"Public Speaking" Sermon for Pentecost - June 8

From Pentecost Sunday. Text was mainly from Acts 2

Enjoy...

Steve

+INI+

One of the things to notice about the sudden out-pouring of God's grace on the day of Pentecost is that it was a very public moment. Unlike other times - like Jesus' baptism or his transfiguration – when only a few people were witnesses to the Holy Spirit everyone was included at Pentecost.

The tongues of fire come to rest upon each and every one of the disciples who were gathered together, and a moment later the crowd gathered outside the house comes surging forward because

Each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.

And just to make sure that we don’t miss his point, Luke lists all the nations where Jews lived in the Greco-Roman world who were represented there that day.

What happened at Pentecost was no mystical, inner, personal experience of the Spirit. It was an outpouring of God’s energy that touched every life that was present.

Even Peter. You remember Peter. He's the one who, the last time Jesus met with his friends, was saying, "No matter who else heads for the hills when things start to get tough, I'll be right there behind you, Jesus." Yeah, right.

When things got tough for Jesus, Peter was behind Jesus all right – a long way behind him, and running in the other direction. Like everybody else, he ran away into the darkness.

"Weren’t you with that group from Galilee?" somebody asked him outside of Herod’s palace on that awful night and Peter couldn't deny Jesus fast enough. He simply could not find it in himself to admit that he even knew Jesus.

Yet, on the day of Pentecost, Peter was out in front of everybody speaking to a crowd of people! Peter, the one who could never seem to get one foot out of his mouth without exchanging it for another. The one who denied having known Jesus - preaching about Jesus to a crowd in Jerusalem!

Whether or not it was the best sermon he ever preached, it certainly seems to have been one of the most effective. It only lasted about three minutes, according to Luke; but about three thousand people believed. (Some of you may be thinking that shorter sermons might be more effective. We can talk about that!)

The Holy Spirit, in other words, was given to a very ordinary man and it turned him into a public speaker just like that.

And you thought it was all about going to seminary, learning Hebrew and Greek, getting your theology down pat and being trained in “voice technique”!

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Remember what Jesus said when he preached his first sermon back in Nazareth?

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me...”

He was quoting Isaiah, of course.

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord  has anointed me; has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners...

In Luke and in Luke's book of Acts, people get the Holy Spirit in order to speak up publicly so that everybody can hear and to act in the power of the spirit

You know me. You know that I talk for a living. You know that I've been a preacher for many years.

Did you know that I'm ALWAYS nervous now when I preach? That I NEVER sleep well on Saturday Night? Sometimes my mouth dries up. Fear will do that to you.

Does that surprise you? That after all these years and after all these sermons I’m still afraid to speak to a crowd? But it's really not fear of speaking though that is bad enough.  Speaking to a crowd about God is even worse.

Imagine the nerve! Imagine the arrogance! Speaking for God? You shuld lookl at me and think, "Who do you think you are?" Who do I think I might be?

I sometimes think that's one of the reasons the church gives us preachers robes and stoles to wear, a funny kind of armor, to protect us so to speak. They even give us a pulpit we can duck behind if necessary!

Because the only thing that would make a sane person put himself or herself at such risk is the Spirit of God. That's why I've kept doing it.

And if I can do it, you can do it. That's got to be one of the most important lessons of Pentecost.

If people like me can do it, people like Peter, then people like you can do it too. You don't have to wear robes public speak God’s word, and you certainly don't have to do it from a pulpit.

You might be on the phone to somebody who is down on their luck. What on earth do you say? It's a scary thing, isn't it? But,

The spirit of the Lord... is upon me to bring good news to the oppressed...

Or you find out somebody's marriage has just come to an end. What possible comfort could you offer somebody like that?

The Spirit of the Lord ... is upon me... to bind up the broken-hearted...

Or somebody who thinks she has nobody and nowhere to turn.

The Spirit of the Lord... is upon me ... to proclaim liberty to captives...

That's what Pentecost is about as much as it is about anybody speaking from a pulpit. It's the very public speech ordinary people like you and me who find ourselves giving to others, because even though we didn't know how we were going to do it, the Holy Spirit descends and gives us the power to speak and to act.

It is what the prophet Joel meant when he said that in the old days God's word was given only to prophets – a few charismatic leader types who  managed to speak up for God.

But he said that a day would come when God would speak through the likes of us!

"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."

Everybody gets to speak up for God and act for God; because church is the place where the power to speak and act is given, not just to a few, but to all.

+AMEN+