Stopping the Unstoppable

sermon by Torin Eikler
Acts 2:1-12 Ezekiel 37:1-14
Pentecost
May 31, 2009

For the past seven weeks, we have been singing the hymn “How can we be silent” as a part of our worship. Each time we have used different selections from the verses as they have related to the scripture and the theme of each worship. Well … today is all about the Holy Spirit, and we will be singing just the refrain:

None can stop the Spirit, burning deep inside us.
We will shape the future.
We will not be silent.

It’s a fitting hymn to sing on this day, and it expresses a deeply held conviction of the Christian faith – the power of God is unstoppable.

We see that truth all over the place in the scriptures – the holy stories that lie at the heart of our tradition. In Genesis, the Spirit moves over the waters, bringing order to the chaos and life to the barren creation. In Exodus, the Spirit brings about any number of miracles as the Hebrews escape Egypt and wander through the wilderness. Throughout Acts, the Spirit brings visions and inspires apostolic mission. It shakes open the doors of the prison holding Paul and Silas. It picks the apostle Philip out of the water in which he baptized an Ethiopian Eunuch and whisks him across miles and miles to set him down in a new region to spread the gospel. And, of course, it falls upon the eleven disciples and incites them to speak in tongues so that everyone listening could understand.

Even more amazing, though, is the exercise of the Spirit’s power in challenging even the most permanent, absolute aspect of mortal life – death. In Lent and on Easter, we recognize that awesome power when first Lazarus and then Jesus himself come walking out of the tomb, released from the power of death and restored to life. In the vision of Ezekiel though, we have the most entertaining and visceral display of the unstoppable power of the Spirit.

Imagine, if you can, that you are in the place of the prophet. In the midst of your daily life, you feel the touch of some unknown power that whisks you away to a dry valley and sets you down in the middle of piles and piles of bones. You look around as you regain your equilibrium, and you begin to suspect that you are on the site of an ancient cataclysm and the bones are actually all that remains of the human victims.

Then you hear a voice – the voice of God – directing you to preach to the bones (how crazy is that), telling them that they will come back to life. So, you begin to speak (what else are you going to do?) to the bones around you, and you notice that they begin to move, coming back together into complete skeletons. Then, out of nowhere, they grow ligaments and tendons and muscles, taking on the appearance of those anatomical models that sat in the back of your biology class in high school. Finally, skin appears to cover them all, and you find yourself looking not at piles of bones but a valley full of corpses.

Again you hear the voice giving you a new message. Now you have to command the breath of life – the very Spirit of God – to come and fill the bodies with life. Stunned by what you have seen, you do as you are told. As you speak, you feel the wind begin to blow from every direction at once. And, slowly the bodies begin to stir and to stand up all around you until you are surrounded by thousands of the recently dead – living, breathing proof of the power of the Spirit of God.


I don’t know about you, but that would give me the willies! And yet … and yet, that is the power of the Holy Spirit that was poured out on the streets of Jerusalem. That is the power that speaks to each of us, inviting us to join the family of Christ. That is nature of the Spirit that renews us day by day, that leads us to the renewing water of life and prepares a quiet space of abundance for us to rest even when we are surrounded by threatening specters and impossible challenges. We are all blessed to have that powerful, unstoppable Spirit burning deep inside us … blessed and challenged.

I say challenged precisely because the Holy Spirit can be frightening. As much as we would like to, none of us can predict what the Spirit will do. Tongues of fire, earthquakes opening jail cells, and dry bones taking on new life are just some examples. Who knows what will come next. Who knows where we will find ourselves or what we will be called upon to do when the Spirit’s power is unleashed in our lives.

Fortunately … and unfortunately … we are always given a choice in the matter. Not a choice about what will happen, but a choice about whether we will allow it to happen. God, it seems, has chosen to give us all the freedom to join the dance or stand on the sidelines and watch others move to the music of the Spirit.

When we choose to join in … if we choose to join in … our lives can be transformed and renewed just like Ezekiel’s bones. We may find ourselves speaking words that we don’t understand – words that come out of nowhere in whatever language they come. And, the work of the Spirit pushes us out of the comfortable spaces we have made for ourselves.

It calls us to speak the truth of God’s vision to disbelieving, resistant, and powerful people and institutions in order to bring justice for the oppressed and peace for the abused. It calls us to pour out words of comfort to the suffering people all around us. It calls us to offer hope to those who endure frustration and despair in every moment of their days.

And it asks even more of us… because when we open our selves and our lives up to the fire of the Spirit within us, the power of its flames creates its own wind. And as the wind fans the flames and the flames feed the wind, we find ourselves caught up in a fire-storm – a whirlwind that draws and drives us into the world. For as long as we let it, the Spirit leads us to reach out with more than words. We become the doers of the word, instruments in the symphony of the Spirit.

Each of us knows what that has looked like in our lives. Sometimes it is silence and peace as the coals are banked in preparation. Sometimes it is pale and attenuated because we strain to hold back the fire within even as we seek to free it. Sometimes … sometimes, we find ourselves caught up in the full roar of the music as we reach out to feed, cloth, succor, soothe, and welcome others into the bounty of our own lives. We offer the wealth and the hope we have to those who have need. We preach the promise of God’s Realm and life filled with Spirit fire not just with our voices but with our whole beings – with all that we do and all that we are.

In the power of the Spirit, we are changed. We can change the future. And, we can change the present. It’s all up to us. Will we be silent … or … will we free the unstoppable flames?