"Pentecost and your story" - Sermon for Pentecost Sunday, 2017

Sermon:

Text: Acts 2:1-21, 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13, John 20:19-23

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who breathes the Spirit upon us, making us part of the story.

            I lived in Sweden for a year when I was ten, turning eleven over there. I went to a Swedish school, some of the students knew English already, a couple were pretty fluent. But, most of the schooling was in Swedish and so I learned some while there. We also went to a Swedish church while there. All the services were in Swedish, every once in a while, there would be a hymn that had the same tune as we knew. But, most of the service would be sort of incomprehensible to us. I, at least, just sat there. But, there were a few moments each service that we knew exactly what was going on. We knew when the readings were taking place, and we knew when the sermon was going on, simply because someone else would be up reading or the pastor would move to the pulpit. One thing was always noticeable, the Lord’s prayer. Even with it being in a different language, we knew when it started and we knew when it ended, and we prayed right along with. It has pretty much the same cadence, the same rhythm, the same timing, no matter your language.

            In some ways it sounds like that’s the thing that happens on Pentecost, but it’s not. It’s not that the people that were in Jerusalem, heard things that they recognized, that sounded sort of familiar, they heard and understood in their own language. Every one of them. And this is not a small collection of people, it’s all that long list of places from our text. The Pentecost festival that everyone has gathered for is one prescribed in the Hebrew bible, it calls for everyone to come, all the people, all their slaves, all the widows, all the orphans, all the strangers in the land, the immigrants, all who live in the city. They are all included in the festival. And I’m sure that some were fluent in Hebrew, they knew what was going on, but I’m just as sure that others didn’t know a word. They just went around the city, not knowing at all what was going on. And then, they hear their own tongue, their own language, suddenly they are part of what’s going on, not just walking along.

            Peter declares in his sermon that this is the Holy Spirit at work. Giving the gift of language to the disciples, so that all may hear and know the good news of God.

            Some people will say that Pentecost is the reversal of the tower of Babel, where all the people are speaking the same language, but then are scattered into many directions and different languages. But, it’s not reversal that happens here, God doesn’t unify language here, God reaches to each person as they are, in their own language. It’s not about their language, it’s about God the Spirit working. God doesn’t make you have to be one thing to hear and be a part of the Good news of Christ, God meets you where you are.

            Our lesson from 1 Corinthians today is one of my favorites. It lists gifts that people have, and then declares, we need each of these gifts to be the collective people of God. “To each is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” Not all have the same gifts, some have some, others have others, and together we use them to put God’s mission into action and it is the Spirit that enacts them within us. God doesn’t declare one set of gifts the best, but says, who you are, the gifts that you have, that is what is needed. Not some have gifts for the community, not just a few, but to each is given by the Spirit a gift that benefits all. God seeks you as you are.

            Our passage from 1 Corinthians closes with “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” I’m not a big fan of that translation for the last bit, I prefer the NIV version, “and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” We are unified, all peoples in one body. That’s what happens on Pentecost, we are unified by the Spirit, not by making us the same, not by making us speak the same language or have the same gifts, but by gathering us all together, each person adding that part that is needed. We are unified by the Spirit which we drink. What does it mean to drink something?

It means life, it means it becomes part of us, it is part of our makeup. The water you drink becomes you. You are what you eat, you are what you drink, literally. The Spirit gives you life, it gives you gifts, it lets you know that God meets you as you are, where you are, who you are.

Our gospel today is the same gospel reading that started our journey through the season of Easter, minus the Thomas bit. Christ appears to the disciples and breathes the spirit upon them. Christ breathes life into you, he gives his body and blood for you, the Spirit is water for you. All you need is found there.

Here is what Pentecost means. It means that God loves you. It means that God gives breath to you, meets you where you are, as you are, with the gifts you have, God feeds you with the bread and wine, Christ’s body and blood, and the water of the Spirit and gives life to you. Not when you stop being yourself, but as you are, flaws and all, imperfections and all, despite the chaos in your life, no matter what is going on, how busy you may be, God in the Spirit is with you, bringing life to you. Pentecost means that God makes you part of what God seeks to accomplish here. You are not just a person, you are God’s, claimed, loved, baptized and washed clean by God, accepted as you are. A Child of God, a member of the body of Christ, part of the people of God, the church.

Pentecost means that when we go from here, we don’t go to tell the story of Christ, we go to live the story of Christ. Through the Spirit, you are part of this story. This great story that started in creation, God speaking all into being, that gave rise to Christ, his birth, his death, and resurrection, and the breathing of the Holy Spirit, you are the continuation of that story, that same story is your story.

May Christ be with you as you use your Spirit given gifts in this world, as you write your own chapter in the grand story of God.