Jan 14 2009
Pentecost – An Ancient Story that is Brand New
Preached by Winton Boyd on January 11, 2009
Text- Acts 2:1-42 (Part of our “The Essentials – Packing our Biblical Backpack” series)
Just about 2 weeks ago, our oldest son turned 21. While it probably had more significance for him than us, it was indeed a milestone. Ironically, on that same day, I received an invitation to join the organization AARP, four days before my 50th birthday – to both my home and work mailboxes.
I suppose it is too soon for either my son or I to know the full impact of these milestone birthdays. However, what is very clear is that while they are our celebrations – we do not reach or recognize them in isolation. A father up in Mpls now has another 50 year old son, several siblings and friends are sizing up what it means that their younger/bigger brother or friend has reached this milestone. If Tammy and I didn’t understand or accept that we were fully entrenched in middle age – my birthday has confirmed it for both of us (as will hers shortly).
Somewhere up in heaven a mother is remembering the birth of her 4th born, whereas many of my peers can see that remembering in their own, living mothers. Remembering my childhood also conjures up all kinds of connections within my family – grandparents and their lives, their immigration from one part of the world to another, their loves and losses, their families and extended families. Just as the celebration of my father’s 80th birthday two years ago was a moment of recollection and reflection for his whole family – each of us – as we celebrate birthdays – does so within the community of our living. Whether it is our children turning 1, our parent 90, our grandson 21, or our best friend 30 or 40 – no birthday stands alone.
Today, we reflect on a unique and historic birthday – the literal “birth day” of the church – the day known as Pentecost.
“Pentecost” occurred on the ancient Jewish holy day Shavuot – which included bringing the first fruits to the temple commemorating the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai. While Shavuot was held 50 days after Passover – in our story for today, it served as a natural time for the celebration of the “birth of the church” or the giving of a “new Torah” – the Holy Spirit – to the church of Jesus Christ.
An old holy day becomes the day of consecration and blessing for a new holy order. An old prophecy from David is used to point to a new way of living as the early church. This old holy day was now a day of embracing Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the birth of the Church: but those early followers of Jesus that Luke writes about in the book of Acts understood very clearly they were building on the legacy of history.
As a somewhat melancholic father watching my son turned 21, I might be tempted to look to the past and ask, “How did it go so fast?” He, on the other hand, is much more about the future, realizing that this full embrace of adulthood is the first step in an exciting and open-ended future.
So it is with this story, it tries to speak not only to the history but also to the future. It tries to remind Jews of not only what has been, but now, in very new terms, what will be. What is this future the writer Luke is pointing to with this story? By invoking the power and strength of their past – the story is pointing to some important and unique aspect of following Jesus into the future.
1. The famous “hearing in our own language” aspect of this gathering highlights the universality of God’s love and faith in God. It was a radical idea in the ancient world – even though Jerusalem would be one of the likely places for that to happen. Our world is “smaller” in that we do not have to be in the trading business to know people from around the world. You may have seen the bumper sticker “God loves the whole world – no exceptions.” Yet, this notion that we don’t own God’s love is actually quite radical among religious people in the world. For American Christianity, the universal nature of God’s love challenges everything from American flags in church, “God bless America” statements, to our own neglect at seeking out minority or unheard voices when we are engaging the wider world.
Our faith, the text reminds us, is always being heard and shared and sung and preached and prayed in someone else’s language challenges us to get on the other side of those images to hear people in their ‘own language’ and own experience and own setting.
For all of our 50-year history, we have tried to listen to voices other than our own. Early on, members worked with Native Americans in Wisconsin. In the early 90’s we began to understand the need to listen to Gay and Lesbian voices. In more recent years, we have included bisexual and transgender voices. Today, and into the future, I think we will be called on to listen to African voices and rhythms, African American and Latino voices from Madison, immigrant voices from Mexico or El Salvador, and to be honest – the voices of our own children and the children of our neighborhood. All of these voices – all of these languages – will challenge our thinking and our assumptions. They will jolt us out of what we think we know.
For many of us, listening to other ‘languages’ brings with it a certain discomfort – what we might call a holy or faith building discomfort.
