Leviticus 23:15-22; Acts 2:1-13
May 11, 2008
Patrick Preheim
Return of the Birds Pentecost
The pelicans are again fishing on the Weir and I did not win the contest predicting the day and hour of their return. They traveled some 7000 kilo-meters from their winter home in the Gulf of Mexico. I have heard meadowlarks and various breeds of warblers. The warblers have come a great distance; they started their spring migration in Central America. Sure, there are birds like the Snowy White Owl that have recently departed the Province for their summer quarters in the Arctic, but a wide variety of birds from the edges of the hemisphere return to Saskatchewan every year at a approximately the same time. It is not unlike Jerusalem at the Festival of Pentecost. Location and season are important for the birds, and they are important in our text this morning. The gift of the Holy Spirit to all people in all lands begins on the Jewish festival of Pentecost, and Jerusalem is the nesting ground from which the Spirit takes flight. Christian Pentecost is about return: God returns Christ to us through the gift of the Holy Spirit; we return to God in confession, forgiveness, rededication; we return to the world to engage in the mission of the church. The setting of the Pentecost event communicates this theme of return.
Part I: The birds return at Pentecost: All the pretty birds come home at Pentecost--- the Cappadocians, Phrygians, Romans and Arabs. If you take a look at your bulletin insert that has a map you see a graphic representation of the Pentecost migration to Jerusalem. They came from the edges of the Roman Empire for this festival. Pentecost was one of three events for which the Torah instructed people to return to Jerusalem. It was a celebration of God’s grace and bounty. “Agriculturally, it commemorated the time when the first fruits were harvested and brought to the Temple. Historically, it celebrated the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai” (http://www.jewfaq.org /holidayc.htm). Grain and Torah were both seen as the grace of God—one sustained the body and the other the soul. The physical return of people to Jerusalem was to inspire a spiritual return. Reading from the Book of Jubilee which is a Jewish commentary (PSEUDEPIGRAPHA) on the Torah. “Therefore, it is ordained and written in the heavenly tablets that they should observe the feast of (Weeks)...in order to renew the covenant in all respects, year by year” (in Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV Year A by Walter Brueggemann, Charles Cousar, Beverly Gaventa and James Newsom, p. 239). So the birds gathered, sometimes in large flocks like the robins of this Spring. How about those marauding bands of robins we saw earlier this year? I had never seen robins grouped like that. Apparently through a greater robin consciousness (or a benevolent God whose eye is on the robin as well as the sparrow) they knew to stay here until the ice was out on the lakes near their nesting grounds farther north. The Jewish people congregated in Jerusalem much like the robins of this past Spring. Biblical commentary Charles Faw cites estimates that 180,000 people attended the festival with 120,000 of these being from out of town (Charles Faw, Acts: Believers Church Bible Commentary, 41). As we look at the map and consider the distance people had come it is reasonable to imagine that many of them had simply stayed over from the Passover celebration seven weeks earlier. Robert Tannehill reflects that these snow bird Jews had been “in Jerusalem long enough to know about and share in the events of the preceding Passover, when Jesus was crucified.” (Robert Tannehill, The Narrative Unity of Luke-Acts: A Literary Interpretation p. 27-28). Many of these people would have known about Jesus, been witnesses to his miracles, witnessed his death and heard rumours of his resurrection. Some of them likely had mixed feelings about celebrating grace, bounty, and the Torah in light of Jesus’ crucifixion. Like the poor ducks of the tar sands which followed their instincts and returned to their ancestral nesting grounds only to find an oil slick, you can imagine some at Pentecost that year were finding the return hard to celebrate. God’s action, however, is not contingent upon our belief or state of mind.
Part Two: God returns the Spirit of Christ at Pentecost Our God is truly great. By nearly every justice system ever devised God has a legitimate right to punish the Jewish leaders and Roman authorities for executing Jesus, and punish the people for letting the execution happen. But what does our God do? Our God sends us his own bird, the Holy Spirit which we symbolize as a dove. Location and season layer meaning to this divine act. God returns the dove in Jerusalem, the very place of the betrayal. God gives the dove at Pentecost, the very time that the Jewish nation is to be giving offerings to God in the Temple. I am sure the irony of God’s gift coming at the festival of Pentecost in Jerusalem would not have been lost on the early church. Perhaps they and we should not be surprised. Such a strange sense of justice has been the character of God throughout the Biblical testimony. When Adam and Eve take a bite of the forbidden fruit which God said would lead to death, God commutes the death sentence. When Cain kills Able and deserves death for premeditated murder, God gives him a mark to keep him alive. When Abram shows up to pledge allegiance to God, God assumes the role of vassal and initiates the covenant with Abram. When revenge was ravaging the Hebrew tribes, God provided the laws of retaliation to put a limit on violence. When people struggled to feel pure enough before God, God gave them Leviticus as a way to address their feelings of impurity. We should not be surprised that God gives the precious gift of the Holy Spirit to the very people guilty of betrayal-- it is in God’s nature to restore relationship. At lectures this past week at Lutheran Theological Seminary Elaine Enns and Ched Myers shared stories of people who are trying to imitate God and Christ in pursuing restorative justice. One key feature of restorative justice is that the offended party, the victim, has an active role in shaping the process. Victims have moral authority because they are ones who have been wronged. At some level the victim knows what they need and do not need for a sense of healing and restorative justice. God, the victim of the Passover crime, chooses to return the Spirit of Christ as the act of restorative justice. A very important bird came back to Jerusalem at that very first Pentecost. It was the peace dove.
