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The Day of Pentecost

Posted on May 19, 2013 by Beth Crane

Acts 2:1-21
Psalm 104: 24-34, 35b
Romans 8: 14-17
John 14: 8-17 (25-27)

Jesus has told the disciples that he will send an Advocate, the Holy Spirit, to lead them jnto all truth. They are in Jerusalem. It is the Jewish feast of Pentecost, fifty days after the Passover. People are gathered from all around the Mediterranean Sea, from all the known world.

The disciples are waiting, praying, open, expectant. The Spirit comes to them as a mighty wind, like the desert ruach, which molds and shapes the sand. Flames dance over the disciples’ heads That is why we wear red today. Suddenly these Galileans burst out with all the languages of the world, speaking heart to heart, dissolving all differences, sharing the Good News about Jesus in languages each member of the multitude gathered for the feast can understand.

Some people are deeply touched. Others are dubious. They think the disciples are drunk. Peter preaches an amazing sermon, telling them that God is pouring out God’s spirit on all flesh, as the prophet Joel foretold.

This year, we have been focusing on God’s family, the whole human family—how God breaks through humanly constructed barriers and makes us one. The Feast of Pentecost is the birthday of the Church, and we are all called to extend God’s love to all the world.

In his Letter to the Romans, St. Paul writes, “All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” So many religious systems have presented God as someone very scary, someone who is keeping track of all our sins and errors, who is, as David Brown says, “out to gunch us.”

This is not the God we worship. We are beloved children of God. We can call God “Abba,” Daddy, or Mommy, Papa or Mom. Remember how our gospel for last week told us how God loves us as much as  God loves God’s son, Jesus? God is a God of love, not a God of fear or hatred. Let us hope and pray that religious leaders will stop preaching fear of a God who is out to punish us. God’s family includes everyone. That’s what the Feast of Pentecost is all about.

In our gospel, we are privileged to be with the disciples and Jesus in the Upper Room. Jesus has washed their feet. Judas has left to carry out the betrayal. Time is growing short.

Perhaps Philip senses this. Sometimes when we are looking into the face of God, we sense that we are confronting a great mystery, something that we can never hope to fully understand, because it is so big and so deep and so complex, and our minds are not large enough to grasp some things. Which one of us can grasp the depth and breadth of God’s love? This may be what Philip is feeling. He’s trying to get Jesus to boil everything down to something simple and clear. So he says,  “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.”

Jesus says, “If you have seen me, you have seen God. God is with you now. Look at my life, all the things I have done while we have been together.” And I imagine they reflect on this, his teaching, and healing, and preaching—the love, the patience, the gentleness, the courage, everything.  I think they and we can see that Jesus is God walking the face of the earth, living a human life. And now Jesus is saying that he wants us to do the same things that he has done. He is saying to us and them, “Live as I live, do as I do.” And he says that the disciples and we will do even greater things than he has done because he is going to send the Spirit to help us.  And then Jesus gives us his peace, not the fleeting peace that the world can sometimes give, but his shalom, his vision of the wholeness and the healing of creation, the shalom that he is calling us to build. Where everyone has enough food and water, has decent shelter, clothing, medical care and good work to do, the shalom in which we honor and heal the creation that God has entrusted to our care.

God’s Holy Spirit is God at work in us and in the world. The Holy Spirit gives us the gifts and tools we need to share God’s love with the world, to speak God’s love heart to heart, and remember, the heart in Judeo-Christian thought is not only the emotions, but the will, the mind, the ethical center in each of us.

As wonderful as it was to have Jesus here on earth as a human being, he had to leave and send us the Spirit. When he was on earth, he traveled around a very small area. True, he touched hearts and lives everywhere he went. But the Feast Of Pentecost tells us that now he is everywhere. Wherever two or three gather in his name, he is there. Sometimes sharing God’s love doesn’t mean speaking in verbal languages, as happened on the first Pentecost. Sometimes sharing God’s love means listening. Sometimes it means tending to someone’s wounds, either physical or emotional or spiritual. Sometimes it’s planting a garden or building a school or helping a group of women turn their weaving into a business. Whatever it may be that we are called to do, today is the day we celebrate God’s giving us all the gifts we need to do it.

Pentecost didn’t happen just once, It’s happening all the time, as we realize that we have gifts we didn’t even know we had, and as we use those gifts.

On this wonderful feast day, may we thank God for all the love and all the gifts which God is constantly pouring out. Thank you, Lord, for making us your Body here on earth and for giving us the gifts to share your love, healing, and forgiveness.

Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: , , , , | Leave a comment »

The Day of Pentecost June 12, 2011

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Beth Crane

The Day of Pentecost Year A RCL June 12, 2011

Acts 2: 1-21
Psalm 104: 25-35; 37b
1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
John 20:19-23

Last Sunday we talked about Jesus’ commissioning of the disciples to spread the good news. He has told them that he will not leave them comfortless, that he will send the Holy Spirit to guide them into all truth.

He has told them to wait. They are waiting. He has told them to pray. They are praying. They are together in one place. That is a key thing. We are together in one place. The Spirit comes in power when we are gathered in community.

Yes, there have been the betrayals, the denials. Some have run away. Some have come back. But now they are together, waiting, praying, as we are waiting, praying. Because they have hung in there, gathered in prayer and expectation, we can accurately assume that they have much more trust than they had, say, on Good Friday, and maybe even on the first Easter. He told them that he would die, and that happened, and it was horrible. He told them that he would rise, and they have seen him, in the upper room, on the road to Emmaus, on the beach, and other places. It has been an intense journey, and all of it has brought them to that place of trust and openness which allows God to work fully.

They are in the house, and we can just imagine the scene. A mighty wind, like the desert ruach, the wind of the Spirit, molding and shaping us into the persons God calls us to be. And something like flames dancing over the heads of the apostles, and gifts pouring out everywhere, gifts of the Spirit pouring into their hearts, into the core of their being. And suddenly, overflowing with the Spirit, they burst forth, speaking all the languages of the known world.

There are faithful Jews gathered in Jerusalem for the Jewish feast of Pentecost, fifty days after the Passover, a celebration of the giving of the covenant on Mt. Sinai and also a harvest festival. Wind and flames are swirling around the house where Jesus’ followers have gathered, and we can imagine people coming to see what’s going on here. There is a joyful commotion. The whooshing of the wind and flames, the paradoxically harmoniously unifying cacophany of all these languages. And the strangest thing—these people gathered from all over the known world—the writer of the account wants to make sure we understand just how far they have come, so the writer names the nationalities—Parthians, Medes, Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Rome, Egypt, Arabia, people from far and wide—all these people can understand what these Galileans are saying! Jesus’ disciples, who have never gone to the Middlebury language school, are breaking through the barriers and the separations caused by our human brokenness and limitations, and they are speaking the good news heart to heart with all these people. And that’s how the good news spreads—from one heart to another.

In today’s gospel, which we also read on the second Sunday of Easter, we have another account of Jesus giving the Spirit to his followers. Another side, another aspect of how the Spirit comes to us. Again, the key thing is that they are together. They are waiting and praying. It is the evening of the first Easter. They are afraid. The doors are locked for fear of the religious and secular authorities. Suddenly he is in the room. He quietly and gently walks through their fear. “Peace be with you,” he says. He gives them the gift of shalom, peace, that paradoxical peace that means the reconciling and bringing together of opposites and conflicts and differences. He gives them the gift of forgiveness—forgiveness of others, yes, and also forgiveness for them—for all the denials and betrayals and doubts and self-seeking. His whole attitude is one of forgiveness and acceptance. Now, given the gift of forgiveness, they are called to share that gift with others. And he gives them his breath; he breathes into them his life. This band of fearful people becomes his body, carrying on his ministry.

Our epistle today comments on the extraordinary nature of the Body of Christ. The Corinthians had a misunderstanding about the Body. They were beginning to think that some gifts, mainly speaking in tongues, were better than others.  Paul says very clearly that all the gifts and all the members of the Body are equal. Every gift and every member is needed. Weeding our gardens and washing the windows and cleaning the church are just as important as conducting the liturgy in a reverent manner, teaching, preaching, praying, and learning.

The Holy Spirit comes to us in different ways at different times. Sometimes, it is a dramatic encounter, as at the first Pentecost, the Birthday of the Church. But at other times, the Spirit comes into our lives and hearts quietly, as Jesus came quietly into this world, born in a stable. But the Spirit is always at work, transforming our lives and our world, building God’s shalom. The Spirit is always building, always creating.

May we be open to the gifts of the Spirit. May we, as the Body of Christ in this place, know that each member and every gift is infinitely precious in God’s sight. In the power of the Spirit, may we live the Good News and share God’s love.

                        Amen.

Filed under: Reverend Janet Brown, Sermons | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

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