June 8, 2014
Acts 2:1-21
Pentecost
I wanted to start my sermon this morning by asking all of us to pause for a moment. Now take a deep breath in…and exhale. Another deep breath in…and exhale. One more…breathe in…exhale.
Congratulations, you have just participated in a conspiracy.
Pentecost is the perfect day for us to participate in breathing together, for it is a day in which we celebrate the birthday of the church and commemorate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in wind and flame, in the speaking of various tongues…and yes, even in water. It’s a day in which we look back at the history of the church and see the ways in which the Spirit has been at work, but it is also a day in which we look forward towards where the Spirit is moving us in the days ahead.
The feast of Pentecost is not a creation of the Christian church. As we hear in the book of Acts, Pentecost was already going on before the church was born. The word Pentecost is something that the Christian church borrowed from Greek speaking Jews who used that word as a renaming of sorts of the festival of Shavuot, or the feast of Weeks. In the Jewish tradition, Pentecost is an observance of the day that Moses received the law from God on Mount Sinai. It is also end of the celebration of the grain harvest, a seven week season of gladness that began with the harvest of barley and ended with the harvest of wheat…we read in the book of Exodus that folks were to observe the feast of weeks with the first fruits of the wheat harvest. As a part of this celebration, folks were to bake two special loaves of bread from the first fruits of their harvest and bring them to the temple in Jerusalem in thanksgiving for the harvest. This feast got the name Pentecost because it falls 50 days after the end of Passover.
It was on this feast day that the disciples were all together in Jerusalem and were probably out observing the festival. It had been about ten days after Jesus had ascended into heaven and the disciples had obeyed his command to remain in Jerusalem until the arrival of the Holy Spirit. During that time, they decided that it was unsuitable for there to only be eleven disciples so they cast lots and voted Matthias in as the twelfth disciple, to replace Judas Iscariot.
Acts 2:1-21
Pentecost
I wanted to start my sermon this morning by asking all of us to pause for a moment. Now take a deep breath in…and exhale. Another deep breath in…and exhale. One more…breathe in…exhale.
Congratulations, you have just participated in a conspiracy.
Pentecost is the perfect day for us to participate in breathing together, for it is a day in which we celebrate the birthday of the church and commemorate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in wind and flame, in the speaking of various tongues…and yes, even in water. It’s a day in which we look back at the history of the church and see the ways in which the Spirit has been at work, but it is also a day in which we look forward towards where the Spirit is moving us in the days ahead.
The feast of Pentecost is not a creation of the Christian church. As we hear in the book of Acts, Pentecost was already going on before the church was born. The word Pentecost is something that the Christian church borrowed from Greek speaking Jews who used that word as a renaming of sorts of the festival of Shavuot, or the feast of Weeks. In the Jewish tradition, Pentecost is an observance of the day that Moses received the law from God on Mount Sinai. It is also end of the celebration of the grain harvest, a seven week season of gladness that began with the harvest of barley and ended with the harvest of wheat…we read in the book of Exodus that folks were to observe the feast of weeks with the first fruits of the wheat harvest. As a part of this celebration, folks were to bake two special loaves of bread from the first fruits of their harvest and bring them to the temple in Jerusalem in thanksgiving for the harvest. This feast got the name Pentecost because it falls 50 days after the end of Passover.
It was on this feast day that the disciples were all together in Jerusalem and were probably out observing the festival. It had been about ten days after Jesus had ascended into heaven and the disciples had obeyed his command to remain in Jerusalem until the arrival of the Holy Spirit. During that time, they decided that it was unsuitable for there to only be eleven disciples so they cast lots and voted Matthias in as the twelfth disciple, to replace Judas Iscariot.
And then the Holy Spirit showed up.
