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You Are More Than What You Have Become Suddenly from heaven . . . (Acts 2:2a)
Volume 2 Number 8 First United Methodist Church, 605 West 6th Street, Mountain Home, Arkansas 72653
When Tom Long was teaching at Princeton he told of a time early in his ministry when, leading a small confirmation class of only three confirmands, all girls, he asked if they remembered the story of Pentecost. None volunteered a reply, so Dr. Long explained in words like these. “Pentecost was when the church was sitting in a group and the Holy Spirit landed on them like tongues of fire on their heads. Then they spoke the gospel in all the languages of the world.”
Two of the girls took that information in stride. The third, though, was clearly astonished, not recalling ever being witness to such a worship service. To her, worship seemed a bit boring. What Rev. Long was describing was nothing short of electrifying. Her eyes widened as she said, “Gosh, Rev. Long, my family must have been absent that Sunday!”
No doubt, Pentecost was Extreme. A Kudzu comic strip some time back has two teenage girls come to Rev. Will B. Dunn, posing their theological dilemma in entirely teenage girl terms. “Reverend” they said, “we’re having a serious theological debate. Is salvation something like an Extreme Makeover?”
Precisely so. Pentecost was an Extreme Makeover, an event from which the disciples set out to turn the world upside down. That’s Extreme, and Pentecost is the church’s Extreme moment. Were it to happen again, it might make seasoned Christians such as we a bit uncomfortable. We prefer routine. We opt for a worship experience with fundamental conventions of time-honored traditions. Let’s face it, we arrive at church pretty much knowing what to expect. We arrive at pretty much the same time so our regular parking spot will usually be available. We desire and expect few surprises. That’s how we like it. Predictability. That’s the drill.
Don’t get me wrong. Sure, we want worship to be refreshing. Certainly, small surprises add to our enjoyment of worship. Let innovation be gentle, though. Innovation that doesn’t threaten predictability leaves us with a good feeling, leaves us to think of ourselves as liturgically daring. Mild innovation is a pleasant breeze. Keep it mild, though. Mighty winds of change are unwelcome because, in the end — anthem sung, benediction said, pastor’s handshake and smile at the door, lunch served — when all is said and done, we prefer a worship experience without too many surprises, not too Extreme. Steady as she goes. It’s the way we are. The extraordinary itself must move toward predictability, routine with the riot. Even in more contemporary expressions of worship we tend fall into routine, just as energetically defending our new traditions as others defend their “traditional” traditions. Bottom line? Tradition is wonderful, unless and until it calcifies and ossifies us, coalescing into minds and hearts hardened against fresh breezes of the Spirit.
The late Jewish theologian, Abraham Heschel wrote of Jewish synagogue worship, in words that we want to guard against applying to the church: Services are conducted with dignity and precision. The rendition of the liturgy is smooth. Everything is present: decorum, voice, ceremony. But one is missing. Life. One knows in advance what will ensue. There will be no surprise, no adventure of the soul; there will be no sudden outburst of devotion. Nothing is going to happen to the soul. Nothing unpredictable must happen . . . no new perspective for the life we live. Our motto is monotony. The fire has gone out of our worship. It is cold, stiff, and dead.
True, things are happening. Do we not establish new edifices all over the country? Yes, the edifices are growing. Yet, worship is decaying. Has the temple become the graveyard where prayer is buried? There are many who labor in the vineyard of oratory. But who knows how to pray, or how to inspire others to pray? There are many who can execute and display magnificent fireworks; but who knows how to kindle a spark in the darkness of a soul?
Of course, people still attend services . . . but temple attendance has become a service of the community rather than a service of God. An air of tranquility, complacency prevails in our houses of worship. What can come out of such an atmosphere? The services are prim, the temple is clean and tidy, and the soul of prayer lies in agony. You know no one will scream, no one will cry, the words will be still-born. People expect the rabbi to conduct a service, an efficient, expert service. Alas, we have come to regard the rabbi as a master of ceremonies.
Has the pastor, likewise, become but a “master of ceremonies,” carefully guarding the expected flow of worship? To the extent this is true, it leaves the congregation to say after worship, “Been there. Done that.” One of the most memorable television commercials of the late 90's (can it be already 10 years ago!) made excellent use of that phrase, coined by a culture craving something extraordinary and astonishing. The commercial was for that glow-in-the-dark soft drink, Mountain Dew, clearly an attempt to reach 20-somethings, who today are 30-somethings. I was 40-something back then, and the commercial was far too exhausting for me. The screen is filled with frenetic action. Through sixty delirious seconds we are treated to booming, fast-paced music as we watch young guys and gals catapulting out of airplanes on snowboards, leaping off breathtaking cliffs with parachutes, hurtling down rugged mountains on mostly air-borne bicycles, and roller-blading through complete loops. With that commercial Mountain Dew became the unofficial beverage of the Extreme Sports culture.
The commercial made its point by offering the viewer a telling contrast. The screen vacillated between this delirium of energy on the one hand and, on the other, a drowsy group of four guys. In between each adrenalin-pumping activity the loud music slows to a crawl as the screen shifts away from Extreme activity to four bored, sluggish looking fellows standing on a porch doing nothing. Their response to each Extreme segment was a bored, enervated monotone, “Been There. Done That.” Only when these droopy four are handed a bottle of Dew are they jolted into intensity, engines revved to rush headlong into the Extreme.
