Pentecost, June 4th, 2006
Acts 2:1-12
The Rev. Marlene Wagner Pomeroy
First Congregational Church of Pasadena, UCC
 
On Friday I was driving around Montrose with my air conditioning blaring, thankful that I had an air conditioned car since it was 90 degrees outside. What a change from the cool and wet spring that we had. I was noticing that very few people were walking the streets at lunchtime on this day. Then I noticed a woman standing on the curb in front of Carl's Junior, holding up a poster board, sweating. She looked very hot.  I looked back to see what her poster said. It simply said, "Boycott Carl's Junior; sexist and distasteful ads." I had seen the previous ad campaigns - the first one that caught my eye was the one of Hugh Hefner eating a burger while making suggestive noises, punctuated by shots of playgirls smiling. My daughter Kaley asked if those women were his daughters. No I said as I explained, reluctantly, who Hugh Hefner was and what his legacy is to our society. Hmmm, I thought. When did Hugh Hefner get to be mainstream enough to be hawking burgers? Next, we got the treat of Paris Hilton featured in a Carl's Junior ad, washing a car. It was a memorable ad. Like the woman standing with the poster, I too was offended at both ad campaigns. I vowed never to eat at Carl's Junior after having to watch Hugh Hefner, but I wasn't standing outside in the heat making my statement.  I really wanted to pull my car over and talk to this woman and hear what pushed her over the edge to do something. I admired her for standing alone, in the baking sun and making a statement. When are we going to stand up and say enough sexualizing every aspect of life and teaching a whole new generation of young people that it is okay to objectify women???
 
Movements start small. They usually start with a single person or a small group of people who either get stirred up or who have an idea that takes hold of them and haunts them. The AIDS quilt is now 25 years old, and if laid out, would fill 24 football fields. It is too large to display any more in its entirety, and is stored and mended in a warehouse in Atlanta. You can rent out portions of the quilt, and we see a few panels each December as part of our Posada here in our church and in Pasadena.  The quilt was a public outpouring of grief that "primed the funding pipeline that has poured billions of dollars into AIDS research." (L.A. Times, June 4, 2006) There is an entire article about the quilt on the front page of the L.A. Times today.  In 1996 the entire quilt was laid out on the National Mall in D.C. and 1 million people showed up to view it. I was there that weekend and it was startling how huge it was and how personal each panel was. Then President Bill Clinton toured the quilt. After that display, money flowed from personal and federal sources, drugs were developed, and the deaths in the U.S. peaked and started to decline. After a decade of people seeing entire networks of friends wiped out by this disease, prevention education and medication has turned around this disease in our country. The AIDS crisis is no longer a gay, white man's disease, but a disease that is growing in the minority populations, with women, and primarily outside of the U.S.
 
The quilt idea started with a man named Cleve Jones. In 1985 Jones was an activist in San Francisco and he was on the streets with a bullhorn, remembering the 7th anniversary of the murders of Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone.  Five men with AIDS had been chained to the doors of the Federal building for a month trying to raise public awareness for an epidemic that was largely being ignored because it was seen as a gay disease.  Jones handed out poster and pens to people who were gathered and urged them to write down the names of people who had died of AIDS. He looked at all those posters with names and writings that said things like, "my friend, my brother, and it made an impression on him. When his close friend died of the disease he conceived the idea of making a quilt. He made the first panel in 1987 for his best friend Marvin Feldman.  The AIDS quilt, which moved people and provided the emotional impetus for funding started with one man.
 
Our biblical text today is the story of Pentecost - the story of the small group of disciples receiving the Holy Spirit and what some describe as the birth of the church. Written between the years 70-100 after the birth of Christ, it is written by the same author who composed the Gospel of Luke. It is an extension of the Gospel narrative and articulates the history of the early church. Almost half the book describes the conversion and the subsequent journeys of Paul as he plants early churches around the Mediterranean region. But the book begins with this story, a snapshot of the early church. Quite a contrast to the church today with its many buildings, publications, events, membership. It was originally a small group of followers who sat at the feet of Jesus, listening, learning, who suffered through his death, marveled at the post-resurrection appearances and descriptions and then were left on their own to develop his legacy.
 
We are meant to notice certain things in this text. First, they gather. It doesn't say who, just "they," which underscores the birth of the church in community. They gather and we don't see them talking, planning, brainstorming, just gathered?.waiting. And then we hear that the Holy Spirit fills the room with a violent, rushing wind, with noise, disruptiveness, fire. And finally, there is speech, all different kinds of languages being spoken. We are meant to notice that the disciples first received the power of God's Spirit before they acted. That, just like the creative, chaotic spirit of creation in Genesis 1, God's power to create precedes human endeavor.   And then the first gift of this creative Spirit is speech.  We are meant to notice who is speaking up - Peter, the disciple who questioned Jesus, who didn't always get it, who cowered when questioned by a young woman in the courtyard, who slinked away at the trial.  Peter is an unlikely preacher and yet the Spirit of God uses him to move this movement forward, out from the inner room to the public space. Peter speaks with authority and certainty on this day and we are meant to notice this turn-about.
 
What a fitting text for our church today - the day when we celebrate the activities of the past year, when we have our business meeting and induct new officers, when we celebrate the work and gifts of our leaders and the ministries we have engaged in during the past year. What a fitting text to remind us that God's spirit is suppose to be the creative energy behind our voices and our decisions as a church. A reminder that God comes to us first before we stand and speak. There is great fear and great excitement at the beginning of a movement. And it takes great energy and effort to continue a movement and to breathe fresh life into one that is older. We have the legacy of a Tradition that was born almost 2000 years ago. We have a local church that has been cared for and nurtured by people who came before us with a vision for a local congregational church in the city of Pasadena. It is our job to continue its history, to be faithful to the God who is behind us, and beneath us, and in front of us and all around us. Unlike the AIDS quilt which is too big to unfurl, and is stored lovingly in a warehouse in the south, our church is meant to be a living witness to the power of God to transform lives. We are the ones who are charged with the task of letting the Holy Spirit breathe new life into our church. Our text today tells us that it happens when we open ourselves to God's spirit, when we let unlikely people speak up in truth, and when we are guided not just by our strengths, but by the power of the living God.  Amen.