Sermon 5/11/08
On Fire - Acts 2:1-21, 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
(view lectionary notes for this text)
Senioritis. Do you know what Senioritis is? I’m sure that our high-school seniors know what I’m talking about. Senioritis is that feeling you get when you are just so close to completing all your school work when you are a senior, and you just can’t stop thinking about being finished and done with your work, and you just can’t stop thinking about how much you’d rather be anywhere but in school. Senioritis affects others of us as well – maybe we just call it spring fever. I watch it at work at the pre-school we house every weekday. The teachers have lesson plans for the 3 and 4 year-old students, but increasingly, the lesson plans include playing outside. It is hard to get young minds and older minds to pay attention when it is just a gorgeous day outside.
I can sympathize. Since I started my ministry here in September, right at the kick-off of everything, I never really got the summer to settle in like a traditional July 1 appointment start. So I’ve been looking forward to the summer that fast approaches, and perhaps a slower pace. There are signs around the church of the school year coming to an end, and with it, a hiatus from some of our regular activities. Next week we will celebrate our choirs, then we’ll finish another year of Sunday School classes, and we celebrate graduations and transitions. In your mind, you may already be thinking about your summer vacation plans, where you will travel, how many weeks of work you have to get through to get to vacation. Or you may be thinking that the weather is lovely for golfing, or hiking, or just being outside. It’s that time of year, and whether you are senior or not, you might be feeling a bit of spring fever.
And yet, today, we celebrate Pentecost, the birthday of the church, a beginning, a new start, where we read of the disciples seemingly literally on fire with the new energy they have found in the gift of the Holy Spirit. Today, the church is born. The disciples embark on a completely new beginning, and their lives are changed, and their ministry begins in a way they’d previously only had hints of. Is May anytime to be starting something new? How do we celebrate Pentecost, this birth, this new beginning, when we’re getting ready to wrap things up?
In some ways, I think the disciples probably would have wondered the same thing if they knew what was about to hit them. They’d been on quite the roller-coaster ride with Jesus. For three years they’d followed him, worked with him, ministered with him. They’d been through an ordeal, watching Jesus be put to death, and then they’d received the joy – Jesus resurrected. But now Jesus had returned to God, and no longer walked the earth in human form with them. Sure, they would continue to tell Jesus’ story. But in a sense, things seemed to be wrapping up. This strange, crazy time in their lives as Jesus’ disciples was really over. Maybe now they’d have more time to spend at their homes, with their families. Maybe now their lives would be less chaotic, safer, more settled and steady.
And then, Pentecost comes, as our text from Acts begins. In the Christian faith, we know Pentecost as the day of the coming of the Holy Spirit, but in the Jewish religious life, Pentecost was an already existing festival – a harvest festival. And so people were coming to Jerusalem, making a pilgrimage to the city to be there for the religious festival, like they would at Passover and other holy days. So the city would be teeming with faithful Jews from all over the place, just as it was during the days before the crucifixion, including the disciples who were still there, after spending some last days with Jesus.
And then, suddenly, a sound comes like the rush of a violent wind, and it fills the whole place where the disciples were. And Luke, our author, describes to us these “divided tongues,” like flames, resting on each apostle. And all of them are filled with the Holy Spirit and begin speaking in other languages, as the Spirit gives them ability. The Jews in the city, who are from many countries, many places, all hear the disciples speaking in their own language, and they are amazed, dumbfounded, perplexed. Some even wonder if the disciples are drunk. But Peter stands with the rest of the twelve, and raises his voice to address the crowds that have gathered to witness this strange event.
“Let this be known to you, and listen to what I say,” Peter begins. They aren’t drunk, he insists, but instead, they embody the vision of God which the prophet Joel proclaimed: “God declares . . . I will pour out my Spirit upon all your flesh, and yours sons and your daughters will 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.” Past our text for today, Peter continues preaching, talking about Jesus Christ, and people respond to his words. In his message, they hear something, catch something of the Spirit that has filled Peter and the other disciples, and Luke says that three thousand people were baptized on that day. Three thousand!
What is it that they hear? I find it hard to sense in these words, in this text, in this event, what is so dramatic and life-changing about what happens here on this Pentecost at first read. Strange? Certainly. But is this the promised Advocate and Spirit that Jesus has been talking about? Is this what they’ve been in Jerusalem waiting to see? It is hard for us to read about a life-changing event. We can’t fully experience it. So we have to read the text very closely to look for the clues, look for the changes, to fully understand what’s so special about the coming of the Holy Spirit, and what is so special about this Pentecost and Acts 2, special enough to still be celebrating Pentecost today.
