Fasten Your Seatbelts
Acts 2:1-21 and 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
The Rt. Rev. Frank Logue preached this sermon for the Diocese of Georgia livestream on the Feast of Pentecost, May 31, 2020.
Fasten your seatbelts we are in for a wild and wonderful ride.
We are off the map—out in uncharted territory—
but fear not for God is with us and it is gonna be fun.
Yesterday, I was consecrated as Bishop of Georgia, in the first ordination of a bishop with the congregation taking part almost exclusively through livestream. There was no guide on how to make that liturgy work. Yet the ordination came together beautifully.
Canon Joshua Varner guided the virtual choirs in three very different hymns. Then there were the congregations getting banner bearers filmed and sent in so that you could see your church in the liturgy. All together more than 100 people were part of the ordination that had just 10 of us taking part in the nave of Christ Church, Savannah, with a livestream crew and organist Tim Hall and Joshua up in the balcony.
I offer this little look back to yesterday because it demonstrates clearly how when we seek to faithfully follow Jesus in this strange time we are living through, the Holy Spirit shows up and we discover gifts we never knew we had.
Christians have lived through unprecedented times before and Christ has never left his church or failed his followers. That first Feast of Pentecost, those gathered in the Upper Room in Jerusalem had no idea what was coming next. They were gathering daily and devoting themselves to prayer trusting God to show up.
In looking at one came next, I turn to our readings. It’s funny how a new context can cause you to see scripture in a new light. In our reading from John’s Gospel, Jesus breathes on the disciples.
I never saw that act as risky before. Inspiring, yes, but didn’t Jesus know that while he might have wanted his Movement to go viral, it shouldn’t be taken so literally? And the image of the disciples packed into a room in Jerusalem also struck me as unsafe in a way it never had before.
The truth is that gathering for worship has always been intimate. We join our voices together. We hug. We share a common cup. These acts connect us more closely with each other even as we draw closer to God.
We Christians have always been an odd lot. Romans didn’t know what to do with us. The Empire didn’t mind if we had our own God. They just needed us to also worship the Empire. Early Christians would sing hymns praising God and pray for those killing them when they were dragged into the Coliseums and threatened with death if they would not deny Jesus and worship the emperor. In every time, in every culture, Christians at their best have provided a leaven of love. Like the yeast that transforms the bread dough, that love has been transformative.
We the Diocese of Georgia embark on this new episcopacy in a time unlike any other. For while we faced pandemic in 1918 that shuttered out churches as the Spanish Flu raged, we now have the ability to stay connected in ways unimaginable a century ago. This is challenging I know. I am concerned about those who can’t take part in our online worship, and even for those of us who do, as wonderful as it can be, this way of worshipping is still not the same as our familiar gatherings.
But I see this is a very fruitful time, for I know that the same Spirit that hovered over creation turned Jesus’ not exactly all-star team of fisherfolk, a tax collector, and the like into witnesses who changed the world. That same Spirit was with us yesterday in the ordination and consecration.
The Reverend Julia Sierra Reyes brought the word as told me that the Bishop is to keep the main thing the main thing, knowing that the main thing is love that we put in action. She was so very right that my becoming Bishop of Georgia is not about me.
One of the things I discovered from the election until now, is that though three bishops laid hands on me, bishops do not make a bishop. You chose to make me a bishop through an election. Parishioners of the diocese, represented through their delegates and clergy at the convention, trusted that they were doing God’s will in voting for me to become your bishop. Those votes endorsed by the whole church in a consent process are why I am preaching to you online this Pentecost. Yes, the sacrament yesterday mattered as the Bishops asked God to make me a Bishop and the Holy Spirit showed up. Like every sacrament, ordination is not something we do, but something we ask God to do for us and God is faithful.
Paul in writing about the Body of Christ captures a theological truth that is central to how I see leadership. God never ever gives the answer to one person. Not once. As we are created to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves, we were literally made for each other, even as we were made for God. And so I am not the one with all the answers. Leading the church is not about that sort of omnicompetent expertise. Instead, we as a body have what we need and as new people are drawn to follow Jesus alongside us, they will bring new gifts.
Nothing has taught me that we don’t know what lies ahead like the changes that we have faced in these first months of 2020. And nothing has taught me about God’s faithfulness like the ways the Spirit has shown up again and again in these months.
I don’t have a carefully crafted plan to roll out. I just have a deep commitment to following Jesus ever more faithfully. And I know that together, the challenges we face are not insurmountable because we are keeping Jesus at the center.
I want you to know that I do not aspire to being a great bishop. The church has suffered enough from those who sought greatness in this call. I intend to follow Sierra’s counsel yesterday to be a faithful bishop. And as a faithful bishop it can’t be about me and it can’t even be about you.
For if we get loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves right, then what we do together will be for the sake of those who are still stumbling around in the dark needing the light of the love of God shining in the hearts of ordinary people like me and you. Just like on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit is ready to turn followers of Jesus into people who make the love of God real, putting love in action. I can’t wait to see what God does with our faithfulness to transform lives and communities.
We are off the map—out in uncharted territory—
but fear not for God is with us and it is gonna be fun.
Fasten your seatbelts we are in for a wild and wonderful ride.