Spring Cleaning

 

Spring Cleaning

 

Acts 2:14a, 36-41
2:14a: But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them,

2:36 "Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified."

2:37 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the other apostles, "Friends, what should we do?"

2:38 Peter said to them, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

2:39 For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him."

2:40 And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, "Save yourselves from this corrupt generation."

2:41 So those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added.

 

 

Well, it’s SPRING (finally) and for many of us raised in Western PA households, that means it is time for SPRING CLEANING! Back in the days of my grandmothers, it meant washing down the walls, a throwback to when houses were heated with COAL during the Winter. Black gunk was spewed EVERYWHERE by those old Pennsylvania coal furnaces, which had no blowers, but were “gravity fed,” meaning the heat rose and the cold air sank, setting up a disgusting, black-sooted warm wind in the house. Washing the walls in the Springtime returned them to their original, painted color.

 

Today, we probably all have our Spring cleaning rituals, but many of them are practiced in the out-of-doors. This week, we moved all of the furniture, the deck box, and the gas grill off of our deck, swept it, pressure washed it, and then reapplied a coat of Thompson’s Water Sealopaque deck stain to protect the aging “outdoor” wood out of which it’s made. A quick, funny story…we have a heated, large “bird wash” basin that is mounted to the upper railing of our deck. Coupled with our huge, Audubon bird feeder that holds about 15 pounds of black oil sunflower seed, our backyard is a Mecca for birds of all kinds. And while they all like the bird wash, both to drink and bathe, the Mourning Doves REALLY like it. It’s not unusual to see three or four of them STANDING in the bird wash, and occasionally, when the spirit strikes, splashing around in it. Then they drink. (God has apparently designed birds to drink filthy water with no ill effects. Me? I get sick just watching them, when they drink out of that self-created cesspool!) ANYWAY, I removed the bird wash so I could stain the top of the railing. And while waiting for the deck to dry after pressure washing it, Dara looked out the dining room windows and said, “Hey, come look at this!” Sure enough, three of the Mourning Doves were perched on the top of the bird wash mount, looking forlornly in the window at us, as much to say, “HEY, where is our BATH WATER?!? They are quite happy that it has been cleaned, remounted, and filled with fresh, clean agua, which lasted about half an hour, once the birds returned.

 

I’m guessing some of you get the garden or the lawn ready for the Summer rituals? But perhaps some of you STILL do some actual “Spring cleaning” in the house? Or, in the garage, that is now filled with all of the stuff you should have discarded last Fall but couldn’t bear to part with? 

 

Spring cleaning, whether you do it indoors, outdoors, or both, usually consists of some of these activities:

 

Throwing things out—rounding up “stuff” that you have held on to because you know that Spring and Summer trips to Lowes or the neighborhood garage sales mean you will need room for the NEW stuff! It’s hard, letting go, isn’t it? All of that junk has a reason and an attached memory as to why you still have it. I’ve found that if I take a few moments to think through its history and my attachment to it, and say a brief prayer of thanksgiving for it, I am freed to throw it into the toter or set out the larger items for the trash truck. 

 

Dusting—My mom always used “Lemon Pledge” and a soft rag to do this, but Dara uses a thing that looks like someone robbed a turkey and pasted the booty onto a handle. Thankfully, we don’t have coal furnaces anymore, but depending on your HVAC system, and how often you change the filters, we DO have assorted “white” dust covering everything. They tell us this is mostly dead skin, insect parts and poo, mixed with some of the “road dust” the furnace blower sucks in. Sounds worse than coal dust, doesn’t it? You see why we need to dust? The Lemon Pledge treatment makes some sense. The foamy liquid “captures” some of the dust in the dust rag, and leaves behind a waxy polish, accompanied by a nice lemon scent. The turkey butt just scatters the dust, allowing it to land on a lower perch, preferrable on the floor, where it can be vacuumed up.

