Rich Spirit Soup

sermon by Torin Eikler
Acts 2:1-21     Numbers 11:24-30

Last week we celebrated Ascension Sunday – the festival that marks the departure of Christ in the heavens and the promise of a return when the time is right.  We left the disciples excited and stunned, waiting in Jerusalem for the arrival of the Spirit.  This week we celebrate Pentecost and the fulfilled promise of the Spirit’s coming.

Often the story of Pentecost focuses us on the disciples’ miraculous speaking in tongues or on the open invitation to the children of God from all over the world that those words offered or on how this was the birth of the church that would spread across the Roman Empire and then the world.  But I want to set all that aside because a question has been growing in the back of my mind for the past several weeks.  I want to know what happened to the disciples that morning.  What happened when the Spirit descended to dance with them as tongues of fire?  What changed for them besides the languages they spoke?  What changed within them that made all the rest of the story possible?  Because the Spirit did change them.  In just a moment’s time they became different people: courageous where they had been fearful, bold where they had been timid, loud and eloquent where they had been quietly mumbling through the good news they had to share.

 

When I lived in Elgin, IL, a part of my work regularly included traveling to the airport to convey visitors or colleagues to and from the Church of the Brethren Offices.  At its fastest the trip took about 50 or 60 minutes depending on how closely you followed the speed limits (which I always did, of course).  Every once in a while traffic was extra light and you could get there in 45 minutes.  Most of the time, though, I ended up traveling through the beginnings or the tail ends of rush hour.  So, I normally counted on an hour and a half and arrived on time or a few minutes early.

I spent the traveling time listening to radio – usually to one of the Chicago NPR stations, and one morning I heard a fascinating story about the models that were in the works to predict traffic patterns.  They were discussing a recent breakthrough in which a researcher had compared traffic patterns – and particularly traffic jams – to the behavior of water that has been cooled below 32º but kept from freezing.  That super-cooled water behaved in pretty much the same way as water that was just above the freezing point, but it was different in one important way.  If you were to drop even a tiny fragment of ice into it, the entire container of water would freeze solid instantly.

When I first thought of the change that came when the Spirit fell upon the disciples, the image of that water becoming ice in just an instance rose up in my mind.  It certainly captures the suddenness of what happened there in Jerusalem, but it still isn’t quite right.  The disciples did not freeze up in that moment.  They did quite the opposite.  They came to life.

 

When we moved to Morgantown seven years ago, I began to garden in earnest.  I had helped out with the garden that my parents planted for most of my life … sometimes more – an hour a day in high school, sometimes less – just harvesting potatoes, snapping bean, and freezing corn in college, and sometimes very little because I used to take just one bite of everything I saw when I was little.  I had helped, but I didn’t really know everything that went into it until I got here.

I discovered that first year, that there is a whole lot more preparation involved than I ever realized.  You start your garden in the fall, not the spring.  You prepare the ground then, turning in compost or leaves or grass clippings (especially important in our clay-ee soil) and pulling out those late season weeds before they get a chance to plant their own seeds where you want yours to go.  You let it sleep throughout the winter month in the hopes that it will somehow become a richer, looser, loamier soil, and then you turn it all over again when the cold and the ice finally let it go.  Another round of fertilizing and loosening, and finally you get to lay out your rows and plant your seeds.  Then it’s water and weed and water and weed all through the spring and early summer as the seedlings grow into plants and, finally, produce the vegetables you’ve been working on for nine or ten months.  And then it’s back to the beginning again.

That sounds a bit more like the disciples.  They were a garden of sorts there in Jerusalem; one that had been waiting for the spring rains and the summer sun.  All winter long, the soil of their spirits had been resting.  Jesus had come and heaped on the fertilizer and pulled out the weeds that might have choked off their growth.  In his return he added more, mixing and mixing so that they would be ready to receive the life to come.  Then he spent forty days with them planting seeds and leaving them to rest in the rich, quiet, fertile ground he had prepared.  Finally, the Spirit came to water and the warm and the lives of the disciples took root and grew, sending out leaves and runners into the world.

 

But that’s not quite right either.  The vibrant color of Pentecost is in it.  The life is there, but not the suddenness.  The disciples didn’t send out small sprouts, slowing growing to produce fruit.  They exploded into vivid motion – into rich and enticing evangelism – into testifying to the power and blessing of Christ alive in the world despite all the efforts of the powers of the day.

Maybe what they experienced on that day was more like the completion of a complex stew.  I’m thinking of something like “Stone Soup”.  Many of you know what that is already, but for those who don’t Stone Soup is a book that tells the story of a traveling monk who finds himself in an unwelcoming town.  Person after person makes excuses for not sharing their food with him, but they have no reason to refuse when he asks to borrow a soup pot.

The monk takes the pot to the center of town where he fills it with water and sets it over a fire.  He then put a stone in the bottom, telling the curious onlookers that this stone always produces magnificent soup.  As the people watch and wait to see if this monk can really produce soup from a stone, the monk cleverly fools them into bringing various vegetables and salt that will make the soup taste even better.  And in the end, the village has provided the food for a delicious stew that they all share together in the town square.

 

I’m thinking that the story of the disciples on Pentecost is quite a bit like Stone Soup … only in reverse.  They themselves were very different people – as different as potatoes and onions and peas, and they had been left to stew for a time.  Their praying and eating melded the different flavors of their experiences and their passions together into a unified community that had depth and variety, but lacked a certain je ne sais quoi.  Into that mix, the Spirit descended like a few teaspoons of salt sprinkled over the top, and instantly the bland broth was transformed into a delicacy, bringing out the character of each individual and adding a rich fullness that brought the stew to life – rich fullness that became a blessing to all those who tasted this miraculous soup made from the stones of unknown men.

 

Three different ways of thinking about what the Spirit can and does do with people.  I think that last one is the best fit for what happened to the disciples on that long-ago day when they sprang into new life.  But the real question is: which one are we.

Which one are we?

Are we the traffic jam waiting to happen?  I think it’s pretty safe to rule that one out.  We are not “the frozen chosen.”  At least I don’t see any evidence of that as I talk with, worship with, and live with you.  You are not … we are not super-cooled in any sense of the word.  There is much too much passion alive within us.

Are we the garden coming into its fullness?  I think we like to think of ourselves that way, and there is a lot of truth to that.  We are a people who are reaching and growing toward the light.  We are watered and cared for as a beloved treasure of God.  We seem to move in fits and starts – sometimes quickly and sometimes so slowly that it seems we are not – though we are full of life.  Yes … I think we are like the garden in many ways, but I wonder if we aren’t really the stew. 

 

Over the past few years, I have become convinced that this congregation has been … well … swelling.  I have felt a tension growing among us (and not a tension born from anxiety).  There just seems to be so much potential … so much energy in this community of faithful believers – an energy that is waiting for the right moment to burst forth.  I don’t know what the key ingredient is – the salt that will transform us into a vibrant blessing that draws people to us like moths to a flame, but it is coming.  The enduring promise fulfilled at Pentecost assures us that it is coming.

In the meantime, we continue to do what we do well.  We love one another.  We pray together.  We worship and eat together.  We work at the little things that we need to do to keep on going.  And we keep an eye out for the tongues of flame or the sprinkle of salt.

May it be so.