Sunday, May 15, 2005

Sun, May 15, 2005 - God and Chaos

Acts 2:1-21

Psalm 104:25-35, 37

1 Corinthians 12:3b-13

John 20:19-23


So, there's Peter and all the disciples, men and women, all gathered together in one room on the day of Pentecost. They're praying, and probably reading the Scriptures - the Old Testament, that is - and no doubt sharing their stories and recollections of this man Jesus, whom they followed, who had been killed, had been brought back to life again, and had now left them to go to God. There's probably a quiet murmur throughout the room - it's still morning and people are just getting ready for their day. Picture the morning sun streaming through the windows - kind of like today - as the men and women sit together and wonder when Jesus is going to come back to them.

And then, all of a sudden, there's a big whoosh, and the window shutters bang, and everyone's hair flies about their faces, and the dirt on the floor gets swirled about, and then - and then! - something that can only be described as fire rests on each person there. This something is alive, and flickering, and ready to consume them, and everywhere they look, there are little dancing lightenings hovering over everybody's head, and then - and then! - and then the noise! Up to this point, everybody would have been speaking in Aramaic, and everybody would have understood what every other person was saying, but now, Peter over here is speaking in Latin, and Andrew over there is speaking in Greek. Mary Magdalene is somehow speaking in Arabic, and Mary the mother of Jesus is speaking in Pehlevi - the language of the Parthians. Can you imagine the noise? You probably can, a little - especially if you've ever flipped through the TV channels on a Sunday afternoon - you can hear English, French, German, Mandarin, Cantonese, Italian, Portugese, Hindi, Farsi, Arabic - but imagine if you heard all those languages at once, imagine if every person in this congregation started speaking one of those languages - and they never knew it to begin with!

It must have been disconcerting, to say the least. The text tells us that people were amazed, bewildered, and astonished. I wouldn't be surprised if they freaked right out. You see, the last time a group of people started speaking in all different languages was at the Tower of Babel, when God was angry with everybody for trying to build a tower to the heavens. In that case, the spontaneous eruption of a whole bunch of different languages was the result of God punishing the people for being wicked, splitting them up to prevent them from doing worse. So it would be no surprise if the disciples' first reaction to the cacophony of noise was to wonder if they had made some critical error along the way - to wonder if God was seriously angry at them about something and trying to drive them all apart. How on earth could this chaos of language be something that came from God? Everybody knows that God is all about orderliness and peacefulness and tidiness. The auditory mess in Jerusalem was too chaotic, too diverse, too disorderly to be godly. Right?

I mean, we do have this idea, don't we, that God values order and unity and propriety? The earliest biblical image of God is from Genesis - and that's God separating the light from the darkness, ordering the days and nights, shaping the weeks, putting animals into their right categories. We think of God telling Noah to put the animals in the ark - two by two, making sure each species is represented. When God gives instructions for the Temple in Jerusalem to be built, there's all kinds of specific details about where the wood will come from, and how the priests will dress, and what they'll say. Order is key. And anybody who violates that order, anybody who disrupts the unity of the people, is cast out, cut off from God, if they were even with God in the first place. That's the prominent message that we get - God and chaos do not go together.

Except that we have this day of Pentecost, and this madness of languages, and this overflowing of diversity. And we know, if the disciples didn't, that in this case, the chaos is nota punishment from God. In fact, it's quite the opposite. This craziness and complete lack of order and decorum is from God - it's the result of the direct inspiration and intervention of the Holy Spirit. It's a sign that God is actually with the disciples, a sign that Jesus Christ has actually made good on his promise to send the Spirit to them. It is, actually, a direct reversal of what happened at the Tower of Babel. You see, the result of this new babbling of Spirit-inspired voices is that people from all over the known world, instead of being driven apart by the many languages, are brought together under the name of Jesus. Three thousand people, we eventually learn, hear the good news of Jesus Christ in the languages of their hearts, and are baptized. The early church, in one chaotic morning, goes from 100 believers to 3,000 - from being a tiny group of followers to the beginnings of a world-wide religion. The jumble of languages, far from being a sign that God has abandoned them, is actually a sign that God is breathing new life into Jesus' followers. It is a sign that the resurrection of Christ is taking place among the followers of Christ. The diversity is a sign of new life.

