Leonid Brezhnev was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and de facto ruler of the USSR from 1964 to his death in 1982. He served in that position longer than anyone other than Joseph Stalin. Brezhnev held the lid on underground religion and was a central figure in the Cold War conflict of power and values between East and West. Then Vice President George H.W. Bush represented the United States at the funeral of Leonid Brezhnev. Bush recalls being deeply moved by a silent protest carried out by Brezhnev’s widow. Viktoria stood motionless by the coffin until seconds before it was closed. Then, just as the soldiers touched the lid, she performed an act of great courage and hope, a subtle gesture of civil disobedience: Viktoria reached down and made the sign of the cross on her husband’s chest. Right there, in the citadel of secular, atheistic power, the wife of the man who had run it all hoped that her husband was wrong. She testified to another power, an unseen wind represented by the cross that could lift him up to new life.

That was in 1982 and then after a couple of brief successors, Mikhail Gorbachev took over as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union until its collapse in 1991. What a phenomenal movement of the Spirit blew through that final decade of the USSR. In the journal Homiletics, I read the account of a group of postdoctoral scholars from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio who traveled to Moscow to participate in the first truly free May Day celebration since 1917. Their group secured a private interview with Mikhail Gorbachev in that spring of 1992, just one decade after Brezhnev’s death. They had studied in advance the various explanations for the collapse of Communism: it was economically inefficient; it was incapable of expanding domestic production; it was obsessive in political and military competition; it was cruel and offensive to its citizens… Yet they couldn’t pass on the opportunity to ask Gorbachev the same question, “Why, in his personal opinion, did communism collapse?”

A remarkably candid Gorbachev gave his explanation of why. There were two distinct reasons, he argued. First, Gorbachev admitted that the Soviet Union under the communist regime had committed ecocide – ecocide that involved far more than simply pollution or destruction of environment. Gorbachev recognized that the root of much of communism’s botched attempt to govern came from its failure to respect the natural systems of life: economics, employment, food supplies, transportation, energy, health care – all these life-sustaining systems must be kept in balance. By ignoring that base and kicking it away, the communist system eventually crumbled under its own unsupported weight.

But Gorbachev’s second reason for communism’s collapse was even more stunning. He said the same thing to this group of Protestant leaders as he did just earlier in an historic meeting with Pope John Paul II. Communism, Gorbachev admitted, did not take seriously “the spiritual principle of [humanity].” When asked to elaborate, Gorbachev, the man who just a year prior had been the leader of the most powerful officially atheistic country in the world, replied that communism was only adept at understanding the physical and materialist side of life. It proved utterly incapable of comprehending the spiritual side of existence! “We need spiritual values; we need a revolution of the mind. We must find a way to stimulate the spiritual principle in [people].”

The team from United Theological Seminary received a hefty dose of this same perspective the very next day when they met with a Russian public school principal. The principal surprised them with the opening statement, “Was it not your Jesus who responded to the question ‘When did we see you hungry, when did we see you naked?’ with ‘Inasmuch as you have done it for the least of these you’ve done it for me?’” She continued, “In spite of what you think, we are not naked – we have enough clothes. We are not hungry – we have enough food. We are rich in culture and tradition. But we are hungry and we are naked and poor for the things of the spirit – joy, happiness, peace, patience. This is where we need your help and your churches’ help most desperately! Help make us rich in the things of the spirit.”

From school leaders to governmental leaders there was a yearning for the breath of God’s Spirit to infuse Russians with life; a longing for that unseen wind of hope to dispel the stagnant air of despair; a gale force gust to bring renewal and new direction! Not tanks, not bombs, not bullets, but the huffing and puffing of God’s Spirit was perceived as the wind beneath the wings of anticipation and hope and growth. Because of this attentiveness to the wind beneath their wings, the United Methodist Church in Russia is now one of the fastest growing arenas for our denomination. During the past decade of decline for American Methodists, Russian Methodists have multiplied from 5 congregations to over 88 with lay leadership development and the establishment of a Russian United Methodist Seminary.

Perhaps its not just communism, but capitalism as well that runs the risk of focusing only on the physical and materialistic side of life. When we start to think that our success, our accomplishments, our victories, our security, our blessings are solely the product of our own labors, we have fallen out of path of the wind that seeks to lead, direct and support our lives.
Looking back to our Old Testament reading for today, Abram (later to become Abraham) was closely tied to his physical and material roots. He had the security of home and hearth, family and possessions and a plethora of gods to cover all the bases in life in his pagan homeland of Ur. But then a Spirit spoke and that breath swept him forward in faith.
Looking the other way to our New Testament reading, Jesus gives a night visitor named Nicodemus some more hints about Spirit of God when he insists, “You must be born from above. The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (v. 7-8). For Jesus, God’s presence in our lives only becomes real when we let go of the grip on our own anchors and allow ourselves to be moved in God’s time and space.

Jaime Potter-Miller recounts a moving story about one of her trips to the Soviet Union/Russia during that precarious political and social transition in the early 90’s. She was invited to preach and sing before a bursting-at-the-seams Soviet Methodist congregation. In order to make her way across the crowded meeting hall to sing her solo, Miller had to exit the building to re-enter it on the correct side. Outside the church door she ran into a young man, who introduced himself as Patrick. Miller said she invited him to come in, but he shook his head. “You are a believer?” he asked. She nodded. In excellent English he spit out the words, “If you are a believer, show me your Holy Spirit! I cannot believe what I cannot see! Where is it? What does it look like? Where can I touch it? It’s all a fantasy! A child’s game!” Miller took his hand and led him to the street. She said, “Patrick, I will show you the Holy Spirit if you will show me the wind.” Patrick described what he saw out on the street as blossoms and leaves blew around. Flags flapped and shawled women left a trail of fringe. Miller interrupted. “No, Patrick, you’re telling what the wind does. Show me the wind. For I too, can show you what the Holy Spirit does. But I cannot show you the Spirit anymore than you can show me the wind.” And then she added, “Patrick, if you are right and there is no God, then I have lost nothing by believing. But if I am right and you are wrong, then you have lost everything.” (“A Question of Questions”, Circuit Rider, May 1992)

Remember the beginning of the sermon? Back in 1982, when Brezhnev died and his wife made the sign of the cross on his chest? According to published reports someone else was attending to the wind. On July 2, 1982 a 33-year-old California truck driver named Larry Walters, made the news by attending to the wind. Urban legend embellishes in a variety of ways, but the core of truth appears to be that he wanted to see his neighborhood from a new perspective. Larry went down to the local army surplus store and bought 40 some used weather balloons and a few tanks of helium. That afternoon, he tied down a lawn chair, secured the inflated balloons to the chair, and strapped himself into the chair along with some snacks and beverages and a BB gun. When cut loose, his plan was to float just above the trees and rooftops and then shoot the balloons one at a time when he decided to slowly land.

Instead, when the rope was cut he bolted so quickly into the air he froze with fear, soaring to heights in excess of 10,000 feet. After shooting a few of the balloons, Larry accidentally dropped his gun and continued floating around the Los Angeles basin where he was spotted and reported by airline pilots. He eventually landed in Long Beach and became entangled in power lines. Soon after he was safely grounded and cited by the police, reporters asked him three questions. “Were you scared?” “Yes.” “Would you do it again?” “No.” “Why did you do it?” “Because” he said, “you can’t just sit there.”

A lawn chair flight isn’t exactly what God had in mind for Abram or Nicodemus or us, but it is true, that “you can’t just sit there” when the Spirit of God yearns to be the wind beneath your wings...