“Been There. Done That.” is a phrase of disinterested dismissal reflecting weariness with routine. For those lethargic youth, the Extreme came in a bottle of neon-hued Mountain Dew. “Wake up and smell the Mountain Dew!” For the disciples, that high intensity charge wasn’t the yellow of Mountain Dew, but the red flame of the Holy Spirit, the church’s Extreme Makeover. The jolt of spiritual energy upon the church was such that no surge protector could have reduced, no lightning rod could have diminished.
Frank and Ernest did a comic strip on Pentecost Sunday a few years back showing the two lovable vagabonds walking away from church after worship. The pastor and several church members are standing in the church door peering into the sky as if afraid. Frank says to Ernest, “I still say, a church with a lightning rod on its steeple reflects a lack of confidence.”
Churches can, in effect, attach lightning rods to the steeple. I suppose we want to be protected from an unexpected jolt from above. Could it be that we prefer to be absent on the Sunday when that level of energy suffuses the church because, in the end — anthem sung, benediction said, pastor’s handshake and smile at the door, lunch served — we want a worship service without surprises, nothing Extreme. Steady as she goes. Predictability. That’s the drill.
Richard Lederer, author of Anguished English, collects unintentionally funny writing. Here are a couple of examples taken from his collection of classified ads. “For Sale. Bulldog. Will eat anything. Loves children.”
Another of my favorites is on excuses, “My son is under doctor’s care and cannot take P. E. today,” wrote the mom, “Please execute him.”
When People did a story on Richard Lederer, they asked him to choose a spot in his hometown for a photograph that might summarize his unique brand of humor. He found it. His picture was snapped by a telephone pole with a street sign attached. “Electric Avenue,” the sign announced. And yes, there it was, right beneath the street sign was another, quite unexpected sign, a bright yellow diamond that warns, “No Outlet.” Now, what’s wrong with this picture? Sad when Electric Avenue is a dead-end street, a street with No Outlet.
May it never be said of the church! We are an Electric Avenue of spiritual power, an avenue with a thousand outlets, offering the energy of God’s grace to the world. Pentecost reminds the church that God’s power is flowing through us, empowering us to travel an Electric Avenue of love, service, and ministry. But one wonders if sometimes the church is too often an Electric Avenue with No Outlet, leaving us satisfied merely with a gossamer shimmer, a tingling of energy at the hint of what the Holy Spirit can do in us and through us, but with No Outlet to channel that energy to the world.
In 1999, our second trip to the Holy Land, there was a man from McKinney, Texas in his late 80's whom we met there, a passenger on our bus. Despite his doctor’s and family wishes, he had determined to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, particularly to the Western Wall of the Old City, a place which had inspired him for years. For Roy, that pilgrimage was Extreme. He told everybody at home and on the journey that if he died on his pilgrimage, he will have died living his dream. We helped this fascinating man achieve that dream, literally picking him up and carrying him up the hill to the Lion’s Gate of Old Jerusalem when, with the heat and emotion of the moment, he grew short of breath.
Roy wore a cap that had a priceless saying. Been There. Done That. Can’t Remember. But I think he did remember, which is why Roy was so determined to see this Land that gave birth to his faith. He wanted to touch what his spirit remembered.
May it be so with the church. Pentecost was long ago, yet we’ve read the story, heard the sermons, sung the songs. And we do remember. Perhaps, deep inside, we possess a desire to have that fire of Pentecost ignite our passions once more.
In The Lion King, Little Simba, heir to Mufasa’s throne, had run away after his father’s death, and adopted the carefree philosophy of Timon and Pumbaa, Hacuna Matata. This “Problem Free Philosophy” was an escape hatch from responsibility, a “Whatever” attitude which allowed him to forget his past, his calling. With Hacuna Matada, Simba could relax and say, “Been There. Done That. Can’t remember. I’m not worthy anymore. I don’t care anymore.”
But now little Simba had grown up, and when he is discovered by Rafiki, the shaman monkey who plays the part of the priest, he is encouraged to claim his inheritance, to be the King he was born to be. But Simba thinks it’s too late. For him to claim the throne now would be Extreme. He wasn’t sure he had such an Extreme Makeover in him. He needed a sign, and Suddenly, from heaven, he hears the voice of his father’s spirit. King Mufasa appears to him with profound words, “Simba, you are more than what you have become.”
“You are more than what you have become” is a powerful line for anyone who has ever felt they were not living up to their calling. Most of us have known times in our lives when we needed, “Suddenly from heaven,” to hear those words -- times when we had shirked our responsibilities, times when we failed to live by the values instilled in us, times when our calling seemed to require more than we had in us, more than we imagined ourselves to be. At such moments we need to hear this word of challenge, which is a word of grace.
So it is with the church. Pentecost calls across the centuries and the millennia to the church, You are more than what you have become. “Then come, Holy Spirit. Come with wind and fire. Shake us. Breath upon us. Energize us. Make us what you have called us to be.” Amen.
Sources: “Praying by Proxy,” an essay by Abraham J. Heschel in PARABOLA (Summer 1999, Prayer). |
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