The Day Of Pentecost
Preaching
Lectionary Preaching Workbook
Series VIII, Cycle A
Theme For The Day
The Holy Spirit, unpredictable as wildfire, burst upon the church at Pentecost -- and the fire continues to burn.
First Lesson
Acts 2:1-21
The Giving Of The Holy Spirit To The Church
This passage occurs in all three cycles of the lectionary for this day. Many historians would explain that the reason for the rapid spread of Christianity was the relative peace and stability within the Roman empire -- the security, the widespread common languages of Greek and Latin, the excellent roads and seaways -- coupled with the spiritual void left by the diminishing appeal of the Olympian gods. The New Testament has a different, more theological explanation: It was the work of the Holy Spirit. In the profusion of languages at Pentecost -- not the ecstatic glossolalia Paul refers to in 1 Corinthians 14, but something more akin to the simultaneous translation service available at meetings of the United Nations -- we see the church being symbolically equipped to carry the good news to the ends of the earth (or, at least, to the ends of the Mediterranean world -- which was about as close to the ends of the earth as Luke could imagine). There is continuity in Acts between this miraculous sign and the ministry of Jesus; the Lord, himself, predicted the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" in 1:5. This continuity is seen even more clearly in the angel's words in Luke's account of the Ascension: "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). This verse -- although it occurs in the midst of the ascension narrative -- is actually Luke's theological commentary on Pentecost. Several features of the Pentecost miracle can be identified. First, it is powerful. The Spirit does not descend quietly upon the church as a personal experience of inner illumination. The Spirit changes lives, dramatically and immediately. Second, the miracle is public. While the disciples may, at the start of this episode, be hunkered down behind closed doors, it is not long before the doors are thrown wide open, and the miracle spills out into the streets. Third, it is promiscuous. Shedding all sexual implications that may attend this word, we can use it to describe how the Holy Spirit touches person after person in a fundamentally disorderly way. Churches that are open to the Spirit, today, are not especially orderly places; they are communities that have learned how to thrive on chaos. Fourth, it is pyrotechnic. It is no accident that fire is a symbol of this miracle. Yet this is no soft flame, fluttering quietly in an oil-fed lamp. It is more like the explosion of a skyrocket. Finally, Pentecost is prophetic -- as we can see in Peter's sermon that follows immediately after. The result of Pentecost is that God's word comes to the peoples of the earth in powerful and convincing ways.
Alternate First Lesson
Numbers 11:24-30
Eldad And Medad Prophesy In The Camp
Those interested in using the Acts reading as a New Testament lesson may choose to use this passage from Numbers as a first lesson. This gem of a story is a classic example of how the Spirit of the Lord cannot be confined or controlled, but is essentially free. First, some background. Moses is weary of bearing all the responsibility for leading the people, so the Lord instructs him to gather seventy elders of Israel in the tent of meeting. The Lord promises, "I will come down and talk with you there; and I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them; and they shall bear the burden of the people along with you so that you will not bear it all by yourself" (11:17). The Lord then promises to feed the people, who have been complaining about being hungry. Moses scoffs, doubting that even the Lord can feed that vast multitude (verses 21-22). The Lord testily replies, "Is the Lord's power limited? Now you shall see whether my word will come true for you or not" (v. 23). As this passage begins, Moses does as the Lord commands, gathering the seventy elders in the tent of meeting. The Lord delivers, as promised: sharing out portions of the Spirit to each of the elders, who prophesy (v. 25). Two elders -- who were supposed to have joined the gathering -- have not gone to the tent with the others but have stayed in the camp. Their names are Eldad and Medad. The Spirit descends on them as well, and they prophesy right where they are in the camp (v. 26). A messenger comes running to the tent of meeting with this news, and Joshua implores Moses to put a stop to this unauthorized display (verses 27-28). Moses replies, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!" (v. 29). Churches do well to pay heed to "the Eldad and Medad principle" that Joshua learned from painful experience -- that it doesn't pay to second-guess the Holy Spirit.
