A sermon preached on the Day of Pentecost, June 8, 2003
Texts: Ezekiel 37:1-14 and Acts 2:1-21

It occurred to me yesterday, as sheets of rain once again ruined an early June morning, that today’s sermon title may not muster much enthusiasm among the faithful. Though our biblical texts for today call us to be drenched in the spirit, perhaps you feel that the leaking skies of this soggy spring have drenched us quite enough. And yet as Susan Bowis said during Bible study on Wednesday, the relentless weeping of these gray days has left her soul strangely parched. And so maybe the contrast of Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones with the powerful precipitation of the Spirit in Luke’s pentecostal church—maybe our scripture for today can be a fountain of hope and life and renewal amidst the spiritual drought of God’s people.

In a recent article, Rodger Nishioka, the youth guru in our denomination, has suggested that in the 21st century, our solid church is being called to morph and melt into the liquid church. Now exactly what does he mean? What does a liquid church look like? Well, a liquid church is a community that is flexible and flowing with new energy and creative structure. It is a church inspired not so much by order but by ardor. It is a church bubbling over with compassion instead of frozen by ritual and law. A liquid church is an alternative community—opened up and poured out. And it is full of ambiguity, mystery, paradox, wonder, and awe. Yes, a liquid church will transform itself from mostly head into a sinuous, centered body—an integrated mind/ heart/ soul body—a body dancing, delighting, demanding that abundant life be given to all. Today as the artisans in our midst sing and ring, recite and dance, perhaps we can all loosen up a bit. Perhaps we can melt into a liquid fountain of grace—bubbling up and blessing the world.

Pentecost is the second most important day of the Christian year—a reality that Hallmark, thank God, has yet to discover. You see, Easter is the absolute center of our faith. But without Pentecost, Easter is but a dusty relic of the past. My friends, Pentecost is the day when we become Easter—when we remember and then celebrate and become, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the resurrected Body of Christ in the world.

And so, to play with our metaphor a bit today, let’s ask ourselves a question. What kind of liquid are we—the church of Jesus Christ—called to be in the year of our Lord 2003?

First and foremost, we are called to be water—simple, sensational, spiritual H2O—the essential nutrient of life. Of course, water is the most visible sign of God’s invisible grace within the life of the church. You know the mantra as well as I do—the familiar words of the baptism ritual. It was out of the watery chaos that God created the world. It was after the devastating deluge of the flood that God promised never again to destroy the earth. It was through the waters of the Red Sea that God led the people of Israel from slavery to freedom—a wilderness journey that continues to this day amid the enslaving idolatries of our modern world. And it was up out of the waters of the River Jordan that Jesus was baptized—named and blessed and set apart for his unique ministry in the world—a promise and re-creation that happens to each one of us when we are baptized in his name. Today, on Pentecost, our water baptism is sealed by a Spirit baptism, when we become liquid waterfalls of grace, tumbling enthusiastically out there into the life of the world—poured out to drench a parched world with hope and promise and possibility. And if we decide to stay locked into safe, secure rooms of privilege and privacy, well, then, we are spurning the very purpose for which we have been baptized—to be co-creators with God of a divine, diverse, delightful world where all God’s children—ALL GOD’S CHILDREN—will dance together around an abundant table of peace and justice.

Last year I had the privilege to visit a contemporary Roman Catholic cathedral in the high desert of New Mexico. It was an elegant sun-drenched space full of lively symbols and shapes. But central to the vast sanctuary was a huge baptismal pool—not a font, but a deep, wide pool with a geyser of turbulent water erupting constantly in the middle of the room—a fountain of grace cascading with the constant cacophony of falling water. Each Sunday in that cathedral the worship service begins around the pool—reminding the people of their baptism. And each Sunday the worship service ends around the pool as the refreshed people of God are poured out for service in the world. Yes, indeed the Christian faith—lovely liquid life—drenching the dry valleys of a desert world.

And so the liquid church is water. But, brothers and sisters, the liquid church is also tears. In a brilliant sermon preached after 9/11, Peter Gomes reminds us Western Christians about the central drama of Eastern baptism. In Orthodox Christian communities, infants are baptized within days of their birth. And after being immersed three times in a deep font of water, the squalling child is then struck hard three times by the large pectoral cross of the priest. This seemingly inhumane ritual is meant to bless the child with the raw reality of life—to remind all worshipers that Christians are people of the cross. This ritual starkly reminds all of us that the cross symbolizes pain and suffering, trials and troubles, and that the power of baptism is the power to endure the inevitable tribulations and terrors of this life. But, most of all, this wounding of an infant calls the child into our Christian vocation, which is to be wounded healers. You see the power of baptism is the power to be holy compassion and comfort for, and with, others who suffer in God’s unfinished world.

Ernest Gordon was for years the dean of the chapel at Princeton. During World War II, he was captured on the River Kwai and spent months in a Japanese prison camp. At first he and the other captives were pious in their discipline—praying, reading scripture, singing and testifying to their faith. But none of it did any good in bringing comfort or hope to these desperate prisoners. All their piety managed to do was turn them bitter toward a God who seemed to be absent. It was only when they began to care for one another, protecting the weaker ones and in some cases dying for them—it was only when they started to love their enemies, the Japanese guards—it was only then that these British and American soldiers discovered the spirit of God in their midst. They discovered that faith is not what you believe, but what you do. They discovered that faith is not about certainty, but about compassion. They discovered that tears of suffering and solidarity can be the fountain of God’s grace in desperate times. The discovered that tears are sometimes the only liquid hope in dry valleys of human despair.

And so Liquid Church, we are called to be water, which is grace. We are called to be tears, which is compassion. And then, wonderfully and playfully, we are called to be champagne—not the contrived champagne of fermented grapes, but the pure, healthy new wine of the Spirit—the fresh presence of God in unexpected places, in unexpected times, in unexpected people. My favorite verse in the Acts Pentecost story is the immediate judgment of the crowd that these spirit-filled Christians must be drunk at 9 o’clock in the morning. Why else would they be frenetically running around, babbling in a hundred different languages? But then there is Peter’s wonderful response. Yes these crazy folks are intoxicated—but not by the buzz of cheap wine. They are intoxicated by the completely new, completely natural champagne of the Spirit—the very presence of God dancing and bubbling and pouring out, through them, through us, into the world.