Part Three: The birds depart Jerusalem In reading about the instructions for the festival of weeks (Pentecost) in Leviticus the last verse- verse 22 – caught my attention. Whereas verses 15-21 deal with the time, location, and appropriate offering for Pentecost, the last verse calls the people to think about the places and people from whom they have come. The first seven verses are vertical in nature (our relationship with God). The last verse makes clear that a right relationship with God means caring for the people on the edges. God has blessed them with a harvest, and now it is their Pentecost obligation to care for the poor and alien on edges of their fields. Are these Pentecost images much different than what we find in Acts chapter two. The people in Jerusalem have this amazing experience with God. It is a connection vertically with God. They bring their gifts to God and God pours out the Spirit from the heavens. The blessing of the Holy Spirit carries with it the responsibility to care for the people on the edges of the field. The field of Acts 2 is the known world around the Mediterranean Sea. The people listed in Acts two are from the edges of God’s field. When you look at the map in the bulletin you see that the entire perimeter of God’s field is recognized as the countries are listed. The people present at Pentecost are to return home to feed to care for the poor and alien-- they are to feed them physically and spiritually. The birds that have come to Jerusalem from the edges of the known world are now to return to their off season homes. They go back newly anointed with God’s bird, the peace dove, to sustain the poor and the alien. Wow, what a vision!!!
Part Four: The birds back on the edge To this point I have given my biblical
and theological reflection on the Pentecost tradition found in our Bible. I now
want to personalize this story in our context so that we all might fulfill the
Pentecost vision. First and foremost I want to affirm you who have gathered for
just showing up. As I mentioned earlier, I doubt all those at the first
Christian Pentecost were there whole heartedly. Despite the ambivalence of the
people, God’s spirit is poured out on them. I am hopeful that this Sunday
morning has been that for you. Not every Pentecost / gathering will be a special
event for us, but it is a routine in which we pay attention to the sacred. I am
reminded of worship services in the past sixth months that have anointed me with
God’s Holy Spirit. I have been anointed by the junior choir singing “with my own
two hands” (April 13) and being brought nearly to the point of tears. I have
been anointed by the senior choir singing, “You are Holy” which continues
through my head through the week every time they sing it. I have been anointed
by the Hooge family musicians. I have been anointed by Menno Nickel in a
children’s time. I have been anointed by pianist, usher, organist and greeter.
This anointing of God’s Spirit has come when I am alert and also when I have
been in a funk. It comes when I am looking for it, and when I am unable to
focus. I pray that the Psalm reading, a specific prayer, a moment of silence in
the sanctuary, a song or maybe even a sermon can be a Pentecost moment in which
we sense the Spirit of God. Even when we personally are not affected, there are
those in any given Sunday who are inspired. Some Sundays we come as a support to
others and help communicate the Holy Spirit through our presence or our song or
our greeting. The point is that it is good for ourselves and others when we
return to our nesting ground, the house of worship. At another level I identify
with the aliens who have sat at fields edge waiting to reap the abundance of the
leftovers. I actually am an alien among; I have come from a distant land to work
the fields. Personally, I have felt blessed by the abundance of your sharing.
When you have shared things with Patty and me I have felt you have been sharing
the Holy Spirit. Wood workers and bakers, cooks and cleaners, wine makers and
game players, bikers and business men, farmers und Frauen have graced my life
since I arrived. It is important for people to know that the little things they
have done (the grain at field’s margin) has impacted me. It is an expression of
the Holy Spirit that transcends language. I recognize, however, that my role as
pastor at Nutana Park places me closer to the center of the field than the
margins. Sharing gifts with a pastor, after all, is relatively easy. Pastors are
supportive people who are generally grateful for what they receive. More
difficult is sharing with the poor and alien who are not part of the faith
community. This reality came home to me in the past few weeks as we opened our
basement suite to a perspective mother coming into Saskatoon to adopt a child.
Patty and I do feel as if our home and the conscientious work of Peter Epp to
finish the basement is a gift of God. We knew nothing of this woman. We wondered
if her story were true. We worried that she would steal things from our
basement. As Patty and I talked about our decision to open our basement I firmly
came to this realization: I don’t want to come to the end of my life and feel
like I could have shared more. God has blessed me, and I want to share the gifts
I have been given. If that means the thrift store furniture we bought at Village
Green is stolen, so be it. The mother came, adopted her baby, and returned home.
She was grateful for the space. I am glad we could provide a space for her.
Nutana Park Mennonite Church is full of people who have been gifted and graced
by God’s Holy Spirit. As we return to the edge of God’s field this week let us
all be mindful of the Pentecost assignment that goes with Pentecost blessing.
Let us care for the poor and alien. May God give us the courage to do so and
forgive us when we are weak. Amen.