Sermon: “Order Out of Chaos,” May 23, 2021 (Pentecost Sunday)
Photo from our Pentecost outdoor service, where this sermon was preached.
This sermon was preached at our outdoor Pentecost service. Unfortunately, the service was disrupted, and video and audio were not available due to that disruption.
Preacher: The Rev. Ryan Slifka
Scripture: Genesis 1:1-2:3, Acts 2:1-13
Today’s Pentecost Sunday. In the church’s year Pentecost Sunday is the final week of the Easter season, and it focuses on the work of the Holy Spirit. As such we have two very different scripture passages. The first from the Old Testament, the book of Genesis, the literal beginning of the Bible and the beginning of the universe itself. And our second text is from the New Testament, the Acts of the Apostles. Close to the very end. As different as these passages are, both feature prominently the life-giving work of God’s Spirit. The Spirit being the electric presence of the Creator, what the great theologian Jurgen Moltmann calls "the power of creation and the wellspring of life."[i] The Spirit features prominently in both.
Despite the fact that both texts focus on the Spirit’s movement, though, the Spirit’s work couldn’t be more different.
I mean, in Genesis there’s this formless void, darkness covers the deep of eternity. In this passage the wind of God hovers over the waters at creation, wind and breathe being synonyms for the spirit of God. Water’s one of scripture’s foremost images of chaos, and so when the Spirit of God’s blows this gentle breeze it’s taking the formless void and chaotic deep and bringing structure, order. This sets the stage for light to emerge, God says let there be light and it’s so. There’s light. Then light’s separated from darkness, one’s called night and the other day. It’s all very slow, melodic, intentional. The Spirit’s like a potter with a piece of clay. It works like a carver working away at a giant piece of cedar, slowly, cutting away, standing back thoughtfully, cutting again, blowing off excess—poof. And this structure that God crafts makes way for stable life for humans. For plans and animals of all kind. In Genesis the Spirit shapes creation gently and intentionally, bringing order, stability, and structure on the cosmic scale.
In our Acts text on the other hand, the Spirit of God descends “as tongues of fire,” rushing into the room like a like a mighty wind on and filling the disciples of Jesus. The Spirit then blows them out into the street, where there are Jews from every nation on earth and every culture under the sun. The Spirit empowers the disciples to speak in the language of each hearer. Imagine one tossing out some Mandarin, the other Swahili, another Swedish and yet another Cree. This is such a bizarre scene that Peter, Jesus’ right had man has to assure the crowd of skeptical onlookers that no, they’re not drinking, because it’s only nine in the morning!
In Acts, the Spirit lands like a missile, and the resulting explosion sends them outside. Acts the Spirit moves on this smaller, human scale: bringing disorder, confusion, and causes disciples to be mistaken for a dozen drunks.
These are two totally different experiences of the Spirit. In one, the Spirit’s relaxing, rhythmic, tidying up the universe. In the other the Spirit’s supercharged, unexpected, full of unpredictable energy. We might as well be talking about two totally separate entities.
As unalike as these two cases may be, though, the Spirit has the same goal in each case.
At creation, God takes the anarchy of the pre-historical void, God takes it and carves out a stable universe. One where all things have their place, where human beings and animals alike flourish. Here the Spirit of God fashions a harmonious community out of cosmic chaos. And though the scene at Pentecost seems just as chaotic, here the Spirit of God’s also bringing order. Albeit order of a different kind.
Here the Spirit’s at work on the smaller scale of society, of individual human beings. Human beings, broken and imperfect, divided by culture, and language. Separated by race, class, and gender. Human beings at odds, at conflict, often preferring the destruction of the other rather than the divinely-ordained harmony of God. Like the Spirit hovering over the waters in Genesis, at Pentecost the Spirit of God hovers over the great mass of humanity, the divine wind descends and ignites the disciples of Jesus with a big-bang spark. The Spirit bridges the barriers that divide, like language. People on the outside don’t get it, and think these people are nuts. But those on the inside can see and hear the Spirit hovering above their heads, nullifying the antagonisms wrought by Sin, and feel themselves drawn into a whole new reality. A whole new community.
