Sermon

Pentecost

Sunday, June 7, 2009

I’m sure many of you remember the television show “Family Feud,” where family members would be asked a question and would have to guess at the answer based on how a bunch of people who were surveyed answered the question. In the spirit of Family Feud, I sent a survey to a cross section of parishioners this week, which asked “Name five things that people do on their birthdays.” Some answers included, pampering themselves at a spa, going out and buying something for themselves, making a wish, and taking the day off. The five top answers were eating cake, opening gifts, going out to dinner, spending time with family and friends, and drinking excessively. One person out of the twenty had “Thank God for another year of life.” And the last one I received said “As I have grown older, I have taken a few minutes to reflect on my successes and failures of the past year, as well as set goals for myself for the coming year.”

Life is filled with milestones, many occurring with our birthdays. At 13 we are adolescents. At 16 we can drive. At 18 we are adults, can vote, and if you are a male, you register for selective service. At 21, we can legally drink. At 40 we are called over the hill, at 55 we are eligible for AARP, at 65 we reach the golden years, and if you live to be 100, you are called venerable. Hopefully as we get older, we become smarter, find more value in each day, and more careful rather than carefree. I realize that this year, at age 37, I’m now closer to AARP than I am to high school. I’ve been out of high school 19 years and am 18 away from AARP.

Today is a very special birthday. Anyone know what birthday is today? It is the birthday of our church. Our church was founded on Pentecost 1,980 years ago. Having just passed through the Lenten and Easter seasons, we hopefully are now well versed in the saving work of Jesus Christ. Christ came to the world to teach, to preach the Gospel, to heal, and to die for our sins. Seven weeks ago, we again celebrated the feast of His Resurrection. Ten days ago, we celebrated the Feast of the Ascension, when Jesus was taken up in glory back into heaven. Before the Ascension, He told the Disciples several things. First, He commissioned them to take the Gospel to all nations. Secondly, HE told them to go to Jerusalem and to wait for the Holy Spirit, which He would send upon them. Third, He told them not to despair. So, ten days after the Ascension, as the disciples were gathered together, there was a rush of a mighty wind and tongues of fire came and sat on the heads of the disciples, and they were able to speak in every language known to humanity. Most of them were not learned men, but rather illiterate fishermen, and they became empowered to spread the Gospel—through the Holy Spirit, they became great orator, prolific writers, and dynamic leaders. And thus, through the Descent of the Holy Spirit, the church was born. And the goal of the church was not merely to sustain and preserve the teachings of Christ, but to spread them. The demeanor of the early church wasn’t static by dynamic, joyful, purposeful. The disciples spread the Gospel with great enthusiasm and zeal. The Holy Spirit has transformed people since that day of Pentecost—it has transformed sinners into saints, single people into families, people who have been wounded in their souls to people who have been cleansed and healed. The purpose of the church is to teach, preach and heal, to help the followers of Christ find salvation. And the Holy Spirit is leading the church, through the Bishops, the priests and the people of the church so that this organization which we call the church, can be transformed continually into an organism, that breathes, grows, cries, rejoices, and works its way daily to more closely reflect the image and likeness of God.

Today we celebrate the birthday of the church, and as members of that church, of this body, we celebrate another year of our own Christianity. And how do we do that? Well, we are spending the morning with our spiritual family. We’ve opened the greatest gift that can be received when we celebrated the Eucharist and received Holy Communion together. So we have the most common elements to our birthdays present on the birthday of the church—spending time with family and friends and receiving a gift. And now, as part of our birthday celebration, we will share in the least common but most important elements to a birthday—thanksgiving and reflection.

In a few moments we will celebrate the Vespers of the Descent of the Holy Spirit and we will thank God for bringing us to another year of life in our church. And we will ask God to bless our church and each of us. Through three beautiful prayers, we will not only offer thanksgiving to God, but reflect on our lives, their meaning, their direction. This is a time to reflect on our personal spiritual successes and failures of the past year, as well as set goals for the coming year. It is also a time to take stock of our successes as an Orthodox Church community, and to bring to mind our areas for improvement.

Obviously, there is a difference between how one celebrates a birthday when he is young and when he is old. Where the young person has a party, and a young adult goes out to a bar, the older adult is more reflective, perhaps even wonder how many more birthdays he will live to see. Our church, the Orthodox Church, is not a young church—it is nearly 2,000 years old. And our church of St. John the Baptist is now 53 years old, it is not young either. And so our faith, as Orthodox Christians, and as members of St. John Greek Orthodox Church, must also reflect a spiritual maturity. As we celebrate our birthdays as Orthodox Christians, let us again ask for the Holy Spirit to come upon us, as it came upon the Apostles on the first Pentecost, to transform us from hearers of the Gospel to ones who proclaim it in word and deed.

We call the Holy Spirit the heavenly king, the comforter, the spirit of truth, present in all places and filling all things, a treasury of blessings and giver of life. Indeed we need comforting in a troubled world. We need truth in an age of falsehood. We need the Holy Spirit to be present in our lives at all times and in all places, that he will bestow upon us blessings and continue to bless our lives. As we pray this service, we again ask for Him to come and abide in us, to cleanse us from every stain, and to save our souls.