New Testament Lesson
1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
Concerning Spiritual Gifts
The carving of this text into a lectionary selection is rather peculiar; it is difficult, in fact, to know where to break verse 3 -- where part "a" of the verse ends and where part "b" begins. It is probably best to begin the reading with verse 1. "Now, concerning spiritual gifts..." So Paul begins this famous chapter, addressing a topic that continues to be a lively focus of conversation in Christian churches twenty centuries later. How many of our congregations have, at one time or another, passed out "spiritual gifts inventories" for members to fill out? How many church conflicts come down, at their root, to disagreements over who has which spiritual gifts -- and who doesn't? In Pauline theology, the work of the Holy Spirit is primarily to build up the church, and this is exactly what we see taking place in this chapter. In verse 3, Paul introduces a simple test by which we may assess the genuineness of any action that claims to be motivated by the Holy Spirit: Does it ultimately lead to the affirmation, "Jesus is Lord!"? Verses 4-11 are familiar from many church-officer installation ceremonies. They are a treasure-trove for word-studies: "wisdom," "knowledge," "faith," "healing," "miracles," "prophecy," "discernment," and "tongues" and their "interpretation." Paul's ecclesiology is extremely loose by modern standards. He led churches that had very little in the way of formal structure, but, rather depended on the Spirit to provide the ordering. This structure suited the times, of course, which were characterized by a widespread belief that the world was going to end soon. It is an open question whether such a loose, charismatic order is suitable for the church today. Verses 4-7 can be seen as an explication of the Trinity. The Spirit is associated with "gifts" (charismata), Jesus ("the Lord") is associated with "service" (diakonia), and God is associated with "activating" (energema) the gifts. Later, we read how the Spirit activates (energeo) the gifts, and allots (diaireo) them to individuals for the good of the community (v. 11). The remainder of the lection, verses 12-13, are the first part of the next pericope, in which Paul introduces the famous image of the church as the body of Christ, with its different members working together in concert. There is a double sacramental focus here: We are baptized into the body and we all "drink of one Spirit" -- a eucharistic reference. Similar lists of gifts of the Spirit may be found in Ephesians 4:11-12 and Romans 12:6-7.
Alternate New Testament Lesson
Acts 2:1-21
The Giving Of The Holy Spirit To The Church
This passage occurs in all three cycles of the lectionary for this day. See the first lesson.
The Gospel
John 20:19-23
Jesus Appears To The Disciples
See the gospel lesson for the Second Sunday of Easter.
Alternate Gospel Lesson
John 7:37-39
Jesus Invites The Thirsty To Come To Him
Just before Jesus is arrested, he makes a theologically provocative statement, which causes many to accuse him of blasphemy: "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 shall flow rivers of living water' " (verses 37b-38). Jesus' citation of "the scriptures" is problematic, for there is no clear origin for these words in the Hebrew scriptures; some have suggested Psalm 78:16 or Zechariah 14:8, but the correspondence is inexact. It is possible that, as he utters these words, jars of water drawn from the Pool of Siloam are being offered at the temple as a libation -- part of the observances associated with Sukkoth, the Feast of Tabernacles. In verse 39, John explains that this saying refers to the giving of the Holy Spirit -- which, at this time, has not yet taken place. Reading on, in verses 40-43, we learn that Jesus' words incite a division amongst the people. This division contributes to a buildup of tension that will ultimately result in Jesus' arrest.
Preaching Possibilities
"But others sneered and said, 'They are filled with new wine' " (Acts 2:13).
I don't know about you, but I've never had anyone accuse me of being drunk as I left the church following a worship service. It's not the sort of thing that's supposed to happen among those of the mainline Protestant persuasion.
It may happen in some of those more flamboyant churches -- those hootin' and hollerin' churches, the ones where the preacher has a big, plexiglass pulpit, but never spends much time behind it because he's charging up and down the platform like a wild man, stabbing a finger in the air with one hand and balancing a big, floppy Bible on the other. These are the sorts of churches where people cry out, "Lord, have mercy!" before their eyes roll back in their heads and they fall down in the aisles, "slain in the Spirit."
Doesn't sound much like our church, does it? Drunk... at nine o'clock in the morning! I don't think there's much chance anyone would mistake anything we do together in worship for what the disciples experienced at the feast of Pentecost.
Listen to how Eugene Peterson paraphrases the scripture:
"Without warning there was a sound like a strong wind, gale force -- no one could tell where it came from. It filled the whole building. Then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks, and they started speaking in a number of different languages as the Spirit prompted them.... Their heads were spinning; they couldn't make head or tail of any of it. They talked back and forth, confused: 'What's going on here?' Others joked, 'They're drunk on cheap wine.' " (Acts 2:3-4, 12-13, The Message, by Eugene Peterson [NavPress, 2002]).
"Like a wildfire." That's how Peterson describes it. Wildfires are an all-too-familiar experience for those who live in the American West. When a wildfire burns close to an inhabited area, it interrupts the rhythms of daily life, creating chaos for some considerable time -- not to mention endangering lives and property. Wildfires are nothing to trifle with.
"You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you" (Acts 1:8). That's what Jesus had promised them just before he departed to go into heaven. Power... dunamis, in the Greek. Sound familiar? It's where "dynamite" comes from. Dynamite that can blast solid rock to bits. Far from being a source of quiet inner inspiration, when the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, it shakes us to the very core.
I'll bet it never occurred to you that after the last notes of the organ prelude have faded away, and you hear the words, "Let us worship God," it could actually be dangerous to sit here in church! Yet, that's the sort of thing that happened to the disciples on Pentecost. The Holy Spirit rocked their world!