Think about what happens to Peter in particular on this day of Pentecost. Of course, we’ve encountered Peter between the Passover festival, when Peter denied Jesus three times, and now, this day of Pentecost. He was present at the tomb on Easter day, when Jesus was resurrected. He was with the others when Jesus appeared after Emmaus, and with them at Jesus’ return to God. But we haven’t had a lot of action from Peter since the time of Jesus’ death, when Peter denied Jesus. Throughout the gospel stories we see Peter asking questions, Peter witnessing important events with Jesus, Peter responding to Jesus’ call to follow, Peter making the first claim that Jesus was the Messiah, Peter, always at the center of the story. But after Peter’s denial of Jesus, we really hear and see little of Peter. He seems to fade into the background, for the first time, not particularly distinguished from the other disciples.
And then we come to Pentecost. The disciples are without Jesus. They’re waiting for this promise of help from God. And for the first time since the crucifixion, they are thrust into the public scene. Again, like that week of Jesus’ death, the city is crowded with people. Again, attention is on them, on the group of them. Again, their faith, whether or not they will claim it, is at stake. So much of the situation is the same. But, on this day, Peter has received the promise of God. On this day, Peter is filled with the Holy Spirit. On this day, finally, Peter is ready to stand up and say exactly what he believes, why he believes it, how it has changed his life, and why it will change the world. The situation is much the same for him as it was over fifty days ago when people were asking Peter if he was one of Jesus’ followers. But Peter is not the same. He is filled with the Spirit, and he is no longer afraid to stand up. So instead of things wrapping up and settling down for Peter, he is born anew just as the church is born. Peter isn’t fading back into the scenery, returning to a quieter life. Peter is on fire, filled with the Holy Spirit.
I wonder, as we come to the close of so many things and start turning our minds to lazy summer months, do we have room for the movement of the Holy Spirit among us? Are we open to the possibilities? As we draw some things to an end, are we ready to see that the Spirit might do new things among us that just can’t wait for our schedules and timetables?
I’ve told you before that I’m a planner. I like having a plan for my life. I like thinking about what I want to do when, and figuring out where I’ll be in five years, ten years, or more. But as I reflect on my life, I have to say that the times I’ve seen God moving most clearly in my life are not in ways that I’ve planned. Becoming a pastor was not an original part of my life plan. Going to college where I did was not in my master plan. Taking this appointment in this place at this time to come here to Franklin Lakes was nowhere on my radar, nowhere in my carefully laid plans. And yet, I’m convinced that God has been at work in all these parts of my life. What if I’d said, “No, thank you? Not yet. Now’s not a good time, God.”
The Holy Spirit is compared to rushing wind in the Bible because even though we can feel the wind and know when it is present, even though we can see the effect of the wind, you can’t really see the wind itself, or predict exactly when it is going to come or what it is going to do. Even the best meteorologists can only make guesses when it comes to tracking windy stormy weather. That’s what God’s Holy Spirit is like at work in the world. We can’t point at something and say, “There, that’s the Holy Spirit.” But we can see and sense when the spirit is moving among us, and hopefully we know that we can’t predict and plan exactly when and how and through whom the spirit is going to move.
This Pentecost Day, that’s really what I am asking of you – to let yourselves be open to the moving of the Holy Spirit, whether it comes at a good time for you or not. We, like the disciples, are promised this gift. In our reading from Corinthians, we read about how each one of us receives gifts from the Holy Spirit. But we might be surprised by what are gifts are, when God will ask them to use them, and how the Spirit will lead us in using them. I’m not asking that you sit around all summer waiting for God to act in your life in a new way. But I’m asking you to be ready, ready to respond, ready to begin something new, even if it isn’t in your master plan.
I’ve just returned from an exhausting time at General Conference in Texas. But despite my fatigue and despite some decisions that I wish had gone differently, I still see the spirit moving in the United Methodist Church. I still see so many signs of hope, so much potential, so many possibilities. I can’t wait until September to see what new thing God is giving life to in our midst. I can’t wait to seek out a path of deeper discipleship, and the world can’t wait for the church to respond to its cries for justice. The spirit is moving now, and we’re called to be open to respond.
Today, we celebrate the birth of the church. Today, we celebrate the transformation of lives – the disciples, and maybe even our own. Today, the Holy Spirit has come to you and me. Be filled with it. Be changed by it. Be moved with it. Amen.