Acts
2:1-21; Romans 8:14-17; John 14:8-17, 25-27
A Presbyterian friend of mine told our Cranberry Clergy group a Presbyterian joke this month. It seems a stranger came to worship at the church one Sunday, sat on the second row, and was a bit noisy. He was shouting "Praise the Lord!," raising his hands in the air and waving them around. One of the ushers sidled up next to the fellow and said, "Sir, I need to ask you to be quiet." "Oh, it’s all right!" the man replied. "I’ve got religion!" "Well, you didn’t get it here!" said the usher.
I love that joke, not only because it’s so Presbyterian, but because it’s so old. I first heard it years ago when I went to visit a Presbyterian seminary who took pride in calling themselves the “frozen chosen.”. It explains how they are self-consciously stuffy in style. Presbyterians are fond of Paul’s admonition to the charismatic Corinthians that "all things are to be done decently and in order" (1 Cor 14:40). Pentecostals, of course, don’t care as much for Corinthians as they do for Acts, because every Sunday they re-create the day when the Spirit fell upon the church. And our church, well, I guess we’re somewhere in between. The Presbyterians would think we’re a bit too informal, decent but not always in order, and the Pentecostals would probably want to check our pulse to see if we’re still alive. Most churches think that their way of doing things is the right way, and some of them can be a little judgmental about it. Lily Tomlin, one of my favorite comedians, wonders why when people talk to God we call it prayer, but when God talks to people we call it schizophrenia?
Churches have different styles of worship according to our theological emphases and personal tastes, but today we are all Pentecostal. Today we are remembering Pentecost and what it meant … and what it means for us as followers of Jesus in the world. Today we think about what it means to go with the flow of God’s Spirit in the way we do church. Today we think about what it looks like for us to "catch the Spirit" ourselves…the spiritual ecstasy by which a person is overcome with a sense of God’s presence.
Social inhibitions fall away and the person may shout or dance, speak in tongues, even faint. In the ancient world … and in most religions … this experience of ecstasy was considered a blessing … a sign of possession by God. They thought, just as a person might be possessed by a demon, he or she might be possessed by the Divine and be controlled entirely by God. Even today, some people look for the outward show to tell them if the church has Spirit. They go to church and if nobody shouts or falls down or cries or laughs uncontrollably, they figure they might as well have gone to a ball game. In those churches, people aren’t the least bit embarrassed to get excited about what they believe in.
Spirit-ecstasy was a blessing to the early church … and also a problem. In his letter to the Corinthian church … where spiritual ecstasy had become a disruptive show, Paul insisted that all believers, not just the ecstatics, are possessed by the Spirit of God and are gifted by God’s Spirit. These gifts are not given to us as rewards for our goodness … not given to us for our own selfish pleasure … and certainly not given to us so we can show off to others how spiritual we are or claim we are more spiritual than anyone else. Rather, they are given so that we might serve … so that we might do our part in accomplishing the mission of the church.
While there may be different degrees of maturity, we are all equally spiritual. There is only one Spirit of God and that Spirit is not divided or given in varying doses to the deserving. Paul insisted he would rather speak five intelligible words in the church than ten thousand words of ecstatic speech. (1 Cor 12-14). He did not deny that ecstasies were a gift from God, but he wanted to emphasize those signs of the Spirit that served the church more.
Still, to this day, many Christians prefer the spectacular signs of the Spirit to the more significant, but less visible indications of God’s presence. They are looking for the passion and excitement people ought to feel about coming into the presence of the living God. But are they looking for the right signs … the most important signs … the inward as well as the outward signs that God is here? What are these signs of the Spirit among us? How do we know if we have caught the Spirit and are in the flow of God’s sustaining presence?
Well, look at the signs of the Spirit at Pentecost. To be sure there were some spectacular manifestations…the sound of a mighty rushing wind….tongues of fire flashing over their heads. The biblical word for "Spirit," pneuma in Greek and ruach in Hebrew, also means wind or breath. Say what you will about the power of the wind to fill our sails and push us along, without the gentle breath of air we take, we cannot even live. We take this breath for granted, but it is essential to life, just as we take God’s Spirit for granted, but the Spirit is essential to life.
Fire is a symbol of God’s presence in every religion from the incendiary wildfire that sends everybody running … to the steady, constant, controlled flame of the altar candle or hearth. So the wind and the fire that are so spectacular at Pentecost are also significant in their quiet inner forms as breath and energy. But there are other signs of the Spirit in Acts, too, and I would argue these are far more significant: the way the Spirit leads the apostles to preach the gospel and the way the Spirit affects their relationships with one another. Take the miracle of language. The miraculous tongues of Pentecost are not ecstatic spiritual speech, but people understanding the gospel in their own languages:
Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs-- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power" (Acts 2:7-11).
