Service on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/100064617886792/videos/1863754690971437 and YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV0NeU88Rk8
Today we have often called the Birthday of the church. I hear there’s a cake and everything. It’s a celebration–with streamers and balloons.
But the gathering of the we read in this text, was not the first Pentecost. The disciples, the many disciples, 120 actually, were gathered for one of the 3 Jewish pilgrimage festivals–Hebrew for booths Shauvot, or, in Greek, Pentecost for 50. Falling 50 days after Passover. Shavuot was a festival that served a few purposes: 1: it was a harvest festival bring the first fruits of the year to God. Even today they build tents or booths and family and friends would gather to celebrate the newness of spring and the renewal after the time of fear of passover. And, it recognizes the giving of the law by God through Moses at Mt Sinai, the 50 days marking the time between leaving Egypt and arriving at Mt Sinai.
When the law was given, there was fire and thunder and earth shaking and wind; God showed up in the fire and thunder and earthshaking and wind. The giving of the law is what formed the community. The law was to teach the freed Hebrews how to living in community and connection with God and each other. The giving of the law was disruptive, world changing, community building.
When Jesus spoke to the disciples, he said that he would send them the Spirit as comforter, which doesn’t sound like the fire, thunder, earthquakes, and wind of the giving of the law. It sounds a bit more like the story of Elijah when he was overwhelmed and afraid, he went to the mountain and there was wind, fire, and earthquakes but God wasn’t in those. Then there was silence, small whisper–God was in that still small voice.
I think that is where we are most comfortable with the Spirit–comforter, bringer of peace within and without. The word for Spirit in Greek and Hebrew also translates to wind and breath. I think we like that version of the Spirit too, the one that is like meditation or breath work, that brings calm, that we can think about filling us and nourishing us but mostly unnoticed through the day.
And just before our reading today from Acts, just before Jesus ascends, he tells the disciples to go to take the Good News of Jesus, of love, of liberation, of abundance to the ends of the earth.
And it seems that the disciples were also more comfortable with the quiet, the subdued spirit. Because they hadn’t left the house.
But on the Pentecost day we read about, the ends of the earth were brought to them. The known world was brought to their windows and doors to hear the Good News of Jesus, of love, of liberation, of abundance. The Spirit showed up in a really disruptive way to bring them to their mission and calling.
Now, on a list of things that you could say at seminary that maybe you shouldn’t say in a sermon: One of my professors said that they think the church is pneumaphobic: pneuma=Grk for Spirit or breath; phobic=fear. He was saying that the church is afraid of the Spirit. Not the breath or the comforter or the bringer of peace but this one, this disruptive one, the one that changes everything, that moves us out of our safe places into the unknown.
And to be fair, somethings that have been attributed to the Spirit do make us uncomfortable.
ARE YOU PENTECOSTAL?
The legendary preacher, Fred Craddock,25 tells the story of getting ready to give a lecture at a seminary when a student stood up and asked him, “Are you Pentecostal?”
He said the room grew silent as everyone stared at him to see how he would answer.
Taken aback, Fred asked, “Do you mean, ‘do I belong to the Pentecostal Church?’”
The student said, “No, I mean are you Pentecostal?”
“Are you asking if I am charismatic?”
The student said, “I am asking if you are Pentecostal.”
“Do you want to know if I speak in tongues?”
The student said, “I want to know if you are Pentecostal.”
Finally Fred said, “I don’t know what your question is.”
The student said, “Obviously, you are not Pentecostal.” Then he left.
Later, Fred reflected on the strange word, Pentecostal, which the church seems to insist on but can’t define…
What are we talking about? In spite of the fact that the church doesn’t know what the adjective means, the church insists that the word remain in our vocabulary as an adjective. The church is unwilling for the word simply to be a noun, to represent a date, a place, or an event in the history of the church; it refuses for it to be simply a memory, an item, something back there somewhere. The church insists the word is an adjective; it describes our church… Pentecostal.26
I have to admit, I share Fred Craddock’s befuddlement. And yet the answer to the question, though elusive, seems important. Maybe even of utmost importance.
Am I Pentecostal?
How about you? Are you Pentecostal?
Are we Pentecostal?27
~ Retold from CRADDOCK STORIES
The Spirit of God shows u[ at creating as wind that moves over the primordial water as part of the acts of creation and as breath into the nostrils of the first humans to bring a new life into this world.
God showed up in fire and shakes and thunder at Mount Sinai to reveal those the people gathered, and the generations who follow, might live in community with God and each other. Bringing together what was already a chaotic situation and setting boundaries and expectations on them, covenanting with them to live completely differently than they had before.
And God in the Spirit show up again, in flames and words spoken and heard, taking a people who were seemingly satisfied staying in control of their understanding of the world and blowing it apart, changing it completely, challenging them to the next thing, to live in the world being led by the this Spirit that just revealed to them as completely outside of their control.
It’s the Spirit that gave Paul the courage to run the race. It’s the Spirit theologians and mystics talk about dancing through the world and our lives.
Moving, Life-giving, community making, burning, courage giving, language revealer, dancing with all of creation, even us.
Are you Pentecostal? Do you see the Spirit? the moment, the call, the courage, the dance?
Unless the eye catch fire
The God will not be seen
Unless the ear catch fire
The God will not be heard
Unless the tongue catch fire
The God will not be named
Unless the heart catch fire
The God will not be loved
Unless the mind catch fire
The God will not be known
~ Theodor Roszak
How do we see and how do we know how to respond? to pick up the dance that already in process? to respond to the call that the fire brings to us? How do we know if is the time to disrupt our whole lives for what is being called to us?
8Last of all, my sacred family members, if anything can be seen as good and honorable, think deeply about these things. Things that are true and noble, upright and pure, full of beauty and worthy of respect. 9Follow the way of life you have seen in me, the things you have learned from me, heard from me, and received from me. Keep walking in the traditions I have passed on to you. Then the Great Spirit of Peace will continue to walk with you on this road.
If we stay focused here, maybe that will help us see the Spirit, make us aware of the movement of the Spirit in our lives and in the world all the time and all around us, if we would just notice, always calling us to something, sometimes disruptive, and overwhelming, and unexpected, and sometimes with unknown outcomes except the faithful following. We might catch fire
If we stay focused here, maybe we can become the fire.
Why Not?
“Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule, my little fast, and my little prayer. And according as I am able, I strive to cleanse my mind of all evil thoughts and my heart of all evil intents. Now, what more should I do?”
Abba Joseph rose up and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire.
He answered, “Why not be totally changed into fire?”28
~ Richard Foster, CELEBRATION OF DISCIPLINE