Windy City
May 28, 2023 + The Day of Pentecost + Pr. Craig Mueller
Chicago. The Windy City. Does this refer to frigid breezes that blow off the lake in the winter? Or that residents and politicians of the city were known to be full of “hot air?” Theories abound, but the nickname sticks. The Windy City. A city most of us call home. A city that most of us love.
Jerusalem is a windy city in the Pentecost account from Acts. From heaven comes a sound like the rush of a violent wind. A sweeping kind of swoosh, I imagine. And it fills the house where the apostles are sitting.
Violent winds can be destructive. Think cyclones, hurricanes, tornadoes, thunderstorms, dust storms. What is the violent wind that ushers in the Holy Spirit?
There is nothing like stale air on a hot, humid day. Air that is not moving can suck the life out of you. So we seek a breeze or head toward air-conditioning!
Spiritually speaking, what does it mean that there is no air movement? Are we stuck in our ways? Stuck in our thinking? Stuck in patterns that divide people, patterns that lead to violence and hatred?
Wind. Oh, there was a great wind that blew over the waters of creation. It could be read as a “strong and stormy wind.” But translators can’t help interpreting it as the wind, breath, or spirit of God. Like a mother, this Spirit lovingly hovers, broods, or “flutters” over the watery chaos.
And of course, Jesus tells Nicodemus that being born anew is being born of water and Spirit. A spirit that is like wind. You hear it. You see the effects. But you can’t name it. Or tame it.
Amid the grief and loss following Jesus’ death, he breathes the Spirit on the disciples. “Peace be with you.” Remember, in John, the Spirit is given on Easter evening. Receiving the Holy Spirit is the culmination of Easter. Today is the fiftieth day of Easter!
Jerusalem is a windy city on the day of Pentecost. And it leads to both razzle dazzle and confusion. Visitors in Jerusalem representing dozens of languages hear the good news in their native tongue. The disciples are empowered to speak some fifteen languages!
Who were all these visitors to Jerusalem and what were they doing? Was it an ordinary Sunday? Well, it was Pentecost, Shavuot. Fifty days after Passover. It celebrates the giving of the Torah to Moses on Mt. Sinai. The city was filled with pilgrims.
And they were devout Jews from every nation. Sometimes Christians contend that ancient Judaism was particular, while Christianity is universal. But today’s reading shows that Jews had found homes all across the Mediterranean and beyond. As one scholar puts it, “Christianity does not offer a new universal vision, but it relies on Jewish understandings of cosmopolitanism.”1
One woman tells of being in Russia for a week, not being able to understand anything. It was all gibberish to her. Then across a train platform she heard American English. She felt every molecule in her body relax. She suddenly felt at home.
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A few weeks ago I was walking through the park where I live, along Lake Michigan. It was an “ordinary Sunday,” I thought to myself. “Ordinary Sunday” is a phrase Stephen Sondheim uses in his musical “Sunday in the Park with George.”
I was walking by myself. And the more I listened to people as they passed me by, the more languages I heard. I could recognize Spanish, and perhaps Polish. But there were many others. I was a bit shocked. Were these recent immigrants from places like Ukraine?
But I was also proud to be in a city with so many languages and ethnicities and cultures and colors. All ages. People alone and in families. Same gender and opposite gendered couples. Some seeming rich and others poor. Some lifers and other new arrivals, like the migrants staying at the police stations on Addison. The human family in all its diversity. The kind of diversity that make some people uncomfortable. Yet, the diversity that Pentecost celebrates. The kind of diversity God creates and loves.
Yet this diversity creates confusion and even scorn. Our society is also struggling with how to welcome and acknowledge those different from us. Whether migrants at the border or those who understand themselves to be transgender or non-binary. The wind of the Spirit is always pushing boundaries.
Some Christians use the word “revival” to describe a time of spiritual renewal for a community. Holy Trinity is entering a windy season, a time of revival, a time of discernment and openness to where the Spirit is calling this community. We are in an anniversary year. We hope to be interviewing pastoral candidates for HTLoop in the coming months. We are beginning strategic planning. And we are exploring how our commitment to justice and diversity leads to repairing and healing the brokenness in our world, through the spiritual act of reparations.
When you are complacent, may the wind of the Spirit bring a revival of energy. When you are discouraged, may the wind of the Spirit bring hope. When you are stuck in old patterns and ways, may the wind of the Spirit bring an openness to change and a revitalized mission. And when you are overwhelmed may the Spirit blow upon you a fresh breeze of peace to calm your troubled heart.
So on this ordinary yet extraordinary Sunday, pay attention to the wind. To the storm and to the breeze. To the breath.
Sense the Spirit in it all. In our windy city. In the wind blowing new convictions in your heart. And in the wind blowing new energy in this community. Amen.