Rev. Dr. Paul Tellstrom                                                        Irvine United Congregational Church

Pentecost “Pluralism Sunday”                                                                                        May 27, 2007

 

Acts 2:1-21                                                                                                                        word count: 1,893

 

When the day of graduation had come, we were all together in one place.  And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire church house where we were sitting. 

I’m paraphrasing our scripture a little, and it wasn’t a violent wind, but the sound of gospel music rising up from voices that no longer sing, in a song lifted up spontaneously by the retired Barrett Sisters.  These sisters have been a force in gospel music for decades, and were last seen in the film, “Say Amen, Somebody”.

We had come from many places in more than one way to be here this day.  For three years we had assembled on the campus of the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago after completing sets of papers and assignments at home.  We were from all over the U. S., Canada and Sweden.  We were high Lutheran, low UCC, Presbyterian, Baptist, and Methodist, with the odd Anglican thrown in.  We came together every day to preach, to talk about preaching, read about preaching, write about preaching, and then go out for dinner and laugh over who had the most embarrassing ministry moment and who had the strangest wedding experience.  I won in the wedding competition.  I’ll tell you about it someday. 

The high-church folks made our daily chapel service formal and liturgical.  Our low-church people did the opposite.  The preachers from the black church filled the room with emotion; words that were almost sung and rose to a pitch, followed by shouts of “Amen”.  The preachers from the European tradition usually started with a funny story, then spoke almost in block-quotes, appealing to intellect and reason.  We were liberal and conservative, mostly straight, some gay, and a small undercurrent of homophobia from a very few came into our discussions of preaching on justice.  We didn’t always “get” each other.  We didn’t always get the appeal of our different styles of worship as we participated in services together.  My own small role in a black Baptist service was unmemorable to say the least.

            We were all there, speaking our own particular language about worship, preaching and justice—coming through the lens of our own communities.  And we loved each other without question.  Even after a little shouting…everyone made up recognizing what it is that ultimately binds us together.

            And now…African-Caribbean drums led the way into the sanctuary, followed by President Susan Thistlethwaite, and those of us graduating through the Chicago Theological Seminary.  Once inside we heard all the right words and music, and received diplomas.  But near the end, the Barrett Sisters were given honorary degrees for their lifetime calling to gospel music, and this was the highlight.  In their 80’s, with their leader Delois Barrett in a wheelchair, they were overwhelmed at the response they received.  Then, without planning it, their long-quiet voices started to find their way into Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.”  The sound was initially unsure.  A pianist hopped up to the keyboards, and soon they found their groove.  It wasn’t easy at first…and then they came together in harmony and something happened in the room.  Everyone rose to their feet—tears came to the President’s eyes, and that was the cue for the rest of us.  The African-Caribbean drum group joined in and the room started swaying.  It went on this way for some time, this full church full of families and colleagues—people who had demonstrated in our time together that we were often speaking a different language about how faith is expressed.

            I turned around to a sea of wet eyes, moving bodies and voices singing along, “And I say to myself, ‘What a wonderful world.’”

Luke, writing in Acts, says, “Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.  And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.”  And this day of Pentecost, coming fifty days after Easter is the birthday of the church—that place, to paraphrase the catch-phrase of United Church of Christ, where “God is still speaking”.

Amazed and astonished, there was nothing that separated us any more.  We were one in the Spirit—moving, breathing, feeling freely, and reminded of what it is that brings us together.  

The last time I saw the president of the seminary was here in Orange County at a meeting sponsored by Progressive Christians Uniting that many of you attended.  Susan Thistlethwaite was introduced, and she stepped forward and said, “You know…it’s all about God.  It’s all about God.  God is great…all the time.  God is great…all the time.”

The Center for Progressive Christianity has called for churches all across the country to celebrate today as “Pluralism Sunday” on this Christian day of Pentecost, which is recorded in the book of Acts as that day when Jesus’ followers gathered after his death and resurrection in the “upper room” in Jerusalem.  Although they spoke in different languages, the story says that they were suddenly able to understand each other through the power of the Holy Spirit.  The idea behind Pluralism Sunday is to invoke a Holy Spirit of deep respect that moves us to embrace the diversity of religions of the world. (paraphrase of TCPC website’s description)

As I spent time with colleagues from different denominations I found that we all had different ways in which we understood and expressed our faith in worship.  Last week I experienced the power that brings us all together—the spirit that came from the joy of that day rising up from the instruments of three old-time gospel singers that brought everyone to their feet weeping and singing, and surely feeling the spirit that was present in the room.  The power of that spirit was enormous.  Should I not believe that if the essence of a religion can be defined by the presence of the power of love (such as is represented for us in Jesus) and a respect for creation, that the same spirit we felt together in that church is felt across the world through every expression of faith that is similarly rooted? 

