May 27, 2007
Pentecost: Good News for the Church and the World
Today is Pentecost Sunday. It is generally celebrated fifty days
after Easter Sunday, or seven weeks following Easter. It is recognized within
nearly all frameworks or denominations of Christianity to be associated with the
“birth of the Church.” It is here that I must confess; some of you might know
it and some may not. I was brought up within Pentecostalism. Now, it may not
be stigmatic in the way it once was, but when I was younger it was definitely
not something that one brought up in conversation on purpose. I can
remember kids asking me all sorts of questions. Tough questions. “Ain’t you
the ones that run in the aisles and handle snakes?” For a long time these
questions would throw me off or I would change the subject; as I got older I
learned to become a little more playful. “Oh, sure. We’re crazy. I’ve got one
in my book bag, do you want to see it?” Most people stopped asking me questions
like that.
Being raised in Pentecostalism, particularly in the south was
different. I remember very clearly when I realized that Pentecost was much
bigger than I ever could have imagined. It was the day before Pentecost Sunday
in the year 2002. As I clicked through the satellite channels I came across
numerous programs, services, and masses that were celebrating Pentecost. “Other
people commemorate Pentecost too?” I thought. That particular summer I took a
course in church history and that is when it finally dawned on me: “Pentecost is
bigger than I ever knew.” It is bigger than speaking in tongues and it is
bigger than Pentecostalism. In fact, Pentecost has more ramifications than we
may ever know on this side of the journey. It is an honor for me to speak with
you about Pentecost, a day in history that I once thought I understood quite
well and yet now understand to be as mysterious as the Trinity or the dual
nature of Jesus Christ, fully God and fully human.
The passage in Acts 2 has always fascinated me. Tongues of fire, a
rushing wind, people speaking in other languages and yet everyone there being
able to understand it in their own language. It is a curious thing that
probably no one in here has seen; I grew up within a tradition that accentuated
the event and never saw anything like it. To better grasp the passage and its
implications, one cannot begin with Acts 2. One may even need to look beyond
the coming of Christ, the Messiah, in the flesh.
Genesis 11 tells the story of humanity’s reach for power in way of
building a tower towards heaven. In the narrative it tells of how the whole
earth had one language and everyone used the same words. It was employed as
system of power and domination rather than one of true unity, love, and service
toward neighbor. Their primary goal was to “make a name for themselves” in the
process of building up towards God. When God came down to see this it was
obvious that the negative implications of humanity being united in becoming like
God, or thinking themselves as God, outweighed the use of common language and
dialect. So, God “confused their language” and “scattered them across the face
of the earth (Gen. 11. 1-9).
What does this have to do with Pentecost and the “fall of the
Spirit” as recorded in Acts chapter 2? On the day of Pentecost, Jewish
followers of Christ are together in an upper room in Jerusalem at the behest of
Jesus whom had ascended into the clouds ten days before. Certainly, according
to David DeSilva, this was reminiscent of the ascension of Elijah into the
clouds by chariot in II Kings. Elisha waits that he might receive his mantle
(or cloak) and by virtue of the mantle have a “double portion of Elijah’s
spirit” (II Kings 2.9-10). If one were to put it in modern-day terms, one could
say Elisha was a stalker of sorts in this venture. As it came closer and closer
to the time for Elijah to be taken up into the clouds, Elisha became the shadow
of Elijah (for they both knew this was to happen). Elijah would tell Elisha to
“stay here” as he must go on to another city. “As the Lord lives and you
yourself live, I will not leave you” said Elisha. (II Kings 2.1-8) In other
words, “dream on, Bud, you aren’t leaving with that mantle.” This happens three
times and finally Elijah appears to give in to his request. After he ascends to
the sky in the chariot, Elisha the prophet receives the mantle and double
portion of Elijah’s spirit.
In the beginning of Acts, after Jesus’ proclamation that they will
receive “power from the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1.8), Jesus goes up into the clouds.
It is as if he is offering them a double portion of His Spirit. In John’s
Gospel, Jesus has this to say: “Very truly, I tell
you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact,
will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father… And I will
ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever”
(John 14.12, 16). Jesus is offering a familial inheritance. DeSilva points out
that a double portion is related to what the firstborn son receives in relation
to other siblings. So, as Jesus in the Gospel of John relates that his
followers will do “greater things than he” because he is going to the Father or
ascending to the Father, so His followers will receive an inheritance as heirs
of Christ. “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,
but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" It is
that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ--if, in
fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him” (Rom.
8.15-17). Here is the catch: it is no longer offered only to firstborn sons,
but a double portion is given to all God’s children, young and old, male and
female, slave and free! This is the beauty of Pentecost, of the coming of the
Spirit of God. But I get ahead of myself.
Back to my original question, “what does
the narrative of the Tower of Babel to do with Pentecost?” To clarify this, I
will offer some striking contrasts with the Genesis 11 and Acts 2. At Babel,
formerly Babylon, the people all spoke the same language and their tongues were
dispersed and the people were scattered across the land. In Acts, people from
“every nation under heaven” (which at this time was the Mediterranean Crescent)
came together in Jerusalem for the Jewish Festival of Weeks, which had
connotations to the Harvest Festival and the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai.
Luke records fifteen different dialects present in the Acts 2 passage. So, in
contrast to being dispersed people were coming together, just as the followers
of Christ were in the upper room together. Rather than not understanding one
another as the confusion of tongues in Babel, the people were able to understand
each in his or her language. In Genesis 11, the people were trying to build
upward towards God. In the Acts passage, the Spirit of God descends down on the
people. In Genesis 11, it is God who disrupts communication and confuses
tongues. In Acts 2, it is the Spirit of God who “enables” the people to speak
in tongues so that everyone can hear “God’s deeds of power.”
