Sermons from Mission Hills UCC San Diego, California Rev. Dr. David Bahr [email protected] June 5, 2022 “Be the Church!” Acts 2: 1-21 When Pentecost Day arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound from heaven like the howling of a fierce wind filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be individual flames of fire alighting on each one of them. 4 They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them to speak. 5 There were pious Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd gathered. They were mystified because everyone heard them speaking in their native languages. 7 They were surprised and amazed, saying, “Look, aren’t all the people who are speaking Galileans, every one of them? 8 How then can each of us hear them speaking in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; as well as residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the regions of Libya bordering Cyrene; and visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism), 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the mighty works of God in our own languages!” 12 They were all surprised and bewildered. Some asked each other, “What does this mean?” 13 Others jeered at them, saying, “They’re full of new wine!” 14 Peter stood with the other eleven apostles. He raised his voice and declared, “Judeans and everyone living in Jerusalem! Know this! Listen carefully to my words! 15 These people aren’t drunk, as you suspect; after all, it’s only nine o’clock in the morning! 16 Rather, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 17 In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young will see visions. Your elders will dream dreams. 18 Even upon my servants, men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. 19 I will cause wonders to occur in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and a cloud of smoke. 20 The sun will be changed into darkness, and the moon will be changed into blood, before the great and spectacular day of the Lord comes. 21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. After Easter and Christmas, Pentecost is the third most important day in the life of the church. Like many things in Christianity, the roots of Pentecost are in Judaism. You heard Ken read how the Book of Acts records that devout Jews had gathered from every nation known on earth. Every year they gathered 50 days after Passover for the Festival of Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks, a celebration of harvest. For the followers of Jesus, however, being back in Jerusalem this time would have been quite different. It’s only been a few weeks since he had been killed, and then rose from the dead and, among other things, shared some breakfast fish on the beach with them. But then, just 10 days ago, he left them alone again. As the story is told, he ascended into heaven. That’s a lot of leaving, coming back, and leaving again. And promising to come back yet again. In chapter 1, Jesus told them “in only a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. You will receive power from the Holy Spirit and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” At that moment, he was taken up into heaven – we call it The Ascension. After Jesus was gone, the disciples were still looking up at the sky when someone asked, why are you just standing around looking up. So, they returned to Jerusalem and spent their days in prayer and chose Matthias to be a 12th disciple to replace Judas Iscariot. One day, not long after his ascension, a crowd was gathered and the room they were in was invaded by the “phenomenon of the divine.” A mighty wind blew and tongues of fire were seen over the heads of the disciples. As they spoke, everyone heard in their own language. They were stunned and amazed. What does this mean? In addition, for them like us, why does it matter? Pentecost is full of meaning, but here’s one idea: Pentecost is important for what it overcame and what it then offered. Pentecost overcame division. Boy, that’s something we could use these days. The Bible includes all kinds of stories that try to explain questions like why do people speak different languages. In the Book of Genesis, as the story goes, humankind tried to build a tower to heaven. While I think it’s admirable that all humankind worked together – wouldn’t that be something! – instead they were cursed for their hubris, trying to do something only God can do. Some suggested the tower project was flood insurance. They were trying to build it just high enough that they could escape another 40 day rain storm - thinking they could fool God! Regardless, we know it as the story of the Tower of Babel, and speaking “babel” came to be synonymous with nonsense, or words that can't be understood. However, Pentecost overcame this division of language. This barrier. Everyone heard the words being spoken by the disciples in their own language. Note that individual languages were not taken away or melded into one, but everyone could understand in their own. They don’t lose language; but they lost division based on it. Their language is not taken away; their understanding is increased. Come Holy Spirit! Apparently, since we all still speak different languages, it didn’t stick. But in that moment of Pentecost, everyone overcame the division of language because not only did they hear, they understood. Dr. Peter Gomes was a form of Pentecost in his own person – African American, republican, openly gay, Baptist preacher, Harvard professor. Gomes said, “the gift of understanding did not diminish the diversity of that great crowd; the people did not cease to be Medes and Persians, and so forth. They were not reduced to some vague generality without past or place. The people did not become less than they were, they became more than they had been.” We can’t ask for anything better on Pentecost! To become more than we had been. Come Holy Spirit! Yet, division remains. Our Lunch and Lectionary group on Thursday spent quite a bit of time talking about how people could be so divided over something as basic as facts. How can you arrive at truth without facts? This came up in our conversation because as we read forward in our text for today, the author quoted the prophet Joel: “In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your young will see visions. Your elders will dream dreams. Your sons and daughters will prophesy.” To prophesy is not foreseeing the future or fortune telling. To prophesy is truth telling. Your sons and daughters will be truth tellers. That would appear to be an expectation of Pentecost. Come Holy Spirit! But how can one arrive at truth with different and conflicting sources of information? Or is truth not about facts but personal interpretation? I guess even Jesus asked, “What is truth?” If we asked one another “What is your truth?” and not only listened but listened until we understood, perhaps that would be a gift of the Spirit. Come Holy Spirit! So, Pentecost is important for what it overcame and then what it now offered. Pentecost overcame human division and offered a new human vision: inclusive communities of God’s love that ate together and prayed and worshiped and met human need. Here’s how it’s described as chapter 2 ends: Verse 41 begins, “The believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the community, to their shared meals, and to their prayers. 43 A sense of awe came over everyone. God performed many wonders and signs through the apostles. 44 All the believers were united and shared everything. 45 They would sell pieces of property and possessions and distribute the proceeds to everyone who needed them. 46 Every day, they met together in the temple and ate in their homes. They shared food with gladness and simplicity. 47 They praised God and demonstrated God’s goodness to everyone. The Lord added daily to the community those who were being saved.” What Pentecost overcame and what it now offered was a great outpouring of goodness, hospitality, and radical equality – imagine such a redistribution of resources, the sharing of possessions, that no one had need. Come Holy Spirit! How did this happen? Because the fruits of the Spirit, as one New Testament writer put it; the gifts they received were harvested as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, faithfulness, self-control, and wisdom. All of which contribute to the growth, transformation, and healing of the world. Come Holy Spirit! On Pentecost the Holy Spirit descended and if even for a moment they overcame human differences and understood the mighty works of God they shared in common. They didn’t go home and say “Oh, that felt good.” They left that place now energized to create communities to live the love of God – filled by the Spirit, empowered by the Spirit, sustained by the Spirit. There is much division in our world to overcome, but that’s what we can offer. That’s who we are meant to be. A community led by the Spirit that worships, shares meals together, and then goes out to live the love of God, to heal and transform lives. So let’s be the church.[1]
Come Holy Spirit! And when the Spirit calls, rise up for justice. [1] The following are from banners around the church from the UCC theme #bethechurch
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