is suspect because of his recent personal relationship with a woman who, 13 years before, was photographed at the burning of a flag in front of the South African Embassy in protest of apartheid. To the frustration of his staff, Andrew Shepherd has resolutely denied any comment, believing that any response would be like “swinging at a pitch in the dirt.” But in this scene, in response to a press corps question to the press secretary about whether the president had any comment both about his personal relationship and rumors of his membership in the American Civil Liberties Union, the president abruptly opens the press room door, blurts out, “Yes, he does,” mounts the podium, and begins to speak:

For the last several months Senator Rumsen has suggested that being president of this country was to a certain extent about character. And although I’ve not been willing to engage in his attacks on me, I’ve been here 3 years and 3 days, and I can tell you without hesitation that being president of this country is entirely about character.

For the record, yes, I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU. But the most important question is, ‘Why aren’t you, Bob?’ Now this is an organization whose sole purpose is to defend the Bill of Rights, so it naturally begs the question, Why would a Senator, his party’s most powerful spokesman and candidate for president, choose to object to upholding the constitution?’ Now, if you can answer that question, you’re smarter than I am because I didn’t understand it until a few hours ago.

America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You’ve got to want it bad because it’s going to put up a fight. It’s going to say, “You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, whose is standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest.’ Now show me that; defend that; celebrate that in your classrooms. Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free.

We have serious problems to solve. And we need serious people to solve them.

I’ve lost two women in my life. I lost one to cancer and I lost the other because I was so busy keeping my job I forgot to do my job. Well, that ends right now…

We’ve got serious problems and we need serious people. And if you want to talk about character, Bob, you better came at me with more than a burning flag and a membership card. If you want to talk about character and American values, fine. Just tell me where and when and I’ll show up. This is a time for serious people, Bob; and your 15 minutes are up. My name is Andrew Shepherd. And I am the President.

Being an American isn’t easy. It is advanced citizenship because this country is the land of the free, not only by constitution but by disposition, by law and by character. Freedom is at the core of what America and Americans are all about—it is why our forebearers immigrated to this country; it is why immigrants even now keep coming to this country. For the freedom it celebrates. It is one of the ironic, blessed truths of this free country that being a patriotic citizen here involves not only obedience to law but questioning of its leaders—including the president because he is our president; that being a patriotic citizen of this country leads us to war abroad and closely debate, even protest this war at home.

Two different scenes for different audiences: one for disciples of Jesus Christ, one for citizens of America. But with the same Spirit. For the love of Christ we are all Christians; for the love of this country we are all Americans.

Many of those whom we honor this Memorial Day weekend died to bring a vision of freedom to others. And those who succeed them are doing no less. We owe them something, these veterans and these soldiers. We owe them the assurance that their deaths were not—and their service is not--in vain. We owe them exactly what they fight and die for and what they serve for: a unity born of freedom, a country—for all of our differences--at one within itself and with the world.

To lift our nation before God, to remember those who have died and to honor those who have served—and yet serve—in the armed forces of these United States of America, would you stand with me to sing—all together in this one place—the verse of that national song printed in your bulletin this morning:

God bless America, land that I love. Stand besides her, and guide her

Through the night with a light from above.

From the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans white with foam.

God bless America, my home, sweet home.

Amen.