While the disciples were out, all of a sudden, from heaven came sound like that of a violent wind and tongues of fire appeared on the heads of each of the disciples. Then each of them, filled with the Spirit, began to speak in different languages so that those around them could understand them speaking in each of their native tongues. We don’t know exactly how it worked and it was probably an event beyond human comprehension…for there were only 12 disciples, but there were at least 16 different languages represented. So how did that work, specifically? Did a couple get to speak in more than one language? or did they think that they were speaking in Aramaic but the Spirit was deciphering what they were saying so that everyone could understand what was being said? The details don’t seem to matter but, however it happened, it is no wonder that a crowd gathered and became puzzled by what they had seen…and it is no wonder that the folks who heard this chaos wondered if the disciples had had a little to drink that morning.
What the people in Jerusalem witnessed that day was the fulfillment of what had been spoken by the prophet Joel, a pouring out of the Spirit upon all flesh. It wasn’t just the disciples upon whom the Spirit was coming to, but everyone…all flesh. There was, in that moment, an increase in understanding between the disciples and those who gathered around them through the speaking in different native tongues by the twelve from Galilee.
Some scholars have suggested that the Pentecost event is a reversal of an event that occurred in the beginning of scripture…an event that resulted in confusion and scattering…the tower of Babel. In Babel, human pride instigated the building of a tower that the men who were constructing it thought could be built tall enough to reach up into the heavens. The pride of those who built the tower, and their belief that they could be like God, resulted in the tower being knocked down and the languages of the people becoming confused so that they would not be able to understand each other.
Where at Babel, there was a great scattering because of human pride…in Jerusalem on the festival of Pentecost, there is, in a way, a unification because of the work of the Spirit. And we might want to stop there and sing and rejoice at the work of the Spirit and the formation of the church in this gathering and unification…but that’s not the end of the story and to stop there would be far too easy and ignores the fact that there is still pride and still confusion and scattering. We must keep going because the Spirit keeps going…it did not stop on Pentecost and neither do we.
The thing about the arrival of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost is not that our lives will be made easier because she has come, but rather, in the coming of the Holy Spirit, a monkey wrench is often thrown in our plans and our paths sometimes change course from where we think they should go. If the Holy Spirit had not been poured out upon the disciples, I’m sure James and John and Peter and Andrew could have easily gone back to their career as fishermen. Matthew could have gone back to tax collecting. The others could have gone back to the careers they had before Jesus invited them to follow. I wonder if in those days of waiting they thought about that possibility. It would have been easy, they knew what they were doing, they had done it all their lives…Zebedee and Sons, and whatever other companies run by the disciples could very well have been restored. But in the pouring out of the Spirit and the giving of the ability to communicate to people outside of Galilee, the idea that they could go back to commercial fishing was gone. They had a new mission, a mission to go out and spread the good news of the Gospel to the people of all nations and tongues. The Spirit had been poured out upon all flesh and now they had to go and awaken people to the presence of that Spirit.
While the disciples were out, all of a sudden, from heaven came sound like that of a violent wind and tongues of fire appeared on the heads of each of the disciples. Then each of them, filled with the Spirit, began to speak in different languages so that those around them could understand them speaking in each of their native tongues. We don’t know exactly how it worked and it was probably an event beyond human comprehension…for there were only 12 disciples, but there were at least 16 different languages represented. So how did that work, specifically? Did a couple get to speak in more than one language? or did they think that they were speaking in Aramaic but the Spirit was deciphering what they were saying so that everyone could understand what was being said? The details don’t seem to matter but, however it happened, it is no wonder that a crowd gathered and became puzzled by what they had seen…and it is no wonder that the folks who heard this chaos wondered if the disciples had had a little to drink that morning.
What the people in Jerusalem witnessed that day was the fulfillment of what had been spoken by the prophet Joel, a pouring out of the Spirit upon all flesh. It wasn’t just the disciples upon whom the Spirit was coming to, but everyone…all flesh. There was, in that moment, an increase in understanding between the disciples and those who gathered around them through the speaking in different native tongues by the twelve from Galilee.
