Walls of Respectability

No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy [Acts 2:16-18].

Growing up in a conservative congregation in what was then rural Gaston County (NC), I was taught that Pentecost was “the birthday” of the Church. By that we did not mean the birthday of “our” Olney Presbyterian Church, mind you, but rather of Christ’s Holy Church. Such a teaching was/is technically incorrect. Long before Pentecost was a Christian “event,” it was thoroughly Jewish. “The Festival of Weeks” (i.e., seven weeks after Passover), it celebrated the action of the Jewish people in bringing forth their first fruits of the wheat harvest in anticipation of God’s blessing the remainder of the harvest [Deuteronomy 26:5-11].

In the case of Olney Presbyterian, the teaching was also ironic in that nothing remotely “pentecostal” ever took place there, at least during the 50s and 60s, when my brothers and I dutifully joined our parents each Sunday for unprovocative, orderly, staunchly disciplined worship. Nothing spontaneous every happened. We particularly felt safe from any incursions of the Holy Ghost [a/k/a “Spirit”], since the Spirit was usually active with “the black folks” over at a nearby AME Zion church.

According to Dad, the only time the folks at Olney ever got “stirred up” was Mother’s Day 1951, a few months after my twin, Todd, and I had been born. Our parents, having been married in the parlor of the church parsonage in 1943, were pillars of the congregation. When they returned home after the end of WWII, they easily blended back into the fabric of Olney.

Such was not the case with our Uncle Embrey. Known by everyone as “Boot,” he was 26-years old, two years younger than our Dad. He too had returned home from the war, but Boot could not, or would not, settle down. What’s more, he avoided church like it was the plague—a “sin” that could not be ignored by our grandmother. Mother and Dad both said that she kept pining away at Boot to come to church.

She begged, “Settle down, find a nice girl, get married, have a family”—the timeless entreaty offered by many a mom. And so, in the Spring of ’51, as a special gift, Boot promised his mother than he’d be present at Olney on Mother’s Day. He’d even bring the young lady that he had begun to court.

The 11 o’clock church bells rang out that Mother’s Day, but no Boot. More than 20 minutes passed in the worship service—still no Boot. Grandmother, who had earlier looked around expectantly, seemed to have acknowledged to herself that Boot had broken yet another promise.

But then, almost as if it had been timed to occur at the beginning of the pastor’s sermon, in walked Boot, wearing an elegant suit of clothes. And on his arm was a striking, slender—but quite curvaceous—young woman wearing a tightly fitted, shoulder-exposed, flame red dress. She wore a matching broad-brimmed hat, cocked slightly to the side. Having donned red high heels, she even held a red clutch bag.

Deliberately, the couple walked down the entire middle aisle of the church and ensconced themselves prominently on the empty front pew, just to the left of the awestruck preacher who had just finished the Prayer of Invocation: “Open our hearts and minds, O Lord, by the power of your Holy Spirit ….”

Informed sources would later say that during the reading of the Gospel, the preacher lost his place fully three times. No one remembered the sermon that day; all eyes and attention had been on the young woman who six months later would become our “Aunt Pat.”

Following the Mother’s Day display, quite a few of the young married women and even more of their elderly “sisters” echoed a common sentiment, “Boot and that girl had broken Olney’s carefully crafted, carefully maintained protocols. They had violated its carefully erected walls of respectability.” Most of the husbands smiled, looked just to the side, and said, “Whatever you say, dear.”

More than 70 years after the fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that the Holy Ghost would have chuckled—may I go so far as to say “approved”—of Boot and Pat that Mother’s Day. After all, the Holy Trinity seems often intent upon bringing down our walls of respectability. Indeed, sometimes things need to be stirred up.

The Holy Ghost is at it as we come to St. Luke’s description of that initial Christian Pentecost moment described in this upcoming Sunday’s first reading, Acts 2:1-21 [Day of Pentecost, RCL, Year A]. We know the story well. Many were gathered in one place [2:1]. They’d come from far and wide. Pentecost, after all, was one of three pilgrimage festivals in Jerusalem. There would have been some devout Jews, some who’d heard perhaps about “the Way.” Still others might have been characterized as “seekers.”

