I want to start this morning telling you the story of a church that I know of, that some of you have probably heard about as well. It was founded by a fairly charismatic minister, who was known to preach good sermons. They didn’t have a permanent home where they met, but instead met where they could, and while they would get higher than normal attendance on the big holidays, sometimes more than a hundred, their normal attendance was in the twenties, although there were only around a dozen who could be counted on to be there all the time. Just as soon as it seemed like they were moving in the right direction, that they were about to see some huge growth, people would decide that this wasn’t the right church for them because it challenged what they had been taught as children, or it just wasn’t big enough, or stable enough, or it was too challenging, or they couldn’t be anonymous, or too much was required, or whatever the reason was, they just decided it wasn’t for them. But they did all the right things, although some of them were a little unusual, but it just didn’t seem like they were ever going to be bigger than they were. And then their pastor suddenly died, and no one knew what was going to happen, because one of the things that happens when charismatic leaders die is that their movements tend to quickly dissipate, unless another leader steps into the void, and it wasn’t clear that any of the members of this church had the skills or graces or ability to fill that hole. And so the members of the church gathered together, and they worshipped and prayed, but they didn’t know what their future held, and they were a little scared and a little nervous and a little anxious and timid, they hoped something might happen with their little church, they loved it after all, and while the people weren’t perfect, and there was some conflict, over all it was a good place to be, and they didn’t want to find another place to go, and so they gathered together into a room to discuss what they should do, to hold the dreaded all church meeting, and then something miraculous happened.
Does anyone want to take a guess as to what church this was, or where this took place? It was the original church with Jesus as its head, although traditionally we would say that there was not, in fact, a church yet, because today, Pentecost, is seen as the birth of the church. But we forget what the group of was like just 51 days before when they had no idea what was going to happen, and then they encounter the risen Christ, but that still didn’t mean that anything was going to become of this group, and so as we have been talking about resurrection stories, I think it’s important to recognize the resurrection story of the disciples to become the church. According to the author of Luke, who also writes Acts, and we should see them as a complete whole, Jesus has spent the time after the resurrection, until his ascension into heaven, which we recognized on Thursday. I know all of you had ascension parties, right? He has spent that time instructing the disciples, and one of the things he has said to them was that they would receive the Holy Spirit, and when they received the Holy Spirit they would receive what? Power.
So, the disciples and other followers are gathered together for the day of Pentecost, which is a Jewish holiday, falling 50 days after Passover, and it was one of the most significant of the Jewish holidays as it was one of only three pilgrimage holidays in which people from the diaspora, that is Jews who didn’t live in Jerusalem or even Palestine itself, who would travel to Jerusalem to celebrate and give praise to God, and it is a spring harvest festival. Now those of you who grew up in agricultural areas in the Midwest, you may wonder how you would have a harvest festival in the spring, since you were just planting seed, but this is again where I think we have an advantage in understanding the biblical world by living here in New Mexico because we have multiple harvests and so right about now, or a little earlier, depending on the year, farmers are bringing in the winter wheat harvest, and that’s what was happening at the time. So, it’s important to remember as we witness what is about to happen to remember that Jerusalem is packed with people who don’t live there, but have traveled there because of this holiday, and that it is a harvest festival, and God is about to bring in a new harvest.
But, over time, the festival of weeks also became associated with the giving of the law to Moses at Mount Sinai, and according to rabbinic tradition, God gave the law all at once, and it came as one loud sound, which was divided into seven voices, and then into seventy tongues so that it could be heard and understood by everyone. Now there are some scholars who argue that that tradition is later than the Christian Pentecost story and came out of this story, but either way, it builds on this idea of God’s word being multiplied in a variety of languages so that it could be heard by people in their own tongues and in their own contexts. And that is at the heart of the Pentecost moment and the Pentecost experience. It is a reversal of the tower of Babel in which the people are said to have been given a multiplicity of voices so that people would not understand one another. But in this moment, it’s not a problem because the multiplicity of people is met with a multiplicity of languages to counter them so that the people could hear the good news in their own language.
Now what happens on that first Pentecost is not the idea of speaking in tongues as we normally think of it either from Paul’s writing, or from Pentecostal churches. That is known as glossolalia, which is speaking an unknown language, presumably under the guidance of the Spirit. But, speaking in glossolalia requires someone else to interpret it, as Paul tells us, or if there is no one to interpret it goes without understanding for either the speaker or the listener. But the Pentecost moment is known as xenolalia, which is speaking a foreign language that has not been learned by the person speaking it. This is the exact opposite of xenophobia, which is fear of the foreigner, fear of the other, which we are certainly hearing more of lately, although this has always been a part of humanity, of supporting your clan, your tribe, your team, and opposing those who are opposite, the other. But Pentecost shatters that idea, it shatters xenophobia and says we’re not going to be afraid of these people who speak other languages, were not going to yell and make a fuss about it while people video tape us being stupid, but instead we are going to engage with them and talk with them and listen to them, but we’re going to do it in a very specific way, or with a very specific understanding.
