Sermon 5.24.26 It Only Takes a Spark
- standrewcin
- 4 days ago
- 7 min read
The 20th century monk, Thomas Merton, said, “At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God… this little point of nothingness… is the pure Glory of God in us… His Name written in us… It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all the darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely.”
Today is Pentecost, the annual celebration of the 50 days after Easter culminating in the rushing tempest of the Holy Spirit fanning the sparks in each of our hearts, into the flame of God’s glorious and eternal presence within us.
It is a day when we can ask again, what if Thomas Merton is right? What if each of us has this spark?
What if 2 billion sparks turned to fire for a more just world?
On this Pentecost Sunday, I’m moved to preach to you: It only takes a spark.
In ancient Israel, Pentecost was already a thing before Christianity.
Pentecost is the Greek name for the harvest festival known in Hebrew as Shavuot.
As we’ve discussed in previous years, Shavuot, the festival of week comes 50 days after Passover.
When the Christians associated Easter as a type of Christian Passover, it made sense that they also would mark the 50 days with a feast day.
During this harvest festival, the ancient Hebrew people also would read the passages about the giving of the law to Moses on Mount Sinai.
It was fitting, then, for the coming of the Holy Spirit to happen on such a day as this, when the new law of the Spirit, which would be written on our hearts came to the earth.
What I really want you to notice today in our readings, though, is not just all of this erudite sociological and historical background of Pentecost.
What I want you to notice as you think about the spark that lies at the center of your own soul, is where the Spirit leads the people whose spark has been fanned into flame.
In our Hebrew Scripture, we get a picture of this elite group of 70 men sitting in a tent with Moses and having his spirit poured out on them.
Imagine their surprise when they go out from that place, holding the secret of that place, the power that has been bestowed on them, and then they find out there are these two guys,
Not elite, not chosen from the crowd, not properly invited to the in-crowd.
And yet, here they are outside of the tent, outside of the place where the presence of God is supposed to dwell,
And they’re out in the public square proclaiming the promise.
I want you to notice from our own New Testament Scripture, where the disciples are.
For 50 days, in our minds, they have been sitting in the upper room.
That same place they were, when they were afraid, when they were unsteady, and they would not go outside.
They were in the place where the women had come to tell them that the tomb was empty
The place where Jesus gets in despite the doors being locked to show them his wounds and his resurrected body.
In our post crucifixion and post-resurrection narratives, somehow the disciples remain stuck in this limbo, this safe, but stifling room.
And then the Spirit comes and they break out of their hiding place.
That spark that they have been hiding under a bushel, now fanned into flame.
What Jesus did after the resurrection was to make sure that the spark didn’t go out.
He tended that deep place of nothingness, that place where the presence of God dwells in the hearts of the disciples,
He gave them hope.
And they left that upper room, they went out into the public square and proclaimed the Word of God in every language around.
No longer 2 out of 70, but all of them, moved by the Spirit to go out of this sacred cocoon that they had built for themselves.
My brothers and sisters, it only takes a spark.
And when the Holy Spirit finds that spark in you, she can blow with her mighty wind and create a fire.
The question is: What are you going to do with your spark, and what are you going to do with the fire?
Is this sacred space where we meet, and love on one another, and get ourselves ready to face the week ahead,
Is this a place where we’re going to use our fire to light altar candles in their nice pretty places and be content?
Is this our upper room?
Pentecost is a day to remind us not to keep the fire to ourselves.
The goal of the Holy Spirit is to drive us outside with the fire that has been enflamed within us,
So that we take it into the public square.
God knows the world outside of here needs it.
You may have heard this week about the shooting that happened on I-71.
The young man who was senselessly killed was the nephew of one of our afterschool teachers.
A horrific and senseless act that can only happen when a person loses sight of the fact that that other person has the spark of the Holy One,
And trades the fire of love for the diabolical fire of hate.
If I’m going to be really honest with all of you,
I’ve been feeling the weight these past few months,
The weight of constant grieving for the roll back of rights, the ceaseless stream of bad news.
A tidal wave threatening to put out the fire and the spark.
You know I love to sing that song, This joy that I have the world didn’t give it to me and the world can’t take it away.
But I’ve been starting to wonder if that’s true. Maybe the world can…
I know that many of you have been feeling it to.
I can hear it in your voices, “Fr. Chris, I really needed to hear that sermon today, it was right on time.”
I’ve been talking to people outside of these walls, and you know what?
Many of them are feeling that way too.
My friends, I’m here to tell you today,
I don’t know if it’s going to get better sooner rather than later,
I don’t know how much more senseless violence we will have to witness,
I don’t know how many of our rights will be taken from us,
How many of our votes will be gerrymandered into oblivion,
How many holy innocents we will lose, because America in her 250th year still doesn’t know how to have a well-regulated relationship with firearms.
I don’t know how the Holy Spirit is moving right now, or where she will show up.
I’ve seen glimpses, but I don’t know which way the wind is blowing.
What I do know is that it only takes a spark.
It only takes one spark to get a fire going.
When people focus only on the ways that we’re different, the isms that keep us separated, the sin that makes us think we’re better than each other,
I say, you see many? I see one
I see one Jesus, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.
I see one spark that lights us all, one Spirit that empowers us all.
You see many? I see one.
One person who believes.
One person who stands in defiance against the disquiet.
One person who keeps the faith.
One person who maintains hope.
One person who fights through the tears of the moment and proclaims that even a flood cannot quench what the Holy Spirit has lit.
I want to be that person.
I want you to be that person.
I want us to be that for each other.
Speaking in the tongues of humans and angels,
Not whispering it under our breath in a private prayer or an isolated spirituality,
But out in the world,
Out where it can bring the other sparks to life that have been waiting for a wind from the Holy Spirit to set them alight.
This time that we are living in is not a time for the upper rooms of a safe church building or private spirituality that isn’t religious.
The world needs us to be religious about loving our neighbor.
This nation needs us to be religious about striving for justice.
This city needs us to be religious about reminding people that they are enough, that Jesus Christ has made them enough in the eyes of God.
The Holy Church of God, 2000 years after its birth, remains one of the greatest blessings that the world has ever known.
We feed the hungry,
We clothe the naked,
We visit those in hospital,
Pray for those who are sick or who have died,
Proclaim a resurrection that no earthly death can defeat, a fire that can never be extinguished.
We bring peace to war torn places,
Hope and healing to a broken world,
We call people to a greater vision of humanity,
And an end to the senseless violence that crucified a carpenter who turned out to be the savior of the world.
The crowds out in the streets may wonder for a time, what in the world we are up to,
But they will hear their own language spoken by our voices,
They will hear the words of salvation coming near,
The hope that looks fear in the face and says not today Satan.
If you’re with me, I need to hear you say Amen.
If you’re feeling the Spirit, I need to hear you say Alleluiah.
If you’re going to go out of this place and make a difference, I need to hear you say “I have the spark!”
I need you to tell your church family, turn to each other and tell them, “I have the spark!”
We all have it. We’re all going to use it.
My friends the Holy Spirit is here, we have heard her calling, now let’s spread her flame,
Because it only takes a spark.
Amen.
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