Enterprising Disciples
Numbers 11:24-30;   Acts 2:1-13
May 11, 2008
Jonathan B. Lee

One thing we can say about the Holy Spirit on this Pentecost Sunday is that when it comes, it tends to work as an equal opportunity employer. Like the wind, the Spirit blows and whoever is there feels the effect, no matter their credentials or position or understanding. During the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt into the Promised Land, there was an established pattern for encounters between God’s spirit and Moses and certain elders. But in today’s installment of the story from the Book of Numbers, there is great commotion because two men, Eldad and Medad, seem to have been touched by the spirit out of pattern. We’re told a young man runs to tell Moses—it sure reads like he’s tattling on them—“Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp!” and Joshua, Moses’ right hand man, is absolutely flummoxed. But wise Moses shakes his head and says, “Good! We’d be better off altogether if everyone got the Spirit.” Now, fast forward twelve or thirteen centuries to a moment described in the gospel lesson from John two weeks ago, when Jesus promises the disciples that after he leaves, God would send the Advocate, the Counselor, the Holy Spirit who would help them remember all his teachings and even impart new ones. And as we hear today, that promise was kept on Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit blows in to the house where the disciples are hunkered down, sets them on spiritual fire, and the church is born. And note that, as usual, the Spirit is not discriminating—the words of Luke’s familiar account say “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit” and all went out and started telling of God’s truth in a variety of ways that the diverse population of Jerusalem could hear.

As we try to get a handle on the Holy Spirit—what it is and how it moves and motivates our spiritual lives—we shouldn’t overlook or underestimate the importance of this inclusiveness of the Holy Spirit. It means that God works directly on every single one of us, that no one has a monopoly on divine wisdom, and that there are no rules for how God chooses to get through to us. The Holy Spirit may move in your life during worship, but maybe not—maybe the Spirit comes as you lie in bed, or do the daily commute, or play with children, or wash the dishes, or work in the garden. That is so central to our Protestant heritage: no necessary middlemen between you and God, thanks to the Holy Spirit.

And because the Spirit touches everyone, something else amazing happens: all the qualities and skills and characteristics and, yes, the eccentricities that make you and me the individuals we are, when the Spirit moves in our lives, it picks up all those qualities and skills and characteristics and eccentricities and puts them into the service of the Lord and of Christ’s church. In other words, it isn’t just religious authority figures who spread the word and do ministry, it’s everyone, and not just a general everyone, but specifically unique individuals like machinists and insurance adjustors and homemakers and musicians and nurses and florists and quilters and computer geeks. God doesn’t take away individuality in making us faithful; God embraces and magnifies that individuality in order to reach others. Because of Pentecost we know God uses our personality and perspective to make the good news as diversely expressed and lived out as possible. Who better to explain the good news to a political animal than a person of faith who is herself a political animal? Who better to model Christian discipleship to an athlete than one who knows the world view and hopes and challenges of the athlete first hand?

This Mother’s Day I’m mindful of an old Spanish proverb that says “an ounce of mother is worth a ton of priest.” In other words, if one is lucky enough to have a good mother, the Holy Spirit may move more powerfully, may inspire faith more deeply, through that person than through a lifetime of churchgoing. Because of the Holy Spirit, God can reach us through those with whom we most clearly connect—whether or not they’re theological experts or religious professionals or able to use spiritual jargon or ideas. If you are inspired by the way things grow in your garden, you might rewrite that old proverb to say, “An ounce of wise gardener is worth a ton of priest.” It’s not to dismiss the religious dimension of faith, but simply to acknowledge that God’s Holy Spirit is at work in your life and mine in ways that are, by definition, unconventional, unpredictable, and as wonderfully colorful and odd as all of us.

And that’s a good thing, because you and I, as men and women touched by the Holy Spirit, are the visible church, and the Holy Spirit is our lifeblood, flowing through us. And though it seems odd to put it this way, can you see how wise, how clever God is in sending the Holy Spirit the way it comes? When you and I are inspired, we can’t help but literally do something. Eldad and Medad are touched by the Spirit and, quite in contrast to the roles they were expected to play, the two start prophesying to the people at the camp, while Moses and the elders are off having a close encounter. When the Holy Spirit comes upon the huddled disciples, they are moved to go out among the people and start speaking of their faith, to tell their own stories of God’s power in their lives. And they get creative and use new words, new language to get the point across.

