1The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out
by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley;
it was full of bones. 2He led me all around them; there
were very many lying in the valley, and they were very
dry. 3He said to me, Mortal, can these bones
live?
I answered, O Lord God, you know.
4Then he said to me,
Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones,
hear the word of the Lord. 5Thus says the Lord God to these
bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall
live. 6I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to
come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you
shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.
7So
I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly
there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to
its bone. 8I looked, and there were sinews on them, and
flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no
breath in them. 9Then he said to
me, Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say
to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O
breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may
live.
10I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath
came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast
multitude. 11Then he said to me, Mortal,
these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say,
Our bones are
dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off
completely.
12Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus
says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up
from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land
of Israel. 13And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I
open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my
people. 14I will put my spirit within you, and you shall
live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that
I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.
Today we celebrate Pentecost as the day the Holy Spirit comes into the scene giving birth to the new church. There are images of rushing wind and tongues of fire and an amazing linguistic experience that was really a miracle of communication where believers spoke in other languages and they were understood by people who represented the whole of the known world at that point in time. The account we have written down in the book of Acts attempt to convey both the mystery and the power of the coming of the Spirit. Let's listen for the word of God:
1When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together
in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound
like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where
they were sitting. 3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared
among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4All of
them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other
languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
5Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven
living in Jerusalem. 6And at this sound the crowd gathered
and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native
language of each. 7Amazed and astonished, they
asked, Are not all these who are speaking
Galileans? 8And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our
own native language? 9Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and
residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and
Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya
belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and
proselytes, 11Cretans and Arabs — in our own
languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power.
12 All
were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, What does this
mean?
13But others sneered and said, They are filled
with new wine.
14But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and
addressed them, Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let
this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15Indeed,
these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in
the morning. 16No, this is what was spoken through the
prophet Joel: 17
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. 18Even upon
my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my
Spirit; and they shall prophesy. 19And I will show portents
in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and
smoky mist. 20The sun shall be turned to darkness and the
moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious
day. 21Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord
shall be saved.
Many people see this first Pentecost as the high point in the story of the Holy Spirit. I think that's mostly because the story of Pentecost is one of the few stories people know where the Holy Spirit is the main actor. Historically, our mainline protestant traditions have tended to almost neglect the Spirit in favor of focusing on Jesus Christ and God the Creator. In no way do I want to diminish the other two, but I do want to lift up the Spirit's work and ministry because I think it's in paying attention to the nudges of the Spirit that we find ourselves transformed more and more into the image and likeness of Christ.
Daniel Migliore is a theology professor at Princeton seminary and he
wrote a Seminary level systematic theology textbook called Faith
Seeking Understanding.
In it, he lays out a pretty practical
theology and understanding of the Holy Spirit and before we dig into
the scripture texts for the day, I wanted to highlight a few of the
things he attributes to the work of the Holy Spirit.
-
First he says that the Spirit presents Christ to believers. The
Spirit is the one who spans the gap between the then and there and
the here and now. Jesus Christ was a real person who walked and
talked and ate and slept and lived on the earth nearly two thousand
years ago. As Christians we also have a promise that at some unknown
point in the future Jesus will come again to judge the living and the
dead and that his kingdom will have no end. But because of the work
of the Holy Spirit, Jesus isn't just a distant memory that we point
to and remember fondly… Jesus isn't just a hopeful promise
that we look toward expectantly while we sit and wait. He's also a
present reality. We can experience the call of Christ, the teaching
of Christ, the community of Christ, the forgiveness of Christ, and
the welcome of Christ because the power of the Holy Spirit is at work
in us. The Holy Spirit is the one who presents Christ to us in a way
that we can have some sort of experience who Christ was and we can
have some sort of knowledge of what it means to follow Christ.
-
Another aspect of the Holy Spirit, according to Migliore, is that the
Spirit forms community. It's the spirit that unites us as believers:
different genders, races, cultures, economic classes … today
people all over the world are celebrating the gift of the Holy Spirit
and the birth of the church, just like 50 days ago across the globe we
celebrated the resurrection of the Lord and it was only a few short
months ago we celebrated the birth of Christ. There are bonds of
Christian fellowship which extend beyond the relatively small circle
of people we know. The bonds of Christian fellowship extend beyond
only those who are like-minded or similar to ourselves. The diversity
of the world-wide body of Christ is evidence of the community forming
work of the Holy Spirit.
-
But even more so, we can see and we can experience that the Holy
Spirit forms community through the kind of care and concern that
Christians all over the world extend to brothers and sisters. I've
personally seen it in other countries; I've seen it on the west coast
and now that I'm here I see it on the east coast too. I've met with
many of you and heard how moving it was when this event happened and
everyone rallied around this person in their time of need. Most of us
didn't know each other before we were drawn together to worship and
to serve whether that happened thirty years ago or only a month ago,
but when the need arises, it never ceases to amaze me to see the kind
of loving, compassionate caring response that people extend to one
another. This is the spirit at work, forming community; nudging
people to give, to act, to speak, to love, to care for one another.
