Pentecost: a vision and a task
Genesis 11
Acts 2: 1-21
John 14: 8-17
The other night I went
into a restaurant but was stopped at the door because I was not wearing a
tie. "Sorry sir, you can't come
in," they said. I went back to the
car, but the only thing I could find to go around my neck was a pair of jump
leads, which I thought if I fashioned cunningly enough would pass as a
tie. I put them on and went back
nervously to the restaurant. At the
door the waiter looked at me rather suspiciously. Then he said, "All right, you can come in. But don't start anything!"
If there were a day to
start something then Pentecost is surely the right day. The birthday of the church, the coming of
the spirit of God into his creation, intervening in history in a truly magical
way. Perhaps jump leads are an adequate
symbol. But what starts today? What does the spirit bring?
In 1730 this was written on the wall of a church in
Sussex:
A vision without
a task is but a dream, A task without a vision is drudgery,
A vision and a task is the hope of the world."
A vision needs a task,
and a task needs a vision-you can't have one without the other. Churches which are full of vision, but short
on tasks remained unearthed - their power can go nowhere. Churches which are good on tasks, but short
on vision soon run flat.
So what is the
vision? At Pentecost the people heard
the praises of God being shouted in their own tongues - many, diverse. The vision is that the world under God has a
future-the world in all its diversity and colour is valued and precious. God longs for us as a race to sing his
praises, to come home. Unfortunately,
people will build all kinds of things in order to replace him, or ignore
him. Towers of Babel, for example. But the truth is that for each individual
there is only one remedy to the restlessness of the heart and the soul-and that
is to know the love of God pulsing in our lives through the gift of his
spirit. The vision is of our world and
the church on fire with love-not of itself but of God. The vision for us is also that we may do and
see greater things than have been seen before: "the one who believes in me
will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than
these."
And that brings us to the
task. What is the task of
Pentecost? What is it we are to do?
When Puccini was fairly young, he contracted cancer, and so he decided to spend
his last days writing his final opera, Turnandot, which is one of his most
polished pieces. When his friends and disciples
would say to him, "You are ailing; take it easy and rest," he would
always respond, "I'm going to do as much as I can on my great master work
and it's up to you, my friends, to finish it if I don't." Well, Puccini died before the opera was
completed.
Now his friends had a
choice. They could for ever mourn their
friend and return to life as usual-or they could build on his melody and
complete what he started. They chose the
latter. And so, in 1926 at the famous
La Scala Opera house in Milan, Puccini's opera was played for the first time,
conducted by the famous conductor Arturo Toscanini.
When it came to the part
in the opera where the master had stopped writing because he died, Toscanini
stopped everything, turned around with eyes welling up with tears, and said to
the large audience, "This is where
the master ends." And he
wept. But then, after a few moments, he
lifted up his head, smiled broadly, and said, "And this is where his
friends began." Then he finished
conducting the opera.
The task is simply this:
to continue the opera. The spirit has
been given so that we may continue to do the things that Jesus did. In fact, if you need a definition of what it
means to be a Christian, it is the best one I have heard: to do the things that
Jesus did, to carry on the opera. As
the father has sent me, so I have sent you.
To be a Christian is not
just to know your sins are forgiven, or to be morally transformed to be like
Christ, though it is those things. It
is primarily to be given power by the Holy Spirit and endowed with his many
varied gifts for the mission to the world to which Christ has called all
people. If you are looking for the
presence of the Spirit at your church, you will see him at work where there is
mission, where we are being sent.
I don't know how you feel about being sent. Perhaps all kinds of stereotypes connected
with mission and evangelism plague your mind.
At a revival in Sevierville, Tennessee, a barber was 'saved.' The
preacher told him that since he was a barber and got to meet a lot of people,
he could do a great work for the Lord if he would talk to them about religion
and salvation. When he asked how he could get into a conversation like that
with his customers, the preacher said, 'Just do it casually. Talk to them about
their soul, ask if their house is in order, if they are prepared to die, and so
on.'
"The first man to come in the next day wanted a shave, so the barber put a
hot towel over him, talking about the weather and what-not, and then after he
had lathered the man up good, he figured it was time to get down to the
religion part. He grabbed up his razor, stropped it a few times, pointed at the
man, and said bluntly, 'Brother, are you prepared to die?'
"The man jumped up and ran out of the barbershop with the lather still on
his face."
I don't know how you feel
about being sent. But that is the work
of the spirit in our lives. To help us
to do that things that Jesus did, to proclaim the good news of God's kingdom. All of us can be empowered whether we are
natural born preachers or not. The
spirit was poured out on all people, not just those who looked like they
deserved it. A final story may help
make the point.
St Francis of Assisi one
day asked a member of his order to go out preaching with him- go out in mission
with him. They went through the streets and the crowded marketplace and came
back at last to their own door. “But I thought we went out to preach” the
brother said. “We have been preaching - all the time”, said St Francis. “When
the children teased us and we only met them with smiles; when they jostled us
in the market place and we were not rough in return; when some spoke harshly to
us and we answered gently; when we carried that old woman’s bundle for a while
- we were preaching. It’s no use going out to preach” he said, “unless we
preach as we go”.
May
the spirit give us all vision, and the power for the task.