Pentecost Sunday
Title: When We Get It Together
Text: Acts 2:1-13 and 42-47
Thesis: When we get it together there is no telling what God will do.
The Season of Pentecost
Pentecost marks the dramatic arrival of the Holy Spirit and the amazing impact the Spirit’s presence had on the Christians and how it splashed over onto others. Christ has ascended and the Holy Spirit has come. Pentecost bursts into our lives and awakens our senses with a roaring windstorm, bright flames of fire, ecstatic outbursts of unlearned languages… it is an inundation of the Holy Spirit of God’s presence and power. During the next six months we make our way through the Season of Pentecost or Ordinary Time with the intent of being attentive to our calling as disciples or followers of Christ. In Ordinary Time we will be considering what we are called to do and what we are called to be. In Ordinary Time we are immersed in the Spirit and empowered for mission.
Introduction
The Starbucks Mission Statement is: To inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time.
Starbucks opened its first store in Seattle’s historic Pike Place Market in 1971. In the 1990s Starbucks expanded beyond Seattle, first to the United States and then the entire world. Today Starbucks has more than 16,000 stores in 48 countries.
The Starbucks Mission Statement page states, “Every store is part of a community, and we take our responsibility to be good neighbors seriously. We want to be invited in wherever we do business…”
The Starbucks goal is to inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time. Starbucks began locally and went global. (http://me.starbucks.com/en-US_About+Starbucks/History+of+Starbucks.htm)
Howard Schultz may well have gotten his strategy for reaching the world with the good news of the finest coffees on the planet from Jesus Christ.
I. Wait for It
Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about… But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit come on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:4-8
The adage “Think Globally, Act Locally” is not a new idea but has gained traction over the years and is now a common catch phrase for businesses and industries who wish to embrace the big picture while working diligently on the little picture. The Urban Dictionary has condensed the concept of Thinking Globally, Acting Locally into one word, “Glocal” or “Glocalization.”
It is a way of working at a grassroots level hoping to have a global impact. When we wish to care for the environment of the world we begin by taking action in our local communities. Glocalization can also be thought of as a strategy wherein a business begins working locally but has aspirations of becoming multinational. (www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Globally_Act_Locally)
It would seem that God was the original thinker who thought glocally.
Before the Pentecost event Jesus gave his followers a peek at the heart of God. He instructed them to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit, who would empower them for their work which was to make Christ known throughout the world. He said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” It was a movement that was to begin locally as a grassroots movement right there in Jerusalem. And then the movement was to expand and spread globally from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria and eventually world-wide.
The heart of God is to bring the Good News of new life in Christ to the world, one person and one neighborhood at a time.
In our story today Christ’s followers have waited in Jerusalem and the Day of Pentecost they welcomed the Holy Spirit of God to be present and powerful in their lives.
II. Welcome It, Acts 2:1-13
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly the sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were willed with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Acts 2:-14
I spoke earlier of how God’s heart is for all the people of the world and of how his vision was that the movement would begin in Jerusalem and then spread throughout the world. On the Day of Pentecost the followers of Christ welcomed the Holy Spirit into their lives and they began to speak in other languages. The followers of Christ are indentified in our text as Galileans but as they begin to speak, the people from around the world who had gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, heard in their own languages.
There were Parthians, Medes and Elamites; people from Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt and parts of Libya, visitors from Rome; Cretans and Arabs… they all heard and understood the followers of Christ declaring the wonders of God. Acts 2:5-12
If the Day of Pentecost occurred today there would be people there from Egypt, Libia, Saudia Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Urbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakistan, Pakistan, Turkey, Greece, Italy, the Island of Crete and perhaps the Baltics and even Russia.
Jesus said that this gospel of the Kingdom of God [must be] will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations before the end will come. So the heart of God is that all the people of every nook and cranny on the face of this earth will hear the gospel before the end comes. As long as there are people who have not heard, God will delay the return of Christ. So we have missions who are constantly probing the dark and unknown places of our planet. The reach of the gospel is to the darkest places of the known and unknown world where people have not heard. And it would then seem that by getting the word out to the entire world, the followers of Christ may also hasten Christ’s return.
