23 May 2010 “A Pentecost Problem” Acts 2:1-21

23 May 2010 “A Pentecost Problem” Acts 2:1-21

If you are like me, the possibilities of a day like today, Pentecost, with the notion of divided tongues resting upon us while being filled with the Holy Spirit of truth, creates a healthy round of honest skepticism and a stream of unanswerable questions. Then again, you may not be like me.
Through the prophet Joel we learned of God’s promise when God said, “In the last days it will be that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh…”
Being good and faithful folk and taking into account the weight of the evidence for the Trinity and the effects our faith will have, we generally accept this to be true. At the same time, we have rarely stopped having questions about God.

What exactly does this pouring out of God’s Spirit upon our flesh mean? What will it look and feel like? Or more importantly, what will we look like or feel like after this happens? Will we still be who we are or will we be changed into some unrecognizable spirit filled somebody who answers to our name. After all, there are good spirits and bad spirits flying around aren’t there?

Let’s be well informed here. A lot is at stake. Perhaps it should be prayers that we pray and not questions that we ask. Yet, we persist. Exactly what sort of Spirit does God have in store for us, and what difference might that Spirit make in our lives if we are to be poured upon, that’s what we want to know.

Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal priest, has written a wonderful summary of the Acts 2 passage we read this morning. She says, “If you believe the Bible, then there is no better proof that Jesus was who He said He was than the before and after pictures of the disciples. Before Pentecost, they were dense, timid fumblers who fled at the least sign of trouble. Afterwards, they were fearless leaders. They healed the sick and cast out demons. They went to jail boldly, where they sang hymns until the walls fell down.”

I believe we may fairly ask, how did this change occur in them and is this the difference such a change will make in our lives. The last thing Jesus told his disciples to do before He ascended into heaven was to go back to Jerusalem and wait there for God’s promise to come true. They would be baptized by the Holy Spirit and they would be clothed with power from on high.
With little or no idea what any of that meant, they did as they were told. They went back to Jerusalem and there they waited in an ordinary room in an ordinary house, along with the women who had come with them, including Jesus’ mother and his brothers.

For the most part they prayed while they waited, and I expect at least some of them were asking God to tell them a little bit about what they were waiting for. After all, how would they know when the power had come upon them.

They did not have to wait long for the answer to their prayers. On the day of Pentecost, a Jewish festival set fifty days after Passover, they were all together in one place when they found themselves in the midst of a crash course in God’s power.

First there was wind, then there was fire, then they were filled with the Holy Spirit and overflowed with strange languages: one spoke Parthian while another spoke Latin, and two others were speaking Egyptian and Arabic.
They may not have known what they were saying, but the crowd they drew did. Devout Jews from all over the world stood in the doorways and windows, listening to a gaggle of Galileans tell about the power of God in their own tongues so that no one was left confused.
And still it baffled them all, the speakers as well as the listeners. They were in the grips of something that bypassed reason and some of them could not bear it, so they started hunting for a reason. “They are filled with new wine,” someone said. But Peter said no, it was only 9:00 in the morning.

Then Peter got up and delivered a sensational sermon, based on the second chapter of Joel. “In the last days, I (meaning God) will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”
Peter tells them that is what is happening now. The Holy Spirit of God is being poured out on them and this is how it looks with wind like the wind that revived the valley of dry bones, with fire like the fire that led Israel through the desert, and with tongues like the tongues that erupted at Babel, but in reverse this time. At Babel, God confused human speech so that people could not understand each other anymore; at Pentecost, God reverses that curse. What sounds like babble is intelligible speech, and best of all, it is the gospel truth.
According to Acts, three thousand people were baptized that day. It was the birthday of the Christian church, when a dozen fallible human apostles received power from on high and proceeded to turn the world upside down.
All this happened by the power of the Holy Spirit, which the Bible talks about in at least two ways.

First, as the abiding presence of God in Christ, with all the safety and comfort that relationship promises. Then, secondly, perhaps not so comforting, as the presence of the Spirit that blows and burns into our lives, howling down the chimney and even turning all the lawn furniture upside down.

Ask Job about the whirlwind, or Ezekiel about the chariot of fire. Ask any of us who have felt caught up in the Holy Spirit this way and whether it is something we would like to happen every Sunday morning!
Given this natural tension with the presence of the Holy Spirit, it may seem surprising that in John’s gospel, beginning in chapter 7, we hear Jesus, on the last day of the festival, cry out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart will flow rivers of living water.’ And John 14 lifts up Jesus’ promise to us, “Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid…the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do…”, even greater.
From Acts we heard: In the last days it will be that God will pour out God’s Spirit upon all flesh. And again from John, “On the last day… Jesus cried out, Let anyone who is thirsty come to me.”

Two bottom line last day truths are evident in Jesus’ Word to us this morning. First, in seeking refreshment from our thirst for life and our thirst from life, life without the soothing relief of life giving waters, we who believe will also be filled with the presence of God almighty, Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit. And second, to exchange these conditions of life, having thirst for the Spirit filled, unbounded, uncontrollable, life changing and life giving power of God may be more than we bargained for.

“Only a fool would pray for the Holy Spirit,” says Allan Jones, Dean of the Episcopal Cathedral in San Francisco, “only fools for Christ do.” He goes on suggesting that the Spirit is most present in three open spaces in our lives, “in the unpredictable, in the place of risk, and in those areas over which we have no control.”

All too often we find our lives in one of these places. Life is unpredictable, risk seems a frequent reality and having control is truly the grandest illusion of all. It’s ok then to pray for God’s gentle spirit at such times. It is ok to pray for the living water Jesus offers. It is ok to admit our thirst for truth and justice, for peace and love, for hope and grace, for forgiveness and eternal salvation. It’s ok to admit we feel like we’ve reached the end of our rope, that we are living our last days, that God has abandoned our lives and pray our faith be restored.

It is proper and right that we pray our faith be restored, to increase life’s predictability, not as we would predict it of course but with God’s blessing, and to reduce life’s risks, not as we would reduce them of course but with God’s grace, and to give complete control of our lives to God, as only God will control it, with God’s love.

Then, praise God, God will pour out God’s Holy Spirit upon us. Then we who are thirsty for the hope of God’s life giving grace will come to Jesus for life giving waters. Then our sons and daughters will prophesy, our young men and women will see visions, and our old men and women will dream dreams and in our new lives we will become the vessels filled to overflowing with God’s grace, God’s love and God’s blessings so people around us may be filled too.
This is the change we can expect - filled with joy and peace, love and hope, our hearts will not be troubled. This is what our world will feel like - filled to be God’s eyes and ears, hands and feet, words and heart to the world. Bringing thirsty folk everywhere God’s Holy Spirit, overflowing from us, from you and from me, so others will experience their own Pentecost, and not be afraid.

Let anyone who is thirsty come with hope to Jesus and receive Gods’ life giving Holy waters, God’s Spirit, poured out upon all flesh.
Jesus promised us, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”
Our eternal peace is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the answer to our Pentecost prayers.

Jesus Christ is the powerful difference our lives feel when we are Holy Spirit filled.

The time for questions has passed, the time for prayers is on hold, it is time to approach the font of baptism and to be poured upon again.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen 061211.gpc

Additional resource:
“Lectionary Homiletics”, Volume XIX, Number 3, pages 40-48.