Pentecost Day 2013
May 19, 2013
St. Andrew’s Church
The Rev. M. Anthony Seel, Jr.
Acts 2:1-11
“An Invisible Thread”
They lived just two blocks from each other, but they couldn’t be more different. He was 11 years old, with an abusive father, a drug-addicted mother, drug-dealing uncles, and a knife-wielding grandmother. She was a successful advertising executive.
They met on a street in Manhattan when he asked her for some spare change. He said he was really hungry and he had such sad eyes. This happened on 56th Street near Broadway.
She says, “when I heard his voice, I didn’t really hear him. His words were part of the clatter, like a car horn or someone yelling for a cab.” (An Invisible Thread, p. 1)
When she went back to him, she noticed, “he was just a boy… he was so young… he was a child – tiny body, sticks for arms, big round eyes.” pp. 1-2
“I am hungry,” he said. “If you’re hungry,” I said, “I’ll take you to McDonalds an buy you lunch.”
“Can I have a cheeseburger,” he asked. “Yes,” I said.
“How about a Big Mac?
“That’s okay, too.”
“How about a Diet Coke?”
“Well, how about a thick, chocolate shake and French Fries?”
I told him he could have anything he wanted. And then I asked him if I could join him for lunch. “Sure,” he finally said.
Laura Schroff says, “We had lunch together at McDonalds. And after that we got together every Monday. For the next 150 Mondays. His name was Maurice and he changed my life.
The Chinese have an ancient proverb that goes like this: An invisible thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, and circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break.
I believe in an invisible thread. Moreover, I believe that the invisible thread is a divine person – the Holy Spirit.
As surely as God brought Maurice and Laura together, He descended upon about 120 Christians on Pentecost Day in Jerusalem, roughly 2,000 years ago. Acts, chapter 1, tells us that the church numbered about 120 at this time. They were “all together” when a sound from heaven “filled the entire house where they were sitting.” This sound is described as like a “mighty rushing win.” Acts doesn’t say that it was a wind; it says that it sounded like “a mighty rushing win.”
Those inside the house saw what looked like tongues of fire, individual flames, alighting on each of them.
Wind and fire are common manifestations of an uncommon experience in ancient days – the presence of God. John the Baptist had proclaimed that One was coming who would baptize “with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Luke 3:16). Jesus had said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you…” (Acts 1:8). Now, the Holy Spirit descended upon them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Acts 2:4
The Holy Spirit filled the members of the First Church of Jerusalem and directed them to speak in foreign tongues. At the time, Jerusalem was filled with devout Jews who had come there from all over the world to celebrate the Feast of Weeks, one of the three great pilgrimage feasts of Israel.
v. 6 And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.
Do you suppose that an invisible thread could make enough noise to attract the attention of a multitude of devout Jews in Jerusalem?
One of the threads that runs through An Invisible Thread by Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski is the power of family. Maurice came from a very unreliable family. Laura Schroff’s father was an alcoholic who was a very disruptive force in her family.
Laura befriended Maurice and brought some stability into his life that he couldn’t get from his family. Laura brought Maurice along at times when she visited her sister Annette and her family. Those times in Annette’s home taught Maurice the power of a good family.
A church our size is a family. The relationships that we form here can have a dramatic effect upon a person’s life. Maybe not as dramatic as Laura with Maurice, but dramatic nonetheless.
God has done some mighty works in our midst over the years and recently. Not only that, when we are filled with the Holy Spirit, there is no end to the good that we can do.
The Apostle Peter is empowered on Pentecost Day to preach and 3,000 souls were added to the church that day. A little later, Peter heals a lame beggar. In the power of the Holy Spirit, the Apostles did “many signs and wonders.” At about the same time, Peter and John taught at the temple about Jesus and about 5,000 believed.
Jesus had said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
The Christian witness became so strong in Jerusalem that “there arose a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria...” (Acts 8:1).
What did Jesus say? “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
It took persecution, but early on, the church expanded into Judea and Samaria. We’re still working on the end of the earth part.
Anglican missionary to China, the late Roland Allen, calls this “the spontaneous expansion of the church.” Allen says, “the rapid expansion of the church in the early centuries was due in the first place mainly to the spontaneous activity of individuals… The names of the few great Apostles were known to the whole church; but the first teachers were probably unknown to any but those whom they had quietly influenced.” [The Compulsion of the Spirit, p. 34]
When we think about God, it’s easy to think about big, bombastic, larger than life occurrences like the 3,000 who came to faith in Jerusalem on Pentecost Day. God also does small. Jesus started with 12. Before Peter preaches, the Church only numbers 120, but Peter and that small number were able to influence thousands.