I wonder when it will be time for churches to be able to celebrate the common language of the soul that transcends the boundaries of faiths.  I wonder when religious triumphalism will stop beating its breast in whatever form or faith in which it dwells like a deep sickness of the spirit.  That it is acting in the world today is one of the greatest dangers we face.

For us, as for many churches that have adopted the Eight-Points of Progressive Christianity, we know the words, “We are Christians who recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way to God’s realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are true for us.”  Today we can celebrate the joy of trusting God to be accessible in ways beyond how we came to know and love That which we call “God”.

Dr. Diana Eck is the founder of the Pluralism Project at Harvard, and she writes:

     “Through the years I have found my own faith not threatened, but broadened and

deepened by the study of Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, and Sikh traditions of faith. And I

have found that only as a Christian pluralist could I be faithful to the mystery and the

presence of the one I call God. Being a Christian pluralist means daring to encounter

people of very different faith traditions and defining my faith not by its borders, but by its

roots.”1

I feel so grateful to have been a part of a program that exposed me to such a richness and variety of understandings of the Christian faith, and that brought me to stand with them all together in such a place so full of the power of the spirit that was so present with us.  It has made me a more faithful person.

I also am grateful for the ability to be a part of an interfaith community, so that when there is a discussion of different religions, it is not solely academic—I can recall a face and eyes that mirror a soul.

But I am a Christian.  I believe in the sacrament of baptism that we celebrate today, and the sacrament of communion that we will share next week.  I am faithful to my tradition and know it to be the best way for me to be grounded in faith with all the tools it provides me—the words, thoughts, books, music, liturgies, prayers, community and the metaphors it provides. 

Because, the experience of bumping into each other while on this wildly spinning planet that is moving at 40,000 miles per hour in a solar system that careens through a wide galaxy that is amongst well over a hundred billion other known galaxies leads me to believe that I serve God and my neighbor best simply by doing the best I can and allowing others to do the same without spending too much time worrying about whether I am wearing the one true symbol around my neck, or what will happen to others that aren’t.

To paraphrase the late, great English actor Robert Morley, “The universe is like a cocktail party.  It’s been going on a long time before we got there, and it will continue to go on a long time after we have gone home to bed, so it is of very little use in getting too terribly upset about who the guests were or what they wore.”

In Marcus Borg’s “Heart of Christianity”, he says,

     “When a Christian seeker asked the Dalai Lama whether she should become a

Buddhist, his response, which I paraphrase, was: “No, become more deeply Christian;

live more deeply into your own tradition”.  By living more deeply into our own tradition

as a sacrament of the sacred, we become more centered in the one to whom the tradition

points and in whom we live and move and have our being.

     “A Christian is one who does this within the framework of the Christian tradition, just

as a Jew is one who does this within the framework of the Jewish tradition, a Muslim,

within the framework of the Muslim tradition, and so forth. And I cannot believe that

God cares which of these we are. All are paths of relationship and transformation.2

 

The Spirit that moved like a wind at Pentecost is the same spirit of God by whatever name it is called—it is the all-embracing, all-inclusive, unconditional, limitless Love.  We celebrate this truth and this spirit week after week within the liturgies, traditions, and texts of our Christian faith.3

On Pentecost Sunday the unfettered spirit of God is still gusting through the words and devotional thoughts of people beyond our faith tradition. We will be reminded that the God who loves us just as we are loves all people just as they are.  And let us remain grateful to the one in whom we first encountered the Divine even as others have encountered the Divine in other ways.  It’s all about God.  And…what a wonderful world.  Amen.

 

 

Sermon Resources:

1. Dr. Diana Eck, “A New Religious America”.  (HarperSanFrancisco)  p. 23

2. Dr. Marcus Borg, “Heart of Christianity: Rediscovering a Life of Faith”. (Harper Collins:New  

    York) 2003.  p. 223

3. Durell Watkins, blog.  May, 2007