And that, too, is represented in our Bible, although not nearly as prominently. The psalm we read this morning talks about the amazing range of things that God has created, from the great sea monster to the tiny fish. It talks about God's Spirit bringing life to a whole variety of creatures - so many that they cover the earth. Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians - our second reading - talks about the varieties of activities that the Holy Spirit inspires in people - everybody with something different, all working in their own way as agents bringing Christ's new life to earth. In the Book of Revelation, there are images of all the nations on earth gathered before God singing praises. Yes, the Bible does present us with a picture of chaos and diversity, but in some cases it means that God is present, not absent, that God is giving new life, not punishing.

Now, the reason I bring all of this up - our idea that chaos and diversity are somehow indicative of the absence of God - and the day of Pentecost showing us the opposite - that actually, in certain cases, God is the inspirer of the chaos and uses it to bring new life is because this is something the church is facing right now. Specifically, I'm referring to the issue of blessing same-sex relationships. You see, as I've listened to people talk about the issue that's coming to our National Convention this summer, and as the Anglican Church of Canada has been in the news recently because of their decisions over same-sex blessings, I have heard over and over again the same words of anxiety over the differences that are arising in the church. And those words are, "This will split the church." I have heard, and even felt myself, sometimes, that all of the differences of opinions - all the different tongues being spoken - can't be good for the church or for its future existence. I have wondered if the varied and sometimes contradictory interpretations of the Bible that people have has meant that God is not with us in these discussions. After all, I've always thought that God values order and unity and agreement - that God was all about the status quo. So how can all these different voices, which clearly challenge order and unity and agreement, be of God? They're too chaotic, too diverse, too disorderly to be godly. Right?

Except that now, because of Pentecost, I'm not so sure. That time of seeming chaos and disorderliness, that time when everybody thought they were going back to the Tower of Babel, well, that wasn't God punishing the disciples. That was the Holy Spirit inspiring them and bringing the Easter resurrection of Christ to the early church. Without that diversity of voices, the Gospel wouldn't have reached as many people as it did. Without the unfamiliar and yes, frightening, cacophony in that upper room, the early church would not have spread to become the body that it is today. It wouldn't, in fact, have lasted longer than the lives of the first few early disciples. But the chaos of Pentecost did occur, and the church did not split. The opposite happened - it grew. And in fact, the Christian church has a long history of differences and various voices that, throughout its history, no doubt gave its members reasons for concern: the differences between the disciples later on when it came to Jews and Gentiles, the split between the Eastern Orthodox and Western Roman Catholic churches, the division that led to the birth of the Protestant churches. Anybody looking at any one of these times of conflict in the church would have thought: this is going to split the church. And yes, various groups went their own way, but in doing so, the church was renewed - it grew bigger and spread to more people. Why? Because God was there, continuing to send the Holy Spirit to bring the resurrection of Christ into the midst of the church and its people.

On the day of Pentecost, the Easter resurrection was inaugurated by the Holy Spirit in one great, noisy mess of new life. It was chaotic. It was diverse. It was disorderly. But it was also godly. And it may be what is going on in our churches right now - chaos, diversity, disorderliness, and God. I'm not 100% sure of that, and I know it sounds odd to hear a pastor say that from the pulpit, but I'm not. The Bible does, after all, paint a pretty clear picture of God favouring order and uniformity. On the other hand, though, it is equally clear that in the past, God has been in the midst of chaos and that diversity has been a sign of new life, not death. It is clear that when the Holy Spirit blows, window shutters bang, people's hair flies about their faces, dirt gets swirled up, and people freak out. It is chaotic. It is diverse. It is disorderly. And it is also godly. Pentecost was God bringing new life to the church, and that is something that God never stops doing. Thanks be to God. Amen.

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