SPECIAL DAYS: Pentecost

June 11, 2000 - LESSONS: Romans 8:22-27; Acts 2:1-17, NRSV

SERMON TITLE: Spirit Filled, Spirit Led, Spirit Powered (1)

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  1. A giant of a man came crashing into the drafty shack, stunning 11-year-old Harry Potter and his horribly heartless aunt, uncle and cousin.
    1. The giant was named Hagrid, sent by the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to fetch young Harry. (2)
    2. "He's not going," sputtered cruel Uncle Vernon.
    3. Hagrid the shaggy giant grunted. "I'd like ter see a great Muggle like you stop him," he said.
    4. "A what?" said Harry, interested.
    5. "A Muggle," said Hagrid, "it's what we call nonmagic folk like them. An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."
    6. "We swore when we took him in we'd put a stop to that rubbish," said Uncle Vernon, "swore we'd stamp it out of him! Wizard indeed!"
    7. "You KNEW?" said Harry. "You KNEW I'm a--a wizard?"
    8. "Knew!" shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly. "KNEW! Of course we knew!
      1. How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was?
      2. ...I was the only one who saw her for what she was-a freak!"
  2. What Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon do not realize is that in the world of Harry Potter, they're the strange ones--not Harry and his fellow witches and wizards.
    1. There's nothing evil about having magical powers in these wonderful fantasies by J. K. Rowling, and a great many characters use their magic to do magnificently moral and virtuous things.
    2. The Muggles are the sad and sickly and silly in these stories--non-magic persons like Aunt Petunia, a shrill and shrewlike soul who has nothing better to do than spy on her neighbors.

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  1. These days, you may be a Muggle if you see a girl or boy with a purple lightning bolt tattoo pasted to their forehead - and you don't have a clue.
    1. Or, if you think Hogwarts is a porcine infection.
    2. Or, if you're mystified by what a Seeker is...or a Sorting Hat, or a Parselmouth or a Nimbus Two Thousand.
  2. There is a cure.
    1. Pick up one of Rowling's Harry Potter books, the first two of which - The Sorcerer's Stone and The Chamber of Secrets--sold 2 million copies in the UK and 5 million in the United States
    2. These were followed quickly by The Prisoner of Azkaban, with so much success that they threatened to occupy the first three slots on The New York Times Book List, making a lot of competitors very unhappy.
    3. Not that rival publishers are the only people peeved at Potter.
      1. Some churchgoing Christians these days are busting on these books
        1. They are saying that it is wrong to paint a positive picture of wizards and witches
        2. It is wrong to be soft on magical spells
        3. It is wrong to make Harry a hero.
        4. To which it can only said: Lighten up, folks!
      2. Harry Potter is not evil.
        1. He doesn't worship Satan.
        2. He doesn't abuse innocents, subvert goodness or undermine morality.
        3. To say that these books encourage witchcraft is to say that books about UFOs encourage consorting with aliens.
        4. It's a fantasy world!

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  1. Once you get your first taste of magic, you'll never want to be a Muggle again.
    1. Take a simple game like "wizard chess."
      1. which is exactly like Muggle chess except that the figures are ALIVE, which makes it a lot like directing troops in battle.
      2. In the first book, Harry Potter plays with borrowed chessmen, which is a real disadvantage since the figures don't trust him at all.
        1. They keep shouting different bits of advice at him, creating comical confusion, such as, "Don't send me there, can't you see his knight?
        2. Send HIM, we can afford to lose HIM" (199).
  2. We're talking about a life-changing leap here, one from which there's no jumping back.
    1. Once you enter the world of magic, it's "Muggle no more."
    2. And although it may come as a surprise, much the same transformation occurred when the Holy Spirit made a Pentecost Day visit to Jerusalem's Muggles a few days after Jesus lifted off from the Mount of Olives in Acts 1.
  3. "What now?" wondered these bewildered and confused men and women.
    1. Jesus had promised them power from on high.
      1. Power that would enable them to go to the ends of the earth
      2. Power to continue his miracles
      3. Power to preach the gospel
      4. Power to face persecution.
      5. Power to retain enthusiasm in the face of those who wanted things to remain as they were.

