Communion Meditation John M. Buchanan

Pentecost Sunday Broad Street Presbyterian Church
May 29, 1977 Columbus, Ohio
oa» sR aor ilh
aesT weuheveabedstts st of us fame
Cuwt eypress ovrselus Ue WatA, Wwlin 1b Sus te ty wk
(hi eee, |ife's de eepest, holiest, casim: oo

—— ov!
highest experiencess | heme comet the matters of birth “wee ot
of . ‘
profoumd love aed death, most of us gladly yield to the poet or artist, fer

hou aeeenhemiememmprignm By its very nature, religion is

part poetry. Religion presumes to put us in touch with the ground
mea eae SS

of being, the creative life rorce:| +t presumes to hold up a miwor in
eee er | = eee

which we can see ourselves as we reall are: [and it presumes to re-
[oc ete creer.

veal a power by which we may be made bigger and better and more whole
EL am, (EN EES ES,

than the image we see in the mirror. \ Religion deals with the in-
ree fe
finite, but ot tools with wien jt works are Finite: \the human mind,
the human stein Jt human wocdular iy: It is no coincidence, therefore,
Lae Sis

that religion has been the mother of the arts. \ the best expressions
a a [=] as

of the Gospel of Jesus Christ are not simply books of theology:\ but
2) RSS|

ee
Betty ¥ 4.8, a“ also the music J. S. Bach, the art of Michaelangelo. Hmqerecerb=boek
0 ia rl ah
a hae Harvey Cox aamggoses that} :there are areas of the human life which are
aks ‘ wa wr : ee — ee aqud hax

simply not reducible to technological or even political relevancy... ,. clw—7

glow buds @
gromtenr * enset Religion is an antique setee on the freeway san almost indecipherable

agave’ old song disturbing the bleep of the computers."{(The Seduction of the
Spirit, P 327-8)

One of the temptations of religion, particularly among people who

are well educated ,well read and consumately logical, is to make its
Sree a

subject altogether too rational. \ Our love affair with the scientific

method, our near worship of technology, our faith in computer science
al

==.

D Felrgrin OT eaty fs OneBimd bh He wink [Sty ie

ie
fF Luly wandend wh yoger _ teen eS | ison Ee
lero VS — Str & aul wrey? Ne, - 2 pat ee “
— 0 heals save, preserve and redeem us spills over, inevitably, a were *
he. tempt. fo 6 ww ragrnl ”'s
our religion. re repel oe to be resisted. | Played ™

out to its last measure it becomes a new theology of humanity: \mystery

is replace@ by intellectual hypothesis:\people, not God, become the
subject QR of a new form of idolatry.

The late Thomas Merton, a Trappist Monk, wrote penetratingly about

the mystery of true religion,\ God, he suggested is not confined by

SS EEE

our ability to comprehend: | His activity is not restricted to movements

which can be programmed.\ In fact, Merton observeat, the attempt is not
pecs ic

only ill-advised, but sel f-defeating.|He wrote:| "Whoever seeks to catch
bien | eer end _ ee

Him and hold Him loses Him.\ He is like the wind that blows when it

[ee ———SSEEE

pleases. \You who love Him must love Him as arriving from where you

| eee

do not know and as going where you do not know." No Man Is An Island,

—
P 178)

Alt f{E< by We, of f¢ face fo Date Mm Serpe pessere

Seven weeks after the crucifixion and resurection of Jesus Christ,

a small group of believers, in the city of Jerusalem, had an experience
Se ee
that was not particularly rational, not at all understandable, but

altogether overwhelming.\ Let?s try to look at the experience through

Se

their eyes. | They believed in God, the creator_of_ the world, the source
of Life, the author of the law, the ruler of nistory. \in that_they were

oul not different from most of the people in the world, nor-for that matter -

( meats oe

ie from something like 97% of the American people at this point in time.
=

They had, in addition, known Jesus’, teacher, healer, prophet, friend,

Ss

who had died on a cross on the day before Passover.\ They were convinced
al DN Sea

that he had not remained dead: | some claimed to have seen him, spoken

with him, eaten with him. \ But for seven weeks they had been waiting.

And I can't help but imagine that what they thought they had by way of

a new life was beginning to feel a Tittle tentative.

