[Acts 2:1-21]
By the Reverend Tom Paine
Preached at Westminster Presbyterian Church
Pentecost
May 19, 2024
What do we believe about God? We are Trinitarians in the Presbyterian Church. We believe in one God but in three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we lay it out in story after story in the Bible and even in our creeds. What do we believe? We believe in God. Good Deal. And how do we know God?
(1) The Father Almighty, the Creator, our Parent in heaven, the covenant maker, the law giver. Great. One person down. Who else do we believe in? (2) And in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord. Who lived among us, was baptized, tempted, taught, prophesied, healed, and offered a new covenant and gave us a new command – to love each other. And he was resurrected. Ascended into heaven. And is seated on the right hand of God the Father. Super! Lots of details there. Ok. Two down. We’re up to the third. What do we believe? (3) We believe in God the Holy Spirit. And? What else? Uh. Umm. He’s the Advocate. Ok. And? Most Chrisitans struggle a bit here.
We talk a great deal about the Father. We talk even more about the Son. But as for the Holy Spirit? Not so much. As a matter of fact, the third person of the Trinity only has one day in which that person of the Godhead is featured. But – good news, you have arrived on that Sunday!
The challenge before us is conceptual. We can conceive of the Father, or better put the Creator, because the first person of the Trinity is not a male as in the male gender. We have a Cosmic parent and it is easy to understand this because we all have parents (or people who raised us). We can sense on some cosmic level there is someone who made this – made us, who is responsible for us, and who cares about us. And we can even better grasp the Son who was God among us, who came and offered us a new way, and sacrificed himself for us, then to be resurrected and who, through his defeat of death, opens a gateway for us all. And we experience all the time parents and their kids. But the Holy Spirit? How do we conceive of that? And the two images we get in the passage are challenging – fire and wind.
Both fire and wind have been in the news this week. Indeed, they have been a threat to people. Did you know some six six thousand people had to evacuate Fort McMurray, Albert this week? And more than 3,000 others were ordered to leave Fort Nelson, British Columbia, where a fire is burning just 1.5 miles from the town. And in Manitoba, 550 people were forced to evacuate due to a wildfire that started on Thursday near the community of Cranberry Portage. The wildfire had grown to 31,600 hectares. One government official said, “I’ve been working in wildfires for 40 years. I’ve never seen a fire move like this fire has moved.”
If our Canadian neighbors have been getting the fire, Lesley and Hannah, down in Houston, have been dealing with the opposite, a severe windstorm. As many of you probably saw on the news, from Houston to Mobile, Alabama, a tornado-like wind blew through in a straight line across the gulf coast. The Spanish name they are using down there is “Deracho” (the straight wind). It blew out office windows in highrises, tore up electrical infrastructure, and blew roofs off of houses. Severe weather just seems more and more the norm as the years pass. Do we associate this with God?
Yet, human civilization couldn’t have risen, indeed we likely wouldn’t be able to continue, without fire. And wind has powered so many of our ocean vessels over the centuries and also is now an increasing source of clean energy. So, fire and wind aren’t bad in and of themselves. They can be good – very good. But how do they help us understand the Holy Spirit in this passage?
We see both fire and wind, at least symbolically, as the disciples gather for Shavuot. Shavuot in Koine Greek is pronounced Pentecost – where we get the name. Today, we think of Pentecost only as a Christian holy day but in our rush to tell the story we recite every year, we can forget that there is a long standing Jewish holiday fifty days after Passover and what they were gathering to celebrate in Acts 2. What we call Pentecost was one of the Shavuot. So, we should remember that everyone in the story we read today in Acts are themselves Jews, both the disciples and everyone in the crowd.
The Jews traditionally celebrated Shavuout for two reasons: to give thanks for the wheat harvest and to commemorate and remember Moses receiving the law on Mount Sinai from God. But Luke tells us God gives something even more significant that holy day fifty days after Jesus was resurrected. And it came with something that sounded like a great wind. And it came with something that looked like flames of fire.