God empowered ordinary Christians to speak in the many languages of the pilgrims in Jerusalem. What are the languages of the people around us today?
English and Spanish, for sure. How about hip-hop?
I was watching the pre-game show before the Knicks game on Thursday night when three of the panelists started singing, [to the tune of the Bridge over the River Kwai] “Buddies, they make your feet feel fine. Buddies, just a dollar ninety-nine.”
While Shaq, Kenny Smith, and Charles Barkley were singing, Ernie Johnson looked at them like they had lost their minds. Or, did his look mean that Ernie realized that he had lost control of his show?
Buddies is urban slang for cheap, no-name sneakers. Urban slang is a language also.
How well do we connect with those around us? Do we speak their language? How can we tell others about “the mighty works of God” in ways that they can understand? How do we communicate the timeless truth of the Scriptures in an ever-changing culture?
One of the best ways that we can communicate the gospel is simply to be the church.
After the ascension of Jesus Christ, the church returned to Jerusalem, and devoted themselves to prayer (Acts 1:14). “When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place” (2:1).
An instinct for community is in the DNA of the Church. It’s part of what we do naturally, or is it supernatural?
When we read further in Acts chapter 2, we see what the church does when it gathers. There is teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayers. What was the result?
v. 47 And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
How did that happen? First, the church devoted itself to teaching. The teaching of the church
was a special kind of teaching – it was apostolic teaching. The Apostles, those chosen by Christ,
instructed the church, including the 3,000 who came to faith through the Pentecost Day
preaching of Peter. That was some discipleship task that the church picked up that day!
The church also devoted itself to fellowship. The word in the original Greek of the New
Testament for fellowship is koinonia. It means fellowship in the sense of sharing. Koinonia
speaks of the quality of care that we offer each other in the church.
We share in the fellowship of Jesus Christ. We share in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. We share in the fellowship of the Trinity, the inner life of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We share in the fellowship of faith that exists between all other Christians.
Koinonia is the living power of God that unites us to Jesus Christ and to one another; it’s our invisible thread.
Third, in koinonia with Christ and each other, we partake of the breaking of bread. This is New Testament language for Holy Communion. The last paragraph of Acts, chapter 2, tells us that the church “broke bread in their homes.” With 3,000 persons, that was a lot of homes!
The first Christians were devoted to Holy Communion. Holy Communion was the communal way that Jesus gave to the church to remember His death until He comes again.
We’ve already heard how the church was devoted to prayer. The church wasn’t only devoted to the Apostle’s teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers. They were also devoted to bringing others into their community life. That’s how “the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”
In his book, The Brand Gap, marketing expert Marty Neumeier talks about a number of tribes that you can join “to feel a part of something bigger than yourself.” Neumeier says, “You can belong to the Callaway tribe when you play golf, the VW tribe when you drive to work, and the Williams-Sonoma tribe when you cook a meal.” p.74
Neumeier writes, “Brands are the little gods of modern life.” Ibid.
Our church is a family and a tribe, but we aren’t a brand. We don’t market a product. We don’t sell and experience.
We don’t “do church.” We are a church. We strive to be the church, in God’s power, in God’s way, living in God’s love and sharing God’s love with others.
I believe that an invisible thread has drawn us together and that thread wraps around us and draws us closer together. I also believe that that invisible thread can make enough noise to attract a multitude larger than this church building can hold.
When Laura Schroff first encountered Maurice, she walked right past him. She started to cross Broadway and then she stopped in the middle of Broadway traffic “for a moments”… until a car horn sounded and startled her.
She says, “I turned around and hustled back to the sidewalk. I don’t remember thinking about it or even making a conscious decision to turn around. I just remember doing it.” p. 5
That turning around changed two lives.
Laura Schroff married twice, but she never had any children of her own. The Epilogue of An Invisible Thread is a letter from Maurice to Laura. [I read the first paragraph on p. 229 and the last paragraph on p. 231.]
It’s on Sundays that our hearts are sewn together with an invisible thread. And on other days too. The Holy Spirit is God’s power in us to change the world around us. It can happen. It does happen, one person at a time or 3,000. However it happens it is God’s work. It is our privilege to be a part of it.
As you walk with Christ this week, be conscious of the power of the invisible thread, drawing you into the lives of others. It might change your life. It might change theirs.
Let us pray.
