Still Life

    “Still Life”

    Acts 2

    Pentecost  ‘09

George Wingate, an artist, offers this admonition regarding art: “The artist has to fight to not be what he/she was yesterday.  Self-imitation is a road to commercial art, at best, but not to making of artifacts which are the manifestation of the meeting of transitory Time and the person.”   Today, on Pentecost, I would like to paraphrase this statement in a way which would bring clear and challenging admonition to us in our life together as Christ’s church.  For our challenge let us hear the quote this way:  “The church has to fight to not be what she was yesterday.  For the church, self-imitation is a road to orthodoxy, at best, but not to meeting the Spirit in a transforming and personal way.” 

If Pentecost is about anything, it is about the transforming power of the Spirit in our midst.  It is about being made alive by the spirit. It is about a new awareness that bursts forth, emerging uniquely from our experience of Jesus as the living Christ.

Take the disciples as seen in the passage in Acts 2.  They had been, during their time with Jesus, followers and students of the Master.  They had been trying to capture the meaning of his teaching.  They had been trying to overcome their own expectations and interpretations of the role of the Messiah.  And since the crucifixion, they had been a huddled and scared remnant, hiding behind locked doors.  They had been told to do the one thing they could do faithfully—wait.  Wait until the Spirit arrived.  Wait until they had experienced transformation.  Wait until they received the power needed for the new day which was dawning upon and within them.  They had no idea what this meant or what they could expect next.  They waited and discovered what it was to mean as they went along.  They came to a new awareness of what it meant to be the followers of Christ and what it meant to experience the transformation that went along with that new awareness.  Gone was the competitive spirit among them.  Gone was the vision and hope of a conquering conquistador.  Gone was the seeking of advantage of privilege.  Gone was the fear that had driven them to cower in secrecy.  As the Spirit arrived upon them it was not the special effects of wind or the flame or the understanding of each his own language but rather the transformation of the body of believers which is the most striking and the special effect of the coming of the Spirit.  What is born at Pentecost is not a group who believed—that had already been formed through the teaching and resurrection of Christ.  What was born at Pentecost was a mission and the compelling force that would move the disciples forward on that mission.  What was born on Pentecost was an awareness of how the fact that Christ was still alive would transform the lives of those who experienced that truth.

Further, for an understanding of the renewing and life giving energy of the Spirit consider the vision of Ezekiel.  Ezekiel was taken to survey the remains of a defeated and long-dead army.  This was both a picture of the tragedy of defeat and the defilement of all Ezekiel knew to be ceremonially acceptable.  The bodies and bones of the dead were ceremonially unclean by the letter of the Jewish law.  The question at point was, to such a state of hopeless and despair, can there come new life?  Ezekiel watched as the power of the Spirit was displayed in amazing power.    Power of the Spirit over death.  Power of the Spirit to raise up an army from those long-since dead.  Raised up by the Spirit to move forward on a new mission. 

For all practical purposes, these two passages mirror one another.  The disciples, themselves, were an army of dry bones.  Life and hope had in a large sense dissipated.  Yet, it was not too late.  When the Spirit came upon them they began to have a new awareness and were able to “pull themselves together” and move forward as an empowered and living army.  But there had to be transformation.  They could not remain what they had been before.  They had to come to realize what the resurrection meant for them now.  They had to respond to the Spirit that moved upon and within them. 

The call of Pentecost to the church is a call to be transformed.  We cannot remain what we have been.  With each new day there is new purpose and new mission.  The intent and work of the Spirit is to awaken a new awareness within the church as to what our mission will be now.  The role of the Spirit is to give rise to an awareness of what it means to us for Christ to live.  To remain who we have been and accept what seems to be the inevitable is to fail to have poured out upon us the life-giving Spirit.

Remember the artist, George Wingate?  The expression of art for which he is known is still life.  He paints things we see every day.  Ordinary stuff.  Bowls.  Watering cans.  Stuff like that.  The difference is that when he, and other artists, look at the same stuff we do they tend to see much more than we see.  They discover a presence and a potential that we miss.  They see the special effects.  They see, if you will, spirit.  Then, they seem to bring these inanimate objects to life, even in their stillness. 

That is Pentecost!  God looks today at the church.  God asks the question, can there be any life there?  God has given the Holy Spirit as testimony that transformation and life await all who receive the Spirit.  What remains to be seen is if we, like the disciples, will awaken to new awareness of God’s mission and our role in it.  Will we continue to be who we have been or will we be transformed by the Spirit?  Will we be oblivious to the potential life within us?  Will we receive the Spirit who moves among and upon us and gives us renewed life?  Will we dream new dreams and have new visions for who we are to be? 

Then, and only then, can we be the church God calls us to be.  Then, and only then, can we be the church our mission to the world demands we be.  We are reminded in the words of Howard Thurman, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs.  Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”  What makes us come alive is the Spirit within us.  Let us be moved, transformed and given life as the Spirit is breathed upon us. The Spirit has more to bring to life than we have ever dared to ask or imagine.  Amen.