The disciples, perhaps in the same upper room where they celebrated the Last Supper and where Jesus appeared to them after the crucifixion, were all together and seated. And suddenly, from heaven, came a sound that was like the rush of a violent wind and it filled the entire house where they were. And divided tongues, as of fire, appeared and rested on each of them. And God’s Holy Spirit filled all of them! And each began to speak in other languages as the Holy Spirit saw fit. It would be like us all sitting down at fellowship, speaking English of course, and then suddenly one of us would begin speaking in Italian, and another in German, and another in Hindi, and another in Mandarin. But it wasn’t random languages. It was the languages of the people who had stopped to hear what was happening in this house – in that upper room.
And we know what happened. Everyone passing by did stop. Because these were Jews who had traveled into Jerusalem to worship at the Temple for Pentecost they recognized that the people speaking were all speaking all sorts of languages. The locals in Jerusalem spoke Aramaic. In the Temple they recited Scripture in Hebrew. The Romans spoke both Greek and Latin. But they were hearing languages from across the empire – their native tongues and Luke gave us the laundry list of them. But, the people inside weren’t travelers.
By their dress, or maybe by their accents, they were recognized to be Galileans – who were not known for being the most educated or traveled of the citizens of the Roman Empire. How was this possible? Some assumed it must be a drunken party.
And this is when Peter must have stepped out of the upper room, perhaps on a balcony, and addressed them. We get a summation of it by Luke. First he assures them they aren’t drunk. It was only 9 in the morning. But then he launches into a wonderful chronological nesting doll of a sermon. Peter used the prophet Joel as his focus of his sermon, who wrote his prophecies about 500 years before during a period of turmoil and change. And the imagery Joel used? Of God inspiring the people. He said that in the last days, that God would pour out God’s own Spirit upon all of humanity, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.” Notice he doesn’t say it will just happen to the disciples or to the first believers. No, it says upon all flesh – in other words – all of humanity. And it means that God’s people are called to listen for and hear the dreams, and the prophecies, and the visions of the people because what will happen will be through and by the Holy Spirit of God.
Let me pause with Peter preaching and go back just a little bit in time. The same year even. Back to about fifty days before with Jesus’ death on the cross. You all remembered what happened at the Temple that day, the one we call “Good Friday”? The curtain in the Temple, separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple, was torn in two. What did the Jews believe about the Holy of Holies?* They believed the Spirit of God resided there. Consider the symbolism of that curtain falling to the ground and everyone, not just the Chief Priest once a year, but everyone being able to see in.
Let’s jump forward a bit from what we now call Pentecost too. What did Paul teach Christians about our bodies? He said our bodies were a sacred space, not to be profaned. Why? Because our bodies are to be the Temple of the living God. In other words, God’s Spirit is no longer in the Holy of Holies built by human hands. The Spirit is in us – each of us – and all of us. God made us to be Holy.
I believe the reason why we struggle with what to say about the Holy Spirit is because of its communal nature. We might imagine meeting Jesus. We might even think of seeing God the Creator when we get into the Kingdom. But the Holy Spirit? What is it? Where is it? Could it be that the Holy Spirit is how God binds us together and builds us up? That the Spirit is how God moves us. It’s why, for example, I could record our choir singing or the bell choir playing and it isn’t quite the same as being there, is it? There is a power in not only hearing the people as they are inspired to sing or play but also for us experiencing that together and with them. I don’t rule out that God can’t be on the other side of a recording or a projection. God is not limited by space and time. But, fundamentally, I believe God’s Holy Spirit binds us together, and when we are together we can feel it more strongly. And the closer we are in time and in space, the more clearly it can get. It’s what makes participating in a worshiping community important.
The Spirit ran through the disciples that day and also through the crowd who heard it and experienced it. And what ended up happening? After hearing about Jesus, or probably being reminded about Jesus for more than a few of them, they committed themselves to God and the church grew by three thousand – a huge jump from 120.