According to St. Luke, the Spirit descended upon them “like the rush of a violent wind” [2:2]. Tongues of fire appeared among them. They were bewildered and amazed, because while there were numerous languages being spoken, each heard what the others were saying in his or her own language. There was a fervor of excitement. So much so, that some outsiders scoffed, “They’re drunk” [2:12]. To this, our friend, Peter, offered a half-hearted defense, “They can’t be drunk; it’s only 9 a.m.” [2:15].

Whatever else was going on, the Holy Trinity was busy pulling down walls of respectability. The erudite, who primarily spoke and wrote in Greek, looked down on the others. The educated Jews—those who labored in and near the Jerusalem Temple—who spoke and read Hebrew, did the same. The lower classes spoke Aramaic, or some of the other mongrel tongues, but many couldn’t read at all. With the indwelling of the Spirit, however, the walls separating the groups come down. Everyone, everyone, could hear and understand on his or her own.

Almost two millennia later, we’d still experience walls of respectability, as the children at Olney would be taught that they shouldn’t play with the children who lived on “the mill hill.” After all, those children’s parents were “lint heads.” Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Peter, perhaps realizing that he had offered only a weak explanation for what was taking place on that glorious Pentecost day and, realizing further that God had whipped up a frenzy to bring down the walls of respectability, launches into a sermon. His text was Joel [see Acts 2:17]. Why, O Dear, did he choose that prophet?

I think Peter chose that text because the prophet Joel had emphasized that in Yahweh’s good time, His Spirit would be poured upon all flesh [Acts 2:17]. Yahweh’s pouring does not discriminate by gender. Notice that “daughters” are specifically included [2:17]. Nor does Yahweh’s pouring out discriminate by age. The young will see visions, while the elderly will dream dreams.

In Yahweh’s kingdom, the walls of respectability between rich and poor come down as well, even the walls between master and slave—both men and women [2:18]. These groups with lower ranks, voiceless in that society, will not only speak, but prophesy [2:18]. Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved [2:21], not just those who appear to have Yahweh’s favor.

It is interesting, is it not, that although Joel declares that Yahweh will pour His God’s spirit on all flesh, those who live on the right side of the tracks—the wealthy, the able bodied, and the others in power are not specifically named. This is not to suggest that they are excluded, but rather to point out that—contrary to the established walls of respectability—those who think they are already safe because of their age, gender, wealth, physical ability, or political power are actually the ones who need new tongues to call on the name of God for salvation.

Bringing down the walls of respectability—all too many of us have been taught and trained that God must be sensible. God must play by rules that make sense to us. “His rules” must be those that we find practical—after all, we’re the only hands Jesus has. We can’t allow chaos to reign. For things to move forward, God’s kingdom should be ordered according to our preferences, our predilections, our desires.

And so, we differentiate. In the 50s and 60s, our parents taught us to avoid “those sorts of people.” Today, we continue to differentiate on the basis of skin color or the nature of our faith. We do it in some subtle and in other not-so-subtle ways. “You can’t know how I feel because you don’t share my race.”

We divide ourselves according to other colors: “Is your state red, or blue?” We draw distinctions with others based upon our level of education or our lineage. “He has a Ph.D.” “She’s a Daughter of the American Revolution.” “His granddaddy picked cotton in Alabama.” We stress that some are beyond all levels of respectability because of those whom they find physically attractive. And in America, we annually carve out one million souls awaiting the conclusion of their gestation, and, with at least the tacit support of mainline Protestantism, we declare that those unborn neighbors are beyond all walls of respectability. We don’t respect what we cannot see.

Can we see that in Pentecost, God is working against us, or at least against our nature? Can we see that for every wall of respectability that we manage to erect, God has a work-around? Where we differentiate, God consolidates. Where we carefully erect barriers to others, God pulls them down. When we are satisfied that we have everything and everyone in the box where they belong, the Spirit of God comes into our world and messes everything up. The Spirit loves to stir things up. The Spirit will use anything—even a shapely girl in a red dress.

Be careful. If the Spirit chose to use a young, vivacious girl like Pat, what might the Trinity do with you?