“Pentecost: DREAM BIG”
The Reverend Mark Nestlehutt
Christ Church – St. Michael’s Parish
The Feast of Pentecost
8 June 2014
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So, imagine yourself standing in Jerusalem. It is fifty days since you celebrated the Passover and like any good
observant Jew you’ve come into Jerusalem for the annual Shavuot, or in Greek, Pentecost. It’s a harvest
festival—along the lines of our secular Thanksgiving—in which all the Israelite farmers are expected to
dedicate a portion of the first-fruits of their grain to God as a token of recognition that it is, after all, God who
produced and protected the crops. I can imagine that it has a bit of a Talbot County Fair feel to it, albeit with a
religious overtone, but still plenty of drinking and celebrating. After all, how often do you get off the farm and
into the bright lights and big city of Jerusalem? You’ve been doing this year after year; you see your old
friends; and you see lots of strangers who are in town for the same reason as you, but have foreign ways—
they even speak a different language. So maybe the visual image should be the Talbot County Fair if it were
held in the Morningside Heights section of New York City, and under the auspices of the World Jewish
Congress. You get the picture. But then, all of a sudden, a group of men (maybe women too), all Galileans,
begin speaking in other languages, yet all telling this same story about Jesus of Nazareth—crucified by the
Roman authorities; raised from the dead by God; who was indeed the long awaited Messiah. At first, you
think these Galileans are drunk with wine, but one of them, a man named Peter, assures you and others that
they are not drunk; after all it’s only 9 AM in the morning. (A weak retort for folks like us who live in a sailing
community. We’ve seen drunk at 9 AM in the morning.) Maybe you find the story of Jesus compelling. Maybe
you return home intrigued. Or, perhaps you were one of the 3,000 baptized that day and you are, indeed,
changed forever.
The Pentecost story is, at its heart, all about change. It is a story about new dreams; new plans; and new
directions. What begins on Pentecost in Jerusalem becomes a new movement within Judaism. Those who
believe Jesus to be the Messiah are now known as “people of the Way.” Later on, in Damascus, an outsider
will refer to them as Christians—the Hebrew “messiah” being translated into Greek as “Christ.” And then
within a few decades, a new religion has been formed—now hived-off and distinct from Judaism.
Communities become house-churches; house-churches become churches; churches become parishes; parishes
are placed under the structure of dioceses; new buildings are constructed and Christianity and its unique form
of architecture take shape. Buildings become gifts designed specifically to glorify God through Jesus Christ.
We were and are a part of that pattern. As a 17th century backwater, St. Michael’s Parish had a small
clapboard building that may have seated forty people. After American Independence and on the eve of the
War of 1812, a new brick building was constructed that seated maybe 100 people. That building barely
survives past the American Civil War and the great depression that followed. The bricks are crumbling. After
the long depression which stretched until the mid-1870s, newfound wealth and prosperity in St. Michaels
encouraged the congregation to build a new building—and what a building it was for this town: a famous New
York City architect; seating for 250; granite imported from the Susquehanna; no expense spared during the
height of this boom time. Yet, without an endowment to support and maintain the new building, it slowly
declined; maintenance was deferred, and by the time of the second Great Depression of the 1930s, the die
was cast. No surprise that by 1988 the deferred maintenance and aging building challenged the current
parishioners to do something. We needed $350,000. Then we needed $750,000. All told, the renovation and
repairs totaled $1,400,000 and drained all the surplus reserves that had accumulated during that 110 year
period. Today we sit on the same footprint where women and men and children have sat, knelt, and stood to
worship God for almost 350 years. As our mission statement proclaims, “We are grounded in history.” And we
trace that history all the way back to the story of Pentecost—the birth of the church. It’s like looking at 2,000
years of history in your rearview mirror.
But rather than looking backwards at our history, let’s look ahead to our future. Our mission statement
doesn’t stop with “grounded in history” it quickly adds “and open to the future.” And that’s what I think the
Holy Spirit offers us—a link to the future and an encouragement to dream. Our bible is filled with dreams such
as the one where Jacob dreams of a ladder extending from heaven to earth or the one where Joseph
interprets pharaoh’s dream as warning to prepare for an impending famine. DREAM is an awfully loaded word.
To have a dream may cause some of us to recall Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech on the
Washington Mall in 1963. But, we seldom seem to use that word to describe our feelings today. Maybe we
believe that dreaming is for children—something best to outgrow as we become older. Or maybe we fear that
dreams set us apart and may become divisive. After all, who decides which dream is better the better one? Or
maybe we stop dreaming because we don’t want to set ourselves up for disappointment. The pessimist in us
asks: Why get our hopes us?
As Christians we are called “Easter people” or “people of the resurrection.” It’s even been said that without
the resurrection of Christ, there would not be a Christian faith. And of course that is true. But it is also true
that after seven straight Sundays of proclaiming “Christ is risen” we may start to wonder what’s next? It was
exciting to proclaim Christ is risen on Easter Day when we had seven hundred folks in church (including the
semiannual Church Alumni Association). It was even exciting the Sunday after Easter Day when maybe 250
people showed up to proclaim Christ is risen. But by week seven, we were wondering what’s next. Well, the
“what’s next” is the receiving of the Holy Spirit, which happened on Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is the gift that
comes from God, but is given to us through the risen Christ. It is the Spirit that motivates, empowers and
sustains the church and its life and service in the world. Think of it as an endowment. Much the way each of
you may endow Christ Church to shape and sustain its ministry and to preserve its legacy, Christ literally
endows the Church universal by giving it this gift of the Spirit. And it is that same Spirit that enables us to
dream and not just to dream, but to dream big. Innovation requires us to dream like a child and to question
our assumptions. Which dream do we embrace? It’s the one that—like the Spirit—sets our very hearts on fire.
Disappointment, failure: isn’t our God the same God who often snatched victory from the jaws of defeat? The
status quo is a death march. The world around us is changing. What is it that God is asking us to do right here,
right now? Imagine what it could be like to sit here in Christ Church in fifty years. What will be your legacy?
What is the Holy Spirit doing? Close your eyes and DREAM BIG!