Pentecost 2020
Maybe we are at the turning point in
this long disruption of our lives. When it all started there was
every expectation that things would get back to normal in about two
weeks. But as the news got more and more frightening, as it seemed
that we were all helpless in the face of the virus, our whole lives
changed. We all learned new ways of living, and how important the
internet is to our quarantined lives. Tens of thousands of children
and parents got a taste of home schooling; oddly enough, a poll taken
suggested that about 40 percent had a more favorable impression than
before. We learned that there are a lot of jobs that can be done
from home with a good computer and internet connection. We missed
being able to go out to a restaurant or a movie or travel. We’ve
all become little islands,
Our society is broken, stripped of
everything but the essentials. We’ve learned that our scientists
and politicians are all too human. The stresses in our political
establishment were made worse, to the point of irreconcilable
differences. It looks like we will have another election where each
of us has to decide which candidate is the lesser of two evils -- on
second thought, that’s always the bottom line, I guess. And now
after several months and intense investigation, we are learning that
this highly contagious virus is not the villain it started out to be;
in fact, the latest information suggests that the death rate is
probably in the ballpark of that of the swine flu of a few years ago;
thirty percent of people who are infected have no symptoms; and
almost all the most serious cases are among the elderly and those
with chronic illnesses. Grocery stores employ people to wipe down
shopping carts -- but the latest information suggests that this
probably isn’t a very likely way to transmit the disease. We wear
masks, but if you are coughing and sneezing because you are full of
viruses, you probably can’t breathe in the mask and would stay home
anyway. So all in all, we’ve made a mountain out of a molehill.
Did the Holy Spirit do all this?
Well, you can say yes and no. Anything that happens is obviously
permitted by God. At the same time, from a materialist point of
view, we know how viruses work, we know where this one came from, we
know how it spreads, how it sickens and kills. But if we look at the
past, it’s obvious that God has used catastrophes to teach us
something. So I wonder. The Holy Spirit is, after all, a power
that disrupts lives. As you read the Old Testament, when the Spirit
of the Lord moved somebody, the result was life-changing. And when
the Spirit overshadowed a young woman two thousand years ago, her
entire life and all of history was shaken up. And as we’ve heard
today, when the Spirit came upon those early followers of Jesus, they
became convincing preachers, charismatic leaders, eloquent writers,
tireless missionaries - and martyrs as well. The Spirit did this,
the same spirit that hovered over the formless void at the beginning
of everything; the same Spirit that drove Jesus into the desert after
his baptism by John, the same Spirit that Jesus breathed upon his
apostles and made them new creations with the power to forgive sins..
Every now and then the world gets
disrupted. We’ve had other epidemics -- the black plague comes to
mind. We’ve had wars. We’ve had technological revolutions that
over the short term seemed to do far more harm than good; and it is
as though every now and then the Spirit tears everything down so that
it can be created anew. It is all there in the 104th psalm: “You
take away their Spirit and they die and are gathered into dust; you
send forth your spirit and they are created and you renew the face of
the earth”.
Maybe this is our moment; maybe this
is a time when heaven draws close to earth and we have the
opportunity to make a big change for the better. Because the Spirit
lives in each one of us and is always driving us to bring about the
kingdom of heaven.
There is an art form in Japan called
kintsugi. It begins with a broken pot or bowl. The artist
painstakingly puts it back together using molten gold. In the end
the broken vessel is more beautiful than it ever was before.
Is the Holy Spirit doing something
like this? I would like to believe that. We’ve been broken; all
the comfortable assumptions that took the place of trust in God have
been turned over. Tomorrow won’t be like today; today isn’t like
yesterday. Let us pray that the Spirit puts our world together so
that it is better than before; let us pray that He will use this
opportunity to renew the face of the earth.
