Where the Wind Blows

Jay W. Marshall, Dean
West Richmond Friends, October 2, 2005
Acts 2:1-11

I was asked to speak with you today about vitality in the local meeting. In preparation for the occasion, I was drawn to this text in Acts. Sitting with this text within the framework of that subject, I found myself reminiscing about one of the most overwhelming periods of expectation of my youth. It was an annual event that arrived not long after the extended family stuffed itself with a Thanksgiving bird. Before the digestive process was completed and the holiday football games had even reached half-time, we children turned our thoughts to Christmas.

I'd like to tell you that this was because we were such pious brats that the birth of Jesus was of ultimate concern for us. I'd like to tell you that, but I can't do so in good conscience. Thanks to the Sears catalog and TV advertisements by companies like Mattel and Hasbro, a Spirit of the Season was upon us and it wasn't necessarily holy. Lengthy gift lists were prepared, never extending beyond one 8x11 inch page, front and back-though we weren't beyond printing with small letters and using the margin space for redactions as new revelations occurred.

We kids were ripe with anticipation. For the next four weeks we were giddy with excitement, dreaming of what and how that blessed morning might be. When uncles, aunts and cousins gathered at my grandparents' house for Christmas Eve dinner, the children endured the longest, slowest meal of the year. And that night-how could anyone sleep with our hopes and dreams parading down main street of our restless minds? Forget about sugar plums -what about the drum set, or the telescope, or the rock tumbler? Those were times of intense expectation.

These many years later, I'm pretty certain my parents spent money they didn't have to buy presents we didn't need to celebrate an occasion we didn't fully understand. What we all knew, on some level, was the ecstasy of expectation and the hope that accompanied it. Equally powerful was the fear of possible disappointment in the face of those expectations. No one on either side of the equation wanted to stare that possibility in the face.

During those weeks, waiting was the hardest thing. It was a bit pleasurable at the outset perhaps, but a quite annoying after awhile. I return to those Yuletide memories of hopeful waiting because today's text is also about expectant waiting, and rightly focused on the return of Jesus, or the coming of the Spirit. At that nascent moment in the birth of the church, they no doubt did not have neatly formulated Trinitarian distinctions. They were awaiting the movement of God, however one described it. From what we read of the disciples prior to this, I have no doubt that they too were simultaneously ripe with expectation, queasy from fear of the unknown and possible disappointment, and like we children were at Christmas, managing those feelings within a field of innocent misunderstandings. Perhaps it is always that way when we desire and wait upon God.

On that Pentecost recounted in today's text-this feast of weeks during which Jews gave their first fruits to God, God gave what we might call the first fruits of the arriving Kingdom of God to that believers that day. On the day when they celebrated the creation of the people of the covenant, God energized the people of the new covenant.

I use this text as the starting place for a message on vitality because in this story which marks the creation of the church, the wind blows with force that day. Usually when I think of the blowing wind, John 3:8 comes to mind: " The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know here it comes from or where it goes." This is a text that connects unpredictability and mystery with the movement of God that leads to new birth.

In Acts, some mystery is still be present, but a few details seem noteworthy to me. When that mighty wind rushed through the room, they were gathered. The King James uses "one accord" which sounds like unity; I like it, but I'm not convinced the text supports it. Fortunately as Friends, being "gathered" has its own powerful connotation so we don't necessarily lose ground with the loss of "one accord." And, it seems safe to say that in the early stages of this post-resurrection era, this group was seeking to understand their present, continuing purpose. Theirs was a period of waiting and hopeful expectation-peppered with uncertainty, but hopeful and waiting nonetheless.

On that day, the wind blew and the Spirit was manifested and those gathered were moved to proclaim the experience of God's work through Jesus Christ. They gave witness to what had happened and what was continuing to happen. In that moment, the Spirit empowered them to speak in languages not their own. What appeals to me is that it demonstrates that in a situation where the Spirit is moving, God's message is communicated across cultural, social, economic boundaries. Those individuals from various regions were able to say "In our own languages we heard them speaking about God's deeds of power." When the wind blows, the good news is communicated across those elements that are frequently barriers between us.

With this initial reading of the text, these verses offer the fundamentals of vitality in its simplest, purest form. The Spirit blows. Those who are wind-blown bear testimony to its message. Ministry-in the case here, communication and proclamation--occurs across many boundaries so that all have the opportunity to enter and engage in the faith community.

When we begin to raise the issue of a vital and dynamic life together, that is the most important component that we simply can not afford to overlook: life in the Spirit is always a gift of the God who calls us. For those concerned with vitality, the simple complexity is that the Spirit is both source and resource. We cannot control it. We cannot contrive it. We can only be consumed by it. The wider question that is lived out in decisions about meeting structures, organizations, and programs is whether or not we can help fan the flame, much like kindling helps a spark spread.