Several years ago I went to the UCC General Synod held in Minneapolis. At one of the services we were led in worship by what was billed as the “first ever Transgender choir” from a UCC church in the heart
of San Francisco. It was a choir made up of primarily transgendered individuals – people whose gender identity does not match their assigned gender at birth. While I can’t be sure – it appeared to me that there were individuals who had undergone sex changes, men who dressed as women, women who dressed as men and some who dressed and expressed themselves in deliberately ambiguous ways.
After the concert, I went to talk with a friend who had accompanied the choir while they sang. As I waited to greet my friend, I realized I had no idea of the gender the person talking to my her – all of the signals that I use – voice, clothes, body features, make up, etc – were sending me confusing signals.
Part of me was confused and a bit uneasy in the presence of someone I could not “peg” in my usual ways. However, part of me realized I was being pushed to a new place of “listening to a voice in a language I don’t know”. I was being given the opportunity to “hear” someone whose frame of reference is completely different from mine.
This same thing happened about a year ago as I listened to an undocumented worker speak in this sanctuary – his view and understanding and experience of Madison had so little connection to mine – and I was being given the chance to hear something new.
This is God’s invitation through the story of Pentecost. “Don’t let me become too small, too limited or to set in stone.” God reminds God’s people in this story that there are many surprises for us all. Especially those of us who think of ourselves as open minded but have relatively little contact with people substantially different than us.
2. Another future looking invitation from this story comes from the teaching of Peter – who raises the question, not “what do we believe?” but what is our response to what we have heard and experienced of God?
After Peter’s ‘sermon’ the crowd was moved and said, ‘what should we do?’ – the question of the ages. If you look further into the text you will see that what Peter encouraged them to do is actually a very good guide for our own life of faith.
a. Repent – an invitation to live a life of humility, confession and honesty
b. Be baptized – an encouragement to embrace the power of God over life and death
c. Devoted themselves to teaching – the opportunity to recognize that we always learn and grow – while remembering that we have when we think we have ‘arrived’ or know all that we need to know, we are becoming stagnant.
d. Devoted themselves to fellowship – the recognition it is by sharing life and time and concerns with each other that we grow.
e. Devoted themselves to breaking bread – a commitment to sharing in the memory of God’s love, the promise of hope, and the power of faith.
f. Devoted themselves to prayer – a lifestyle that supports one another in offering our lives to God, offering our concerns and joys to the mystery of a shared faith.
g. Lived radically – if we look at the very next passage in Acts we see a community with a shared economy – an example of followers who built their faith not on cultural expectations, the ministry of other churches, or a tradition for tradition’s sake – but on the redeeming, convicting, forgiving, empowering love of God. They were followers who actually believed this Jesus had something to do with their day to day life.
3. Finally – in all of the stories about the early church – there seems to be a deep connection between responding to God and “coming alive.”
When was the last time we were so “alive” so “on fire” that someone thought we were drunk? Can you remember your favorite and most exciting birthday (regardless of age) – can you remember the sense of enthusiasm and excitement and connection to the world and your friends? When was the last time your faith inspired you in the same way?
The story of Pentecost reminds us of God’s invitation to catch fire for the universe, for the realm of God.
How might this look in our lives right now?
Is the current economic downturn an opportunity to respond not in fear but with a new sense of community? While we know the consequences are very real, and in many cases very unjust, is it possible for us to find 1-2-3 ways that we move away from the culture of accumulation and hoarding for ourselves to share the joy and goodness of God in our lives with others (be it our time, our money or simply our presence)? Is it possible that in this time of uncertainty and dis-ease that the 1970’s praise song might actually be true – “they will know we are Christians by our love?” By our sharing, our faith in the face of fear, our trust in the face of economic insanity?
Is the reality global warming a chance for us to finally break from habits – personal and corporate – that are unsustainable? Is it possible that our “new found environmentalism – built on our grandparents understanding of the earth but with new technologies and new realities – might actually take hold in a big and exciting ways?
Is the violence in the Middle East – be it Gaza today, Iraq, India/Pakistan – an opportunity to renew our efforts at peacemaking near and far – building on ancient teachings but rooted in a deep awareness of current situations? Might things like urban immersions and consciousness raising trips and discussions about racism and immigration and exchanges with churches in distant lands and community suppers in our own neighborhood – be a way for us to live peace in addition to talking peace?
What the world needs is not so much a new breed of Christians – but Christians renewed in their ancient / future faith. Alive and engaged and enthused about the possibilities before us! Amen.
