"To Be A Hero" - Pentecost C

Genesis 11:1-9
Acts 2:1-21

Charles Dickens began the book David Copperfield with these words:  “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”1

Those brave men who, “In the predawn darkness of June 6, 1944 ... crawled down swaying cargo nets and thudded into steel landing craft bound for the Normandy coast” were heros. Their senses were soon choked with the smells of wet canvas gear, seawater and acrid clouds of powder from the huge naval guns firing just over their heads”2 but they pressed on.

They all probably left American soil with tears in their eyes asking one question running through their minds: “Where am I going, and when am I coming back.”3
 

When asked to describe D-day by Shepard Smith Cpl. John McHugh described it this way:  “Well D-Day was– you really can’t describe D-Day. You’re so, you’re petrified. You’re absolutely petrified,” said McHugh. 

“It’s hell. It’s just hell on Earth. I can’t describe it any better. I don’t think anyone can really describe it.   It’s - needless to say, I had a bad day.”

Shep then asked him about his “big picture considerations back then, such as that they were fighting for freedom.”

“I was in the Army, and they told me to go that way, and I went that way,” came the veteran’s veteran reply. He added later “You know, you get drafted. You had to do it, and I did it. Did it pretty good, too."4

That is the way it is with heros, real heros.  They don’t get up at nine o’clock in the morning and say to themselves: “Today I am going to do something heroic.”
 

Heroism is something that gets thrust upon you and whether you become one or not only the pages of you own life can show.

The people of Babel were going to write their own story in which they were the heros.  They were going to make themselves superstars in the world of pre-history construction.

They said, “Come, let’s build ourselves a city and a tower that reaches Heaven. Let’s make ourselves famous so we won’t be scattered here and there across the Earth.”

It’s all about them!  We’ll do this and we’ll do that and our work will reach up to heaven. 
 

But God knows that, as Harry Carey used to say, “There is danger here, Sharie.” So God says to God’s self:  “‘One people, one language; why, this is only a first step. No telling what they’ll come up with next—they’ll stop at nothing! Come, we’ll go down and garble their speech so they won’t understand each other.’” Then God scattered them from there all over the world.”5

When left to our own devises humans can cause such things as a D-Day to become necessary.  Left on our own there is no telling what we will do but when God is at work in our lives there is no telling what we can do.

It is nine o’clock in the morning when we find the disciples huddled in their room not knowing what they should do.  They were doing what Jesus told them.  They were waiting for some kind of gift.  They didn’t know what it would be or how it would be delivered but then it came.
 

The wind came.  What was first heard was then seen.  Tongues of fire appearing among them and resting on the head of every believer as if they were human candles.
 

Sufficiently frightened while, at the same time, inspired by the Holy Spirit they began to speak in other languages.  This was not gibberish, this was not babble, they were speaking in other languages each of which could be understood by all the curious onlookers who gathered around.
 

It was nine o’clock in the morning and God’s Spirit was at work.
 

It was nine o’clock in the morning and some of the awestruck bystanders concluded that the followers of Jesus were tipsy.  That’s the only kind of conclusion we can make if we focus on the mayhem coming from the disciple’s at that early morning hour.
 

Pentecost is more than wind, fire, and a crash course in foreign languages.  It is the announcement that God’s involvement with human life did not end with Jesus’ Ascension.  It is the startling realization that God is going to be involved in your life and mine no matter who we are or, frankly, even what we believe.  God is going to bring out the best in us just as God was doing in Peter.

Here, before the half-inquiring, half-mocking crowd, Peter is the first, the very first, to lift up his voice and proclaim openly the word that only a few weeks before he could not speak to a serving woman at midnight.  The Spirit had breathed new life into a cowardly disciple and created a new man with a gift of bold speech.6

 Peter was becoming a hero at that nine o’clock hour.  Gail O’Day was right on the mark when she wrote:

There are days, oh so many days, when we are “sore afraid.” Afraid of the decisions we have to make, the risks we have to take.  Afraid of what happens when we do listen to Jesus’ promises, afraid of what happens when we do not.  Afraid that the world ... is the victor and we will live forever without hope and joy.  Afraid we will be crushed before we find the strength to be faithful to God’s promises for our lives and our world.7

 It is then the Spirit comes to write new chapters in the pages of our books.  The Spirit comes to make us heroes in our own way. 
 

We’re not all going to be a Churchill or an Eisenhower, or even heroes who floated around in the waters of the Pacific for a couple of hours (which must have seemed like an eternity) after our ship had been sunk, but that doesn’t mean that the Spirit isn’t at work in us and in our lives.
 

Pentecost was a unique event within the life of the church.  Pentecost was a dramatic sign to show that the Spirit’s work is bringing all people to a unity of understanding in Jesus Christ.

Whenever people come together and community happens in families, churches and neighborhoods, it’s nine o’clock in the morning and the Spirit is at work making heros.
 

Whenever fresh winds blow and you feel like you did the first time you saw Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”.  It’s still the same sky that you’ve seen but everything is different, better, more passionate.  The blues, the yellows, the swirling stars, everything has feeling, movement and even the colors seem alive.
 

It’s like lying on one of Monet’s water lilies.  It’s the warmth of a Georgia O’Keefe flower wrapped around you.  It’s the power and strength of a Degas dancer.

 When you feel that, it’s nine o’clock in the morning and God’s Spirit is at work, making heros.

Where human life is most human - when athletes and physicians, dancers and attorneys, teachers and politicians and homemakers reach deep inside to give more, and create more, and be more human... 8

 ...it’s nine o’clock in the morning and God’s Spirit is at work, making heroes.

When churches rise up and become great realizing that the Gospel is not just for us or aimed at “Parthians and Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesoptamia” (Whoever they were?) but for all people - Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, married, never-married, divorced, gay, straight - it’s nine o’clock in the morning and God’s Spirit is at work making heroes.

And when our own life is depleted and we are literally and figuratively out of breath and .and quietly we feel restoration happen and vitality return...9

...it’s nine o’clock in the morning and God’s Spirit is at work, making heroes.
 

When individuals come together and exercise their rights to celebrate their differences and see in those differences see unity the Spirit, God’s Spirit, is at work making heroes.
 

Hey!  It’s almost 10:15!  God’s Spirit must be at work.  Let’s go find out where and how. 

______________

1.   Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (Harlow: Penguin, 2008), p.  1.

2.  David Chrisinger, "The Man Who Told America the Truth About D-Day," The New York Times, June 05, 2019, published June 5, 2019 , accessed June 08, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/05/magazine/d-day-normandy-75th-ernie-pyle.html.

3.  Tom Strong, "Memories of World War II Still Strong for Aurora Veteran," The Beacon-News (Aurora, Illinois), May 26, 2006, sec. 1.

4.  Caleb-Howe, "Shepard Smith Talks to D-Day Hero in Gripping, Emotional Interview: 'We Were Absolutely Petrified'," Mediaite, June 06, 2019, , accessed June 08, 2019, https://www.mediaite.com/tv/shepard-smith-talks-to-d-day-hero-in-gripping-emotional-interview-we-were-absolutely-petrified/.

5.  Genesis 11:4 & 6-9 (MSG) [MSG=The Message]

6.  William H. Willimon, Acts: Interpretation Bible Commentary, vol. 21, 33 vols. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010).  p.  33.

7.   Gail R. O'Day, "From Fear to Joy," Pulpit Digest 73, no. 515 (May/June 1992).  p.  11.

8.  John M. Buchanan, "Like a Breath of Fresh Air" (Sunday Morning Sermon, The Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, June 4, 1995).

9.  ibid.