So, what is your dream today? What visions do you have? I don’t mean just for yourself or your loved ones. What word do you have for the church today? I suspect it probably looks a little bit different from the reality we see in the church today – where we have churches fighting, see decline, see aging congregations, and even have to work overtime to get new pastors in. But we should not confuse the life cycle of religious institutions with God’s active and living spirit.
How often do we come to God’s house for a communal experience? I don’t mean just to see people. I mean how often do we listen for what God is saying in and through each other? How often do we take the practice of our faith away from the safety and privacy of our own thoughts and personal prayers and bring it into the community? Maybe in all of our practicality, we have squelched the Spirit by keeping it safe. Keeping it personal. Keeping it private. And making church just like a gathering of friends. I don’t mean that having friends isn’t important. But how can we hear what God is saying if we aren’t listening and we aren’t sharing? How often are we willing to bring the big issues – personally and communally – to church? Or do we quietly wait for some
At seminary, I was once sitting in a chapel full of about 240 future clergy men and women. And the minister that day asked the question, “How many of you participated in a Christian camp when you were young?” About 90% of them raised their hands. I was one of them. That’s not insignificant to me. There is something about getting out of our normal routine, environment, even house of worship and going out with others to have an experience seeking God – together.
Fundamentally, there is a way we can experience God together in ways we cannot alone. We can have recordings of the best sermons, choirs, and even Bible studies all in our list to watch off YouTube but it isn’t the same thing as participating in them. Jesus said, “When two or more are gathered in my name, I am with them.” That is the Holy Spirit binding us together. And the Holy Spirit isn’t limited to us. We can hear the Holy Spirit speaking through others too.
Please understand, I am not trying to make humans the third person of the Trinity. But it is the way God reaches us by his Holy Spirit coming upon us and it manifests differently. God could have had Peter speak all the different languages but it wasn’t about Peter – it was about all of the disciples – together.
We can get all wrapped up in the events of that first Pentecost and try to replicate it like we are trying to bake a cake. Some believers, historically and even currently try to do this. This will try to speak in tongues (even though it is of languages no one has ever heard), they will try to replicate dramatic noises in worship. They will try to head count how many they can baptize. But that wasn’t the purpose of that event on Pentecost.
Just as Jesus’ promised, God’s Spirit came to help the first disciples launch the church. And from that communal experience – they were able to do so. And the Holy Spirit wasn’t limited to the Jews. If we read on in Acts we find the Spirit comes about all sorts of people – even some of the hated Roman occupiers.
Today is a day to celebrate the birthday of the church. We have adopted the Koine Greek term but the day is about so much more than remembering Moses getting the law for us. But just like when we celebrate communion, while we remember it, the point isn’t to get stuck in the past. Through the Spirit God is with us – here and now. And God does give us dreams, and visions, and calls up modern day prophets. God does so among the young and old. God does so among men and women. God does so among the powerful and powerless. And our key calling is to do what the people did that first Pentecost – listen. Listen and respond.
I don’t think when reading this passage we should get too focused on literal fire and literal wind. On that first Pentecost they didn’t actually experience wind and fire uncontained and uncontrolled but that those two phenomena were the closest description they had for what it felt like. Fire and wind in a good way versus in the bad way people felt it this past week. Can we be open to hearing what some modern day prophets might be feeling and experiencing? Can we listen for what people are saying they feel God is saying to them today? If the church became the place where people were open to share such and we were open to listening, we might not find all the distractions that pull people away from church so appealing. God is still here. God is still at work. Will we listen? Can we hear? Can we share together?
We hope you will stay after church where we will share in refreshments and celebrate the church’s birthday. Look at the red all around you. It is a symbol of where God’s Spirit can and will flow through. Church can and should be a pretty exciting place when we realize this.
To God be the glory, forever and ever, amen.
What Draws Attention 