In his book, Simply Christian, N.T. Wright tells a parable -- a story that's not about fire, but water. Yet water, under the right conditions, can be just as explosively unpredictable as fire.
In the story, there is a powerful dictator who seeks to manage every aspect of his people's lives -- for their own good, he thinks to himself. A particular concern of his is water. Prior to his rule, the people drew their water from thousands of springs. While the springwater was fresh and delightful to the taste, it caused all sorts of difficulties, due to floods.
The dictator's solution was to pave over every spring in the land and direct the water into a municipal system, where it would be treated with various chemicals to make it sanitary, then piped into the people's homes.
Wright continues the story:
"For many years the plan worked just fine. People got used to their water coming from the new system. It sometimes tasted a bit strange, and from time to time they would look back wistfully to the bubbling streams and fresh springs they used to enjoy. Some of the problems that people had formerly blamed on unregulated water hadn't gone away. It turned out that the air was just as polluted as the water had sometimes been, but the dictator couldn't, or didn't, do much about that: But mostly the new system seemed efficient. People praised the dictator for his forward-looking wisdom.
A generation passed. All seemed to be well. Then, without warning, the springs that had gone on bubbling and sparkling beneath the solid concrete could no longer be contained. In a sudden explosion -- a cross between a volcano and an earthquake -- they burst through the concrete that people had come to take for granted. Muddy, dirty water shot into the air and rushed through the streets and into houses, shops, and factories. Roads were torn up; whole cities were in chaos. Some people were delighted: at last they could get water again without depending on The System. But the people who ran the official waterpipes were at a loss: suddenly everyone had more than enough water, but it wasn't pure and couldn't be controlled." (N.T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense [HarperSanFrancisco, 2006], ch. 2)
Tom Wright explains the meaning of this parable. It is, he says, about this Western civilization of ours. For centuries, the powers-that-be in society -- including, in many cases, the leadership of the church -- have conspired to dam up and control the power of the Holy Spirit. We have sought to domesticate the Most High God, to limit God's activity to certain acceptable times and places -- like Sunday morning, in church sanctuaries, with the sun-dappled light of stained glass lighting our faces. To speak of God in any other time or place -- other than, say, a lackluster invocation at the start of a civic meeting, or the occasional, muttered oath using God's name as a mindless exclamation -- is simply not acceptable. What are the two subjects we're always told we should never discuss in public? Politics and religion! Of the two, politics is probably the more acceptable to most people.
Yet, something's been happening in the Western world, Wright says -- something powerful and fascinating. It's been happening almost in spite of the institutional church. Even as the church's influence appears to be waning in many circles, there's been an explosion of interest in spirituality in our culture as people are becoming increasingly aware of the presence of God in their lives. Have you seen the size of the religion and spirituality section in Barnes & Noble lately? There are all kinds of offbeat titles there, to be sure -- everything from Tarot-card reading to finding your inner light -- but those books must be fairly flying off the shelves, or else the booksellers wouldn't stock so many of them. God is speaking to unchurched people -- to people who have scant experience with sitting in pews and singing hymns. God is speaking to their hearts. As they hear that winsome inner voice, they're casting around for something, anything, to guide them in their spiritual search.
Is this a bad thing? We in the church can choose to see it as such. We can choose to be like the not-so-benevolent dictator in that parable, pouring tons of concrete over every holy well and burbling spring we come across. We can choose to fear those who claim to have experienced God's Spirit, to hold them at arm's length.
But, there's another alternative. We can choose to reach out to these modern spiritual pilgrims, remaining open to the possibility that God the Holy Spirit is speaking to them. We can seek to lead such people into the church -- which is, after all, the place where spiritual energies can be most productively directed. This is not the same as covering over the springs with concrete, or snuffing out the flames of true devotion and replacing them with cheap flashlights. It's more a matter of channeling and directing spiritual energies to accomplish the work God intends.
If we can accomplish this, we may begin to become the sort of holy people Isaiah sings about:
"I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert."
-- Isaiah 43:19
What good does it serve to keep on doing the old thing, over and over, behind windows of lovely stained glass, when our risen Savior is out there in the world, waiting for us, pointing the way to the truly lonely and needy, the very people for whom he died? The Spirit we serve is the same Spirit who descended upon those believers on Pentecost, bringing confusion and bewilderment at first, but ultimately dispatching them on a mission -- a mission that would absorb them, body and soul, for the rest of their days. We can have just that sort of experience of God. And, we can have just that sort of mission.
All we need do is believe, in our heart of hearts, that the miracle of Pentecost is not something that began and ended one day long ago, but is, rather, still among us. The fire is burning, and we are ablaze.
Prayer For The Day
Come Holy Spirit!
Claim this, your church.
Inhabit this community with a constant rush of wind
and an ever-present roar of flame.
May our daughters and sons prophesy.
