The Resurrection... at Pentecost
Acts 2: 1-24
"Now there were devout Jews from every people under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 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.”
In the last century, many of the greatest inventions and innovations that have taken place, have happened in the area of human communication. Think about how the telegraph and the radio changed our world. Suddenly people could send messages from hundreds or thousands of miles away. With radio, it wasn't just words, but now sounds, and effects, that could rely news, plays, dramas, and even live broadcasts. Television made images possible, so now debates, sporting events even the moon landing could be watched by people all around the world, images and sound. Today, we are seeing more innovations around computers, phones, and other smart devices. Information can now travel at great speeds. Where an airplane can shrink the time between New York and London, the internet does instantly. Our smart devices are transforming the way we work, think and interact. Now, we have the advancements in AI, artificial intelligence. AI is not only transforming work with (LLM) being able to synthesize content, but understand context, and generate new content. AI has many promising avenues that will transform our society but also some very troubling ones. With all new technologies, many of us are trying to catch up with this new information revolution. But these are often changes that create new realities whether good or bad, and sometimes brings people together. Pentecost was a paradigm shifting event as well. We think of these events as transformative or ever changing. Perhaps a better word for it is a resurrection...or the continued resurrection of Jesus's body.
Today is the day of Pentecost. It is the day that we celebrate the Holy Spirit, coming in a new way to do a new thing after Jesus' ascension which was nothing short of revolutionary, or nothing short of a new resurection. A group had gathered together and they were waiting for the promised Holy Spirit. It was Shavout. It was one of three of the major Jewish holidays. It was a time when people brought the first fruit of the wheat harvest and also the celebration of the giving of the law, or the torah by God to Moses on Mt Sinai. This is a Jewish holiday, and it was on this holy day, that likely hundreds of thousands of pilgrims were in Jerusalem bringing their offerings that the event we read about happened. One description read that people brought fresh figs and grapes, from distant places, ox with horns decked in gold with an olive crown, flutes were played, and the first fruits would have been ornamentally arrayed and displayed at the temple.
The disciples of Jesus were in the upper room, when they heard the sound of a mighty rushing wind, and tongues as of fire appeared on the disciples, and they began to speak in other languages, and all of the people that had come from every nationality and ethnicity, from all over the Roman empire, heard what they were saying, their message, this gospel and were astonished. This Pentecost event, was a reminder of two other significant moments of God acting in history. The first, I have already mentioned, connected with this Jewish festival, was the giving of the law by God. When God gave the Torah to the covenant people, do you remember what it was like? In Exodus 19 you can read about the event. The people had gathered around the mountain and there were also thunders and lighting, the loud blast of trumpets, the mountain was wrapped in smoke and God descended down in fire, and God answered in thunder. Sounds familiar? Fire, rushing wind, and God's power manifested. In the Hebrew tradition, it was even said, that when the Word of God was proclaimed on Mt Sinai, that torches of fire and flames sat on the head of the Israelites and hovered. It was here that the covenant of God with the ancient Israelites was inaugurated.
God had acted once, and now God was acting in the world again. To create something new. The first time, God had taken a people that were in bondage, in slaved by the Egyptians, oppressed by those that were using the Israelites for their own selfish ends. They were brought through the water's of the red sea, into the wilderness to receive God's law, and there be committed to become a covenant people.
That is what Pentecost was celebrating. But now God was acting again. The circle was widening. God's covenant could extend to all who come in faith by grace. In Jesus, God had spoken definitively showing God's ever expanding love and grace. Old categories and barriers that kept people from being included in the worship of God were falling away. That is why when Peter preaches his Pentecost sermon, he chose to read from the prophet Joel, saying that after Jesus, a new world had begun. It had always been promised that at a given time, the Spirit of God would come and be poured out on everyone, sons and daughters, young and old, slave and free, there would no longer be any human walls and barriers that would not be taken down. God spirit would be freely given to any and all who believed.
People grow a crop and you hope for a good harvest. You don't know if it will be or not. When the first of the crop came it, people rejoice, they were hopeful that it was a sign of good things to come, the idea was that we love what we are seeing with this first crop and more will surely follow. This is what is meant by “first fruits”. Now, God's people were growing. God's house was getting bigger. In God's house, Jesus says, there are many rooms. Think back to the children's song, in my “father's house”, “its a big big house with lots and lots of room”. There is, there is always plenty of room for everyone in God's house.
Now we as humans are always discovering new and creative ways to exclude people, God is always finding ways to include people. While religion usually operates with many exclusions, we see in scripture a grace that is always inviting. Again, this is why Paul makes this central to his teaching as well, there is no longer Jew or Greek, Roman or Pagan, free or slave, male or female, all are one in Christ (Gal 3:26). Today we might add gay or straight, gender non conforming or gender normative. Our understanding of gender is a fundamental part of human identity and personality. It's innate to our sense of being, to how God has created us. Today we are growing in our understanding of the diversity of humanity, and these difference do not have to divide us today any more than differences divided people in the ancient world. In the church, we can all respond to God's message and not be turned away.
We see, how many people's of the world are responding to the message. We see at Pentecost the diversity of the church, it is there from day one, the very defining characteristic of the church, it didn't matter what someone's race, ethnicity, nationality, social background, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation. Yes, many of the nationalities in Acts are ethnic, but Paul's categories include social categories as well, those free and those enslaved. The presence of differences also were not erased, but celebrated. The church can never become an exclusive club, if it has its lost its true identity.
This is why Pentecost is a day of celebration, why it is so exciting. Sometimes it is called the birthday of the church, because this is where the church began, in Jerusalem. We could say this new age, or this new beginning, and it has been going on for two thousand years. It really is a continuation of what God was doing all along, but a great expansion. The Holy Spirit comes, not just to solidify Jesus' agenda, but to energize it. To enable it and to make it happen.
Remember, Jesus had been telling the disciples all along, about what his mission was about and what it was for, this new world that was coming into being, and even when the disciples finally began to understand, they still had to wait because they had to live and be enabled by the power of the Spirit, they couldn't try to do this in their own ability, strength or with their own ideas. Its easy for us to confuse the Spirit of God with the Spirit of a nation or a spirit of an age, or a spirit of something else. The power of the Spirit is not a super human power, its not a power to make us wealthy, powerful, and prosperous. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Christ. Its the kingdom values that Jesus preached, it was seen when Jesus washed the disciples feet, when Jesus healed the sick, when Jesus cast out demons and preached the good news to the poor.
Richard Rohr writes, “The Spirit creates diversity and is the Great Connector of all those very diverse things.” This perspective is centered around the idea the what happens at Pentecost is that the Holy Spirit becomes the connective tissue of the universe, simultaneously fueling both individuality and unity. This suggests to us that God's divine Spirit never seeks to erase our difference or force a bland uniformity. The Holy Spirit never creates a hierarchy where one group is placed above another. It actively generates diversity as a reflection of God's very nature. Now it is possible for people to remain true to themselves while existing in a state of shared belonging, mutual covenant, and mutual friendships. This is the "resurrection" nature of Pentecost. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