At the Feast of Pentecost, a religious festival in Jerusalem,
be, | Ce ad

attended by pilgrims from at] over the world, something new and dramatic

eid “

eranspired.| Peter felt it first, and without warning stood up in the

middie of a rather large group of people and began to tell the story -

bet

the story of this Jesus who was crucified. \ Now that, in itself, was

rather remarkab te. | Peter was no scholar, no Pharisee, no learned
wee ll ACTIN

pabbi:| in fact, he was a rough fisherman, known better for speaking

L enidiee tenet

without thinking, usual ty at the wrong time. | But on this dav Peter
— Laarisieimemnimmiaaill Ea

told his story, so winsomely, in fact, that many believed him and
beta sain Sei

became - on the spot ~ followers of The Way - soon to be called

christianity. |

We call the day the birthday of the Church and that is what it

aan

nas. \ put just as important it is also the beginning of_a Christian
_— all pen nenitmiainitimnl
Sensitivity to a new reatity which we call the Holy Spirit \ chnisziar
Le I bal a rb Ee —
doctrine, at its best, simply describes human experience.\ The experience
a

banner

of Pentecost was all the proof the early church needed that God, known
manag sae aaernmamseammeiniadll _

as creator and as father of Jesus Christ was also a potent force in
bn 4

their very mast | And so the early church framed it in words - The

/ a_i =_—

Doctrine of the Trinity. Piney used the Latin “persona” - the masks

actors wore in Greek arama. \ 6od reveals himself in three ways - not
_— ee =i

three persons, literally - three masks, three personalities - three

Lr

roles in the drama: { "Father, Son and this incredible new power in their

midst - Holy Spirit

The account of what happened, recorded in the second chapter of
ee,

the Acts of the Aposties, is an example of religion using poetry. \ the

writer, Luke, drew on two of the most powerful and pregnant images in
eo rere EE

—

the old Testament: \rire and wind:|the same fire through which God, in
a 3 so ei |

-4-

a bugning bush, had confronted an obscure herdsman by the name of Mosas:

the same fire, a pillar of which led his people through the darkness of

Ep
the Sinai whiderness. \ ane wind - the breath of God which he first breathed
me - Cd TE
into human‘ty:\ the vital life-giving energy behind the whote creation.

We have spent Fed too much time worrying about the phenomenon of
el mmammnienamniniinin saasamnal

Pentecost, trying to recreate them, or feeling guilty because we can't.

The significance of the event, I would submit, is the result. WOne of

wn
the lingering mysteries @ any objective history is the question of

how that little hand of dispprited, ill-prepared, Galilean fisherman
De samen al

managed to start something which would, in a relatively brief period

of time, encompass the whole world.\ It is one of those lived-with

facts of life about which we think very Little. \ vet it is stagger ing.

How in the world did it happen? \How did we get from there to here?
Po amemtimmamnmaaiiaial

The Book of Acts identifies the power by which it_happened as the

nel

Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the power of God actively at work within human

experience. \ sixty times Acts uses the tern ut returning to the day

itself, what exactly happened? {What transpired with the people who
2 Eee EE:

were there? [re things, essentially: \ the two phenoiena it seems to me

we can expect God to continue to produce among us.

First - a heterogeneous group of strangers was made into a new
— Fongy rings
community of love, Joy and hope.\ Great experiences do <-_ to strangers
od _—, a i,
sometimes. \ did you ever attend a magnificent concert which lifted your
espana CPCS PALE bebe

ww ity we
spirit, and opened a new @mw for you inte beauty and brought tears to

eee
your eyes - and then afterward felt a strange sense of kinship and
pemvmememe m DTCC

oneness with the other peopte with whom you shared the experience? |

That is just a hint of what happened on Pentecost. \People from every
i,

nation were made one, across the natural barriers of geography and race
i a a ae = =£=£@©2@«s eee

-5-

and social class, and even langua 2 |mat is the first component. Later
en re) era ad

St. Paul would write: The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace,

¥
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.

( Gal. 5:22) What a surprising thing that early church must have been!
SS, oe

What a surprise today, when churches reflect _the Spirit and people

actually treat gne another with kindness, patience, gentleness and love!

