Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, May 20, 2018
Acts 2:1-21
Does your life feel full right now? In a good way, or in a bad way? Maybe a better way to phrase the question is to ask, “What is your life full of?” Do you feel too busy running from thing to thing? Do you have a lot of “have to dos” in your life with spring clean-up projects unfinished, work and family obligations, evening and weekend commitments? Or is your life full of good things: time with family, celebrating graduations, births, reunions, vacation plans? I’d like us to take a minute to reflect quietly – you can write some things down if you want to…what is your life full of, and what of those things might God be asking you to let go of?
Our reading from Acts is full of God’s activity in people’s lives! Two verses struck me this week as I reflected on this story of Pentecost: “And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.” And a little later on in verse four, “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” The story of Pentecost is about God’s Holy Spirit filling up the entire house and everybody in that house so that they live by the Spirit and not by their own will and desires. Wouldn’t that be awesome? To be so full of the Holy Spirit that we would know exactly what God’s will was for us. That we would understand each other, even those who speak different languages. That we would see God’s deeds of power clearly at work in our lives! This is God’s dream for us – that we live by God’s Spirit!
I have a photo frame in my office that quotes Psalm 103:5, “He fills my life with good things.” What an important reminder any day but especially today, where we celebrate the power of the Holy Spirit. God DOES fill our lives with good things. We may not experience what the people gathered in the house that first Pentecost experienced with flames and tongues of fire above people’s heads, but God’s Spirit still today fills our lives with good things. As you reflect on those questions I asked earlier, though, we as Americans are really good at filling our lives with a bunch of stuff so that there’s not as much room for God’s Spirit to fill us up. Appointments, deadlines, “shoulds” can snuff out the exhilarating freedom of living by the Holy Spirit. God wants to give us room to breathe. The Holy Spirit is sometimes even described as breath itself. When we ask God what we might need to let go, we’re letting God make space for the Holy Spirit to fill us up with good things.
These first believers in the book of Acts had enough space in their lives to show up to this Pentecost event. They were all together in one place, and it was full of people, but there was still room for the Holy Spirit to fill them up. Because of their openness to God filling up their lives, and their willingness to live by God’s Holy Spirit, we Christians are here today! The Holy Spirit continues to call, gather, and enlighten us as the church today! My prayer for us today is that God fills us with God’s dream, and gives us God’s vision so that our lives are full in a good way, with good things. Rather than looking at the calendar with dread to see how full of stuff it is, we can look at our God-breathed lives to see our lives are FULL, led by the Holy Spirit. God has given us so many gifts: musical talent, the ability to have more than enough food, clothes, shelter so that our generosity can flow to others, family, friends, health, joy. Today we celebrate all that is good as gifts from God: given to us not because we deserve it or earned it, but because God is loving and gracious and WANTS to fill up our lives with good things, not just any old stuff. Amen.