May our men and women see your visions and dream your dreams.
Through the people of this church,
reach out in love, to all who live in this community.
Light such a flame among us
that all who pass by this place will pause in wonder
and feel led to enter and bow down before you.
Fill this church with your Spirit, Lord.
To you alone be the glory! Amen.
To Illustrate
Annie Dillard gets at the dangerous aspect of the Spirit's work as she retells a couple of stories from the Hasidic Jewish tradition. One is about a devout man, whose job happened to be working in a slaughterhouse, killing livestock in the prescribed Kosher manner. It was this man's job, every day, to say the words, "Lord, have mercy," before putting his knife to the animal's throat and doing what had to be done. Yet, every time he did the deed, the slaughterer was afraid that he himself might be slaughtered -- and all because he had been so bold as to call upon the Lord. This man "made a tearful farewell to his wife and children every morning before he set out for the slaughterhouse. He felt, every morning, that he would never see any of them again. For every day, as he himself stood with his knife in his hand, the words of his prayer carried him into danger. After he called on God, God might notice and destroy him before he had time to utter the rest, 'Have mercy.' "
The God to whom this man prays is powerful, and wild -- and, more than a little dangerous. A similar view of God is expressed in this story:
"Another Hasid, a rabbi, refused to promise a friend to visit him the next day: 'How can you ask me to make such a promise? This evening I must pray and recite, 'Hear, O Israel.' When I say these words, my soul goes out to the utmost rim of life... Perhaps I shall not die this time either, but how can I now promise to do something at a time after the prayer?' "
-- Annie Dillard, "An Expedition to the Pole," Teaching a Stone to Talk (Harper, 1988)
***
In her book, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, Kathleen Norris tells a story from the Desert Fathers. It's a story about a certain monk named Abbot Lot, who went to see his superior, Abbot Joseph, and asked: "Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation, and contemplative silence; and according as I am able I strive to cleanse my heart of bad thoughts; now what more should I do?"
The elder simply rose up and stretched his hands to the heavens. His fingers became like lamps of fire. He replied: "Why not become all flame?"
***
The Roman Catholic spiritual writer, Anthony de Mello, tells a story of an eagle's egg that a farmer places by mistake in the nest of a brooding hen in the barnyard. The eaglet hatches, along with the chickens -- and as he grows, he grows to be like them. He clucks and cackles. He scratches the earth for worms. When he flaps his wings, he manages to fly a few feet into the air, no more.
Years go by. One day, the eagle, now grown old, sees a magnificent bird soar above him in the sky. It glides in graceful majesty against the powerful wind with scarcely a movement of its golden wings.
Spellbound, the eagle asks, "Who's that?"
"That's the king of the birds, the eagle," says his neighbor. "He belongs to the sky. We belong to earth -- we're chickens."
And so, the story goes, the eagle lived and died a chicken: for that's what he thought he was.
The wisdom of Pentecost is the capacity to look at the church not as the human institution it is, but as the divine reality it's meant to be. Because the Spirit is with the church, the Pentecostal perspective is that there's always more to the life of this community than meets the naked eye.
***
In many respects, the church in our land has been domesticated, taken for granted. What is the church to the minds of many Americans, but the chaplain for an increasingly affluent and self-centered society? The church exists, in the eyes of many, for the sole purpose of helping people feel good about themselves, of building individual self-esteem.
Others see the church as a reliable provider of moral education for children; or, as a place of fellowship, the sponsor of genteel picnics and dinners and socials; or, as a patron of the arts, an architecturally pleasing setting in which to enjoy beautiful music.
To many, in other words, the church is a leisure activity: just one, among many. "What shall we do, this sunny Sunday morning? Play tennis? Go to the beach? Go to church? (No -- better save church for a rainy day!)"
Yet the church, according to Christian sociologist Robert Bellah, is a greater treasure to our society than most people realize. The church, he told a Presbyterian group several years ago, is the only institution that "can offer a community that was here before any of us were born, that will be here after all of us die, and that binds us to one another because it binds us to Christ." The greatest danger our society faces, Bellah thinks, is "capitalism without restraint -- without a moral framework -- that is both the most creative and most destructive force in the world."
"All the primary relationships in our society," he goes on, "those between employers and employees, between lawyers and clients, between doctors and patients, between universities and students are being stripped of any moral understanding other than that of market exchange." The only thing that seems to matter, in other words, is the bottom line.
Did the Holy Spirit descend, as rushing wind and tongues of fire, so a generation of people 2,000 years hence, on a distant continent unknown to those simple Galileans, could enjoy an increasingly affluent standard of living? Is life really all about building and maintaining a positive "bottom line" -- and nothing more?
Of course it isn't! The events of Pentecost witness otherwise. The events of Pentecost portray God the Holy Spirit as transforming power: a power that descends upon a ragtag band of Palestinian peasants and sends them out to change the world.