This time around, this Pentecost, the word that comes to mind when I think about what the Holy Spirit does to disciples is that it makes them—us—enterprising, it makes us want to risk creatively—again, in ways uniquely suited to personality and perspective. Webster says that to be enterprising is “to be ready to undertake projects of importance or difficulty, or untried schemes; energetic in carrying out any undertaking” and that being enterprising is “characterized by great imagination or initiative.” Pentecost is the birthday of the church because on that day the Holy Spirit made the original disciples enterprising, creative, ready to take imaginative action to get the word out. And the Christian church has survived for so long—through some really incredibly difficult times—because the Holy Spirit has worked to make disciples in every generation enterprising. This church wouldn’t be here had not people in each of our near 30 decades been extremely clever in figuring out how to keep things going with enthusiasm, and, because of the Holy Spirit, our members devised creative and faithful ways to live out, express, and teach the faith. And we haven’t endured because all our spiritual ancestors were clever in the same way, we’ve endured because there have been particular people with a spectrum of skills and perspectives and resources and convictions—all of whom the Spirit inspired to bring into the mix of the Christian story as we’ve lived it here.

This Wednesday, I’ll be making a presentation to the Stepney Guild of our church, which normally wouldn’t be out of the ordinary—Stepney has invited people to present programs of interest for a long time now. But what makes Wednesday different is that this will be the last formal meeting ever of the Stepney Guild, save for a final luncheon of the ladies in June. The members have assessed where the Guild is, and determined that because times have changed since the group began back in the 40s, it’s best to draw to a close. One of our church histories recounts how Stepney Guild got started. It “was formed with 45 members ‘for the purpose of providing the Church with service wherever it was needed.’ Among their projects were funds for new choir robes, equipment for Church and Vacation School, sponsorship of youth to summer conferences, contributions to Red Cross and War Relief Victims, a ‘store’ to support the building of the Parish House. Under Guild sponsorship the first town kindergarten was established and continued for 9 years.”

Talk about enterprising disciples: Stepney saw needs and was inspired to respond creatively. And now, as needs and abilities and availabilities have changed, so too will that organization. Does that mean the Holy Spirit is departing? No, the Holy Spirit is about new enterprises, some already flowing, some yet to be determined. In regard to the former, the women of the Stepney Guild don’t want to relinquish the important fellowship aspect of their gatherings, so will be continuing to meet for conversation—just not as the Stepney Guild. And all the other service so faithful rendered by the Guild—well, we’ll have to let the Holy Spirit show all of us how to fill in. For example, one of the most meaningful and effective enterprises of the Guild has been to provide lovely, comforting receptions after funerals and memorial services, and that is now proving to be too much to undertake. And while we say thank you to so many women (and men who have helped, too) who have so faithfully ministered to grieving families this way, we now look to the creative juice of the Holy Spirit to inspire the rest of us to be enterprising in continuing this practice, to help us to imagine and devise and dream up a new approach to meeting an important need. And the Spirit will deliver, just as it did when Stepney saw the need way back when and responded in their unique way.

One day, Chapin Hall will be finished and we will find ourselves in a new and beautiful space. And it’s worth asking: through the Holy Spirit’s influence we have been very enterprising in bringing that renovation about—we were ready to undertake a difficult project, we used our imaginations in planning the space and figuring out the funding, we’ve been energetic in responding throughout—including that quick relocation of Sunday worship a couple of weeks ago—but now that the end is in sight, how will the Holy Spirit’s enterprising influence lead us to use that space to the glory of God and the good of the gospel? What Chapin Hall activities will we keep from the past, and what creative, unexpected new ones will percolate through and shape our life together for the next generation?

The point is that the Holy Spirit continues to be about magnifying all that is good in us, as individuals and as a community, and inspiring us to be responsive and creative and enterprising in using who and what we are in the service of Christian discipleship—the kind we live out on ordinary days when we’re off in our own routines, and on all those days and ways we come together to be a family of faith. You are a unique creation of God, given a unique relationship with God. The Holy Spirit comes again to draw out you and me and all our individual gifts and perspectives, because Christ is not served by disciples going it alone. The Holy Spirit comes to pool our individual goodness into an enterprise that moves with a divine life all its own, all for the good of you and me and all those we are and will be called to serve. Thanks be to God once more this Pentecost for the gift of that Holy Spirit.

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