Feast of Pentecost

Acts 2:1-21

 

The Day of Pentecost brings violent wind. Divided tongues of fire. New gifts of language. What is going on in first-century Jerusalem?  What is going on is new life for God’s people.  New life which always involves birth with its attendant chaos and often surprising results. 

 

Many of you have known what it means to wait expectantly for a new baby—whether by childbirth or by adoption—so you are familiar with the process of waiting. What will this new little person look like?  What will his personality be? Will she be quiet and introverted, or chatty and outgoing? What will this new life mean for our family?  When the baby arrives, there is joy, excitement, relief. . .and chaos.  The family expands and turns completely upside down. If this is a first child, there are the adjustments of being parents for the first time. If this child #2 or #3 or #4, there are other adjustments in the family constellation. Schedules must be revised. Bleary-eyed parents wonder if life will ever be calm again.  There may be financial concerns. Yet new life also brings blessings.  Love multiplies into dimensions never imagined. Deeper bonds can develop between parents who learn to work together in new ways. The circle of family widens and extends beyond immediate family—in many cases, to a community of faith that celebrates your child’s life and welcomes them into the family of faith through Holy Baptism. New life is exciting. It is joyful. It re-shapes and re-forms community, even a small community like family.

 

So it is for the new Christian community in Jerusalem at the first Christian Pentecost. Life changes dramatically for Jesus’ disciples. Ten days earlier, Jesus has commanded his disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit. The disciples aren’t sure who or what the Holy Spirit is, nor what its arrival might bring to them. Yet they are obedient. They walk back to Jerusalem to pray, break bread together, remember Jesus, and wait.  For what, they aren’t exactly sure. But Jesus has promised he would not leave them without a comforter, without power from on high. And they trust Jesus, so they wait.

 

Luke tells us that “when the day of Pentecost had come, they [are] all together in one place.”  Suddenly, a violent wind fills the house. God’s power fills each person in such a way that when they look at each other, it looks like their heads are on fire! In this amazing moment, some discouraged disciples are transformed. Folks who have stammered and denied and doubted their way through the past fifty days—miraculously—now find their voices. They become powerful, eloquent witnesses for the Gospel through the gift of this miraculous power of the Holy Spirit. How can they possible describe such incredible power? Luke attempts it, later, as he writes of “a sound like the rush of a violent wind” that “filled the entire house where they were sitting.” He describes “divided tongues, as of fire” resting on each one of them. He describes the unexpected ability for people of different cultures and nations to understand each other.

 

On this day of Pentecost, there would surely have been lots of people from different cultures and nationalities in Jerusalem. Jewish people from all over the world have gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the agricultural feast of Pentecost—also called the Feast of Weeks—fifty days after Passover.  There are Parthians, Medes, Elamites. Residents of Mesopotamia, Asia, and other regions. Pilgrims from Egypt, Libya and Rome. Some are Jews. Others are proselytes, according to Luke. And suddenly, with a fierce wind and tongues of fire and chaos, God’s Holy Spirit turns their world upside down. In this new world, folks of every nationality can communicate with one another. Then Peter begins to preach about the ancient prophet Joel. Joel prophesied that in the last days, God will pour the spirit upon all flesh. Joel’s prophecy included apocalyptic images of blood, fire and smoky mist. The sun turned to darkness. The moon to blood. Yet in this Pentecost moment in Jerusalem, we witness a stunning reversal of an ancient prophet’s prediction. Instead of death and destruction, God’s Spirit brings new life. This new Christian community is born. Shaped. Re-formed, into a new and larger image of God’s love.

 

Of course with every new birth comes unexpected learnings. Power shifts. The formation of new family constellations. As we know, whether the new birth is that of a baby, or of a community, the powerful force and energy which creates life is unpredictable.  Despite our best efforts to set schedules for new babies, we knew very well who makes the new schedules.  Despite our best efforts to structure and mold communities of faith, they, too, have a way of developing in unexpected ways.  Or they suddenly shift, then move down paths we had never thought they would go.

 

Of course here in the second chapter of Acts, it is too soon to hear of the growing pains of this new community of faith. But we know that growing pains happen in every community—whether human nuclear family or the family of faith. We can imagine that at some point in time, people looked around and said, “We were better off when Jesus was here. He didn’t do things this way.”  Or we might overhear someone saying, “You know, I liked this group a lot better when I knew the names of all the disciples. Now I don’t know everyone. I think we’ve gotten too big, don’t you?”  And surely in the crowd we would hear someone snort with derision when someone else talks about seeing visions or prophesying or dreaming dreams. Yes, it’s true. Any time the Holy Spirit blows through and sets our heads on fire and turns our lives upside down, stuff happens.  And it is not always the stuff we thought would happen.

When God sends God’s Spirit among us, there is no way on this earth that we will tame it or contain it. The Holy Spirit is a powerful force with which we must reckon if we follow the carpenter from Nazareth. 

 

And there is no telling what might happen to you.  The Holy Spirit might just change you into a priest, pastor and preacher. The Holy Spirit just might tap you on the shoulder and say, “Hey, you could teach Sunday School or help lead the Youth Group.”  The Holy Spirit might send you right up this aisle into the choir.  The power of the Spirit might unexpectedly heal you, or give you the gift of healing. The Spirit might transform you into a leader with gifts to reconcile people in the Church or in the world. With God’s power blowing through our lives, there’s no telling what St. Philip’s Parish, the city of Laurel, the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, the Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church, the world, will look like next month, next year, or in five years.

 

We are already aware of the power of the Holy Spirit in this parish. Last Sunday, Doug Hayes, our Senior Warden, shared about the power. The challenges and difficult task of healing. The transformation of this parish. Many people have worked hard here in the past five years. And yet all that work would have been for nothing had it not been done by God, with God and in God through the power of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes there is chaos and confusion in the community of faith. Sometimes there is deep pain and division. Sometimes you look around your church and you want to weep. You see what looks like a war zone or a desert littered with debris. Like the prophet Ezekiel, you wonder if these bones can live. Yet just when chaos and confusion seem overwhelming, the Holy Spirit blows through, tosses the bones in the air, and miracles of miracles, puts flesh on them. Out of the old bones comes new flesh, new life, new spirit. Out of chaos comes creation of something new. And sometimes, it is not until you let something go and let something die that it is truly reborn—in ways so amazing, you are sorry you did not let go of it sooner.

 

Today, fifty days after the Day of Resurrection, we come to Pentecost. We turn our focus from the life and death of Jesus to the “what next”: what the life and death, resurrection and ascension of the Christ mean in our own lives today. In the here and now. On May 11, 2008, when chaos and confusion, destruction and violence tears at our lives, our Church, our world. We know what the old looked like. What the new will be has not yet been revealed.  So today, on this Day of Pentecost, open yourself to wind and tongues of fire and gifts of language and communion with each other. Open your ears and heart and life to the power of God’s Holy Spirit. And then get ready to be amazed at what happens next. Amen.

 

© The Rev. Sheila N. McJilton

 

Pentecost Icon accessed through Google images: http://www.maronite-heritage.com/assets/images/db_images/db_43-Pentecost1.jpg

Soaring Dove art accessed through Google images: http://www.3dvc.net/images/uploaded/soaring-dove.jpg