-
The third point Migliore makes is freedom… he quotes second
Corinthians 3:17: Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
Now freedom can happen on a few levels. With regard to systems and
structures freedom comes about by resisting injustice and oppression
and giving a voice to the marginalized. With regard to people in
relationship, freedom is manifest by simply being your most authentic
self instead of trying to be someone you're not in hopes to please or
placate other people. And with regard to people as individuals
freedom occurs as we move out of unhealthy patterns of behavior that
bind us and hold us down. The spirit is continually inviting us out
of forced, unhealthy and unhelpful patterns, and into rhythms of
grace. And the freedom that the Spirit offers isn't only about
freedom from what holds you down… it's also about freedom for what
lifts you up and what gives you life.
- From there Migliore continues with the idea that the spirit keeps hope alive and brings about a renewed vision of what is possible for the reality in which we find ourselves every day. The spirit is continually working in us to encourage and enable us to be a part of bringing about God's kingdom. When we see possibilities for the future that make us say wow wouldn't that be nice; there's an invitation from the spirit. When we're drawn to do the redemptive work to get there, it's an invitation from the spirit. For some it takes the form of advocating justice and peace, for others it might be reaching out in compassion, still for others it's working with young people and a whole host of other things. Whatever form the tasks take, when we see bright possibilities for the future and work to bring them about, that's the spirit keeping hope alive and giving us glimpses of what may be.
So far we have a picture of a freedom loving, community forming, hope bringing, Christ representing Spirit. And all of those things come together as part of the other thing Migliore lifts up about the spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one who brings new life.
Way back in the beginning of the book of Genesis, a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. In the next chapter, God breathed the breath of life into first humans. In our scripture reading from Ezekiel, the breath was the finishing touch that made the dry bones get up and walk. That breath made the people whole again… in the gospel of Luke it's the Holy Spirit that conceives the baby Jesus in Mary's womb and in our passage from Acts today, the sound of the wind ushered in the Holy Spirit which was what gave life to the Christian church on that first Pentecost.
Breath, wind, and spirit are so closely related in biblical thought that it's hard to tell them apart sometimes. The very life breath of God is the Holy Spirit is the wind that was there at creation of the world and the wind that blew at Pentecost.
And the disciples began to speak in tongues and the crowd was bewildered and people from all over the known world heard the good news in their own language and the twelve disciples who had been hiding out in fear spoke their truth and about three thousand people from all walks of life and from all corners of the earth were baptized that day. It was emotional, it was incredible… it's hard to even imagine what it would have been like to live the story of Pentecost.
There are authors who debate whether Pentecost was primarily a miracle
of the tongue allowing the believers to speak all those different
languages or whether it was primarily a miracle of the ear allowing
everyone else to hear what was said in their own language. It's an
interesting debate and it seems to me that different people probably
experienced it differently based on their status. There were 12
disciples and 120 believers. Jesus Christ, who was the leader of
their movement had been killed only a few short weeks ago. The
authorities were sure that the movement would surely lose it's steam…
it wasn't worth their time or effort to round up the followers of the
supposed messiah
who had already been done away with. There were
also thousands of people in town for the Feast of Weeks which was one
of three pilgrimage days for the Jews. Like Passover, everyone who
could make it to Jerusalem for the feast did. According to the text
they were devout Jews, we can guess by their travel distances since
they came from all corners of the known world, that a good portion of
them were people of means.
When you hold up the two groups side by side, the picture is made clear… on the one hand you have a relatively small band of poor peasants who are a minority in the religious culture and whose leader has been killed as a criminal. On the other you have a large group of diverse, relatively well off members of the dominant religious culture: the powerless and the powerful. And the Holy Spirit was working in all of them. Those who were powerless were given voice and those who were powerful had ears to hear. The miracle of Pentecost was a miracle of equality. The spirit showed up, the powerless spoke, the powerful heard. There was new hope because Christ was presented in a way such that people from all over the world would go home and share their experience. This was the moment where the community of the church was created and given life.
Given the variety of the people in the story and how the story progressed from there, it must have been the spirit at work… And Pentecost wasn't the end. When it comes right down to it, it wasn't the beginning either because the spirit has been around since the dawn of time. It wasn't the beginning, it wasn't the end, but it was an outpouring of God's Spirit that moved everyone who was there and it was the initiation of the church… moving forward into new ways of being where the final forms weren't necessarily clearly laid out in the beginning but the early steps were able to be taken in faith.
Isn't it nice to know that's the way the spirit works. About a month
and a half ago now we had a leadership retreat here at the United
Parish where about twenty of us came together in this sanctuary on a
beautiful sunny Saturday and we spent all day praying, talking and
discerning what the future might hold for us as a congregation. I've
mentioned before the goals that came out of that retreat. One of them
was was on every group's top three priority list. To be a community
of believers who are growing spiritually.
Personally I'm not
holding out for tongues of fire and rushing wind but we do have before
us today a picture of what spiritual growth might look like: Christ
being represented, community being formed, hope being carried out,
freedom being chosen. The spirit is already at work… in us, in
our church, in our community, in our world the task at hand is to look
for God's activity and be open to the spirit moving in us so that when
we hear the call, when we feel those nudges within us, we can choose
to follow the movement of the Holy Spirit, who is the bringer of new
life. Amen
The foregoing sermon was given by Rev. Dan Holland on Pentecost, May 31, 2009, at the United Parish of Bowie.
© 2009 Daniel Holland