The Holy Spirit, unpredictable as wildfire, burst upon the church at Pentecost -- and the fire continues to burn.
First Lesson
Acts 2:1-21
The Giving Of The Holy Spirit To The Church
This passage occurs in all three cycles of the lectionary for this day. Many historians would explain that the reason for the rapid spread of Christianity was the relative peace and stability within the Roman empire -- the security, the widespread common languages of Greek and Latin, the excellent roads and seaways -- coupled with the spiritual void left by the diminishing appeal of the Olympian gods. The New Testament has a different, more theological explanation: It was the work of the Holy Spirit. In the profusion of languages at Pentecost -- not the ecstatic glossolalia Paul refers to in 1 Corinthians 14, but something more akin to the simultaneous translation service available at meetings of the United Nations -- we see the church being symbolically equipped to carry the good news to the ends of the earth (or, at least, to the ends of the Mediterranean world -- which was about as close to the ends of the earth as Luke could imagine). There is continuity in Acts between this miraculous sign and the ministry of Jesus; the Lord, himself, predicted the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" in 1:5. This continuity is seen even more clearly in the angel's words in Luke's account of the Ascension: "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8). This verse -- although it occurs in the midst of the ascension narrative -- is actually Luke's theological commentary on Pentecost. Several features of the Pentecost miracle can be identified. First, it is powerful. The Spirit does not descend quietly upon the church as a personal experience of inner illumination. The Spirit changes lives, dramatically and immediately. Second, the miracle is public. While the disciples may, at the start of this episode, be hunkered down behind closed doors, it is not long before the doors are thrown wide open, and the miracle spills out into the streets. Third, it is promiscuous. Shedding all sexual implications that may attend this word, we can use it to describe how the Holy Spirit touches person after person in a fundamentally disorderly way. Churches that are open to the Spirit, today, are not especially orderly places; they are communities that have learned how to thrive on chaos. Fourth, it is pyrotechnic. It is no accident that fire is a symbol of this miracle. Yet this is no soft flame, fluttering quietly in an oil-fed lamp. It is more like the explosion of a skyrocket. Finally, Pentecost is prophetic -- as we can see in Peter's sermon that follows immediately after. The result of Pentecost is that God's word comes to the peoples of the earth in powerful and convincing ways.
Alternate First Lesson
Numbers 11:24-30
Eldad And Medad Prophesy In The Camp
Those interested in using the Acts reading as a New Testament lesson may choose to use this passage from Numbers as a first lesson. This gem of a story is a classic example of how the Spirit of the Lord cannot be confined or controlled, but is essentially free. First, some background. Moses is weary of bearing all the responsibility for leading the people, so the Lord instructs him to gather seventy elders of Israel in the tent of meeting. The Lord promises, "I will come down and talk with you there; and I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them; and they shall bear the burden of the people along with you so that you will not bear it all by yourself" (11:17). The Lord then promises to feed the people, who have been complaining about being hungry. Moses scoffs, doubting that even the Lord can feed that vast multitude (verses 21-22). The Lord testily replies, "Is the Lord's power limited? Now you shall see whether my word will come true for you or not" (v. 23). As this passage begins, Moses does as the Lord commands, gathering the seventy elders in the tent of meeting. The Lord delivers, as promised: sharing out portions of the Spirit to each of the elders, who prophesy (v. 25). Two elders -- who were supposed to have joined the gathering -- have not gone to the tent with the others but have stayed in the camp. Their names are Eldad and Medad. The Spirit descends on them as well, and they prophesy right where they are in the camp (v. 26). A messenger comes running to the tent of meeting with this news, and Joshua implores Moses to put a stop to this unauthorized display (verses 27-28). Moses replies, "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!" (v. 29). Churches do well to pay heed to "the Eldad and Medad principle" that Joshua learned from painful experience -- that it doesn't pay to second-guess the Holy Spirit.
