“Spirit Fire”
Acts 2:1-18, 39-47
When the French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal died in 1662, his servant found a scrap of paper in the lining of his coat, hidden in the place where the garment would have brushed against his heart. Recounting a transformative spiritual experience, the note read, in part:
In the year of Grace, 1654,
On Monday, 23rd of November, . . .
From about half past ten in the evening until about half past twelve
FIRE
God of Abraham, God of Isaac,
God of Jacob
Not of the philosophers and scholars.
Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace.
God of Jesus Christ. . . .
My God and your God. . . .
Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except GOD . . .
Joy, joy, tears of joy.
The word “fire” was written in all-capital letters, as if to convey the intensity of Pascal’s experience, as if to suggest that he had been burned—in the most positive, purifying sense of the word—by the Spirit.
FIRE, he said.
We don’t often speak of the fieriness of God or the passion of the Spirit, but it is why we wear red on Pentecost Sunday and it is at the center of the Christian Pentecost story:
Suddenly from heaven, it says, there came of sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where some 120 Jesus followers were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each one of them.
I invite you to sit with that word for a moment and notice what it brings up in you. Fear? Embarrassment? Passion? A desire to back away?
One of the things I love about Pentecost Sunday is its not-so-gentle reminder that while we may have done our best to tame God, to reduce Spirit to something we can intellectualize and minimize, to re-make the Divine into something we can define and control, God will not be tamed. Spirit cannot and will not be controlled.
Consider for a moment whether you hear this fiery uncontrollability of Spirit power as good news or bad news—or something in between.
Consider, too, that the Pentecost story and Pascal’s note suggest that an experience of our fiery Spirit God does not always leave time or room for reflection. Pascal was on fire with the Spirit for no less than two hours. Back in first-century Jerusalem, the tongues of Holy Spirit fire were immediately followed by holy speech in foreign tongues.
Consider, too, that, according to tradition, the fiery arrival of the Holy Spirit 2,000 years ago marks the official beginning of the church—the church not as an institution, mind you, but as a community of people whose hearts and lives had been set on fire by the reckless love of Jesus and the indwelling power of the Spirit.
Consider, if you will, what a Spirit-empowered church community is for, what its mission is.
Consider, if you will, that the church is a mission—the embodiment of God’s fiery, self-giving mission to bring healing, hope, transformation, liberation, love, peace, justice, and joy to all people and all the world.
Pentecost invites us not only to consider how we fit into God’s mission as individuals and as a church community, but also whether that sense of mission comes from Spirit or something else.
In her new book Somehow, the writer Anne Lamott tells the story of a “small progressive church.”
The church’s pastor put a notice in the church newsletter one week saying: “I’m starting a radical Jesus group. If you are interested, show up Tuesday night at seven o’clock.”
Twenty people showed up the first night. The pastor had them sit in a circle and announced that she wanted to follow the radical Jesus,… and she was going to need others to do this with her. She didn’t quite know what that might look like, though, so she threw it out there.
A few people said they needed to start a homeless shelter in the church . . . Someone else said that the local radio station was run by a right-wing media company, putting out hate, and they should arrange a boycott. . . . . Someone else said they could convert the church to solar power.
Everybody had great ideas of how they could share the goodness of God, and be better stewards of our poor Earth. But when they were done, the pastor said, “This is all good stuff, but I feel exhausted. . . . Why doesn’t everybody go pray about it and come back next week?”
Most people came back the following week, except this time people were prepared, which meant they had arguments for why the church should or shouldn’t do whatever . . . People were trying to convert each other to how a community should be run, and who—hint, hint—should run it.
At the end of this meeting, the pastor said: “I’m already regretting starting this radical Jesus group. … I don’t know what to do.”
Then someone suggested, “Maybe we should be radical Jesus to each other before we go out and help the world.” And the pastor jumped on that. She asked everyone to go home . . . and ask in prayer what each of them needed, and how the radical Jesus of crazy compassion could help them. ….
Only ten came back the next week.
But those ten shared their struggles and asked for help. When a woman said she wanted to try walking every morning for her health but needed someone to walk with her, two women raised their hands.
FIRE.
Another woman said that ever since she had forgotten that the couple she had over for dinner were vegan and gluten-free, she’d been paralyzed by shame. But she loved nothing more than cooking for others. Would anyone be willing to come to her house for dinner? Every single person raised their hands.
FIRE.
A man said his bathroom sink had been broken for months but he was too ashamed to call a repairman. Would someone be willing to help him? Somebody raised a hand.
FIRE.
Another person confessed that he struggled with workaholism, and he needed someone to sit and pray with him. The pastor volunteered for that job, and when she would call and get his excuses as to why it wasn’t a good time, she would go to his house anyway, if only to sit on his porch—because he had asked for someone to hold him accountable and she had signed up for the job. Thenhe’d stop what he was doing and meet her on the porch. And it was gorgeous. They cried together sometimes. They sat in silence.
FIRE.
And after the people in the group had been caring for one another for a while, the original dreams came true: they remodeled the church basement to make showers for the homeless, started a soup kitchen, went solar, and helped start a Pride parade for the town.
FIRE.
Consider, if you will, that the Holy Spirit does not operate on a predictable schedule or at a certain speed. While the first Christian Pentecost was one “immediately” after another, and fiery spiritual experiences are a mystical grace, more often than not Spirit fire burns like a bed of red-hot coals: slowly but powerfully, with a subtle but sustained force that can quickly spark into a blaze.
FIRE.
If you pay attention to what is happening in this community, if you listen to people’s prayers and pray with them, if you try to see others and our blessed and broken world through the eyes of God, you’ll see that bed of coals burning strong and steadily. If you open your heart just the tiniest bit, you’ll find yourself warmed by that fire, and if you take the smallest step toward it you may be singed by the Spirit—in the very best way.
Our new members have stirred up the coals this morning, and I pray that their faith and passion, their vulnerability and their hunger for community will ignite in all of us the Spirit of love and joy, connection and community.
FIRE.