 

Vacuuming—This is the part of Spring (and regular) cleaning I like! Of course, my wife might say, “It uses a DEVICE!” We got a Hoover upright vacuum cleaner as a wedding present from my parents when we were first married. It weighed about 80 pounds, and would almost suck linoleum off the floor. We had it for years, at least until we were appointed to Coraopolis. There, we lived in a mansion that congregation had purchased on “mansion row” (State Avenue), right beside the church. Being that it was a large house, and that Dara worked full time then, we retained a professional cleaner (who was a church member) who had been used by the previous pastor. Wilai was from Thailand, was one of the nicest persons I have ever known, was an AMAZING cook, and made that mansion look brand new every time she cleaned. However, after having to lug that old Hoover upright up the winding flight of stairs for a time or two, she announced to me, “YOU need NEW vacuum! I done with THAT one!” In all fairness, the vacuum probably weighed more than Wilai. We bought our first new vacuum cleaner in over twenty years. Later, when we were appointed to Warren First UMC, the parsonage had all hardwood floors, so we got rid of our vacuum cleaner. Then, when we came to Allison Park and bought our townhouse, we had to buy new ones, but because a townhouse has more carpet than a golf course does grass, we bought TWO—one cordless “stick” vacuum, and one “ball” vacuum, both Dysons. (Dyson is the SpaceX or Tesla of the vacuum cleaner set.) I do the vacuuming because…you guessed it…it utilizes DEVICES! And the Dysons are high, high tech!

 

Hopefully, by now, you have done a little “overhearing” the Gospel on your own, as I have expounded almost endlessly about Spring cleaning. You probably know where I am going. Today’s text is the “punchline” to Peter’s simple, yet profound sermon at Pentecost. You know, the one where over 3,000 people came to Christ? In the message, Peter suggests to the crowd that the time is perfectly ripe for a little LIFE Spring cleaning! He tells of how humanity is filthy with sin—even worse than from a coal furnace—and that no amount of human “cleaning” can banish it. Then he tells the story of Jesus Christ, and how God sent Jesus to redeem the world. Humanity responded the way we usually do to change we don’t understand, we kill the messenger. And yet, God was so loving and bent on saving the world that he raised up Jesus from the dead! 

 

The question, “Friends, what should we do?” is brilliant. It’s time we ALL ask this question. It’s the Wesleyan question, “What should we then do?” The answer from Peter’s “Spring cleaning” sermon is three-fold:

 

*Repent—recognize your need FOR “cleaning” (having your sins forgiven by God’s grace in Jesus Christ), and turning your life “godward,” as someone has said. The Greek word used in this passage for “repent” is metanoia, and it means stop, turn about, and go in the opposite direction. Repentance is much more than just “confessing” sin, although that is an important place to start. After grace is applied, GO AND LIVE DIFFERENTLY than you did before, which is why you were in the mess you were in!

 

*Be baptized—So as not to get into a second sermon on HOW to be baptized, suffice it to say in Peter’s day, ALL new Christians were baptized as an outward symbol of in inward, and spiritual cleansing. Today, we often baptize infants and have their parents vow to RAISE them in a Christian environment so as to give them a fighting chance to start their lives OUT on a different path, rather than have to “recalculate” later. As a Methodist, I like the idea Mr. Wesley had that baptism (whether infant or adult) was a “means of grace,” meaning God was “in” it in a way that made it far more than a mere symbol.

 

*Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit—This was, after all, a Pentecost sermon, and the Holy Spirit had just “descended” upon those gathered in the upper room. What a novel idea! The brilliance of Peter (Spirit-led brilliance, I’m sure) was to offer the Holy Spirit to EVERYONE who came to Christ Jesus in faith. How tempting it would have been to believe the Holy Spirit, and all of that God-ordained power and wisdom therein, was “only available” to a select few chosen to lead. And before Pentecost, someone like Peter would have been a strong candidate to do just that! But here, he starts the work of the newly-arrived Holy Spirit off on her universal journey for all people of all time, everywhere! Note the interesting phrase employed by the Spirit-led Peter: “For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him." That’s about as universal as you can get, especially when you remember that God is out to embrace and redeem the whole world, and for all time!

 

Yes, friends, what we should “do” is engage in a little “Spring cleaning” of the soul. Just like we regularly clean our place and our stuff, our soul can stand a regular dust up. Repent, remember your baptism, and receive afresh the gift of God’s Holy Spirit! And use the “means of grace,” such as regular partaking of Holy Communion, to strengthen your bond with Christ. Just think of it as a kind of sanctified “Lemon Pledge.”

 

And as Columbo would say, “Just one more thing…” Peter’s unction to “Save yourself from this corrupt generation” should be interpreted in our time to mean, “WORK TO SAVE this corrupt generation!” As Winston said in Ghostbusters, “We have the TOOLS, we have the TALENT!” Thanks to the Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers and in the Church of Jesus Christ, we DO have the means to share the Good News with all of the others “who are far away” who need some Spring cleaning! Evangelism is not so much telling someone ELSE their “house” is dirty, as it is “offering them Christ,” as Mr. Wesley would say, so they can ask God to help them with THEIR Spring cleaning. Amen? Amen!