It seems there are those who are in a big hurry to have Jesus return in the clouds and take his followers out of this world so God can clean up the mess. However Peter notes in his second letter, “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day. The Lord is not slow concerning his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” II Peter 3:8-10
In other words, God is in no hurry. People are more important to God than time. It is God’s intent that as many people as possible hear about Jesus Christ and welcome Jesus Christ into their lives… so we welcome the work of God’s Spirit in our own lives and in the lives of others around the world.
Meanwhile we continue to welcome the presence of God’s Spirit to work in our lives and powerfully through our lives. While we think globally, we live and act and work locally.
III. Work it, Acts 2:42-47
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. Acts 2:42-43
From 1972 through 1983 I was a devoted follower of MASH 4077 – a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital set in the middle of Korea during the Korean War. For years after the show ended I continued to watch reruns. There was Colonel Potter, Hawkeye, B.J., Klinger, Frank Burns, Major Margaret Houlihan, Father Mulcahy, Major Winchester and Radar. They were all hospital staffers who did their best to make life during wartime bearable.
Whatever the scene or setting it was usually Radar O’Reilly who had an uncanny knack for hearing medical-evac choppers or ambulances rumbling in the distance bringing wounded to their hospital. As the helicopters landed and the ambulances arrived the wounded were examined by medical staff to determine who was lost, who could wait and who could be saved if given immediate attention.
That’s when I first became acquainted with the term “triage.” Triage is the sorting and allocating of treatment of patients who are victims of war or a disaster. Triage is about establishing and following through according to priority.
Following the tornado that swept through Joplin, Missouri priorities were to: rescue the trapped and injured; assist the victims; recover the bodies of the deceased, clean-up the mess and begin to rebuild.
Following the events of the Day of Pentecost, which were anything but destructive, but non-the-less unsettling and life-changing, those early followers of Christ had to decide what they would do with their experience.
This is how it looked.
A. How it looked
All the believers were together and had everything in common… Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Acts 2:44-47
Beginning in verse 42:
1. They were a learning community of believers. They devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching.
2. They were a fellowshipping community of believers. They devoted themselves to fellowship or to being together.
3. They were a community of believers who observed the sacrament of the Lord’s Table. They broke bread together.
4. They were a praying community of believers. They were devoted to prayer. They met together with God before they went out into the world.
5. They were a community of believers where things happened. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. Good things were going on that blessed a lot of people.
6. They were a sharing community of believers. The believers were together and had everything in common. There was no “I” “me” or “my.” There was no “my” “me” or “mine.”
7. They were a worshipping community of believers. They continued to meet in the temple.
8. They were a happy community of believers. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts. It was potluck all the time. It was the “Out to Lunch Bunch” in action.
9. They were a likeable community of believers. People liked and admired them. They enjoyed the favor of all the people who observed them living out their faith.
(The list was modified from Wm. Barclays’ Acts of the Apostles, Daily Bible Study Series commentary, Acts 2:42-47, PP 25-27)
And as the people in the neighborhood watched God worked in their hearts and this was the result.
B. How it worked
And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. Acts 2:47
Conclusion
When we open our lives to the fullness of God’s Spirit living in and through us;
When we get it together in the basics of living out our commitment to love God with all of our heart and mind and soul and strength and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves;
When we live as a community of believers who are learning, together in fellowship, observing the sacraments, praying, anticipating God at work in us, among us and through us, sharing with each and others, meeting to worship, and are visibly happy….
When all of those basics are in place… when we are hitting on all the cylinders, God works in the lives of those who are watching.
People will notice and be drawn to us as a community of Christians and ultimately to Christ.
As followers of Christ who wish to be obedient to our calling it is essential that we have the big picture of God’s vision, which is to think globally. But it is also important that we understand that the impetus of God’s vision begins locally… right here. God is at work by his Holy Spirit within us and around us and as the pebble drops into a pool of water and the ripple effect reaches to the outer banks of the pool, what begins locally has a ripple effect globally.
May God bless us with the presence and power of his Holy Spirit that we may be and do God’s will glocally.