The second effect of Pentecost was that this community of strangers
Ee

eS
of mission.\ Does it ever strike you as curious that the comtemporary

aaa

church of Jesus Christ does nothing quite as effeciently and regularly
—~— —jdaet 2 Why Hou Cage F eee ne sbed tos lope < aod
as define isseewrmsekene | In the mainline Protestant Church you aren't

—

with it_if you haven't done a mission study and written a mission state-
qe

suddenly. knew what its purpose vas \ The Spirit gave the church a sense
e' SSS SS

ment and then spent the next twelve months evaluating what you've written
[See

in order to begin the project again: | write the Pentecostals, who seem

at least to know something about the power of the Spirit, are changing
in qua =p

the course of history and hundreds of thousands of lives in places like
Ee Poaceae)

South America.

At the Fifth Assembly of the World Council of Churches in Nairobi,
Sas

Ry

Kenya a statement was made which examined the reasons for church decline
ene

in some parts of the yortd\ 1 found two of the proposed reasons in-
| a

triguing. \ ve have lost confidence in the God we proclaim and in the

power of the Gospel, the report maintained, with a consequent loss of
ead —_—ee

confidence in our mission. \ We decline when and where we no longer
3 See ee

believe in the rightness of what we are doing: \ when we no longer

believe that God is, in fact, in the process of redeeming human history
eee ee a

and that we have a part in it. \The second reason for church decline,
2 eee

the report suggested, was that we are not experienceing deeply enough

“Tet ise were ty ho beep tn
-6- talelleelweA = and ovr wands Qn

fin, gr Hee

the joyful, healing love of God so that we are unable honestly to give

an account of the hope within us.

Not long before he died, Karl Barth, one of the theological giants
= Sy ae

of our generation said that the most important theme for modern theology

was the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. \: think he would have agreed with

the Nairobi report.\ christianity, in the mainstream of Western culture
See

has settled in and become very rational, very business-like, very pre-

aes

dictable, and, more and more, very boring.\ 1 think Barth, in his later

eae

years sensed that Christianity had become a matter of intellectual

eyecie Wey et ee
iseeiyey for an increasingly smaller number of people, and that because

the church feels very little excitement about itself, cannot very well
Se, Sa

communicate anything persuasive and life-changing to anyone else.
SSM,

The day of Pentecost, in the long history of the church, is a

SS

reminder that God wants to unify his people in order that they may
SS,

change the wortd. \ rt is a needed reminder that he is very much in

the business of doing that - through his Holy Spirit. \I would pre-
eee

—_

sume to add that the day of Pentecost is a reminder to this, or any
Deal Pe
local church, that what God wants most of us is that we experience
a < Cele bra*¥
together, and share the goodness of his tove:( that we relize, together,
==» oy — Saas

the Joy of being his people.\ And that we move into our world -cor-

porately and individually~with confidence | and hope, knowing that in
oes £4

Christ he ha overcome the world, a: =e ee
‘ ther we hae m ove tide ~- th
Cee an gem oth—ee ORAS) oS eh iamesimoes 1}

Yer? power cf 6.

Pentecost is a good time to reflect on that, to open our lives

to the life-giving spirit of éod\\ We come, today, to the Lord's table.
SS eS eel
On Pentecost the Sacrament of Communion becomes a celebration of Christ's
fee Es SSS ee
presence in our midst:}a reminder that he was known to his disciples in

‘ bare de
‘ vst M

ahd / en "

the breaking of bread and that he is with us in life dejewembeeadenanen dc
Cece een eae |
acai

| -

In the tyadition of the church down across the centuries, red
i
has been the color symboli bye the Holy Spirit.\ At the conclusion of

7

the service this morning we\ will share the red carnations which adorn
= ee

our sanctuary.| As you take a fragile, beautiful red flower home with
€

you today, let it remind san ap ag oneness with your brothers and

you “you Warc of firwee WA Se wi

sisters in the chur h land as this red beauty spreads throughout our

community, may it symbolize our purpose - our mission - to be God’ S aa

Holy People -
ee
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

eno

Amen

Father, we are grateful for the moving of your spirit in the
Church across the centuries. As we come to your table this morning,
may we be alive to that same spirit in our midst.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord.