I have to say that I think Peter’s response in the Pentecost story that the disciples are not drunk as some suppose, because it’s only 9 am is one of my favorite lines of scripture. The way he says it, means we could possibly see him saying, “now if it was three or four, maybe” and thank goodness no one had yet come up with the phrase “it’s five o’clock somewhere.” And the reason why people believe they might be drunk is that many pagan groups, especially mystery cults, used alcohol or other drugs in order to bring about ecstatic or altered states, and so the disciples could certainly be mistaken for that. But what I want to focus on today, at least to start, is the line that begins today’s passage: “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.” It’s not quite clear if this is just the disciples, including Matthias who was just added to the 12, along with some of the women with them, or the 120 who were followers at the time, although since they are in a house together, it’s probably the smaller number. But there they are all together, and of course this year at Pentecost we are not altogether. We’re not seeing people in wearing red, or singing together the songs of the Spirit. But, like the disciples we sit and wait.
At Easter I talked about living in a liminal time or a liminal space, the in between between what was and what has not yet been. That’s where the disciples found themselves after the crucifixion, in the in-between, and even after they had encountered the risen Christ they were still really in that liminal space because they didn’t know what was going to happen, where the movement was going, what they were going to become. Instead they were still receiving instructions from Jesus and he tells them to stay in Jerusalem, and tells them that soon they will receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which originally had been promised by John the Baptist, at that when the Spirit came upon them they would receive power, and it’s a lot more fun to do that when you can shout power back at me, and they would take that baptism of the Spirit and the power they had received, they would be Jesus’ “witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” And so they remain in Jerusalem and are there for the festival of weeks, which was a spring harvest festival that took place 50 days after Passover, and thus was also called Pentecost, pente being 50. But here’s where things changed for them, and ended their in-between time.
The Holy Spirit comes upon them, and please note that it is like a fire and like a wind, it’s not that the Holy Spirit is these things, although those are definitely some of the imagery we use, but it’s like those things, like it’s also like a dove and like breath and like water. When they receive the Spirit they are able to speak in a multiplicity of tongues that can be understood by all the various nations that are represented by those who have made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem in order to be there for the celebration of Weeks. And as the disciples* begin to preach the good news, we are told that eventually 3000 people are converted and baptized that day. They went from 120 followers to more than 3000 followers in one day. That’s some amazing church growth, and thus why Pentecost is often called the birth of the church, and it ends the post-resurrection in-between to a clear mission for the church. That’s really what the Spirit gives the disciples and the apostles that day is a new mission, a new calling. Of course they already had it because Jesus had already told them what they were to do, which was to spread the gospel message, the good news, but now they actually have the power to do it, because they have received the power of the Spirit.
The Greek word for power is dynamis, from which we get English words like dynamic, dynamo and dynamite. This is not a staid or laidback thing, this is a force that pushes and engages in the world, explodes on people. There are lots of ways that this understanding of power appears in scripture, including in healing, but I think here this power is the ability or call to do God’s will. To be agents of God in the world. To be mediators of transformation. And so immediately the disciples go out, along with the women? Probably, although that’s not mentioned, but they had been in the house before, and they proclaim the good news to everyone who will listen, and they do it in the language that they all understand. And we should pay special attention to the list of the people groups who are there, because they certainly represent a wide spectrum of people. Luke says they are all the nations, but we should edit that to being all the nations of which he was aware. Everyone is hearing the message, and the disciples are the ones who have to cross the barriers for them to hear it. They aren’t restricting the message and saying, why don’t you come be like me, why don’t you learn my language, why don’t you come worship like me, why don’t you come and like my music, or think like I do, or look like I do, and then once you’ve done that then we’ll say you are worthy to be welcomed into the church. Instead, the disciples are going forward and breaking all of their own preconceived notions and barriers and boundaries. It is the Spirit that drives them out, and why? So they can do the work of God. and that power of the Holy Spirit is at the heart of the matter.
And so that takes us back to Jesus’ original instruction that he gave them for what to do when they received the Spirit, to be his “witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” That means to witness where they are, Jerusalem, to witness where they are from, in Judea, to witness in surrounding territories even to those people they don’t like, those who are the “other”, who worship and talk differently than we do, and then to everyone else. That pretty much covers it doesn’t it? And more importantly, in Peter’s usage of the prophet Joel, and interpretation of that text, he says that the Spirit will come upon everyone, young and old, male and female, slave and free, everyone will receive the Spirit. This is not just reserved for the disciples, or just for the preachers, or just for the musicians, the Spirit is there for everyone, and when anyone receives it they receive the power to do the will of God. so who has received the Spirit? We all have.