New Testament Lesson
1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
Concerning Spiritual Gifts
The carving of this text into a lectionary selection is rather peculiar; it is difficult, in fact, to know where to break verse 3 -- where part "a" of the verse ends and where part "b" begins. It is probably best to begin the reading with verse 1. "Now, concerning spiritual gifts..." So Paul begins this famous chapter, addressing a topic that continues to be a lively focus of conversation in Christian churches twenty centuries later. How many of our congregations have, at one time or another, passed out "spiritual gifts inventories" for members to fill out? How many church conflicts come down, at their root, to disagreements over who has which spiritual gifts -- and who doesn't? In Pauline theology, the work of the Holy Spirit is primarily to build up the church, and this is exactly what we see taking place in this chapter. In verse 3, Paul introduces a simple test by which we may assess the genuineness of any action that claims to be motivated by the Holy Spirit: Does it ultimately lead to the affirmation, "Jesus is Lord!"? Verses 4-11 are familiar from many church-officer installation ceremonies. They are a treasure-trove for word-studies: "wisdom," "knowledge," "faith," "healing," "miracles," "prophecy," "discernment," and "tongues" and their "interpretation." Paul's ecclesiology is extremely loose by modern standards. He led churches that had very little in the way of formal structure, but, rather depended on the Spirit to provide the ordering. This structure suited the times, of course, which were characterized by a widespread belief that the world was going to end soon. It is an open question whether such a loose, charismatic order is suitable for the church today. Verses 4-7 can be seen as an explication of the Trinity. The Spirit is associated with "gifts" (charismata), Jesus ("the Lord") is associated with "service" (diakonia), and God is associated with "activating" (energema) the gifts. Later, we read how the Spirit activates (energeo) the gifts, and allots (diaireo) them to individuals for the good of the community (v. 11). The remainder of the lection, verses 12-13, are the first part of the next pericope, in which Paul introduces the famous image of the church as the body of Christ, with its different members working together in concert. There is a double sacramental focus here: We are baptized into the body and we all "drink of one Spirit" -- a eucharistic reference. Similar lists of gifts of the Spirit may be found in Ephesians 4:11-12 and Romans 12:6-7.
Alternate New Testament Lesson
Acts 2:1-21
The Giving Of The Holy Spirit To The Church
This passage occurs in all three cycles of the lectionary for this day. See the first lesson.
The Gospel
John 20:19-23
Jesus Appears To The Disciples
See the gospel lesson for the Second Sunday of Easter.
Alternate Gospel Lesson
John 7:37-39
Jesus Invites The Thirsty To Come To Him
Just before Jesus is arrested, he makes a theologically provocative statement, which causes many to accuse him of blasphemy: "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 shall flow rivers of living water' " (verses 37b-38). Jesus' citation of "the scriptures" is problematic, for there is no clear origin for these words in the Hebrew scriptures; some have suggested Psalm 78:16 or Zechariah 14:8, but the correspondence is inexact. It is possible that, as he utters these words, jars of water drawn from the Pool of Siloam are being offered at the temple as a libation -- part of the observances associated with Sukkoth, the Feast of Tabernacles. In verse 39, John explains that this saying refers to the giving of the Holy Spirit -- which, at this time, has not yet taken place. Reading on, in verses 40-43, we learn that Jesus' words incite a division amongst the people. This division contributes to a buildup of tension that will ultimately result in Jesus' arrest.
Preaching Possibilities
"But others sneered and said, 'They are filled with new wine' " (Acts 2:13).
I don't know about you, but I've never had anyone accuse me of being drunk as I left the church following a worship service. It's not the sort of thing that's supposed to happen among those of the mainline Protestant persuasion.
It may happen in some of those more flamboyant churches -- those hootin' and hollerin' churches, the ones where the preacher has a big, plexiglass pulpit, but never spends much time behind it because he's charging up and down the platform like a wild man, stabbing a finger in the air with one hand and balancing a big, floppy Bible on the other. These are the sorts of churches where people cry out, "Lord, have mercy!" before their eyes roll back in their heads and they fall down in the aisles, "slain in the Spirit."
Doesn't sound much like our church, does it? Drunk... at nine o'clock in the morning! I don't think there's much chance anyone would mistake anything we do together in worship for what the disciples experienced at the feast of Pentecost.
Listen to how Eugene Peterson paraphrases the scripture:
"Without warning there was a sound like a strong wind, gale force -- no one could tell where it came from. It filled the whole building. Then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks, and they started speaking in a number of different languages as the Spirit prompted them.... Their heads were spinning; they couldn't make head or tail of any of it. They talked back and forth, confused: 'What's going on here?' Others joked, 'They're drunk on cheap wine.' " (Acts 2:3-4, 12-13, The Message, by Eugene Peterson [NavPress, 2002]).
"Like a wildfire." That's how Peterson describes it. Wildfires are an all-too-familiar experience for those who live in the American West. When a wildfire burns close to an inhabited area, it interrupts the rhythms of daily life, creating chaos for some considerable time -- not to mention endangering lives and property. Wildfires are nothing to trifle with.
"You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you" (Acts 1:8). That's what Jesus had promised them just before he departed to go into heaven. Power... dunamis, in the Greek. Sound familiar? It's where "dynamite" comes from. Dynamite that can blast solid rock to bits. Far from being a source of quiet inner inspiration, when the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, it shakes us to the very core.
I'll bet it never occurred to you that after the last notes of the organ prelude have faded away, and you hear the words, "Let us worship God," it could actually be dangerous to sit here in church! Yet, that's the sort of thing that happened to the disciples on Pentecost. The Holy Spirit rocked their world!
In his book, Simply Christian, N.T. Wright tells a parable -- a story that's not about fire, but water. Yet water, under the right conditions, can be just as explosively unpredictable as fire.
