Sermon 5/27/07
Stand Up - Acts 2:1-21
(view lectionary notes for this text)
Our text from Acts opens telling us that the day of Pentecost had come. In the Christian faith, we know it as the day of the coming of the Holy Spirit, but in the Jewish religious life, Pentecost was an 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. Last week, you remember, we read that Jesus told the disciples to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the promise of God to come to them – the Holy Spirit. We read that all the disciples were together in one place.
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 promise 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. We saw him when Jesus was eating a meal with them after his resurrection, asking Peter three times if he loved Jesus. We heard Peter three times say that he loved Jesus, and we heard Jesus tell Peter, “If you love me, feed my sheep. Tend my lambs.” 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.
Peter speaks to the crowds using the words of the prophet Joel. And he communicates to the crowds that being a prophet is something that can happen, should happen to everyone who is filled with the Spirit. “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.”
This past week I was at a continuing education event in Nashville called the Festival of Homiletics. Homiletics is a fancy word for preaching – I spent the week listening to some of the best, most respected preachers in the country. This might not sound appealing to all of you in the pews, but for pastors, and maybe some aspiring pastors, the idea of listening to some of these people is extremely appealing and exciting. It was a fabulous week with excellent preaching. One day in particular focused on prophetic preaching. Rev. James Forbes, pastor of the famous Riverside Church in Manhattan, talked about what it means to be prophetic. You might have heard the phrase before “the priesthood of all believers.” It is a phrase that was especially a favorite of Martin Luther, leader of the Protestant Reformation. Luther talked about how each of us took on the role of priest in that we are all gifted and all graced by God, even if we are not all called into pastor ministry.
Rev. Forbes this week talked about the “prophet-hood of all believers.” He asked, “What do you stand for?” He asked a room full of more than a thousand pastors, “Where did you get your audacity from to preach on Sunday? Where do those words come from? What is God mad about today? Are you aware of God wanting you to do or say something about it? Surprise – You may be the one the Lord’s gonna use!” He continued, challenging us, “Where are you? Where do you stand? If [critics] wanted to attack you they couldn’t, because they don’t know where you are, or where you stand. What is God expecting you to do?”
Another favorite preacher of mine is Rev. Fred Craddock. Rev. Craddock talked about the hyperbole of the gospel and Christian faith – the exaggeration. Just think of the Charles Wesley hymn, “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing” – a thousand tongues? Craddock said that our God is so big that we often end up using exaggerated hyperbolic language to try to hint at what kind of God we serve. And he said that the gospel is full of this exaggeration. He talked about the crazy things that can happen if people take the exaggerated language of the gospel seriously. “Go sell what you have and give to the poor,” Jesus says. What would happen if we took that exaggerated language seriously? “Take up the cross and follow me.” What if we took Jesus at his exaggerated word when he said that? Craddock jokingly warned the consequences of following the exaggerated commandments of discipleship in the scripture: “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved,” the scriptures say. Craddock said, “If you start saying whoever, whoever will show up!” “Refuse to lose the hyperbole,” he said, refuse to lose the exaggeration. Stand up. That’s being a prophet. And that’s what happens when you open yourself to being filled with the Holy Spirit.
What do you stand for? What would make you go from being in the background, always silent, even in the presence of the resurrected Christ, like Peter was for a while, to being the first to respond when a question of faith arises? What are you willing to stand up for? Can you see yourself as a prophet? So often in our Christian life, our focus is on being good and nice. I’m not saying these are bad things! I hope we are all ‘good’ and ‘nice.’ But I don’t remember anyone ever calling Jesus ‘nice’ – he wasn’t praised for being ‘nice’ or threatening to the religious leaders because he was ‘nice’. He was followed because he stood up for things and people that no one else would, and he was crucified because he stood up when others kept a polite silence. What would you stand for?
Peter finally found that he had something worth standing up for. From here forward in Luke’s writing, we hear a lot more from Peter, see him in action again, and see, ultimately, that he is willing to take up the cross and follow Christ. What will you stand up for? Amen.