We believe that we receive the Spirit through the waters of baptism, and Jesus tells us that we receive the Spirit every time that we go to God in prayer. The Spirit is with us and in us and around us. We are one with the Spirit and we are one with the Lord. The wind and fire and divided tongues are ours to claim and proclaim, because we don’t need to be all together to have a Pentecost moment because it’s already happened. The Spirit is already ours. The Spirit has already been poured out for us. We have been water washed and Spirit filled. We are dead to the law and alive under grace. Our hearts are set on righteousness and our minds are fixed on life and love and peace. We give ourselves generously and live in compassion, for we are children of God. God’s beloved sons and daughters, heirs of the kingdom and the promise because of the son who has given to us the righteousness of God.
We don’t live in the liminal space like the disciples did in this sense that we know what the church is and we know what the mission of the church is, and that is to do the will of God. when the apostle Paul talks about what it means to be led by the Spirit, to be filled with the Spirit, he says it will be obvious in our lives, because we will have the fruit of the Spirit, and we’ve come back to this several times in this series, and he says the fruit, and its singular, not plural, are “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” And believe me, you need the power of God, the power of the Spirit to generate and live by the Spirit, and if we live by the Spirit, Paul says that we should also be guided by the Spirit.
Now if you also pay attention to the fruit, what you will notice is that they are not individual activities, they are things that are done in community. They might be things we have to do, like practice self-control, but they are things done in relationship to each other. And they are the ways that we represent who we are, and who God is to the world. They represent the core values of the Kingdom of God, and so we communicate them not just with our words but with our actions, and while our actions speak louder than words, we do still have to use words, and we have to learn to communicate in new ways. Much of the church has been stuck in the 20th century, at the very least, and we were not learning the language of technology and social media and videos and games that are the languages of new generations, and worse we were saying that that communication is not real or true and they have to learn to talk like us.
But we have been pushed out of the upper room lately and the Spirit has said, learn to talk their language, and we are having to work on it. And the Pentecost story, as I already said, burst across racial and ethnic lines, and social and economic lines, and we are called to do the same thing today, because as unarmed black men continue to be killed, and COVID-19 exposes the social rifts in that most people of color don’t have jobs where they can work from home, and so instead are at risk, the church should have something to say about the Kingdom of God. although we, as primarily white people, first need to shut the hell up and listen to hear their stories of decades and generations and of oppression and hatred and then we can begin to speak, and to speak in the language they speak and know. Because that’s what Pentecost is about, is the power to do the will of God and to move way outside of our comfort zones to engage in the world and to meet people where they are, not where we want them to be, not where we want to be.
And so while the passage begins with them all gathered together in the same place, and us mourning not being able to do the same, that is not where the story ends. In fact, they are quickly driven out of the house to be in the world, which is where we are now, whether we want to be or not, we are out in the world, not stuck in the church, and now is our opportunity to be the church in a radically different way. And we can’t say we can’t do it because we are too old or too young, that it’s not our place or our role, because, as Joel reports, “God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.” Or as Jesus says, quoting Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.” The Spirit of the Lord is upon you. The Spirit of the Lord is upon us because she has anointed us to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Speak to us O Spirit of God, speak through us, help us to feel your power on us and in us and around us. Let you mighty wind and fire burn in us and through us, may your tongues of fire teach us new languages of love to reach across the boundaries that divide us, and to see everyone as beloved brothers and sisters, worthy of God’s love, just as we are, worthy of respect and esteem, just as we worthy, worthy of being treated kindly, just as we are, worthy of mercy and grace, just as we are. O spirit of God, help us to feel and use your power to do God’s will to bring about God’s Kingdom, not at some future date, but here and now. O spirit of peace, help us heal division. O spirit of love, help us to bind old wounds. O Spirit of generosity, help us to learn to give of ourselves. O spirit of comfort, help us to be agents of compassion. O spirit of righteousness, help us to seek out to do what is right. O Spirit of worship, help us to love God with all that we are, so we can in turn love our neighbor as ourselves. And O Spirit of power breathe into us the breath of God and help us to feel your anointing to preach the good news this day and every day. I pray that it will be so my sisters and brothers. Amen.
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