In the story, there is a powerful dictator who seeks to manage every aspect of his people's lives -- for their own good, he thinks to himself. A particular concern of his is water. Prior to his rule, the people drew their water from thousands of springs. While the springwater was fresh and delightful to the taste, it caused all sorts of difficulties, due to floods.
The dictator's solution was to pave over every spring in the land and direct the water into a municipal system, where it would be treated with various chemicals to make it sanitary, then piped into the people's homes.
Wright continues the story:
"For many years the plan worked just fine. People got used to their water coming from the new system. It sometimes tasted a bit strange, and from time to time they would look back wistfully to the bubbling streams and fresh springs they used to enjoy. Some of the problems that people had formerly blamed on unregulated water hadn't gone away. It turned out that the air was just as polluted as the water had sometimes been, but the dictator couldn't, or didn't, do much about that: But mostly the new system seemed efficient. People praised the dictator for his forward-looking wisdom.
A generation passed. All seemed to be well. Then, without warning, the springs that had gone on bubbling and sparkling beneath the solid concrete could no longer be contained. In a sudden explosion -- a cross between a volcano and an earthquake -- they burst through the concrete that people had come to take for granted. Muddy, dirty water shot into the air and rushed through the streets and into houses, shops, and factories. Roads were torn up; whole cities were in chaos. Some people were delighted: at last they could get water again without depending on The System. But the people who ran the official waterpipes were at a loss: suddenly everyone had more than enough water, but it wasn't pure and couldn't be controlled." (N.T. Wright, Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense [HarperSanFrancisco, 2006], ch. 2)
Tom Wright explains the meaning of this parable. It is, he says, about this Western civilization of ours. For centuries, the powers-that-be in society -- including, in many cases, the leadership of the church -- have conspired to dam up and control the power of the Holy Spirit. We have sought to domesticate the Most High God, to limit God's activity to certain acceptable times and places -- like Sunday morning, in church sanctuaries, with the sun-dappled light of stained glass lighting our faces. To speak of God in any other time or place -- other than, say, a lackluster invocation at the start of a civic meeting, or the occasional, muttered oath using God's name as a mindless exclamation -- is simply not acceptable. What are the two subjects we're always told we should never discuss in public? Politics and religion! Of the two, politics is probably the more acceptable to most people.
Yet, something's been happening in the Western world, Wright says -- something powerful and fascinating. It's been happening almost in spite of the institutional church. Even as the church's influence appears to be waning in many circles, there's been an explosion of interest in spirituality in our culture as people are becoming increasingly aware of the presence of God in their lives. Have you seen the size of the religion and spirituality section in Barnes & Noble lately? There are all kinds of offbeat titles there, to be sure -- everything from Tarot-card reading to finding your inner light -- but those books must be fairly flying off the shelves, or else the booksellers wouldn't stock so many of them. God is speaking to unchurched people -- to people who have scant experience with sitting in pews and singing hymns. God is speaking to their hearts. As they hear that winsome inner voice, they're casting around for something, anything, to guide them in their spiritual search.
Is this a bad thing? We in the church can choose to see it as such. We can choose to be like the not-so-benevolent dictator in that parable, pouring tons of concrete over every holy well and burbling spring we come across. We can choose to fear those who claim to have experienced God's Spirit, to hold them at arm's length.
But, there's another alternative. We can choose to reach out to these modern spiritual pilgrims, remaining open to the possibility that God the Holy Spirit is speaking to them. We can seek to lead such people into the church -- which is, after all, the place where spiritual energies can be most productively directed. This is not the same as covering over the springs with concrete, or snuffing out the flames of true devotion and replacing them with cheap flashlights. It's more a matter of channeling and directing spiritual energies to accomplish the work God intends.
If we can accomplish this, we may begin to become the sort of holy people Isaiah sings about:
"I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness
and rivers in the desert."
-- Isaiah 43:19
What good does it serve to keep on doing the old thing, over and over, behind windows of lovely stained glass, when our risen Savior is out there in the world, waiting for us, pointing the way to the truly lonely and needy, the very people for whom he died? The Spirit we serve is the same Spirit who descended upon those believers on Pentecost, bringing confusion and bewilderment at first, but ultimately dispatching them on a mission -- a mission that would absorb them, body and soul, for the rest of their days. We can have just that sort of experience of God. And, we can have just that sort of mission.
All we need do is believe, in our heart of hearts, that the miracle of Pentecost is not something that began and ended one day long ago, but is, rather, still among us. The fire is burning, and we are ablaze.
Prayer For The Day
Come Holy Spirit!
Claim this, your church.
Inhabit this community with a constant rush of wind
and an ever-present roar of flame.
May our daughters and sons prophesy.
May our men and women see your visions and dream your dreams.