I believe that vital meetings know how to put themselves in a position to assist with it and contribute to the wind's movement. The Acts text hints at the first steps of that when it notes the people were "gathered." Indeed, among the Friends who participated in our study of vitality, time and time again, the centrality of worship was a centerpiece of their life together. They knew the importance of and the power of gathering in worship in a reverent, expectant posture.

From that worshipful, gathered place, an appropriate first question is "why are we here?" Why are we here at all? Why are we here and not at the meeting, church, synagogue or swimming pool down the street? What is our purpose? Two thousand years after its founding, the contemporary church is often mired in its own sociological quicksand. No longer a charismatic first generation group where zeal propels us forward, how can we be more than an organization devoted to self-preservation or even a spiritual anchor point that feeds an individual's spirituality but fails to gather the group into more than a collection of individual seekers? As new generations arrive with concerns and interest different from those who preceded them, how do we give due consideration to our heritage without being incarcerated by the sheer weight of tradition on the one hand; and on the other hand how do we remain fresh, imaginative, creative, and responsive without losing grasp of those truths that define us?

So many years removed from when the first gust of spiritual wind filled the sails of the early church, contemporary congregations will come closest to experiencing a similar blowing of that spiritual wind when they can agree upon their mission and purpose. In addition to worship, and perhaps as a result of it, having a common mission and purpose proves to be foundational for vital meetings.

A second set of vital questions that arises when considering how one moves out of that gathered place are these: As we return to this place where persons gather in the name of Jesus and whose mission resonates with something within us, what is our place in the configuration? Where do we fit within the community? For when the Spirit blows and we respond, we want to know that we belong. No one wants to be invited to dinner, only to discover there is no place for us at the table.

Later in Acts, this issue emerges over the service given to widows. The Hellenistic Jews fretted that they were not receiving equal treatment in the distribution of food among the widows-an experience that left them feeling devalued and out of fellowship.

My favorite experience of how important a sense of place and belonging is comes from the first meeting I visited in Indiana in 1990. I had been invited to preach at a small IYM meeting. After arriving early, I sat quietly in an empty meeting room, waiting for Sunday School to end. When the door at the far corner of the room swung open and elderly red-headed woman in a lime green polyester dress came directly toward me, I presumed she was coming to welcome me. She wiped the smile right off of my face when she said to me, "you know, that is my seat you're sitting in!" Never mind that all the others were empty at the time. It didn't matter that many of them would remain empty throughout their time of worship, given the attendance patterns of this and many meetings. I had accidentally taken her place-one that had provided a sense of belonging for 52 years alongside her now deceased husband. I quickly moved before she charged me rent!

Whether in the story of the Hellenistic widows, or in this example of Midwestern inhospitality, or in the speculation of what might have happened after those persons from many lands heard the Gospel in their own language and returned on later days to hear more, somewhere along the way, when the wind of God's Spirit blows, we want to know where and how we belong in the group. Vital meetings help Friends answer that question in meaningful ways. Those who don't are left to scratch their heads and wonder why visitors never return.

A third set of questions revolve around "what do we do now?" This is why are we are. This is where we fit. What do we do now? Those questions really build upon the cornerstone of mission and purpose. And it connects with the fact that faith is designed to be a lived experience-it must be expressed in some fashion.

As Quakers live into the concept of "I have called you Friends" we often get caught between the Great Commission and "Be Still, and Know". Convictions about overt evangelism confront deeply held opinions that one merely needs to "let their lives speak." We struggle with having community being something more a pot-luck dinner theology.

For those members of the first Pentecost experience, later texts emphasize a strong component of preaching and evangelism, but that is not all. The end of chapter 2 describes persons liquidating their assets in order to help those who had need. This group sought to discern how it was they expressed their faith. One of the more fascinating components of the ESR vitality study was listening to how different meetings with different contexts and characters answered that question. From combining rock music with aggressive evangelism to providing escorts for Arab-Americans in the aftermath of 9/11, the wind blows in creative ways to those who will yield to it. Vital meetings have learned how to lean with the wind rather than against it as they follow leadings that develop into ministries appropriate to their identity and their capabilities.

Mission and purpose. Relation Connectedness. Activity of Faith. These are all key in contributing to the Spirit's blowing, and yet could quickly become static and stale-which suggests that some avenue for conversation and renewal will be necessary-because those

are the moments to test the wind once again and make sure that it still blows in the direction we recently experienced.

Back to that analogy with the expectancy of Christmas. Earlier I said my parents spent money they didn't have to buy presents we didn't need to celebrate an occasion we didn't fully understand. Similarly, God spent has invested a great deal to provide a presence we do need, and which we still seek to embrace and more fully understand. May our congregations be places committed to receiving all that God's spiritual winds blow in our direction.