The story goes on - Pentecost

Acts 2: 17 - 21

My all time favourite film is Dead Poet’s Society.” In this film, Robin Williams plays the part of John Keating who is an inspiring English teacher in a rather stuffy American private school for boys. Keating’s methods are unorthodox, never more so than when he takes the boys down to look at the pictures of students from the past. Rather spookily, he urges them to press close up against the pictures and asks them to listen to what those boys would tell them. Then he begins to whisper;

“Carpe Diem! Carpe Diem!”

“Seize the day! Have an extraordinary life!”

Not all the boys take the message in. And that is true at times in our Christian lives. We become content with what is rather than dreaming dreams of great possibilities. Sometimes, anyone would think that the first of the miracles of Jesus was to turn wine into water rather than the other way round.

Yet at Pentecost, Peter links the outpouring of the Holy Spirit with Old Testament prophecies in which people see visions and dream dreams.

I can’t help but wonder if we need visions and dreams today. We can look back at how Jesus enriched the lives of those at the bottom of the pile, smashed down walls of prejudice and proclaimed a Kingdom in which all are of value. Are there not dreams there for us to engage with. Martin Luther King in the face of racism proclaimed a dream of a world in which people would be judged by their characters rather than the colour of their skins. What I wonder are our modern dreams

- against war and the stench of the arms trade

- against the things that enslave people and cost them the fullness of life

- against torture and every form of cruelty

- for a kinder society in which all are valued.

None of these are new dreams. They are about a continuation of Christ’s proclamation of the Kingdom. And surely that matters.

I am reminded of how the Italian composer Puccini died whilst writing his opera “Turandot.” Friends eventually completed the work. In 1926, it was performed for the first time at La Scala Opera House in Milan. On the first night, it was conducted by Toscanini who reached the point where Puccini died where he dropped the baton and sadly said;

“At this point the maestro died!”

That was all for that night. But in subsequent performances, Turandot was perfomed as completed.

At Pentecost, the question before us is do we end the story of God’s love as revealed in Jesus at the point of Ascension or do we take it on to live in peoples’ lives and our world today. The gift of the Holy Spirit was linked to the call to take the message of Jesus into the world. So Pentecost is a time to remember that we are called into an ongoing story of God’s Kingdom in which we are all called to be signs of God’s grace.

Of course we cannot do it on our own. The task is just too big but we do not need to do it on our own. I cannot stand musicals and I like Liverpool football club even less. But a song from Carousel that is sung so regularly by the Kop puts it well;

“When you walk through a storm,
Hold your head up high,
And don't be afraid of the dark.
At the end of a storm,
There's a golden sky,
And the sweet silver song of a lark.
Walk on through the wind, Walk on through the rain,
Though your dreams be tossed and blown..

Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart,
And you'll never walk alone.......
You'll never walk alone.”

And that’s the message of Pentecost. As you dream dreams and see visions of what can be in God’s world, you never walk alone. Because the Go between God that is the Holy Spirit is with you.


This sermon is being preached at a Churches Together service in Bideford on Sunday May 27th 2007