John used to speak in tongues. I don’t mean the Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus gender differences in communication styles, though I have experienced some of that. No, John used to come home from school and talk about IEP’s and ARD’s about GT, ED, ESL and TEA…a virtual alphabet soup that all sounded like LMNOP to me. This is elementary school principal speak, but he might as well be speaking in Swahili!
James Forbes says when he was a
young man growing up in the Church of God he was embarrassed that he did not
speak in tongues like the other young preachers did. But when he became pastor
of
This is what the church does. We translate the message of God’s love in Christ into the language people understand in their own circle of being. The buzzword for these different language worlds these days is "microcultures," and most of us circulate in several of them. If all we ever speak in church is about salvation, redemption, regeneration, sanctification, sin and forgiveness, confession and repentance, incarnation and resurrection, stewardship, sacrifice and holiness … folks won’t get it, unless they were already raised in the faith. We have to express the message in a language that makes sense in the world where they live.
This is the sign that the Pentecostal Spirit is among us, when all of us become preachers, translators of the gospel in the different “microcultures” where we live. When a lawyer learns to speak with other lawyers about the gospel in their own language, when teachers talk to teachers, when an artist talks to other artists, when an accountant talks to other accountants, when soldiers talk with other solders, when each of us preaches the gospel with our lives and lips in our own circles of influence … interpreting the good news in a way that makes sense to people in their own lives … then we are going with the flow of the Spirit of Pentecost.
Throughout the book of Acts, the
Spirit works through the church to present an intelligible gospel to a confused
world. And the result is the undoing of the story of the
In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy (Joel 2:28-29, as quoted in Acts 2:17-18).
"All flesh" it says!
Who does that leave out? Young and old, male and female, slave and free …
the Spirit turns everybody into a preacher! This was as subversive and countercultural then
as it is today! Look what the Spirit
did. We have seen in the last few weeks that a Roman centurion and other
gentiles from Asia Minor and
The clear communication of the gospel across all human divides is one sure sign of the Spirit among us. The second is what the Spirit does to us, how God changes us when we catch the Spirit. The second chapter of Acts is long, so we usually don’t read the end of the Pentecost story, but it reveals the clearest way to tell the Spirit is in our midst. It says:
They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved (Acts 2:42-47).
In other words, the Spirit took this diverse group of people … divided by gender and nationality and language and history … and made them one church. They became a different kind of people - generous in a selfish world … caring in a cold world … cooperative in a competitive world … peacemaking in a violent world … a close community in a world of isolated individuals. Later, Paul would note this difference the Spirit makes in his letter to the Galatians:
Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Gal 5:19-22)
The way of the world, which Paul calls "the flesh" pits us against one another. The effect of the Spirit - each of these "fruits of the Spirit" - is relational. Inasmuch as we experience these changes against the tendencies of our selfish human nature, we can see the signs that God’s Spirit is at work among us and within us.
Are we in the flow of that Spirit here in our own church? As Yogi Berra said, "You can observe a lot by watching." I watch, and I see people reaching out generously to others in need. I see people forgiving and being longsuffering. I see you accepting people who might not be accepted in other churches and rightfully treating them as the beloved children of God. I see you encouraging others to find what you have found in this place - grace and mercy and God’s sustaining presence. I have seen the Spirit of God at work among us.
Throughout the broad spectrum of churches … from the introverted and quiet, formal, reserved expressions of spirituality … to the most free wheeling, extroverted, emotive, informal and spontaneous Pentecostals … you will find these signs of the Spirit I have mentioned today. My point is, in case you didn’t hear it the first time, you don’t have to speak in tongues, shout and dance, jump up or fall down to be in the flow of God’s Spirit. The signs of the Spirit that matter most are the way we share the good news and the way good news changes us. I suppose that amongst the churches … we are probably more Presbyterian in style than Pentecostal, and that’s okay. That’s who we are. But you know, every once in a while, it would be okay with me if somebody got excited, or a little emotional, got a little more enthusiastic than our usual comfort level. I don’t mean the attention-seeking behavior of spiritual exhibitionism. But maybe we could all use a little more fire in this cold world … a little more desire to host the Holy Spirit in the temple of our bodies … and a deeper sense of awe in the undeserved privilege that God has entrusted the abiding Presence to us. To us! Can I get an "amen!"? All right then! Let’s catch the Spirit!
May we pray?
Lord we ask again for the authentic experience of the outpouring of your Spirit on each and all of us. We cannot control your Spirit. We cannot arrange for you to appear like clockwork at regularly scheduled times to do tricks for us. What we long for is the overwhelming love and grace and joy and enthusiasm which give us the power to overcome our human tendencies so that we love and rejoice and forgive and give and care in ways that help. Lord, send the presence among us, keep us in the flow, wake us to the amazing presence, and we will be your servants, your body, your church as we catch the Spirit of Pentecost again in Jesus’ name. And all the people said, "Amen!"
Mary Anne Biggs, Pastor
Nekoosa United
Nekoosa