PRAY, WAIT, CELEBRATE

This morning a group of about 120 people are in a house – praying and waiting. Meanwhile, on the streets outside, other people are celebrating. On this, the fiftieth day after Passover, Diaspora Jews come to Jerusalem – as they do each year, faithfully living out God’s Exodus command: “You shall observe the festival of harvest, of the first fruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field.” (Exodus 23:16a). So in a day-long festival, known as the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Harvest or the Day of First Fruits, devout Jews celebrate the faithfulness of:
the One who holds them together
the One who is faithful to them even when they aren’t faithful to Him,
the One who is good to them even when they aren’t good to themselves or one another.

So why are the ones inside praying? And waiting? Can it be that their waiting is a form of prayer?

Perhaps their willingness to pray and wait reveals what they believe about God. After all:
If God doesn’t answer, why bother to pray?
If God is passive or uninterested, why bother to wait?
If God makes promises in one breath and breaks them in the next, why bother to pray and wait?

Maybe these disciples also have certain expectations of God:
That God will keep God’s promises.
That God will remain faithful to who God is.
That, in God’s time, their prayer will be answered.

I’m not referring to the unfounded expectations some folks have of God. A friend of mine reminded me of this in a recent conversation. He was at the laundromat a few days ago when he noticed an elderly woman in tears. Wanting to help, he asked her what was wrong. She told him she was afraid of going to jail. When he asked why, she said she’d written several bad checks. Upon further inquiry, she admitted that she was neither destitute nor without financial support from family. Nonetheless, she chose to write the checks knowing they would bounce. She added that she had to go to court the next day, so the only thing she could do was “to leave it in God’s hands.”

Like this lady, how many of us, including myself, have knowingly done unwise things and leave the consequences “in God’s hands?’
Eating too many high calorie foods while praying for health and strength,
Driving well above the speed limit – with or without liquor in our system – while praying for protection and safety,
Harboring unforgiveness, resentment, and guilt, while praying for happiness and peace of mind?

Then there’s the often unspoken expectation that God should shield us and our loved ones from pain, sorrow and death.

When God doesn’t behave as some of us expect, God is made into a villain. “How could you allow this to happen to me, God?” Some folks are disappointed with God time after time after time, and, as their disappointments accumulate, they turn their backs on God, deciding it’s better to carry their own burden, no matter how heavy, than to trust a God who doesn’t keep God’s “promises.”

So this morning I’m not talking about the promises that some of us put on God’s shoulders without God’s consent. No, I’m talking about the ones that God actually makes to Israel, to Jesus’ disciples, and, by extension, to us. Promises like:

“I know the plans I have for you – plans for good and not for harm – to give you a future with hope;” or
“I’ll never leave you nor forsake you – even if your father and your mother leave you, I will take you up;”
or promises like the one that’s being fulfilled at this moment
“. . . you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit . . .”

The disciples are waiting and praying for God to fulfill a promise that God actually made. They have put their hope in God, for as former Yale chaplain, William Sloane Coffin reminds us in his book, Credo, (which is Latin for “I believe”), “it’s hope that helps us keep the faith, despite the evidence, knowing that only in so doing has the evidence any chance of changing.”

Until recently, the evidence hadn’t been looking too good. The disciples have had to live with the disappointment and the shame of realizing that the One they thought would save them from the Romans didn’t live or die as they thought a Messiah should. And even though they’ve known the joy of God’s standing with and for Jesus through Jesus’ resurrection, they remain without the power they’ll need to share the good news -

The news that there is a different reality from the one to which their five senses are limited.
The news that there is another force with which the powers of the world have to contend.
The news that this force is so superior, so powerful that the powers that be – including death – quake at its appearance.

After all, if they – and we – believe that what we can see, hear, touch, taste, and feel is the only reality in this world – then most of us would be depressed Christians. And there’s nothing more depressing than a depressed Christian. What we see and hear is mostly negative, emotionally draining and non-life-giving – weekly suicide bombings in Iraq, starving babies in the Sudan, drive by shootings in Hartford – yes, if that’s the only reality there is, then where’s the hope in it?

I always recall the words of Archbishop Desmond Tutu during the apartheid era. He repeatedly told the South African government that, while it might not look that way at the moment, justice had already won – so why didn’t they just come join the winning side?

Pain, suffering and death are not the only reality – and they are not the ultimate reality. God’s reality has already won – it may be a matter of time before we see it fully – but it is the winning reality – the reality that Jesus lived; the reality that God vindicated when he raised Jesus from the dead. And God invites us to believe in that reality, to live into that reality and to be a part of making that reality visible to all of God’s children.

So the Holy Spirit – the mover and shaker of God’s reality – comes to those who are in the house – but it doesn’t stop with them. No. God’s reality is never for insiders alone – it’s for outsiders as well. It comes to the insiders for the outsiders, and it attracts the outsiders’ attention by speaking a language they can understand.

What is the language of the folks who live and work and love and hate in what is both New England’s Rising Star and the second poorest city in the nation?
What is God trying to do in us and through us – the people of God in this place and at this time?
How can we speak to the so-called outsiders about God’s deeds of power in a language they understand? About God’s love for them, God’s faithfulness to them, God’s desire to be in relationship with them. About God inviting them in – but also respecting them enough to decide for themselves. Some will say “yes” and some will say “no”– over that we have no control.
It reminds me of a story of two young church members, who, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, were going door to door to invite people to visit their services. When they knocked on one door, it was immediately clear the woman who answered was not happy to see them. She told them in no uncertain terms that she did not want to hear their message, and before they could say anything more, she slammed the door in their faces. To her surprise, however, the door did not close; in fact, it bounced back open. She pushed the door even harder but with the same result - the door bounced back open. Convinced these rude young people were sticking their foot in her door, she reared back to give it a slam that would teach them a lesson. Just then, one of them said quietly: “Ma'am, before you do that again, you might want to move your cat."
P.S. No cats were harmed in the telling of this joke.

Even though most Episcopalians are not likely to go knocking on doors on a sunny Sunday afternoon – or any afternoon, for that matter, like David, Julia, Angeleek, Syruss and Alycia will soon be, each one of us was given the gift of the Holy Spirit at our baptism. So, as individuals and as a community, we can move into God’s reality with confidence – confidence that there’s no power on this earth greater than the Spirit who lives and works in every one of us.