Pentecost 2021

Seminarian, Steve Bragaw,  Pentecost 2021 
It’s been awhile.
I went and checked, and it’s been since January 28th, 2020, to be exact, since we were last able to do this— come together, worship the Lord in prayer, and then join together afterwards to share an old-fashioned fried chicken church supper. I remembered because by chance it was the last time I’ve had the chance to preach here at Emmanuel in person.
It was a joyful day: we welcomed back a beloved member of the congregation from the hospital, we said thanks for an outgoing vestry class as we elected a new one. The words on many of our lips—mine included— was it seemed like our first day “back to normal,” our first day back in port after a long time as a community out at sea.
Little did we know.
Little did we know that day in late January 2020 what was soon in store for us, as a community, a people, and for our nation and humanity.
Little did we know. And yet, as we approach a critical mass in vaccinations, and as the incidence of Coronavirus plummets, and as the public health restrictions that went with them relax and repeal, we feel— in fits and starts—a return to normal. I confess this week getting down on my knees and—through my mask— kissing the floor of the Crozet Library, the first time I could just walk back in. I don’t know what I’ll do when we can officially be back in the sanctuary—all I know is I hope we get to sing Hail Thee Festival Day!
Strange as it may seem, I actually think we’re going to develop a fierce and strange nostalgia for this time we can feel is now passing. I don’t mean the nostalgia where popular culture of today recycles the popular culture of two decades ago, and sees the not so distant past through cheap plastic lenses of a supposedly simpler “Happy Days” that were never simpler or better. I’m talking here of the deeper, original meaning of the word nostalgia: the desire for nostos--to return home again, coupled with algos--emotional pain. Nostalgia is the pain we feel when we desire to return to a home that no longer exists: if the future is the undiscovered country, the past is a shore on the horizon we can see but cannot return to. It is an acute awareness of pain, infused with a happy memory of the joy of fellowship. It is, by definition, bittersweet.
So what is the meaning we’ll take from this? What will we be nostalgic for?
Little did we know, in January 2020, what was in store for this little community of the faithful. And yet, here we are: I think we’ll be nostalgic for all the funny and at times frankly absurd ways we found a way to find a way, as individuals, families, communities, to come through. The graduates we celebrate today are all keenly aware of the things lost and taken away from them, all the important rites of passage and fellowship. And yet, they persisted. And yet, they persevered. As a faith community, we found a way: we persisted, we persevered. We prayed for the day we could gather, worship, and eat together again. We hoped—for ourselves, our families, our community, the world. We hoped, in the words of the Apostle Paul, for what we could not dare to see, and we waited for it with patience.
And the Spirit helped us in our weakness, in the darkest of the dark days of this past fall and winter. We learned again the secret truth of Christian life: we’re in this together, like it or not. We can’t do this alone. There’s a reason why the sacraments of marriage, baptism (and ordination) all involve the community
Steve Bragaw Pentecost 2021 2 of 2
taking oaths too: it’s to remind us that the purpose of this all is come together, and in the process we multiply the joy and divide the sorrow.
Today’s Gospel readings tell us this very story. There’s actually two Gospel readings, because Acts is really volume two of Luke’s Gospel. It’s a sequel: if Luke is “A New Hope,” Acts is most definitely “The Empire Strikes Back.”
Today’s story is the real beginning: everyone is in Jerusalem for the feast that takes place fifty days--pentecost —from the Passover. It’s basically ancient Jersualem’s version of Mardi Gras. Out come the Apostles, enflamed by the descent upon them of the Holy Spirit. They’re speaking so wildly the crowd thinks they are drunk. Peter—who denies they’ve been drinking—proclaims the Gospel—the good news—Jesus Christ is the long awaited Messiah, and has been resurrected from the dead and ascended to Heaven! Acts describes many things of that day, but at its end the Apostles, the Holy women, and the friends of Jesus gathered, worshipped, and then they ate together. Pentecost is the emotional high point of the Book of Acts.
Little did they know.
Little did they know what was in store for them that day. And frankly, who can blame them? In eight weeks they went from accompanying Jesus in procession of hosannas into Jerusalem, to abandoning their friend in his hour of need, only to be met by him on Easter, and seeing him ascend to heaven, and to be now subsumed by the power of the Holy Spirit. Luke’s first audience knew, though: The Empire strikes back. Peter and the rest of the Apostles were marked men, heading all to martyr’s deaths. The Book of Acts ends so suddenly, in defeat, that it has long prompted theories of a lost third book in Luke’s story.
And yet.
Luke’s audience knew whose story was the third book, as should we: it was them, it’s us, it’s the community of the faithful. We have a fierce nostalgia for the early Church, before Constantine’s conversion placed Christianity adjacent to the seductive allure of secular power, precisely because the Apostles and the Holy Women, the mothers and fathers of the church, found a way to find a way. And they persisted. And they persevered. They gathered, they worshipped, they ate together. In community, they found the ways to multiply the joy and divide the sorrow. Deep wisdom from simple truths.
So I do think we’ll become nostalgic for this time now passing, in ways that would definitely seem strange to us now. In ways we can only begin to see, the Spirit moved among us, and with a sigh too deep for words nudged us to find a way, to persist, to persevere. We multiplied our joys and divided our sorrows. In the darkness of this winter past we lit candles of hope to bring light to the darkness, and reminded ourselves the day would come where once again we could gather together, worship the Creator, give thanks for the blessings of the presence of the Holy Spirit, and be witnesses to the redeeming love of Jesus Christ in the world. And join together in a communal meal.
Our prayer is answered. That day is today. Thanks be to God.