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”!
+++
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.
