Swoosh!
(Rutgers, May 31, 1998; The Day of Pentecost, Year C)
Acts 2:1-21 (NT, p. 123). John 14:15-17 25-27 (NT, p. 113)
"When the day of Pentecost had come,...suddenly from heaven
there came a sound "-a swoosh!
a sound represented graphically for us
by the image of exhaled breath on this morning's bulletin cover.
a sound represented graphically, but quite differently, for us
by the emblem on every Nike product in the world,
for "swoosh" is the sound heard in miniature
every time Michael Jordan breezes past an opponent
or hits "nothing but net,"
the sound that wasn't heard last Friday at the very end
of Game 6 between the Bulls and the Pacers,
the sound that will be heard tonight in Game 7.
But this morning our focus is on the swoosh of Pentecost-
on the sound that came from heaven when the Holy Spirit breathed
the lifeforce of resurrection into Jesus's band of dispirited disciples,
the breath that gave birth to the church
and climaxed the victory of God over the forces of death,
the victory begun on Easter Day!
You see, without the climax that Pentecost brings to Easter ,
Eastertide would only lead to something good for Christ
but not so good for us;
it would only lead to Christ's ascension, his departure from earth,
a departure in whose wake the confused and uncertain disciples
would have returned to nothing more than fishing in Galilee.
But with the climax that Pentecost brings to Easter,
with the swoosh of the Holy Spirit into the lives of humankind,
Eastertide leads not just to Christ's ascension,
but also to Christ's becoming present to us in perpetuity
through the Holy Spirit.
For, you see, the Holy Spirit is “Christ-present-among-us.”
In this morning's Second Lesson, from the Gospel of John, chapter 14,
and in other passages from John, chapters 15 and 16,
Jesus promises his disciples upon his departure an everlasting gift,
the gift of another Advocate, Helper, Comforter, and Counselor-
the gift of One called in Greek the Paraclete,
of One known to us as the Holy Spirit.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus promises that the Paraclete
will take the experience of God made known in himself
and will extend that experience
beyond the limits of his own life and death,
In the Gospel of John,
Jesus promises that the love of God embodied in him
will be made perpetually present within the life of the community
through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Thus, in the Gospel of John, Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit
will make it possible for persons throughout the whole of time
to share in the good news of God's having come to us in flesh,
in the good news of the incarnation of God's love in Jesus.
for through the power of the Paraclete,
Jesus will continue to be spiritually present among us,
even though physically absent.
The Gospel of John teaches that
when we receive the Holy Spirit in baptism
we receive in perpetuity
the gift of Christ's nurturing presence.
And the Gospel of John teaches us as well
about another work of the Paraclete.
After the ascension,
not only does the Holy Spirit keep Christ present in the world
but it also keeps the truth taught by Christ
present in the world.
The Holy Spirit continues Jesus's role as teacher,
reminding the community of what Jesus himself said while on earth
and enabling the words of Jesus
to resound afresh throughout this ever-changing world
by revealing the new meanings in Jesus's teachings
that new circumstances require.
The swoosh of Pentecost-the sound of the Holy Spirit
clinching the victory of God over the forces of death,
the victory begun on Easter Day-clinching it
by making perpetually present among us the Spirit
and the teachings of the Risen and Ascended Christ.
Our Second Lesson, from John, warns us, however,
that to live in the Spirit and teachings of the Risen Christ,
in the Spirit of love and truth,
is to live at odds with the secular world.
For the secular world no more understands the Holy Spirit
than it understood God's incarnation in Christ.
And just as the secular world did not recognize Jesus
as the embodiment of God's love,
and instead put him to death on the cross,
so too the secular world does not recognize the Holy Spirit
as the continuation of Christ's loving presence,
and instead rejects those who live in that Spirit.
Nonetheless, to live in the Spirit is to live as God intends for us,
and to live in the Spirit
is to possess the peace and well-being that the world cannot give.
To live in the Spirit is to live as Jesus lived;
it is to live not for self-advancement or self-aggrandizement,
but to live for the carrying of God's love to neighbors
and for the sharing of God’s justice with others.
Thus, the coming of the Spirit into our lives is
a kind of apocalypse of self.
For the coming of the Spirit into our lives
ends our paralyzing preoccupation with self
and replaces it with the peace of Christ's presence that leads
to our desire to love God and neighbor above all else.
