A
sermon shared with First Presbyterian Church, Spring City, TN, June 4, 2017 on Pentecost,
speaking in tongues and gifts and birth of the Church.
First
Reading: Acts2: 1-21
Second Reading: 1 Corinthians 12:4 - 13
Here it is, fifty days after the
resurrection of Jesus and ten days since his ascent. Jerusalem is in the
Festival of weeks, the celebration of the gift of the Law. How much spirit can
his followers have left?
I am not sure it is possible to
understand fully the emotional rollercoaster of the followers of Jesus in the
days after he entered Jerusalem for the last time. In the span of a little over
6 weeks - 1 ½ months – every part of their world has been completely disrupted.
They soared the loftiest emotional high you can imagine toying with visions of
becoming ministers in the court of the new King, and plummeted to the depth of
deepest despair as he was killed on the cross. They did not see him die, they were
seized by powerful fear expecting their own deaths next and fled. In an
inexplicable event he appears among them again, but no one comes back from the
dead. This had to be the most frightening, upsetting event of an already
fantastic week.
As
Jesus remained with them for 40 more days, they realized that a power beyond human capability had changed
permanently, not only their world, but the entire Universe and reality itself in an
inexplicable, cosmic “earthquake.” Was he going to stay and pick up where he
left off - or leave again?
He continued to
teach his commands to them, preparing them for a future ministry in unrecorded
words. Luke only tells us (24:44-48)
he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with
you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the
psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the
scriptures, and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to
suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and
forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning
from Jerusalem…You are witnesses of these things.
On the 40th
day he gathered them at Mt. Olivet the place of his arrest and told them the
news (Act 1:4,5) “This is what you have heard
from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy
Spirit not many days from now.” They asked Jesus, (Acts 1:6 ) “Lord, is this the time when
you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” He replied, “It is not for you to know
the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority… 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.” And as Luke tells us (24:49), he commanded them, “I
am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you
have been clothed with power from on high.” Then, he was gone, again.
They returned to Jerusalem,
with great joy this time elated over something they heard that we do not know, and
for ten days worshipped in the temple remaining in continual prayer along with
the other believers and those Jews who had come to Jerusalem from distant lands
for the Jewish Festival of Weeks celebrating the gift of Law through Moses…
only for the disciples the irony is to be a celebration of the perfection of the Law by
Jesus. What was to be next?
Clearly, they
were thinking of the coming Day of the Lord prophesied by the prophets of old
because when it happened Luke tells us Peter quotes Joel (2:12-14, 28-32), “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. And I will show portents in the heaven
above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The
sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the
Lord’s great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the
Lord shall be saved.”
And then, in that
final earth-shaking moment came the Holy Spirit.…
Let’s stop a moment and ask a question. Have you ever had an
“Aha! Moment?” because this was THE “Aha! Moment.”
An “Aha! Moment”
is when you find yourself looking at something that has sat in front of you for
a long time, maybe a memory of an act of compassion someone did for you (or you for them) long ago,
a close call with death, or maybe something you see or do that suddenly defines
your purpose, clarifies why things are the way they are, and really, who you
are.
The “Aha! Moment”
may creep up on you so slowly you never realize exactly when it happened because
you feel as if you have always known and acted that way.
For others, it comes
upon you violently like the wind of a storm. Have you ever been in the house, or outside
when the rushing wind of a storm surged quickly ahead of the rain, wildly
swaying the trees and snapping small twigs and leaves that fly freely in the
air and on the ground, and you can hear the crack of thunder or of wind-blown
limbs in a tree somewhere nearby, The splatter of big rain drops darken the sidewalk or porch and maybe there is a hint of ozone in the air? You know the storm is about to hit, and all you really can do is watch it happen.
That is the way this final
earth-shaking moment, a violent incarnation of the HS came upon the first
congregation of these disciples and Jews gathered together, birthing the Church. The Church came alive! Foreigners with
different languages could understand the disciples talking as if in their
own language. More other-worldly events!
This ‘speaking in tongues’ isn’t the
modern-day rambling practiced in some Pentecostal congregations where no one
understands what is being said, not even the speakers (Glossolalia). At this Pentecost,
everyone understood the disciples as if the disciples were speaking in the
other person’s language. When someone speaks in tongues that you do not understand,
you can safely ignore them as swept up in emotion.
There is a profound symbolism behind this “speaking
in tongues.” It is the communication of the message of grace in a manner that is
heard and understood by all people in every language. It is a language of
action following the commands of Jesus, not of words. The Holy Spirit imparts that
gift to every believer. As Paul told the Corinthians, it empowers each believer
to use their gifts to communicate the good news to others so they understand. We
all have gifts, the question is, “Will we use them?”
Last week the sermon was about the
question Paul argued, “Is saying ‘I believe’ a sign of faith strong enough to
earn the gift of God’s grace, eternal life?” Now, as he talks to the
Corinthians, Paul acknowledges that his anger at the Galatians and Judaizers might be
overdone and the answer to the question is “not really.” James puts it more bluntly,
(2:17) “…faith
by itself, if it has no works, is dead,” Paul makes it clear that those who have
the spirit given to the body of believers at Pentecost gain the
gift to use that blessing for the glory of God. We all have a gift AND ARE CALLED
TO USE IT, what is your gift?
I
really like the prophet Joel’s expansive description of the Day of the Lord,
“When the old men dream dreams and the children prophesy, then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be
saved.”
Old men will
dream dreams and children prophesy inspired by faith… What does it mean, “to
call on the name of the Lord.”
I have to ask
you, “Do you have a dream? Do you have faith enough to trust the Lord and dream
of a better future?” When we say, “I believe in that future,” we inherit the
gift of God’s grace but we need to ask the second question that tags along
behind, “Am I glorifying God? Do my actions speak the good news to people the dream
of what I believe – that there is a home?
What else better shows
we have faith than compassionate
action towards our fellow people? Folks
can’t eat our words, can’t use them to build buildings, or drive to the doctor.
What shows we have faith is a commitment to the last command Jesus gave us
(John 13:34-35), “You also should love one another. By this everyone will know
that you are my disciples.”
It all boils down
to one Greek word, “compassion”
that separates the men and women from the girls and boys. The revelation of
Pentecost is that the Church is alive with our peculiar gifts. Our gifts reveal
the power and glory of God. It isn’t how much money you have, it isn’t being a
great speaker, your grades or your beauty or how you vote. It is how well you
share your gifts that measures your faith, and shows whether you’ve got the Spirit.
Have you got the
Spirit? Can I get an amen for that?
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