This seems to be enough action for one
day, but Peter wants to qualify or explain in some semblance what has just
occurred for “All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does
this mean” (Acts 2.12)? Isn’t that like Peter? He is the blunt one, the first
to speak on auspicious occasions when everyone else is dumbfounded. However,
one might think he wouldn’t be the one to speak since one of the last time he
has spoken in the Gospels, it is to deny any affiliation with Jesus Christ.
Here in Jerusalem, approximately 53 days after he has denied Christ, we see a
new Peter; one imbued with more than rash sense of timing in speaking for it is
here that we see one of the finest speeches in Scripture as the Spirit of God
enables him. “No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
2:17 '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.
2:18 Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in
those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.
2:19 And I will show portents in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
2:20 The sun shall be turned to darkness and the
moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day.
2:21 Then everyone who calls on the name of the
Lord shall be saved.'
Something new is happening. “Behold, I
make all things new” says the risen Savior in the book of Revelation. Business
is not as usual. The sun is not singing her usual song, nor the moon her dirge.
It does not matter any longer whether you are carrying the chains of
servitude. It does not matter if you are the firstborn son. It does not matter
if you are young or old. God is doing a new thing and all flesh is involved;
the heavens, earth, and all flesh give reflection of the God of the universe.
God is no respecter of people as God does not privilege the few and powerful of
the earth. God is giving power to those who have not had power, to those whose
voices were snuffed out by the domination seeking spirit of Babel. The voices
of the slave shall ring out with the free and the words of women will be held in
as high regard as that of men. The Spirit is carrying on the Life of the risen
Savior through people! Did you hear that? God is choosing to work his infinite
power through finite clay vessels. This is the mystery of God; that in
Christ we might live and through our lives might Christ live! We are no
longer distant from God, but in Christ we are heirs that we may cry “Abba,
Father.” The cry of “Abba” is the weakest of all cries and is childlike in
nature. In Aramaic speaking areas, infants just learning to speak would cry
“Abba.” It is the sound that rolls off the tongue. In Greek it would be “papa”
as the name for father was pater. Crying “Abba” requires no skill in speaking,
no formal education, no sophistication. It is simply the cry of one child to
her father, just as at those times when we, at our weakest, can only cry,
“papa.”
It is through the Spirit that we are
brought into family with people from all nations, all tongues, from far away to
our closest of neighbors. We are now united with believers in China, in Africa,
Europe, and places I haven’t the ability to pronounce. This is part of the
Pentecost message: we come to understand one another in our relation to Christ
and as the Spirit goes out into the entire world. The Spirit is drawing us to
God and to one another. This is evidenced by what follows after the day of
Pentecost and is what I think to be paramount in understanding this
world-altering day in history.
Acts 2.42-47 reads that, “They devoted
themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread
and the prayers.
43 Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders
and signs were being done by the apostles. 44All who believed were together and
had all things in common; 45they would sell their possessions and goods and
distribute the proceeds* to all, as any had need. 46Day by day, as they spent
much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home* and ate their food
with glad and generous* hearts, 47praising God and having the goodwill of all
the people. And day-by-day the Lord added to their number those who were being
saved.” It goes on later to say in Acts 4 that, “32 The whole group of those
who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of
any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. 33With great
power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus,
and great grace was upon them all. 34There was not a needy person among them,
for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what
was sold. 35They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each
as any had need.”
You see, after Pentecost the believers,
the same ones who scattered after the death of Christ were empowered by the
risen Savior and His Spirit. They served one another, but they also served the
widows and the orphans. The Spirit brought them together, but that was not
to be their final purpose. They were not to gather together as an end unto
themselves, but as servants of the world, servants of the poor, the widows,
and the orphans, those without voice and without prestige in the worldly sense
of the word. Stephen was given the freedom to become the first and certainly
not the last martyr as a sign of the power given by the Spirit through Jesus
Christ. This is the final contrast of Babel and Jerusalem during Pentecost. In
Babel, the people were seeking to serve themselves, to make “names for
themselves.” At Pentecost, they were seeking to make a name for Christ by
serving others, by reaching beyond themselves. They were building the Kingdom
of God, not a tower unto heaven, for they knew that the Kingdom of God was
coming to earth as it is in heaven and there was no need to build toward the
sky.
These are things I have come to learn
about Pentecost, things that I never heard in the days of Pentecostal rearing.
Pentecost is bigger than speaking in tongues. It is bigger than you and me. In
fact, though Pentecost represents the birth of the Church, it is bigger than the
Church. It represents God’s Kingdom being reflected through His Church in the
world so that the world may be served in word and deed. This, indeed, is
good news for the Church and the world, for God is doing something new. May
we pray the prayer of Psalms 104: O LORD, how manifold are your works! In wisdom
you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.
104:25 Yonder is the sea, great and wide, creeping
things innumerable are there, living things both small and great.
104:26 There go the ships, and Leviathan that you
formed to sport in it.
104:27 These all look to you to give them their
food in due season;
104:28 when you give to them, they gather it up;
when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
104:29 When you hide your face, they are dismayed;
when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust.
104:30 When you send forth your spirit, they
are created; and you renew the face of the ground.
104:31 May the glory of the LORD endure
forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works
Amen!
Paul
Jones
Paul@mulberryumc.org
Mulberry
Street United Methodist Church