CICADAS AT PENTECOST
A sermon by the Rev. Dr. James G. Kirk
Harundale Presbyterian Church
Text: “a sound like the rush of a violent wind.” (Acts 2:2)
First
Second
What better time for us to celebrate Pentecost than the second or third week into the five weeks of our Cicadas’ visit? Originally Pentecost was an agricultural festival marking the first harvest of the growing season. Called in Hebrew Shevuot, or “weeks,” it was seven weeks past Passover, or roughly the 50th day after Passover. Eventually it became associated with the attributes or symbols of the Holy Spirit, which Luke specifically identifies as the source of what happens as our story proceeds. In both Hebrew and Greek, the Spirit of God is symbolized by wind – with which its name is synonymous.
We hear how the arrival of the Spirit was “a sound like the rush of a violent wind.” It was so loud that it filled the house where the group was gathered. Now who says that God hasn’t coincided with our Cicadas’ visit the church’s timely celebration of Pentecost? Two weeks ago the cicadas began to emerge. Seventeen years ago in her dying act, an adult female cicada created the next generation, laying 400 to 600 eggs inside a slender tree branch by cutting small slits in it with her saw like organ called an ovipositor. Six to ten weeks later, the eggs hatched and nymphs fell to the ground.
After hitting the ground, the nymphs munched on grass roots and then tunneled down about 12 inches to feed on tree sap by attaching a straw-like organ to the roots. There the wingless bugs stayed for 17 years! Finally, their biological alarm clock went off and they began to tunnel their way back up.
I was doing a funeral 10 days ago in a cemetery at St Stephens Episcopal church in Davidsonville. The cicadas had just begun to emerge. Before I began the internment, walking to the gravesite, I happened to notice that right on the tip of the Virgin Mary’s nose on a headstone a cicada has deposited its shell. It was all I could do during the service to keep from drawing attention to the cheek that one cicada had shown for the blessed mother of our Lord! It looked as though she had a huge wart growing on the edge of her nose!
At any
rate, the good Lord has seen fit to remind us on this Day of Pentecost of its
agrarian roots by giving us a cacophony of noise like the rush of a might wind
and it’s nothing more than the mating cry of the male cicada beating his tymbal
against his hollow abdomen. If you
listen carefully each of the three Brood X species have their own song. One sounds like pha-roah, another makes a sizzling noise, which is probably the
most common, and the last—and rarest—makes a rhythmic call that sounds like a
lawn sprinkler. In another three weeks they will have performed their mating
function, the queen will have lain between 400 and 600 eggs and the cycle will
begin again. Just as a sideline, it’s
interesting to think where you’ll be seventeen years from now when the next
generation comes to call. (From Time magazine,
Now I don’t think it’s too far fetched to note the similarities between this year’s visit of the cicadas and our celebration of Pentecost. After all, throughout history we have heard how Jesus is the “tree of life.” Last week, we sang the hymn noting how God was there “to hear our borning cry.” In other words, since our baptism we have been taught to feed on Jesus, to learn of his ways. Whenever we have a baptism we’re told that we’re to bring the children up in the knowledge and love of the Lord. Whether it’s seventeen years, or the thirteen years our children spend before it’s time for their confirmation, we have taken seriously the mandate to teach and to learn the ways of Christ.
Nor is there a time when anyone of us can say that we’ve learned all there is to learn about what the Bible says. I’ve noticed the older I get the more I don’t know about the faith. When I graduated from seminary I was much surer of exactly what the Bible taught and which theologian had the truth and what was right and what was wrong with the church. Elizabeth and I have a good friend, David Noel Freedman, probably one of the most brilliant Old Testament scholars in our lifetime. To sit with Professor Freedman is to listen to one of the humblest biblical experts tell us of all the questions he has about what the scripture is really trying to say. There’s quite a contrast between him and people we meet who know exactly what the Bible says and if you don’t believe their way than for some reason you don’t really have faith. Now I’m not as sure of the faith as I was when I graduated from seminary.
Throughout our life in the faith we’re taught how we should continue to feed on the tree of life and absorb as much nourishment as we can to sustain us through our pilgrimage in the faith. Then comes time for our emergence! Now, we’re not like the cicadas that suck up all their nourishment for seventeen years and then come forth with “a noise like the rush of a violent wind.” No, Luke, using the prophecy of Joel, tells us what to expect: “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.”
Now, the problem I see with that is unlike the cicadas the church today is awfully quiet. The church isn’t making much noise at all and what we do hear from it is not so much the “rush of a violent wind” as it is the whimper of institutional survival. It’s as though the church itself has gone underground and become willing continually to suck on the “tree of life” and not much care about what’s going on above ground. Where’s the prophesy going on today? Who in the church is coming forth with a vision of where society should be going? What’s the dream of the future look like?
I think the
answer to all three questions is our children.
They’re the one’s who are prophesying, bringing forth the vision of
where society should be going and are as well sharing the dream of what the
future will look like. The problem is
that many of us aren’t taking the time to listen to them. William Sloan Coffin in his new book Credo says it well: “If it’s immature to
be childish, to remain childlike may be a function of maturity, for as Jesus
said, ‘Whoever does not receive the
Last week the entire worship service was centered round our children and how important it is for you to volunteer to teach them what it means to grow in the faith. Having thought about that for a week, maybe we’ve put the emphasis on the wrong syllable. Where the emphasis should be, just like we’ve learned from the cicadas, here’s a new generation emerging that has already tasted what it means to feast on the tree of life. Shouldn’t we take advantage of listening to them and learning from them what they think life in the faith is all about? They’re the ones who God’s poured out the Spirit upon; they’re our sons and daughters; they’re the ones who’re not ashamed to do some prophesying. Let’s together see their visions for the church and listen to their dreams for the future. Then together we may learn to raise our voices “like the rush of a violent wind.”
Thanks be to God,
Amen