God’s Centrifugal Force

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”  - Acts 1:8

One of my favorite fun activities as a child was the playground merry-go-round. You’ve seen them I am sure. It was a big, heavy, round, steel platform mounted on a rotating pedestal with bars to grasp. We kids would push the merry-go-round faster and faster until we could barely keep up! Then we would jump on and grasp the bar and hang out as far as we could, and at the prescribed signal of "1-2-3 Geranomo" we all would let go!  The force upon us would send us squealing and flying outward. The greatest moment was that fraction of a second after we let go and before we hit the ground; a glorious and precarious moment of freedom; feeling unhindered; set free by a power and a force bigger than us. Of course, the thing that made it so exciting was the centrifugal force.

I asked a scientist friend of mine for a definition of centrifugal force. He said, "It’s the force felt by any object moving in a curved line."  It's the centrifugal force that provides the thrill and the excitement!  Many people love carnival rides. The faster the ride spins, the higher it goes, the more people like it!  The sensation of being flung outward, the pressure in the chest, the queasiness in the gut, the sense of being almost out of control are all an integral part of the experience

I remember at time in high school being on one of those wild rides at a local carnival.  We were stuffed into a little torpedo-shaped-capsule and the thing was spinning high above the street, when suddenly, without warning, the centrifugal force caused the loose change in my pants pocket to fly out and rain down on the street below.  From the spinning capsule high above the street, I could see the kids below scrambling for my dimes and my quarters -- an unexpected dividend for them and loss for me.  Centrifugal force - what a glorious thing it is, and what a thrill it provides!

Today’s scripture passage from Acts is all about the power of centrifugal force.  Notice the outward movement in the passage. "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you (it begins to turn); and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem" (it turns a little faster); "in Judea" (a little faster and farther); "Samaria" (faster and farther yet); "and to the ends of the earth." (Spinning wildly, breaking free!)  Acts concludes 28 chapters later with the apostle Paul bringing the gospel to far-a-way Rome, a place that was very much considered the "ends of the earth."

But that's just what the power of the Holy Spirit does. Where the Holy Spirit is present, it won't take long, and we will begin feel the pressure of centrifugal force.  It is the Holy Spirit’s work to propel us outward, away from ourselves towards others and into the world with the message of God's love and grace, God's compassion and desire for justice. The Spirit won't allow us to get comfortable, content, or self-satisfied. The Spirit is intolerant of stagnation, apathy and indifference. The Spirit is about the same work that Jesus was about. The Holy Spirit continues the ministry of Jesus. Jesus told his disciples when he departed from them physically He would not leave them orphaned, but God would send a power and a presence that would continue His work though them.

I must confess somewhere along the line I lost my nerve for spinning carnival rides.  It began years ago when my son David and I went to Elitch Gardens in Denver.  We rode some spinning contraption, right after I had eaten a polish sausage and chocolate shake! You can guess what happened next.  Yes, I got sick, and it was then I believe, I began to lose my nerve! I grew up! I became a conservative, careful, cautious, responsible, reasonable, guarded, level-headed, safety-minded, logical adult.  What a shame!  Now carnival contraptions of centrifugal force terrify me! I  now avoid them. I lost my nerve. What a tragedy!

In the grand scale of things losing one's nerve to climb into carnival rides is not that big a deal. But what is a big deal is losing one's spiritual nerve – individually and as a community. What is a big deal is resisting the centrifugal force of the Holy Spirit whose purpose it is to move our individual lives and this community of faith beyond where we are into something new. I really believe that if we are not feeling a little bit uncomfortable, a little bit challenged to take a risk for Christ's sake; a little bit vulnerable because God is calling us out of our comfort zone into uncharted territory, a little pressure in the chest and queasiness in the gut, then we are not listening to the beckon and call of the Holy Spirit. 

My dear friends if we avoid the centrifugal force of God we cease to be the Church!  If we resist the centrifugal force of the Spirit then we will die, or become totally irrelevant! 

There is another force that would stop us dead in our tracks, and that is the force of gravity.  Spiritually speaking we might call it the gravitational pull of stagnation.  This is a devastating force that works to halt the creative and innovative centrifugal force of the Spirit.  The moment we succumb to the gravitational pull of stagnation we stop growing, and as a result find ourselves: avoiding taking risks; becoming content to the point we think not we need not change; hanging on to old ideas even if they don’t work; becoming dogmatic and closed to innovation; building walls to protect and keep others out and ourselves protected; becoming self-serving; losing our courage and nerve.

We see this force trying to take hold with the disciples.  “Lord, is now the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?”    Translated:  “Lord, will you now be the political Messiah we thought you were going to be all along and destroy Israel’s enemies and rule the world from Jerusalem?”   But isn’t that what we do too in our own way?   The gravitational force of fear and stagnation causes us to dig in and entrench ourselves in denominations, dogmas, belief systems and narrow attitudes at the expense of the life of Jesus which is the life we are called to live in our world. 

When we look at the life of Jesus we see a person who was always pushing outward into uncharted territory, equipped mostly with God’s grace.  In Luke’s gospel we see him pushing through barriers of religious and social prejudice; affirming those that the religious and cultural elite had marginalized including the ritually unclean, Samaritans, women, the poor, the lost, a variety of “so-called” sinners and outcasts and even the enemies of Israel. 

One last thing I need to mention about my childhood merry-go-round.  It was mounted on a center post; a hub.  The center post, the hub, made it possible for us to be set in motion; to experience the centrifugal force as we spun; to be propelled outward.

We have a center post, a hub. This morning we gather around that post - the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ and the holy banquet of our Lord. We must never forget it's a center post that sets us into motion. We gather around the table beneath the cross and are nourished with grace and forgiveness, and most importantly empowered and propelled -- propelled out of sin and despair, propelled out of boredom and indifference, propelled out of self-indulgence and idolatry; propelled out of prejudice and fear into the world and toward others with and by God’s grace through the centrifugal force of the Spirit.