Sermon
“What does this mean?” This is a story of the Spirit poured out—like water from a pitcher or from a hose. Yeah, from a hose, with a thumb pressed against the opening so it shoots across the yard and soaks the giggling, screeching children who are running with glee from the icy spray but basking in the relief from the scorching heat of the day.
Pentecost worship, is worship that refreshes, that transforms, that makes new. That’s what we are after on Pentecost Sunday—a shock, a blast of Spirit that thaws the bones and loosens the tongue. How will you pour out that Spirit online? How will you get through the mask and into the lungs of the worshipers still physically distant from one another today?
Pentecost is an invitation to take flight, to cast off the bounds of earth and to soar on the winds of hope and promise, to bring together a broken world, to connect with others who seek to fly into a kingdom way of living.
Pentecost is about joy, and the invitation is to let the Spirit be poured out on you. That same Joy that Jesus talked about last Sunday is on fire this Sunday as it is delivered person to person. But remember, that “you” is plural.
Let the Spirit be poured out on all y’all.
1) It was because they were gathered together that this happened.
It was because they were together where Jesus had instructed them to stay. So, what if we can’t be gathered? What if we have to keep our distance? The Spirit can still be corporate. The technology is difficult, to be sure. But every time someone speaks for the church, remind people that all are included. When we transform church from a building into a Spiritual connection that is powerful.
Remember, church, Wesley that all are invited. This gift, the Spirit poured out, is for the whole body, not just for a few. Pentecost is a unifying time, regardless of the environment in which we live.
We all long for a familiar sound, for the language of home. We long for a connection. That was what was heard on that Pentecost morning. That was what the languages offered the passersby. So, they stopped and listened. Some wondered and, I suspect, hoped. Others scoffed, being of a cynical bent. “They must be drunk!” they shouted. If there is an alcoholic beverage that allows you to speak in foreign languages, I’m going to get some.
2) It was a different kind of fire.
The tongues that were not quite like fire and not really like tongues either, but some visible manifestation of an invisible presence, were making connections. They were fire yes but they were also the word of God manifested in flesh. You see the word of God when spoken is empowering, the word in engaging, the word of God spoken restores, restarts, and resets. It was one, divided and settling on each, says Luke in his struggling for words. It was one presence, one sound, and it was heard by each, who then echoed the sound so that more heard. It wasn’t an experience to keep to one’s self that much is plain. It was meant to be shared. It was meant to be community building. It was the same primordial birth words of creation spoken once again to birth the church and to usher in the Kingdom of God. These Pentecost Words Tongues spoken by God through the Holy Spirit were creating the Church, birthing the church, the holy church, the universal church, the Black church, the apostolic church.
So, whether it was a birthday, the beginning of the church, as some argue; or a broadening, the opening of the doors of the church to include all, either way it was a building of community. It was making connections. It was building up the body.
3) Pentecost is about the church being the church.
Pentecost reminds us that this is a small world, and wherever we go we are likely to find members of our family gathered around the living Word and the winds of the Spirit; a Spirit that is poured out. And this family is as diverse as the crowd that gathered around the sound that poured down from the room where the disciples were gathered.
The words were heard by those from the Middle East and from Africa and from the edges of the known world.
This is the family; this is the body upon which the Spirit is poured out—not just those who look like us, not just those who speak our language, but a multicolored, multilingual worldwide body of Christ ready to hear and to receive.
Ill close this week with something from the News Cycle there was a very miraculous story of A teacher in Idaho who spoke about how she managed to disarm a sixth-grade girl who had opened fire at her school and hugged her until the police arrived. Krista Gneiting, who teaches math at Rigby Middle School, around 15 miles northeast of Idaho Falls, said she had heard gunfire down the hall from the classroom where she was preparing students for exams at around 9 a.m. on May 6. Gneiting looked outside her classroom and saw the school janitor lying on the floor. After shutting the door, she told ABC News she had instructed her students: "You're going to run hard, you're not going to look back and now is the time to get up and go." As she helped one of the student victims, she saw a girl holding a gun and had to think quickly.
"It was a little girl and my brain couldn't quite grasp that," she told Good Morning America. "I just knew when I saw that gun, I had to get the gun."
She said she asked the girl if she was the shooter and walked up to her, putting her hand over her hand. "I just slowly pulled the gun out of her hand and she allowed me to," Gneiting said.
"She didn't give it to me but she didn't fight," the teacher added. Once she had the firearm, Gneiting "just pulled her into a hug because I thought, this little girl has a mom somewhere that doesn't realize she's having a breakdown and she's hurting people."
This is what Pentecost does it teaches us that out of chaos we have to find a way to provide a hug, it shows us that no matter how crazy and dysfunctional people are in this world in the arms of faith there is comfort from the comforter that Jesus left behind.
The Church as was said this week with the Resolution on Poverty from the Poor People Campaign we have to reach out to the hurt of the people and bring relief out of the pain, brokenness and sin. As I away say Sin is What separates us from God and Division is what that separating looks like but Pentecost is what unity and togetherness looks like and sounds like and feels like.