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    1. He predicted the coming of a power so great that a sorcerer later in Acts would offer to buy the power of this "magic" from Peter.
    2. But first, they had to wait, and so they devoted themselves to prayer.
  1. What enabled the disciples to become individuals of faith and people of power?
    1. First of all they were totally committed to Jesus Christ.
      1. There would be no compromises
      2. There would be no intereferance.
    2. Secondly they were fully committed to the task that Christ has given them.
      1. Perhaps they didn't know exactly how to do it.
      2. It would be a learning experience.
      3. They would learn much by trial and error
      4. But they would learn.
    3. Thirdly they were totally committed to one another in the spirit of Christ, full of love and compassion.
      1. They talked with one another.
      2. They prayed for one another.
      3. They supported one another.
  2. But first, they had to wait, and so they devoted themselves to study and prayer.
    1. They didn't have to wait for long.
    2. On Pentecost the Holy Spirit arrived--busting into their lives like Hagrid the shaggy giant splintering a door.
    3. The Spirit rushed over them with the sound of a violent wind
      1. The Spirit danced on their heads like divided tongues of fire,
      2. The Spirit filled them with power and the ability to speak in a variety of languages.

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    1. In a flash, the followers of Jesus were Muggles no more, and the church exploded as an amazing, astonishing, perplexing and utterly magical movement.
  1. But hold on one sec, put down the wizard's wand:
    1. Is it appropriate to call the power of the Holy Spirit "magic"?
    2. Was it magic that caused a gaggle of Galileans to begin speaking the languages of the Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Judeans, Cappadocians, Egyptians, Cretans and Arabs?
    3. Was it magic that inspired Peter to overcome his cowardice and address thousands of people with the powerful promise of salvation for "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord" (Acts 2:21)?
    4. No, not exactly. It wasn't magic in the Harry Potter style, but it still seems magical.
    5. And maybe this isn't such a bad thing.
      1. The Spirit's work in the church and in us is magical if by magic you mean the miracle of:
        1. Being able to transcend our humanness.
        2. Being able to reach the unreachable.
        3. Having peace in the midst of a storm.
        4. Having concern for the least of your brothers and sisters.
  2. When the Spirit comes, we are transformed by a transcendent power.
    1. But perhaps there are many of us who still act like nontranscendent people
      1. We fail to take our spiritual lives to another level of daily reliance upon the One who brings power
      2. We fail to rely on the One who enables us to go beyond our own human resources.
    2. Perhaps there are some of us who don't fully accept the fact that God has made us Muggles no more.

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  1. So how does Pentecost move us from being Muggle People to being Miracle People?
    1. For starters, the Holy Spirit gives us power to go beyond our human limitations
    2. Power to reach the unreachable
    3. Power to speak new languages
      1. Not necessarily a foreign language.
      2. But to speak with the freshness of the Gospel in the language of Jesus Christ.
    4. Power to take strong stands with fresh convictions.
      1. Muggles run away.
      2. Muggles try to hide
      3. Wizards fight the good fight of faith.
      4. They put themselves on the line for love and truth, for the vision that Jesus has communicated.
    5. Power to increase one's enthusiasm in the face of and despite the opposition.
      1. How is your level of enthusiasm these days.
      2. It is being tried by the fires of conflict.
      3. All faith is tried in the fire.
      4. Let it burn away the impurities so that its vitality may be seen by all who are willing to look and acknowledge.
  2. No, we're not wizards with well-trained message-carrying owls and magic wands that enable us to conjure up courage
  3. We do have a Spirit in us and among us that inspires us to carry our faith across barriers of culture, race and nationality, and to take a stand for the life-giving hope that burns within us.
  4. AMEN AND AMEN!

1. Some of this material is taken from, Muggles No More, Homiletics Magazine, June 11, 2000, p. 47 (used with permission)

2. J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone [New York: Scholastic Press, 1998], 52-53.

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