Pushing Them Out

Trinity Presbyterian Church of Bethesda/United Korean Presbyterian Church
Pentecost Sunday, 2008 Rev. John An, Rev. David Williams

Scripture Lesson: Acts 2:1-12

Being a mom is not easy.
It’s hard for all kinds of different reasons.

Taking care of kids is hard.

They take your time.

Are they hungry?

They’ll let you know.

Are they thirsty?

Guess who gets asked to get them a drink.

They’re almost as bad as husbands that way.

Who gets to worry over kids when they’re sick?

The mom.

Who gets the call when they mess up at school?

The mom.

Who is always, always going to worry about her babies?

And they’re still your babies, even when they’re about to turn forty.

They’re always your babies.

But the part that we men always marvel about

The one that seems impossibly hard

Is how moms manage to shove the babies out in the first place.

Here you’ve got this tiny person, growing in the womb.

But they don’t stay tiny for long.

They get bigger and bigger and bigger.

And mom gets bigger and bigger

Going from that cute little size 2 you buy at Macy’s

To dresses that look like you’d buy them at Dick’s Sporting Goods.

Not the clothes section.

The tent section.

The whole time, the baby is happy as a clam.

It’s warm.

It’s comfy.

It’s completely safe.

But when the time comes to go out into the world

Who manages to push it out?

The mom.

Remember that scriptural saying about a camel passing through the eye of a needle?

Remember how impossible that seems?

Well, giving birth is only very slightly easier than that.

Through efforts that most men can’t even grasp

And might not want to even grasp.

It happens.

And something new is born into the world.

It’s a new person, full of life and potential.

They’re no longer hidden away inside the womb.

They’re out there for all the world to see.

Today is Pentecost Sunday

It’s the day we Christians remember the birth of the church

We heard today about the gathering of the disciples

They were all together in a house.

Those who had gathered were still huddling together.

They were excited at the knowledge that Christ had risen.

But they weren’t out there in the world.

Jesus has promised them that something would happen.

So they were waiting around

They were comfortably ensconced in their closed circle

Surrounded by other disciples

Secure in a safe house

But when the Spirit descended, that all changed.

When the Spirit descended, they could no longer remain inside.

Instead of being isolated from the world

Talking only to each other

Unseen by all and unheard by all.

Suddenly all those around were aware of them

As they proclaimed and cried out

Telling the whole world that something new had begun.

That moment fulfills a promise made earlier in the book of Acts.

Back in Acts chapter 1, verses five and eight,

Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will arrive.

It also fulfills a promise that was made back in Luke’s Gospel.

Luke is, remember, the first part of the one book we call Luke/Acts.

In Luke chapter 24, verse 49, we also find that promise.

Jesus pledges that the disciples will be “clothed with power from on high.”

This is the day we remember that moment of power

That moment when the church was born

And this is also the day we remember that moment

That moment when a mom becomes a mom

And as we remember those two moments

We remember what they have in common.

They both mark a great effort

That moves a people out into the world

As we look towards the days beyond this day

We must strive to remember the way that God’s Spirit works.

The Holy Spirit is all about movement and life.

All of the words that describe it in scripture are about movement and action.

In the Bible, the Spirit is ruach in Hebrew and pneuma in Greek

Both words mean “wind” and “breath”

Which are the embodiment of movement and life.

The Gospels proclaim the Spirit as the one who Comforts

And giving comfort or showing caring requires action.

The Gospels proclaim the Spirit as the Advocate

And a silent and motionless Advocate would be useless.

The Holy Spirit doesn’t call us to close ranks around one another

The Holy Spirit doesn’t promise us a comfy and quiet place

Where we can ignore the cries of the rest of humanity.

The Spirit labors to heave us out into the world

Out into a world that needs to hear Christ’s message

A message of both forgiveness and repentance

A message of both love and justice

As God strives through the Spirit to work in us,

That work drives us out into the world.

Like a mother, it gives us life and pushes us out

So that we can bear witness to the Good News of Jesus Christ

To our friends

To our neighbors

To our city

And to the ends of the earth.