Some scholars have suggested that the Pentecost event is a reversal of an event that occurred in the beginning of scripture…an event that resulted in confusion and scattering…the tower of Babel. In Babel, human pride instigated the building of a tower that the men who were constructing it thought could be built tall enough to reach up into the heavens. The pride of those who built the tower, and their belief that they could be like God, resulted in the tower being knocked down and the languages of the people becoming confused so that they would not be able to understand each other.
Where at Babel, there was a great scattering because of human pride…in Jerusalem on the festival of Pentecost, there is, in a way, a unification because of the work of the Spirit. And we might want to stop there and sing and rejoice at the work of the Spirit and the formation of the church in this gathering and unification…but that’s not the end of the story and to stop there would be far too easy and ignores the fact that there is still pride and still confusion and scattering. We must keep going because the Spirit keeps going…it did not stop on Pentecost and neither do we.
The thing about the arrival of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost is not that our lives will be made easier because she has come, but rather, in the coming of the Holy Spirit, a monkey wrench is often thrown in our plans and our paths sometimes change course from where we think they should go. If the Holy Spirit had not been poured out upon the disciples, I’m sure James and John and Peter and Andrew could have easily gone back to their career as fishermen. Matthew could have gone back to tax collecting. The others could have gone back to the careers they had before Jesus invited them to follow. I wonder if in those days of waiting they thought about that possibility. It would have been easy, they knew what they were doing, they had done it all their lives…Zebedee and Sons, and whatever other companies run by the disciples could very well have been restored. But in the pouring out of the Spirit and the giving of the ability to communicate to people outside of Galilee, the idea that they could go back to commercial fishing was gone. They had a new mission, a mission to go out and spread the good news of the Gospel to the people of all nations and tongues. The Spirit had been poured out upon all flesh and now they had to go and awaken people to the presence of that Spirit.
And go out they
did. They went out with the task of
spreading the Gospel and along the way they ran up against some speed bumps and
sometimes they made mistakes, but that didn’t stop them from going or the Holy
Spirit from working through them. In the
end, most of the twelve laid down their lives for the sake of the Gospel that
they had been sent to proclaim. So much
for going back to fishing and tax collecting.
As a community
coming out of a time of difficult transition…a long period of difficult
transition…we run the risk of falling into a dangerous situation. We have been having a lot of fun in the last
8 months and there is a lot more fun to come.
But it can get dangerous if, after an extended period of transition, we
settle down in these pews, in this pulpit, in the office, and get
comfortable. Because if we do that, we
are not listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit calling us out of our comfort
zones and into places that need us most.
It would be just like if Peter and James and John had gone back to
fishing instead of staying in Jerusalem.
When I was in
middle school, a cartoon came on the air that was based off of the book series,
“The Magic School Bus” and the popular line spoken by the eccentric teacher,
Miss Frizzle was the following – “Take chances, make mistakes, get messy” And I
think that this is exactly what the Holy Spirit calls the church to do. To be step out of our comfort zones and sin
boldly for the sake of the Gospel.
Following the Spirit’s guidance, there is so much amazing ministry we
can do utilizing the facilities that the Schultz fund has allowed us to
renovate and utilizing the amazing gifts of the people of St. John.
We are not
always going to get it right. We are
going to make mistakes and mis-starts.
But that’s not going to stop the Holy Spirit from working through us to
be an active and vital part of our community.
We already get our hands dirty serving Gods Works Meals, volunteering at
Ronald McDonald house, volunteering with care and share, serving with the fish
fries, planting our garden whose proceeds will go to support needs in our
community. Where else is the Holy
Spirit calling us to serve? How can we
active in the community in a way that people immediately know who we are, where
we are located, and what we are about based only on hearing the words St. John
Lutheran church?
As we breathe
together on this day, I invite all of us to enter into a summer of considering
where the Holy Spirit is guiding us as a family of faith. We do it together and we do it with the
outpouring of the Spirit.
Don’t be
surprised if the Spirit sends us in a direction we totally didn’t expect. She does that from time to time. Amen.
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