Sermon for Pentecost 2011

Sermon

Text: Acts 2: 1-21

So I was born and lived 4 years in Davis, California between San Francisco and Sacramento. One summer while in high school we decided to take a family road trip out out to San Francisco, along the way seeing our old house, and then going down to Los Angeles to Disney Land. That was great. One thing that I really really liked during the trip was the redwood trees near San Francisco. Redwoods are a interesting tree, they grow very, very large, but when small they need a lot of space, so when their seeds fall on ground with other vegetation they don't grow very well and are usually choked out. But, when a fire comes through it burns away all of the lower vegetation, and due to their size the Redwoods are not harmed and then when they release seeds they fall on barren ground and grow well. It is even more dramatic with a couple of other pine species. They actually require the fire to come through for their cones to even open. They don't open at all unless in fire or extreme heat. So the same things happens, fire comes through burns the choking vegetation and releases the seeds from the hard cone.

This all points to fire giving new life. Today is Pentecost, a day of harvest for the Jewish people. The festival of Pentecost is not just a Christian festival, our Pentecost is called Pentecost due to the Greek for the Jewish festival. It falls at approximately the same time as the Jewish Pentecost, which was this last wednesday. Pentecost means 50 days, the festival is called Shavuot in Hebrew, which translates to weeks, for the 7 weeks or 49 days after Passover. We get 50 days in Greek because the Greeks count the initial day, but Jewish tradition does not.

I think it's fitting that Pentecost is a festival of harvest, a time of new life. Shavuot is the time when Jews would bring the first fruits of their crop to the temple to offer it to God thanking God for the growth. Since this resulted in a massive in flow of people from all over the area, normally full Jerusalem would have been even more packed when the disciples gathered there.

And that's where our story today begins. The disciples gathered in the midst of a festival and then a noise. The noise like a rushing wind. I'm sure a terrifying noise, in tornadoes it is often compared to the sound of a train coming by. And then divided tongues like fire appear and rest on each. And they are filled with the Holy Spirit and speak in other languages. They are driven out into the street where the crowd from all the world gathers. It is interesting to see that if you look at the nations and empires mentioned they work like cardinal points. It starts out pointing east to Medes and Parthia in modern day Iran. Then towards the north in Asia, what would be Turkey, then the south in Egypt, and finally west towards Rome. By doing this they are implying that yes all these nations and languages heard, but also all nations heard, even those not listed. This is a common linquistic device used in Greek. It is also interesting to see more nations than disciples listed, so part of the miracle is the disciples speaking, but the miracle is just as much the people there hearing.

The spirit here works wonders. Speaking and Hearing. Vocalization and Interpretation. If you recall from last week this is what the disciples have been hopefully waiting for. The Holy Spirit here gives them the new life they have been waiting for in anticipation. Gives them the strength, the ability, they had been lacking. The same Holy Spirit gives to us new life as well. We are connected to the Holy Spirit in the waters of our baptism. It is the Spirit that courses and moves amongst us daily, hourly, minutely, secondly, in every moment. The Holy Spirit is what sustains us, and gives us New Life. The Holy Spirit is what allows us to speak the good news to our neighbors, and the Holy Spirit is what allows us to interpret and hear God's call to us in our lives.

That brings us to the second part of this story. The day of Pentecost is not just about the Spirit coming and giving us new life.

The Spirit gives us new life. New life though leads to new problems.

In this story the Spirit is not sent to solve the disciples problems. In their hopeful waiting they are not waiting for everything to be fixed, but waiting for the spirit to send them out. Speaking the good news not through their own voices, but through the voice the Spirit gives them. The voice of the Spirit which continues to work to this day.

As Christians we have a problem.

Our problem is that we are utter, uncontrollably driven by the Spirit need to tell the story. The Story of Christmas, the Story of Easter, the Story of Pentecost.

The story of a God who made us.

The story of a God who loves a lonely nation in Israel.

The story of a God who loves a fallen world.

The story of a God who destroys the power of sin through Christ's death.

The story of a God who sends the Spirit to us in all of our diversity, speaking a multitude of languages, proclaiming a variety of messages, all centered around what it is that we each need to hear at that point in our life.

God, the Holy Spirit, comes to us, to each and everyone of us, no matter who we are, telling us the story, telling us that we all matter, that we are all loved, that the power of sin is no more, that we are all filled with the Holy Spirit pushed out into the world to spread the Good News that God Loves, Christ Died, the Spirit Dwells.

That is new life. Hearing the life giving reality that the power of sin has been removed, and now we are free to go out to spread the story. That is the meaning of Pentecost.

For Pentecost is the crowning achievement of the Jesus story. The huddled disciples in our story would have just cause to sing the "Dayenu" (which means "It would have been enough") verses from the Passover seder meal, but revised:

It would have been enough for the Word and wisdom of God to have been born in the flesh . . . Dayenu! It would have been enough for the Word to grow to adulthood and share his stunning parables about God's gracious activity in the world . . . Dayenu! It would have been enough for this Word to say to his enemies, "Father, forgive them" . . . Dayenu! It would have been enough for this Word to have died on a cross for us . . . Dayenu! It would have been enough that he rose again in blessing, not vengeance . . . Dayenu! But now, beyond what we would even expect—the Word becomes our word and it is written on our hearts at Pentecost . . . Dayenu! It is enough, and more than enough to enflame our ministry of reconciliation in a world in need of a healing word.

Amen