From Stillness Into Streaming

Acts 2:1-11  John 16:4b – 15  Exodus 14:14

I have a secret place and it is a bridge no wider than a narrow plank of wood. I like to stand in the middle of it and gaze this way and that.

To my right I see water that is a wide, still, brooding lake upon which nothing stirs, only the little patterns in the water created by passing ducks. The stillness of it all reminds me of the way I must approach God in prayer.

To my left the water becomes a narrow, tumbling laughing sort of  brook. It’s busy and it’s noisy and its flowing down and away to quench the thirst of the dry  fields in the distance. The way it streams reminds me that  I am called to be a channel of God’s grace. Full of sparkling intent for the good of the kingdom. 

The narrow plank on which I stand is a tiny weir through which water is transformed from stillness to streaming. As if it were the people of God on Pentecost Sunday.

If you were here last week you will recall I spoke of the newly elected Apostle,  Matthias, about whose life nothing is recorded, from the moment his name came out of the hat.

Pentecost would have been his first day at the office. Imagine him, imagine you gathering in the upper room with Peter, James and John and all the others wondering what it was going to be like.

 I see him shifting nervously in his seat, wondering what the programme for the day was going to be, the timetable, the agenda, the subject under discussion.

And the other eleven just sitting there in stillness  round the table, with no papers in front of them. Just being still, like my lake in my secret place but Matthias bobbing about in his seat – wanting to get to grips with things.

The eleven are still because they are afraid – afraid of what might happen and whether they can cope with it, and they are excited because they truly do believe that God is going to act.

Back in the archives of our faith story we find the tale of the crossing of the Red Sea. The people of Israel have run away from slavery in Egypt  and they are making good progress until they come to the edge of a sea without a bridge to cross by. The sea is deep and the waves are crashing about in an alarming sort of way. Behind them they hear the massed ranks of the Egyptians chariots getting closer and closer and they know they are trapped. Literally caught between the devil and the deep blue sea – for this sea was not Red, by the way,  – it’s just that there were reeds all along the bank and the spelling’s got mixed up over time.

The people are thrown into panic and Moses frantically prays to God for guidance and as a result he comes out with words which must have amazed him “The Lord will fight for you” he cries “You have only to be still”.

Be still, when there’s a war to fight?  Be still when the enemy is at the gate?  Be still when there is so much to do – what sort of leader was this guy?

Stillness then all over the world and in heaven where angels are holding their breath.

Stillness in the locked upper room at Pentecost. Stillness before the Reed Sea – just after Passover.  Stillness amongst the twelve tribes of Israel.  Stillness amongst the twelve apostles.  “Be still for the presence of the Lord” we sing, because we love the thought of it, as freedom from the crowded lives with which we’ve allowed ourselves to become shackled.

Then  in the Upper Room the door bursts open and in pours wind and fire. Then on the banks of the Reed Sea, the water wells up into a massive wall and it thunders as it does so.

The twelve disciples go streaming out of the door and into the city of Jerusalem, full of confidence and vision. Matthias stumbles out last and wishes for a moment that it had not been him. He wishes for a moment that it had been Joseph Justus, before he lets himself go into the glory of it and his name is lost forever.

The Israelites go streaming across the Reed Sea on dry ground and every last one of them are saved and even before they are  puffing and panting  on the far shore they have a song on their lips extolling Moses and the mighty God Yahweh.

The Egyptian soldiers have never had time for stillness, so they go plunging on without thinking and they are drowned. Every man Jack!

The Pharsees and Saducees emerge bleary eyed from an eight hour meeting of the Sanhedrin  dealing with a faculty application to renew the veil of the temple which had been torn in two a couple of Friday’s ago through a mindless act of vandalism. The whole city in uproar because of the Jesus movement they thought they’d put to death. Their minutes and reports and rule books are blown out of their hands, up into the sky and only come to rest in the rubbish dump Golgotha where they had dared to try to kill God.

From stillness to streaming. From fear to hope. From crucifixion to resurrection. From darkness to light and knowing it to be true, that’s what this great festival day is really about.

What must it have been like to have been caught up in that great day? Was it just an overpowering sensation that brought the whole city to a standstill, the spectacle of it all, or was it the words and actions of common sense that now poured forth from these apostles. .

 We need to know, because we are surely called to stream forth from the stillness of our worship with the same intent as they, if not the same great commotion.

If you read on through the early chapters of Acts, you will see how this streaming forth began to mean something. How God channelled it.

Peter it was who told the people they needed to repent for their sidelining of Jesus and for putting to death the one in whom was life and if that was their good intention then baptism was on offer not for those who had completed an eight week course, but there and then “each and every one of you”. Those who joined these ranks shared their lives openly with one another holding all things in common and breaking the bread daily, They began to bring healing to people being sure to pray in the name of Jesus, not their own strength.

They streamed forth like a tumbling, laughing brook, quenching the thirst of the  dry fields in the distance.

Forgiving.  Belonging.  Sharing. Healing. Praying. – “Make me a channel of your peace” we sing  and here’s how!

And then, and then ..they were clapped into prison, the lot of them, but they way they conducted themselves in adversity meant that even in jail, even when one of them was actually killed, people looked to them and were still for a moment, wondering reflecting and calculating, and then streaming after them to become part of it.

It’s a bridge no wider than a narrow plank of wood on which we stand this morning.  A flimsy weir caught between stillness and streaming.  A  church at the crossroads. A  disciple wondering which way to turn.

RH 31.5.09