Podcast: 

homily20100523.mp3

If you have ever had the opportunity to attend a symphony concert, 
it is a most spectacular celebration of sounds and movements.
It is truly awesome the way 
so many different instruments can be played together, 
and yet sound as one single piece of music.  
We have the string instruments, 
the percussion instruments 
and the wind instruments.  
It is amazing how these different groups can sound together, 
though each is playing separately.  
The conductor can get everything right 
but he still needs great music to do it.  
Yet each person has to follow their own parts of the music 
while the conductor gathers them 
and enables them to be in harmony with one another, 
to sound quite magical. 

Our church like a good orchestra and 
the person who has written the music for us is God.  
He is the composer of each one of our own musical pieces.  
Each one is given a separate piece of music to play.  
Each individual piece has been written for just us alone.  
Christ is the conductor of this magnificent orchestra of life 
and he enables us to be in harmony with one another. 
Unless we watch and listen to the conductor Christ Jesus 
then we find ourselves out of tune, or out of sync, 
certainly not harmonious with what God has intended of us together.

It is wonderful when we think of it that 
each one of us is given an individual piece of music 
composed by God to play for our life.
Our role is to play out this music in our own lives joyfully
with the gifts we have been given
—each of us in different ways
—some of us are stringed instruments, 
some of us are percussion; 
some of us are, well, wind instruments.  
But each of us has a different way; 
and each one of us plays it slightly differently.  
That is the gift that each of us has. 

There is one thing that is common 
among all the instruments in the orchestra 
and that is that they all have to do with the movement of air.  
The air is obvious in the wind instruments with all its brass.
But the stringed instruments are all different sized strings, 
held in different tensions being plucked at the right time, 
giving a vibration of air that enables us to hear something beautiful.  
The same with percussions; 
different wood and metal hit at the right time 
gives a vibration of air that enables us to hear some magical music.

For all of us that air that exists in our lives 
in the gift of the Holy Spirit that we are reminded of in today’s gospel.  
This Holy Spirit is given to all so that we can come to know God; 
so we can know and experience Christ in our lives.  
We can listen and understand what Christ is trying to direct us. 
The difference between a person who knows how to play a violin 
and a person who doesn’t is not just knowing the notes; 
it is not just knowing how to play it 
but it is also when to play it and when to play softly.
There is also a way to play the violin inside an orchestra 
as opposed to playing it as an individual.

This is what we need to do as church.  
We all have individual gifts and we each can play our music. 
But to be the church of Jesus Christ 
is to listen and to watch Christ’s direction 
and to be ready to give a little here or give a little there 
so that we can be harmonious with the entire orchestra, 
which is the gift of community.

When we get that right as a community, it sounds magical.  
When we are reaching out to others in unison it is truly amazing. 
For example, the needy and homeless 
of the Sacred Heart Community Services:
there is something profound when we, as a group, 
go down to Sacred Heart and serve the needy.
Or when we go to Nicaragua as a mission, 
we go as a synchronized group.
There is music that is played when a community 
gets behind something powerful like that.  
And when we come to church like this 
and we all are participating and singing 
and then we go out and play that music in our lives 
in every aspect outside of church.  
There is something incredibly powerful and magical about that. 
Today we are also celebrating not just 10 years of my own priesthood, 
but also celebrating one year of Andrew’s priesthood 
and Paul, our former pastor, celebrating 40 years of his priesthood.  
And what a great gift it is to be able to celebrate this as a community. 
But the important part to realize is 
that every single one of us is a different instrument.  
Every single one of us has our own gifts 
and today’s feast day of the Pentecost 
is about recognizing the gift of the whole church.  
Pentecost is considered to be the birth of the church 
and we celebrate our own feast day here at Holy Spirit. 
Today then we want to recognize in every single one of us 
the gift of that music and the notes God gave us to play. 
It is also the challenge and the gift to be able to play 
it in a community called the church.  
That is what we celebrate today.  
St. Paul’s challenge to us, and that he gives to the Romans, 
is to recognize that when we listen to the Spirit, 
and when we attend to Christ’s direction.

When we listen to the Spirit and play our music as we watch Christ 
then we know we start to sound right.  
What does that actually turn out to be for us?  
It is the simple commandment that Christ gives us, 
which is to love one another.  
It is simple but it is not easy.  
There are times when we find it easy with our family and our friends. 
But there are times when to love somebody is really hard: 
the person who will not love us back; 
to forgive that person who will not even turn their face toward us; 
to reach out to those whom we do not agree with; 
we don’t agree with their life choices or their political standing
or anything about them and yet we still reach out to them.
If we love them then we can play the musical note of our lives 
and together play the musical note as an orchestra. 

So each and every one of us today celebrate 
the hard work of loving one another.  
It is hard work but that is what we recommit to again today.
For my part, it has been my great privilege 
to serve here for the last 6 ½ years as your pastor
and it has been a wonderful gift for me in those years.
I look to have many more God willing.
One of the great gifts is when we get that music right. 
It is awesome when we get the different parts of our community 
to work together to serve; 
when we come together to celebrate here 
and more importantly, when we serve out there in our community.

So, today we celebrate many different things.  
But mostly, we celebrate the music that 
God has given each one of us to play. 
When we play together we sound like a magnificent orchestra 
and that our true conductor is Christ Himself.  
Today, we celebrate the gift of music 
that we all have to play in our lives as an orchestra together.