Through the people of this church,
reach out in love, to all who live in this community.
Light such a flame among us
that all who pass by this place will pause in wonder
and feel led to enter and bow down before you.
Fill this church with your Spirit, Lord.
To you alone be the glory! Amen.
To Illustrate
Annie Dillard gets at the dangerous aspect of the Spirit's work as she retells a couple of stories from the Hasidic Jewish tradition. One is about a devout man, whose job happened to be working in a slaughterhouse, killing livestock in the prescribed Kosher manner. It was this man's job, every day, to say the words, "Lord, have mercy," before putting his knife to the animal's throat and doing what had to be done. Yet, every time he did the deed, the slaughterer was afraid that he himself might be slaughtered -- and all because he had been so bold as to call upon the Lord. This man "made a tearful farewell to his wife and children every morning before he set out for the slaughterhouse. He felt, every morning, that he would never see any of them again. For every day, as he himself stood with his knife in his hand, the words of his prayer carried him into danger. After he called on God, God might notice and destroy him before he had time to utter the rest, 'Have mercy.' "
The God to whom this man prays is powerful, and wild -- and, more than a little dangerous. A similar view of God is expressed in this story:
"Another Hasid, a rabbi, refused to promise a friend to visit him the next day: 'How can you ask me to make such a promise? This evening I must pray and recite, 'Hear, O Israel.' When I say these words, my soul goes out to the utmost rim of life... Perhaps I shall not die this time either, but how can I now promise to do something at a time after the prayer?' "
-- Annie Dillard, "An Expedition to the Pole," Teaching a Stone to Talk (Harper, 1988)
***
In her book, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, Kathleen Norris tells a story from the Desert Fathers. It's a story about a certain monk named Abbot Lot, who went to see his superior, Abbot Joseph, and asked: "Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation, and contemplative silence; and according as I am able I strive to cleanse my heart of bad thoughts; now what more should I do?"
The elder simply rose up and stretched his hands to the heavens. His fingers became like lamps of fire. He replied: "Why not become all flame?"
***
The Roman Catholic spiritual writer, Anthony de Mello, tells a story of an eagle's egg that a farmer places by mistake in the nest of a brooding hen in the barnyard. The eaglet hatches, along with the chickens -- and as he grows, he grows to be like them. He clucks and cackles. He scratches the earth for worms. When he flaps his wings, he manages to fly a few feet into the air, no more.
Years go by. One day, the eagle, now grown old, sees a magnificent bird soar above him in the sky. It glides in graceful majesty against the powerful wind with scarcely a movement of its golden wings.
Spellbound, the eagle asks, "Who's that?"
"That's the king of the birds, the eagle," says his neighbor. "He belongs to the sky. We belong to earth -- we're chickens."
And so, the story goes, the eagle lived and died a chicken: for that's what he thought he was.
The wisdom of Pentecost is the capacity to look at the church not as the human institution it is, but as the divine reality it's meant to be. Because the Spirit is with the church, the Pentecostal perspective is that there's always more to the life of this community than meets the naked eye.
***
In many respects, the church in our land has been domesticated, taken for granted. What is the church to the minds of many Americans, but the chaplain for an increasingly affluent and self-centered society? The church exists, in the eyes of many, for the sole purpose of helping people feel good about themselves, of building individual self-esteem.
Others see the church as a reliable provider of moral education for children; or, as a place of fellowship, the sponsor of genteel picnics and dinners and socials; or, as a patron of the arts, an architecturally pleasing setting in which to enjoy beautiful music.
To many, in other words, the church is a leisure activity: just one, among many. "What shall we do, this sunny Sunday morning? Play tennis? Go to the beach? Go to church? (No -- better save church for a rainy day!)"
Yet the church, according to Christian sociologist Robert Bellah, is a greater treasure to our society than most people realize. The church, he told a Presbyterian group several years ago, is the only institution that "can offer a community that was here before any of us were born, that will be here after all of us die, and that binds us to one another because it binds us to Christ." The greatest danger our society faces, Bellah thinks, is "capitalism without restraint -- without a moral framework -- that is both the most creative and most destructive force in the world."
"All the primary relationships in our society," he goes on, "those between employers and employees, between lawyers and clients, between doctors and patients, between universities and students are being stripped of any moral understanding other than that of market exchange." The only thing that seems to matter, in other words, is the bottom line.
Did the Holy Spirit descend, as rushing wind and tongues of fire, so a generation of people 2,000 years hence, on a distant continent unknown to those simple Galileans, could enjoy an increasingly affluent standard of living? Is life really all about building and maintaining a positive "bottom line" -- and nothing more?
Of course it isn't! The events of Pentecost witness otherwise. The events of Pentecost portray God the Holy Spirit as transforming power: a power that descends upon a ragtag band of Palestinian peasants and sends them out to change the world.