On the Day of Pentecost, there came from heaven a sound,
the swoosh of Pentecost-the sound of the Holy Spirit offering us
the living presence of the Risen and Ascended Christ,
clinching the victory of God begun on Easter,
and claiming us for God and neighbor.
Now here’s a fascinating thing:
the New Testament that tells us of the victory of Pentecost
is written in ancient Greek,
and the principal word for "victory" in Greek is níkh, which,
when transliterated into English, is spelled n-i-k-e-"nike."
So the swoosh of Pentecost, the sound of the Holy Spirit-
that's the clinching of God's níkh
or "nike."
Now I have to confess that until I began working on this sermon
I personally had been viewing the commercial "swoosh"
of the Nike Corporation
as a horrendous symbol of death.
For in my mind Nike's commercial “swoosh" has been linked indelibly
with Asian sweat shop labor and with an unconscionable system
of American greed and economic exploitation
in which one famous and already quite wealthy American-
Michael Jordan- receives more money for
merely lending his face and name to Nike products
than all the Indonesian Nike workers combined
earn for making those products.
So, for a long while now, the Nike “swoosh"
has been linked in my mind to another symbol of oppressiveness,
to a symbol of the oppressiveness of the Roman Empire,
to the symbol of death that we call the cross of crucifixion.
But a brand new thought came into my mind this past week:
it occurred to me that the early Christians had taken over
that Roman symbol of death, the cross of crucifixion,
and had turned it, in its empty Easter form,
like the cross you see on our communion table,
into a symbol of life, a symbol of resurrection,
a symbol of the Risen Christ.
& it also occurred to me that we Christians might do very well indeed
to take over, in our minds at least, another symbol of death,
the Nike "swoosh,"
and to turn it instead into a symbol of Christian life,
a symbol of life in the Spirit,
a symbol of the clinching of God's Easter nike, victory,
on the Day of Pentecost,
a victory accompanied by the swoosh of the Spirit.
After all, I reasoned, why shouldn't we Christians
appropriate and reinterpret symbols from the world of commerce
for corporations have for a very long time
appropriated and reinterpreted Christian symbols,
like those of Christmas and Easter ,
to help sell their message.
Turn about's fair play. Right?
They take our symbols; we take theirs.
Furthermore, I reasoned, Madison Avenue's symbols offer nothing
but mirages and false promises anyway,
so why not appropriate its symbols for meanings that are true.
So, after all had been said and done, it seemed to me altogether fair
for us Christians to claim another symbol born of the secular-
we did it for the cross; why not do it for the Nike "swoosh"-
to claim it as a symbol serving the holy,
as a symbol of God's swoosh of victory on the Day of Pentecost.
Now, the Nike Corporation has been kind enough to place millions
of these symbols all over the world at no cost to us Christians,
and I invite you to join me in taking advantage of this.
I invite you every time you see that "swoosh" to join me
in thinking "Holy Spirit, , , in thinking "Pentecost, , ,
in thinking "God’s nike," "God's victory ''
This past week, I got a lot of help in field testing my idea
about appropriating and reinterpreting the Nike "swoosh”
as a Christian symbol.
That help came from our new security person, Francis,
who everyday wore at work his black Nike cap
with a big, bold "swoosh" on the front of it.
And I'm pleased to say that by the end of the week
I had gotten really good at reinterpreting that symbol.
By the end of the week, everytime I saw
Francis and his cap standing at the door of our church,
I found myself saying to myself,
"Hey, that means the Holy Spirit is really in this place,
that means God's Easter victory has truly been
clinched with the sound of Pentecost,
with the 'swoosh' of the Spirit."
So I invite you to join with me this week in practicing
the Christian art of reinterpreting the Nike symbol.
For example, tonight, when you see all those Bull and Pacer
basketball sneakers dashing up and down the court
with the Nike "swoosh" emblazoned on them,
think “nike” think "victory," think "God's victory,”
think "Pentecost"!
Think "the sound of Pentecost"-think "the swoosh of the Holy Spirit
clinching God's Easter nike on the Day of Pentecost,”
think "the sound of the Paraclete
making present among us the Spirit and teachings of Christ,"
think "the swoosh of the Holy Spirit
claiming us for the love of God and neighbor.”
Let us pray.
O God, help us whenever we hear or see one of those millions of
"swooshes" to think of the Holy Spirit and to think of the Spirit's
clinching of Your Easter victory on the Day of Pentecost. This we
pray in the name of our Risen Christ. Amen.
Return to Sermon Archive