In the beginning God brings order to chaos. At Pentecost, God brings order, yet again, but this time to the chaos and disorder of human life. Here the Spirit of God hovers over the great mass of humanity, drawing us out of chaos and ordering our lives in a holy community called “church.” Though the two episodes aren’t very similar at all, the Spirit’s work in them has the same purpose. To bring life outta nothing, and order to chaos. An order that not only allows life to survive, but to multiply… to thrive. The Spirit of God was not only active at the beginning of the world on the largest scale. The Spirit is at work now, creating the space for stable life at the smallest scale of human life, where chaos abounds.
Now, this is our first time together, in person on a Sunday morning in over a year. This past year has been full of so many challenges. It’s been incredibly difficult for some of us, while not-so-difficult for others. One thing’s for certain: that it’s caused a great, chaotic disruption in our lives. It’s knocked us off our regular routines, relationships, and stable things we’ve taken for granted—family, friends, and church. Some of us have lost jobs, split with houses and partners, and have had loved ones die. And even if our individual lives haven’t changed much, the world may even seem like it’s spinning out of control. Violence, hatred, inequality, societies splitting into opposing camps at eachother’s throats. The world just doesn’t seem like the same predictable, orderly place we thought it was.
This, though, is where the Holy Spirit comes in. I mean, the Spirit’s always been in, but its times like these and a world like ours that the Spirit of God comes to.
No matter how bad things seem to get, how far they seem to be spinning out of control, neither the destiny, nor the final purpose of God’s creation is a chaotic void. God didn’t just set the universe into motion then pull back to see if everything would fly off the rails. No, God has created, and is creating, as the United Church's New Creed says. As uncertain as life may be, we can be certain that this God’s Spirit continues to hover as it did before even the first day. In the words of the great writer Frederick Buechner, “The worst isn't the last thing about the world. It's the next to the last thing. The last thing is the best. It's the power from on high that comes down into the world, that wells up from the rock-bottom worst of the world like a hidden spring.”[ii] The unseen divine wind continues to part the waters, carving out the space for stable life, the hidden spring continues to flow. In the same way that the deep dark nothing of the cross wasn’t the end for Christ on Easter, because of the life-giving power and presence of the Living God, the worst thing in this life is never the last one.
And if you want to know if this is true, one place you might look… is here. This moment, this community called church, this is a place in space and time where God is carving out this stable life. It’s not that church shields us from the world swirling all around us, far from it. I mean, at Pentecost the disciples are immediately shoved out the door. Within their first day outside their neighbors mock them, figuring they must drunk. And days later others determine that they’re deserving of a good stoning or crucifixion. And not only that, church is often where a whole buncha people bring their chaotic lives with them. The church is not a fortress or a shield against the outside world. That's more likely to lead us to fear of our neighbors and self-righteousness, rather than peace and stability.
No, the peace, stability, order we're given is a different kind. It's at the soul-level. It's in knowing that God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. The rocks to stand on when all the other ground sinks around us. That in Jesus Christ, the same God who spread out the constellations has thrown a life preserver into the world’s rocky seas of Sin and Death, one we can cling to in faith for dear life. And that the church is where God gathers us by the Spirit, and by that same Spirit descends on us over and over, burning away the dead tissue of our souls and knitting us to his immovably stable self with this great Good News. The peace and stability we're given as the people of God is in knowing that the God is our light and our shield, and though the mountains shake and the waters roar and foam, we shall not be afraid because the Lord of hosts is with us.
So, brothers and sisters, friends in Christ. Welcome back to worship! Welcome back with the promise that in this uncertain world of ours, this world that may seem at times like a bottomless sea of chaos, fear and uncertainty. Welcome back with the promise that there is a God who has created and is still creating, whose Spirit is still hovering, still breathing life into creation, bringing order out of this chaos, and is still igniting a whole New Creation in her people. Even here, even now, especially now. Welcome, friends, welcome back to church.
Come, Holy Spirit, Come! Amen!
[i] Jurgen Moltmann, The Source of Life: The Holy Spirit and the Theology of Life (London: SCM Press, 1997).
[ii] Frederick Buechner, The Final Beast.