I want you to close your eyes, and take a deep breath in, and then breath out, focusing on your breathing and your breath…. We are told in Genesis that God breathes the breath of life into Adam, that means the breath that we breathe, the breaths that we take, are a part of God, we could take it in even a step further and say that since it is air that we are breathing, which is part of creation, and that all of creation belongs to God, that means the air we breath also belongs to God. And so, we are called to be good stewards of the air that we breath just as much as we are called to be good stewards of all of God’s resources. How are we treating our air? How are we treating our breathe? It’s impossible to speak without breathing, which is why people who are choking can’t tell you they are choking. So, the words that we use, use the breath that we receive from God. Are those breaths, those words, a reflection of God, or are they demeaning or degrading of God, of the Spirit of God in us? This week we heard the president say that some people are not humans, that they are animals, and he is not alone in this. Several months ago, the chief of police for Albuquerque said the same thing, and in response to the president’s statement I heard people on the other side saying that he is the real animal. But anytime anyone seeks to dehumanize someone else, to use language that says they are less than, anyone, it is not being a good steward of the breath that God has given to use. Because of Pentecost we should see every statement that we make as being from God and ask ourselves if what we say is worthy of God, and I know that’s a really hard standard to live up to, and one to which I myself fail, but if being a follower of Christ was easy, if picking up our cross was easy, if using the power of the Holy Spirit was easy, then everyone would do it, but the path is easy that leads to destruction Jesus tells us, but the path of discipleship is narrow and hard.
Which leads us again to the Pentecost story. Please notice that the Spirit is not the wind and its not a fire, but it’s like these things, and so tongues as of fire come upon them, and the disciples finding themselves speaking in foreign languages, but notice what they don’t do. They don’t say to each other, hey if we start talking to others and tell them about Jesus, then it will change our little gathering, it won’t be that we think we know everyone and feel comfortable with everyone, heck everyone won’t even speak our language if we leave these doors. That’s what churches tend to do today, and its natural. We like things the way they are, and we don’t like the idea of loss, in fact the natural tendency of people is to be averse to losing things, including things with which we are comfortable.
Yesterday as we gathered together to walk circles around the church in prayer, Samantha asked what she was supposed to be in prayer for, and so I told her to pray about the opening of a satellite campus, and to pay off our mortgage and to pray for doubling worship attendance and perhaps even pray that the youth group would double, or even better get four times bigger, and what was her response? “I like the youth group just like it is.” That’s the fear of loss driving us. One of the fears I have heard expressed about a new satellite location is that we might lose people, but that’s the wrong way to look it at, because it’s possible we might lose people, and that hurts, believe me I feel it when people leave, but rather than being a position of loss we should instead think of it as a position of gain, and ask how many more people will start attending church that aren’t here now because we reach beyond our walls to proclaim the gospel message. How much are we going to gain? Or better, how much more will the Kingdom of God expand and continue because we are doing the work that God has called us to do, to go out, to take the ability the Spirit has given us to leave the room and proclaim to everyone, which is what the disciples do.
We are told that they began speaking to the Jews who had gathered there in their own languages, which apparently was shocking to people because it was coming from Galileans, and you all know about those people. And some accused them of being drunk, which doesn’t really make much sense, because most drunk people have a hard-enough time speaking their own language, let alone trying to speak another language. It would have been really great if Peter, instead of saying that they can’t be drunk because it’s only 9 in the morning, if instead he would have said, well, you know, it’s five o’clock somewhere, but apparently, he wasn’t a Jimmy Buffett and Alan Jackson fan, and instead he quotes to them from the prophet Joel. Now we could spend an entire message, or more, digging through this passage from Joel, and perhaps some Pentecost Sunday I’ll do that, but for today I simply want to point out two things. The first is that Joel says the Spirit will fall upon everyone, young and old, male and female, even upon those society looks down their noses at, like slaves, and they will dream dreams and see visions, they will call for a new way of living and being, they will offer hope into the world, and when hope is present then the future is possible, because when we give up on hope, then all is lost, but we are called to be people of hope. And the second is that Joel says that “everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”
At the time that Peter says this, he is talking only to Jews and really only means Jews, but quickly that understanding is blown away when they begin to reach out and preach to gentiles, non-Jews, although that was not without huge resistance and arguments, but they began to expand the definition of who “all” applied to, an argument that the church is still having about whether God’s message of salvation truly applies to all, or to just some of the all, you know the people who are like us and that we like, and we should celebrate that our all, our circle of inclusion, is much bigger than most and that we are working to live into all meaning all.
In response to their preaching, we are told that the church increased by 3000 people that day. So, imagine, just a few days before, Peter was preaching to 120 followers, and now it’s 3,120 people. Picture what that looks like. We worship just under 100 every week, so imagine that this afternoon we received 3000 new people into worship and membership, do you think some things might change? What would that look like? I always try and think of the logistics of trying to baptism 3000 people in a day, and its mind boggling. But the disciples trusted in God, and followed the Spirit of God, remembering that it was not their church and it wasn’t about them. It. Is. About. God. And, It. Is. God’s. Church. And God can do amazing, miraculous, mind-blowing things, if and when we learn to put our trust in God and open ourselves up to receive the Holy Spirit, because when we receive the Holy Spirit we receive what? Power. The Greek word is Dymanis, from which we get words like dynamite and dynamic. This is not a static experience, and it’s not about the gift of the Spirit, but what the Spirit calls us and leads us to do. Pentecost is not about something that happened in the past, some resurrection story that is distant from us. Pentecost is the story of us today, it is our resurrection story, and the call to us to be resurrected. It completes the journey we began at the beginning of lent with the imposition of ashes and leads us from those ashes to the fire of Pentecost, that is it reverses the normal order. Rather than flames leading to ashes, the ashes lead us to the flames, of the Phoenix rising. Pentecost is our story, and it invites us to participate and live into the world in new and different ways, to feel ourselves filled with the breath of God and to proclaim the power of the Spirit, of the good news of Jesus Christ, of resurrection to the world. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
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