Scripture Reading Acts 2:1-21
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Now there were devout Jews from every people under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”
But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Fellow Jews and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
‘In the last days it will be, 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.
And I will show portents in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
The sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
Sermon
Look at you in your beautiful Pentecost red! Today is a special day, a day we mark the birth of the church, not just this congregation that is our home, but Christ’s church throughout the world. Red is a fitting color for this celebration.
But first: Let’s go back to the first verse in our reading from the Acts of the Apostles.
“When the day of Pentecost had come,” it begins, “they were all together in one place.” Here’s the hidden context of that sentence: Jews were in Jerusalem to celebrate Pentecost. Which means, before there was a Christian Pentecost, there was a Jewish festival by the same name. So, they (Jesus’ friends and followers) were there, all together in one house. Pentecost is from the Greek word meaning “fifty,” for fifty days. The Hebrew name for the festival is Shavuot, which means “weeks.” Our Pentecost is fifty days after Easter, and Shavuot is seven weeks after the Passover. Our Jewish siblings celebrated Shavuot this week. It is the celebration of God giving the law, the Torah, to Moses, and Moses, in turn, giving the Torah to the people.
I learned about Shavuot years ago by reading a blog called “The Velveteen Rabbi.” Its author, Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, wrote that the customary celebration entails staying up all night studying the Torah and eating dairy-based desserts such as cheesecake, and ice cream, joyful reminders of the land of Israel, a “land flowing with milk and honey.” The sweet desserts connect to the deep love the people have for the Torah, itself, a sweet blessing from God. Barenblat describes how the celebration she had just attended drew to a close at about 3:30 AM. A brief closing ceremony consisted of “passing the Torah from person to person, each cradling her for a time, and then reciting a [blessing] to seal [their] study.”
When the Day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. We can assume the friends and followers of Jesus were observing Shavuot, cherishing the Torah and searching it, diligently, for signs of what God might have in store for them. They were wondering: What now? What’s next? Now we know exactly what was next: the sweet blessing of another Pentecost, the sending of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus’ people. This moment marks the birth of the church, the commissioning of us all, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to be God’s witnesses in the world.
Our text describes three specific signs of the Spirit’s presence. First, there is the sound of a mighty wind. This must have been disconcerting, seeing as they were all together indoors. But the Spirit, as Jesus tells us, blows where she will, and you can hear the sound she makes, but no one knows where she has come from or where she is going. I imagine the Spirit stirring the hearts of the people, blowing through, refreshing, encouraging them, as if to say, “Look up! Here I come.”
Have you ever gone outside during a storm and felt the force of the wind battering you about? Or even watched those intrepid reporters on the Weather Channel who always rush into the worst weather so that they can stand outside in it, yelling into their microphones? Sometimes the wind that is the Spirit feels like a gentle nudge in a certain direction. Sometimes it feels like being the puppy on the leash, being dragged where you’re not sure you want to go. When the Spirit wants you to do something, to go somewhere, you’ll know it.
The next signs of the Spirit are tongues as of fire, resting on each person. What did they mean? How did they feel? What did they do? We’ll come back to the holy flames.
The third sign of the Spirit is the gift of communication: each person was filled with the Holy Spirit, and suddenly found themselves able to speak at least one other language than their native tongue, as the Spirit enabled them. According to our passage, there were people in Jerusalem for the festival from at least fifteen different regions throughout the known world. Each visitor could hear the words of the disciples in their own language—so there were at least fifteen different languages being spoken, a holy cacophony, a kind of Spirit-driven symphony.
In our day the Spirit nudge us to broaden our ability to communicate with our friends and neighbors. We have recently had the gift of finding someone to help us at the Food Pantry to translate between Spanish and English, so that we can better serve our clients.
But, as we all know, communication is not always about different languages. Sometimes we can speak the same language as another and not connect at all. In many different situations, the Spirit gives us the gift of desiring something—for instance, the gift of longing to communicate better with friends, with loved ones, even with strangers. This is no small thing in a nation in which we are so horribly divided. The better we can speak and listen to one another, the more the Spirit’s power to bring us together is likely to gain traction.
Let’s look more closely at that gift of fire. The Rev. Carol Prickett reminds us that “Like fire, the Holy Spirit is contradictory–wild and cozy, creative and destructive, everyday and extraordinary, domesticated and purely elemental.” Fire fascinates us from childhood. I remember being about five years old, and my brother showing me that he could move his finger right through the flame of a candle, and not get hurt! I also remember watching my dad build up logs and kindling in our fireplace, a winter treat we loved. And, of course, there were the barbecues of summer, different because we were using coal and not wood, but still fascinating, and, my parents stressed again and again, dangerous.
Fire is dangerous. That’s the first thing. Actual tongues of actual fire on our heads would give pain and do damage. So what does fire mean symbolically? Back to Rev. Prickett’s description:
Fire is wild and cozy. The birth of the church includes a symbol that indicates a kind of uncontrollable unfolding—this faith will spread like wildfire. It also includes a symbol reminiscent of so many aspects of home, from the hearth to the stove to the lights we kindle and extinguish. The church will be, in so many ways, a home, a place that signifies love, love among us and love going out into God’s world.
Fire is creative and destructive. This symbol is also a sign of new ideas, new insights, new ways of speaking about and worshiping God. But this symbol also reminds us that, to embrace what is new, we have to let go of the things that are holding us back, that are stopping us from allowing that creativity to lead us to the new place God is beckoning us to go. The tongues of fire settle on each and every one of us. Your ideas are precious, and unique, and the Spirit has sent you here to share them so that this community might be Spirit driven. Be not afraid. Let your creativity flow.
Fire is everyday and extraordinary. Like fire, which first allowed humans to cook food and to heat water for washing things and bathing people, the Holy Spirit is with us all the time, enabling countless things that are a part of regular living. The Holy Spirit gives us life. But the Spirit is also the author of our lives of faith in ways we may not even realize. It is the Spirit who is behind the words of the Prophet Joel, which you have already proclaimed today:
…your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams… ~Joel 2:28
Pay close attention to the second paragraph of our statement of faith today. Let your minds be blown by all the Spirit is doing, every day, every minute, right now.
Fire is domesticated and elemental. It’s true. We have domesticated fire—we have learned to control it and turned that control into countless useful things and technologies without which we would be living much less comfortably. But fire remains elemental, unpredictable. There are still lightning strikes. There are still wildfires. We domesticate the Holy Spirit at our peril. God’s freedom to move the church to open herself to new kinds of hospitality in ways that were formerly unimaginable continues. The Spirit blows where she will.
Maybe the most important gift of the holy flame of the Spirit is willingness. There is a difference between wanting something—say, something for our church—and being willing to do what is necessary make it happen. The Spirit can spark our willingness with this flame, telling us, yes. Now is the time. The time to do that thing that will make a difference in other people’s lives. The one on my mind today is teaching Sunday School to our youngest people. Is the Spirit moving you to action? If so, do it! Help us to fulfill the promises we make when we baptize a child.
Each year we celebrate this birthday of the church by wearing red. We note the coming of the Spirit by putting on the color most associated with the fire the Holy Spirit sparks in the early church, and sparks in us. May the Holy Spirit, dangerous yet comforting, cozy yet wild, creative and destructive, ordinary and extraordinary, spark in each of us everything we need to love God’s people as God loves us.
Thanks be to God. Amen.