A Great Conspiracy
Sermon on Acts 2:1-21
Pentecost Sunday-Year B
June 4, 2006
Rev. J. Curtis Goforth, O.S.L.
“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.”
-Acts of the Apostles 2:2
In the past few months, you may have noticed, there has been a lot of hoopla over a number of books on the subject of religion. During Holy Week National Geographic published a book entitled The Gospel of Judas which claimed that the disciple who is most noted for betraying Jesus was actually not a bad guy, but a good guy. The central idea behind the publication of this “lost gospel” which was actually written in the fifth century A.D. was that there has been a great conspiracy in covering up the truth by the Church. The Church has conspired to hide the real facts in an effort to keep their vision of the Church dominant over the true vision that Jesus had for the Church.
But, I believe the fanfare over The Gospel of Judas has largely subsided. However, there is another book that has even been made into a movie with Tom Hanks in it called The DaVinci Code. You have doubtless heard about it. This book has been a best-seller for years now. But I want to remind you that this book is a work of fiction, that is, by its very nature it is not about history or faith, but about telling a fictitious story and selling as many copies as possible. The central claim of this novel is that there has been yet another conspiracy by the Church to cover up the real facts about Jesus’ vision for the early Church. Dan Brown, the writer, asserts that Jesus’ original teachings revealed that goddess worship was central to the teachings of Jesus and that he chose Mary Magdalene (not only as his bride) but as the person to be in charge of the Church after his death, not Peter—another great conspiracy.
I am not one to judge a book by its cover, and I am also not one who believes that Christians should boycott movies that have alternative views to that of the Church or burn books that have conflicting viewpoints to the Church’s in them. I believe that it is our duty to be well-informed of what is being said about us by the world, not to ignore or defame that which is not just like us and our ways of life.
I read The DaVinci Code, and it is a really good story, it was such a page-turner that I read it in the course of just one day. But there are countless glaring historical errors in it, not to mention the religious elements it gets wrong. Everybody loves a good conspiracy though. The story really pulls you in and it feels like you are one of the characters, running around Europe trying to evade people who want you dead for the fantastic knowledge you have that there is a great conspiracy that will show that everything the world has always thought is wrong! The plot can really leave you breathless.
I want you to do something with me this morning. I want you to breathe out and force all the air out of your lungs. Now take a deep breath in and let it out again. You may think that you have just engaged in a simple exercise of controlled breathing, but you have just launched a conspiracy. Literally, the word conspiracy means “to breathe together.” You can even hear the word Spirit in conspiracy, can’t you?
In the second chapter of the book of Acts that we heard this morning, Luke tells us the story of Pentecost, the festival day we celebrate that brings to a close the season of Easter in the Church’s calendar, where we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit. If you remember back to our readings last week, they told of Christ’s ascension. Before he “ascended into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty” as the creed speaks, Jesus left his disciples with the charge to stay in Jerusalem until they were clothed with power from on high. Today, during Pentecost, the early Church received those glorious and powerful garments, what we might call, the gift of the Holy Spirit.
This was quite a scene according to Luke, they were all in a room, a gathering not much larger than we are here today, when a great breath from God filled the room. Both the Hebrew and Greek words that mean “wind” can equally be translated as “breath, wind, or spirit.” And, when this happened the room was on fire with this strange, new power. The followers of Jesus began speaking in languages they didn’t know, but all the people who had gathered to see what was going on heard the good news in their own language.
Naturally, some of those who were watching this strange, new event dismissed it and said that these people were just high on another type of spirits and simply drunk. But then Peter, not Mary Magdalene as Dan Brown would prefer, stood up and began preaching and telling those gathered around about what was going on. He reminded them that although it was five o’clock somewhere, it was only nine in the morning there and these early Christians were not drunk, not filled with spirits, rather they were filled with the Holy Spirit as the prophet Joel spoke.
After Peter’s sermon, this group of about 120 grew to 3,120 as about 3000 repented and were baptized that day. This is one of the few places in the New Testament where the numbers of followers were recorded.
This gift of the Holy Spirit is something that scares me and makes me uncomfortable. I am very good at telling the Spirit how it is supposed to act and what it is supposed to do. The Spirit is to work in predictable, manageable, and understandable ways. I watched a documentary in college about a worship service where people claim to be “slain in the Spirit” which included some people running laps around the sanctuary, others speaking gibberish, and others convulsing on the floor. I am not going to say that these people weren’t genuinely embraced by God’s spirit, but this was not what Luke tells us happened at Pentecost. At Pentecost, the followers of Jesus were not speaking gibberish, they were speaking the language of the people they were preaching to. At Pentecost, the early followers were not convulsing on the floor, they were telling others about the unpredictable power of Christ and how it could change the way they saw everything in the world. At Pentecost, these Christians were not running laps around the room, but they were actively participating in something every bit as unusual and every bit as foreign to everyday existence. There was something about that holy wind that they together breathed in that day that changed them and changed the world.
I can really get excited with a good story. A good conspiracy like The DaVinci Code gets me involved in the story in a personal way. I can feel like I am one of those characters and I can experience the rush of a car chase, the suspense of hiding out from the person trying to get to me, the trepidation of having special important and ancient information that the world is trying to keep me from sharing with the public. I can feel tension personally in a good story of being part of exposing a great conspiracy. Maybe that is why this book grabbed me so. Maybe that is why I got so personally involved in this story. Maybe that is why this book has changed my life so. Maybe that is why I recommend you read it yourself.
I am not speaking though of The DaVinci Code. I am talking about the book of Acts. You see, at Pentecost a great conspiracy was launched. When that group of people breathed together from the Holy Spirit, the Holy wind, the Holy breath that filled that room, they literally conspired to share earth-shattering information with the world that would change the way people looked at everything. These early Christians were hunted down and many feared for their lives. These early Christians who took part in that great conspiracy to overthrow the powers of this world with the power of the Holy Spirit were part of something so much larger than themselves. They had in their grasp very powerful knowledge and very shocking information that the world was not the way most thought it was.
I don’t know if most of you have read or will read The DaVinci Code, but just remember that it is fiction and that it is not an accurate tale of the history of the Church. However, the story from Acts is not a work of fiction, it is the history of the first days of the greatest conspiracy ever launched. And, this is a not a book you read just for the fun of it. This is a book we read where we are in the same line of characters with the same ancient knowledge that can change the world. But Christ has promised not to leave us breathless, but to inspire our conspiracy with his own Holy Spirit. Will you join us as we try to reveal this great conspiracy to the world? Amen.
