Sermon May 27, 2012

Acts 2:1-21

Ezekiel 37:1–14

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b

Romans 8:22-27

John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

“Witness to Re-Creation”

At the transformation workshop I attended a few weeks ago, the young woman who preached proclaimed a word from Job. She spoke about meeting a God who met her in her pain and in her brokenness. She also spoke of a church where she felt ignored and left out, abandoning her to her brokenness. As she traveled a journey back toward God, she found that some congregations left her alone in her struggle. She is now one of the founding pastors of an emergent church in the Chicago associated with the (Disciples of Christ) area. Her sister is a pastor and she comes into the church out of a career in marketing. And to us as preachers, she proclaimed something that is repeated daily in marketing, something that we sometimes forget in churches, “Everything speaks.”

We speak when we say nothing and we speak we when do nothing. Sometimes even louder than with our words. It's one of those things that we know, but something that's easy to ignore, easy to forget. Everything speaks could be applied as much to our study of the bible as it could be applied to our interactions with our neighbors and with strangers as it could be applied to our spiritual lives, prayer, meditation, devotions and all.

What we say and do speaks about who we are, what we believe and what kind of God we say that we believe in. What we don't say and what we don't do also speaks about who we are, what we believe and what kind of God we say that we believe in. What we say matters and it matters just as much how we say it. When we make an effort to speak for the comfort of another, we are much more welcoming than if we expect others to hear us and the message we carry, no matter how it is expressed.

Therefor when we read this text, as when we read all biblical text, we need to pay attention to how the story is told because it is all a part of the story.

First of all, the event in question begins on the day of Pentecost, which has come to be known as the “birthday of the church,” but it was initially and more essentially here the first day of the festival of weeks. This harvest feast was celebrated a week of weeks after the Passover, which means it was a very celebratory kind of holy day. It was given the name Pentecost or πεντηκοστή, for "fiftieth day."

It was a harvest festival held at the time of wheat harvest, but it's religious significance was that it Shavuot commemorates the anniversary of the day God gave the Torah to the entire nation of Israel assembled at Mount Sinai. So when the apostles and other believers began to preach the gospel that day in what people understood to be their native language, it was also the gift of this message of God to the people gathered in Jerusalem.

Secondly, it is important that they heard in their native language. Now, I don't speak any other language than English, not really, though I can pronounce a few words in other languages. But many people who speak more than one language say that when they dream, they dream in their first language, the language of home. I can imagine that when you do speak several languages, it is comforting and maybe even relaxing to hear the language of your birth. I can imagine the welcome you might feel to hear the words or the songs that your mother and father spoke in your first memories.

And so, though the men and women who heard the preaching of the apostles were all Jewish or converts to Judaism, it is important that the message they heard wasn't in the common tongue of Greek or the biblical language of Hebrew or even the common language of Aramaic that they might expect in Galilee. It was confusing, Luke wrote, but I can't imagine that this spoke volumes for God's intentions for the message of Jesus Christ.

The devout Jews of Israel, who spoke so many languages, were now brought together in this message, though they maintained their diversity at the same time. In the incredible symbolic action of the Holy Spirit, their unity and diversity were expressed all at the same time. Through this message of the Spirit, they weren't called give up what made them different from one another as faithful people, only what divided them from one another.

The message of Jesus Christ, in the fullness of his life and teachings as well as in his death and resurrection, can be delivered in many ways. I grew up in a very conservative traditional Disciples of Christ church with male preachers and all male elders and deacons, and there was a message in that. And I argued with the elders and the message itself when I began adolescence. I argued with it inside of myself for many years and argued with it while I attended seminary, until I argued it out of me and began to preach despite the messages I had received in my childhood—at church and at home, at least on the surface. My mother told me at least once that she didn't really think or believe that women should preach. But because “everything speaks” I heard another message, too. My mother taught me the importance of her faith. And she wasn't afraid to speak her mind, so I put those things together.

My mother also taught the church when she chose the hymns for the church services. She taught them what she liked, certainly. And she taught them some theology that I don't necessarily agree with, but she certainly taught them through those choices.

And today, when we want to preach the gospel, teach the gospel: the life and words of Jesus, we are called upon to speak the language of those we wish to speak to in languages like facebook-ian, text-ic and Twitter-ese. We might need to communicate—as a community, if not individually—through unfamiliar things like Twitter, which I have yet to use in any way. But, I think more basically and effectively, we must speak through the language of relationship before the language of corporate worship or corporate invitation.

Some folks I've gotten to know on facebook, for example, planted a church in Pueblo, Colorado about eight years ago. They began in the couple's living room. She was the preacher; he had a guitar. I'm sure they put the service together as a team. Some Sundays it was just the two of them, even though there were other folks that were pretty regular, they just didn't show up sometimes, so they would pray together and go out for Sunday lunch.

One of their observations about their experience was that, although they were young, in their mid to late twenties themselves. And though they were pretty hip and happening folks in their own, bilingual, guitar, emergent theologies kind of way and all, they also had to earn the right to invite people their age to church. The older folks, the traditionally good attenders already from the ages of 50 on up were relatively responsive to a direct invitation to worship. But they had to earn the right to invite younger people, like themselves, to worship. So they met them at pubs, had conversations with them at restaurants, worked together in mission, responded to them in crisis. The language they had to speak was the language of connection and relationship—welcome and invitation weren't enough.

The language they had to learn in the context of church was that of relationship before invitation. And they learned that people their age who were not still connected to a congregation, which were many, needed to know about the church's purpose and reason for being before they could connect to worship or any other kind of religious language or context.

As I read for the Pentecost sermon this week, my eyes were opened to something I had ignored. In this particular place when Luke tells of Jesus' followers experience with the Holy Spirit, he doesn't say that they spoke in tongues or glossolalia, like Paul describes in ecstatic prayers or in the spiritual ecstasies of other events. Luke describes the people hearing the gospel clearly, not garbled, but transmitted to them in such a way that was more familiar to them rather than less.

Luke's description is a clear witness to God's intentions through the disciples of Jesus Christ. The message was more clear rather than less. The message was brought to the people who were there to listen in ways that were more familiar to them than any biblical language would have been. The Holy Spirit, though it stirred up some trouble and confusion with the power that was expressed, also made it possible for the gospel of Jesus Christ to be preached anywhere, to anyone.

As Paul said, it even helps us speak from our hearts to God—the Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

The Holy Spirit often cuts through the garbage and reveals God's intentions as directly as they are ever known—when we misunderstand or are confused, at least in my case it's my own over-thinking or stubbornness getting in the way. I'm not saying that there's always a clear goal where I'm headed, but that my next baby step is usually pretty clear.

This week I've also been reflecting on my intentions when I started my ministry and though I know what God wants, in the long run, it's been a long messy set of pathways to get there. I hope that all along I've been a witness to what God wants from me, but I'm sure that's been a little muddled, too.

On this Pentecost Sunday, after a few weeks of pushing us toward a mission for the church, I also want us to realize that in our mission we are witnesses to Christ in our lives. And that in our words of compassion, comfort and hope, we are witnesses to Christ in our lives. And that in our cards of comfort sent to those who are suffering, we are witness to Christ in our lives. In all the little things we do, whether we realize it or not, we witness to the savior within. And as time goes by, I know that that witness will testify to the life that is already here and the life that God has yet to reveal, within us, around us and through us.

To God's glory and in Jesus' name. Amen.