The Presumption of Pentecost--5-23-10

Scripture--Acts 2: 1-21  Click here to go to Bible Gateway

              Ah, Pentecost, that wild and crazy day, where any attempt to harness the working of the Spirit is doomed to fail and any attempt to control what God is doing is burned in the same amazing fire that brings to us the gift of the Holy Spirit…Pentecost, that day that turned those passionate followers into a movement, is full of the movement of God is ways unheard of and with a passion that spread beyond the precious few.  Pentecost, frightening for some, uncomfortable for many, just couldn’t be contained.  The Holy Spirit was loose—it was a day when God showed us what it would mean to let go and let God take over. 

                The early followers, Luke tells us there were about 120 of them, had stayed in Jerusalem, just like Jesus told them to.  They had gathered in a room for the week and had been constantly praying since the time that Jesus left them last week.  Finally, the day of Pentecost arrives.  Now, most of the time, we Christians forget that Pentecost meant something before we came along…sitting here in the shadow of this Temple’s altar, we are encouraged to remember the great link between what came before and what happens next.  “Pentecost” comes from the Greek word pentekostos, which means “fiftieth”.  It refers to the feast held 50 days after Passover.  Two Jewish feasts have and can be celebrated:  The Feast of the Harvest explained in Exodus 23 or the Feast of Weeks, explained in Leviticus.  Many centuries later, after the Jewish peoples were exiled to Babylon, Pentecost became one of the most important Jewish feasts and the Jews now scattered around the ancient world made an annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem to worship together as a people.  It is into this scene that God sent the Holy Spirit—like a mighty rushing wind.      In the midst of this gathering of people from all over  the world, a gathering of people who spoke at least 15 languages, the miracle happened. 

                Picture yourself among the disciples:  A sound rips from the sky without warning, the roar of an unbelievably violent wind—the whole house is shaking.  Then a giant flame appears, divides itself into smaller flames and leaps from one person to the next.  Everyone present receives the Holy Spirit—no one is excluded and a sign is given—people start speaking in languages they have never spoken before.   However, let us not be content with assuming that this speaking is the miracle—for it is not.  The great promise of Pentecost is not that people were speaking new languages—the great promise of Pentecost is found in what happens next.

                Luke tells us that, because of the holidays, Jerusalem was filled with people from all over the world—you heard the list (and were all probably grateful that it wasn’t your turn to read the scripture today).  And these people, many of whom knew nothing of Jesus and his disciples got the shock of their lives—they could understand what these people were saying—everyone of them—no one was excluded from hearing his or her own language.  And this, my friends, is the presumption of Pentecost—that the gift of God’s Holy Spirit is for everyone, regardless of the language they speak or the history they bring to the table.  For in the understanding of what these followers of Jesus are saying, comes the realization that something important is going on.  And God uses common people speaking in uncommon ways to illustrate the gift of the Holy Spirit to those who had yet to receive it.

                Language is the most important aspect of being relational beings.  We talk to each other.  We use language to bind us together and we use language to tear us apart.  Whole peoples have been subjugated throughout history because they “couldn’t speak the language”.  Not so different even today, language continues to set us apart.  And God used language on that day to show us in no uncertain terms, just how wide and vast, and plentiful the Spirit of God is.  The Church, thoughout history, has used the Pentecost event to set us Christians apart—but this is not what God was doing—this is what we did with God’s actions, quite frankly, after the fact.  And so, this mighty presumption of Pentecost is that nothing sets us apart, when we are joined with the Spirit of God—that language barriers and barriers of every kind are broken down.  AND, this is where we find our greatest challenge.

                Before returning to our challenge, let’s finish our story—people are amazed to hear their own language, but not for long—as soon as the wow factor wears off—we humans are a fickle lot—they immediately fixate on finding an explanation.  “These people are drunk”, they say.  Now Peter’s immediate response has always tickled me a little—“Of course, they’re not drunk, it’s only 9:00 in the morning.”  Always made me kinda glad that the Holy Spirit arrived in the morning and not at Happy Hour.  But, Peter goes on and, really, quite brilliantly, links what is happening to words from the prophet Joel: 

" 'In the last days, God says,
      I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
   Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
      your young men will see visions,
      your old men will dream dreams.
 Even on my servants, both men and women,
      I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
      and they will prophesy.
 I will show wonders in the heaven above
      and signs on the earth below,
      blood and fire and billows of smoke…” 

                Pretty fast thinking, when you think about it…don’t know that I would have had the presence of mind, in the midst of flames of fire leaping, people talking in 15 languages at once, and hecklers making rude comments from the peanut gallery, to quote scripture.  Let’s you know that God had a plan and knew that Peter would, indeed, rise to the occasion and preach quite a sermon for all who would listen.  He tells them of Jesus, of His life, His death, His resurrection, and His ascension.  At the end of the sermon, Peter calls them to acknowledge that everything being told to them about Jesus is true—and to believe.  Many did and Luke notes that 3,000 of those people were baptized and joined with them ‘that very day’. 

                But, consistent with the presumption of Pentecost that the Holy Spirit is for all, it was these people from all over the known world, speaking different languages, believing different things about worship, scripture, and God, that came together to become a community.  We get stuck on wanting a ‘common language’.  God tells us through Pentecost that the commonality that yields community is in the very gift of the Holy Spirit.  We gather to worship and be together in community because the Holy Spirit—the same Spirit who visited on Pentecost—places the invitation in our hearts.  It does not matter that many of our languages are different, Protestant-speak, Catholic-speak, never went to church-speak, female-speak, male-speak, old-speak, young-speak are all transcended and transformed by the same Spirit that calls us together.  And this is the presumption of Pentecost, that whoever we are and wherever we come from, there is room at the Table of Blessings. 

                The Pentecost lesson to the Church is this:  When we trust God to fill us with the Holy Spirit and we allow that same Holy Spirit to minister and speak through us, we will speak in languages that others understand.  It is not about needing to be understood, it is about being willing to be understood by those who need to experience what we have to offer.  We are a new community in a very old one—and Pentecost comes again every time we open ourselves up to the presumption of Pentecost—that there is plenty of God to go around, that the Spirit will enable us to speak in ways that others understand, and that Jesus, the crucified and risen, is the reason we gather this day and every day we gather.  We are blessed and we are blessing…over the next several weeks I will be inviting us to look at ways to become a blessing community—to reach out and share what we have experienced—to find new ways to bring blessings to ourselves, to each other, and to those who have not yet found this place or this Spirit. 

                May we be blessed in the knowledge that God reaches out to us and sends people to speak to us in ways that we can understand.  May we be blessed in being those whom God sends out to others.  May we be blessed indeed.  Amen and amen!