Pentecost

My faith community of origin does not celebrate Pentecost. I am not sure why but I assume because they do not think it is relevant. Last year for the first time, I went in search of a community that celebrated Pentecost. I found myself at an Episcopal Church. The service began with children parading through the sanctuary with flags and several men following them in skirts playing bagpipes. The priest preached a sermon about Pentecost being the church’s birthday and the church reinforced this message after the service with cake for all in the fellowship hall. The atmosphere in that church was joyous almost to the point of giddiness.

Lent, Good Friday and Easter seemed to be in the distant past in this celebration, if visible at all. I came away wondering if Pentecost was the church’s victorious celebration that some could easily characterize mistakenly as nothing but a drunken celebration that the Church delayed respectfully until the proper amount of time had passed since Good Friday and Easter. But a proper time of what? Mourning? Reflection? Separation? Respect?

Reading Luke’s Acts 2 helps us understand Pentecost as nothing less than the continuation of God’s activity of in breaking kingdom that is announced and inaugurated in the life, death and resurrection of the incarnate Jesus. He helps us see that Pentecost, while a new beginning is really the end of a great 50 day feast we call Easter. This paradox of beginning and ending is made possible through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

Luke opens with the disciples in a house in Jerusalem. Jesus before ascending to heaven, instructs the disciples to remain in Jerusalem until the promise of the Father with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. As they wait, the disciples, lead by Peter, are devoting themselves to prayer and even accomplishing some administrative work, by replacing Judas with Matthias.

When they were all together in one place, Luke tells us “Suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them and a tongue rested on each of them.” Already we have in the description, a sense that the coming of the Holy Spirit is something that not only comes to each of the disciples individually but that comes when they are in a communal setting. This indwelling is not a private ecstatic event, but something that comes when the disciples are together. Closely linked to the idea of community and unity is what happens next. Each of the disciples begins speaking in other languages. The first manifestation of a Spirit empowered human is speech. And not just any speech, but speech in another language. Why is this important? Is it closely linked to the idea of community and unity?

I once was the spiritual and administrative director of a community of faith, called a Mission, made up of men and women enrolled in a 12-step faith based recovery program. The Mission housed the students, sobered them up, fed them, clothed them, met their medical needs and provided spiritual formation through classes, prayer and worship. I was hired because I had the ability to bring resolution to crisis situations. And this community was in crisis due to some long standing corruption which had fostered a great deal of disunity within the Mission. When I started work there, I put in long hours trying to first clean up the administrative and financial mess. I focused on this aspect, because really I had no clue how to bring spiritual unity to the community. Usually I would go down and have lunch in the cafeteria with the students in the program. But no matter how much I tried and they probably tried too, we could not communicate. We spoke the same language but our conversation was awkward because our experiences had shaped us to the point that we could not understand each other at all. We were all devout followers of God but we could not even pretend to share our faith with other. Finally, we all stopped trying to communicate and I often took my meals in my office.

Now is this the problem that the disciples are having with each other? Probably not. Then why the gift to speak in different languages? The answer is found in the very next verse. Luke tells us that in response to the great commotion a crowd of devout Jews living in Jerusalem has assembled. He goes on to list the many places that the Jews have come from signifying the universal nature of the hearers. What else do we know of the crowd? If we look back to Luke’s telling of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion we see the crowds present along with the chief priests and leaders. In these scenes, the crowd does call for Jesus’ death, but they also seem to evidence remorse once the deed is completed. Now in Acts a crowd of devout Jews has gathered. Noticeably absent are the chief priests and leaders. The crowd also seems receptive. They are amazed and perplexed that the disciples are speaking in their different languages. But the miracle is not that the crowd understands, because they ask “What does this mean?” The disciples speak the same languages of the crowd but the crowd still does not understand their message. Still the crowd of devout Jews seems open to the disciples and their message.

We also have another faction in the crowd. Luke just calls them “others”. He does not even give them names. However, he does record their protest. My text says the others were sneering. But the original word also carries a more sinister meaning of jeering or to laugh with scorn. This group has judged the disciples to be drunks, and in so doing, condemned their message as well.

And with the words of judgment, Peter steps forward immediately and responds to the others’ denial and then to the crowd as a whole. Who is this Peter that has stepped forward so boldly to speak? In Luke’s gospel, he is a willing follower of Jesus. Luke downplays Peter’s weaknesses as compared to Mark’s gospel. But we still have instances in Luke of a less than perfect Peter. Peter is part of the group at the last supper who are arguing who will be the greatest, although Luke does not name him specifically. Jesus, upon hearing the argument, however says “Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” (Luke 22:31) Shortly after, Luke recounts that in the midst of crisis Peter denies three times his association with Jesus. Still it is Peter that first speaks with Jesus after his resurrection and it is Peter that we see leading the disciples at the beginning of Acts. And it is Peter now speaking to the crowd. What gives him the authority to speak? Some have posited that Peter has been profoundly impacted by the life, death and resurrection of Christ and thus can now claim Christ to others. But can this be case?

I continued my work at the Mission, handling the administrative issues in a way that I am sure would have made the old apostle Peter proud. Then one day a crisis broke out after I had been there for about a month. One midday morning I was called up to one of the men’s dorm rooms. The room was about this size, and poorly lit. There were 8 sets of bunkbeds. Four on each side of the room with a narrow passage down the middle of the room. On each bed, were the neatly arranged possessions of the men who occupied the beds. Mostly an extra shirt and pants, underwear and a dock kit. My eyes strained to get used to the dimness of the room. The men showed me over to the middle of the room, where on a top bunk, lay a young black man that I did not know. He was in obvious distress, covered with sweat and hyperventilating. Back then I did not recognize the typical signs of detox. I had the men call for an ambulance. While we were waiting, I asked the man his name, but he could not speak. Another man told me it was Horace. I took Horace’s hand and told him that I was going to pray for him. Horace’s eyes held the deepest terror that I had ever seen. I began to pray out loud, never taking my eyes off his and his terrified eyes never left mine. I could hear the other men praying too. All of a sudden, four white paramedics clamored into the room, switched the lights on and threw their equipment on the neatly made beds. The lead paramedic asked what was the problem but brushed past me and ignored my summary of the situation. He did not bother to ask Horace’s name. He took some necessary vitals and must have quickly made a diagnosis that Horace was going to be okay. He then began to bark at Horace. “What’s the matter BOY. Don’t you want to work today?” “Trying to get over aren’t you BOY.” The other three paramedics snickered and then began to talk amongst themselves. The lead paramedic kept up his sneering at Horace and with each BOY, I wanted to scream STOP, but could not. I looked around, the other students, just hung their heads low, this was not new to them. I found that in the midst of this very evil presence, I could do nothing, I could say nothing. Pressed against the wall by evil, I denied the power of Christ to redeem the situation. Soon the paramedics left and we all slumped out of the room, leaving Horace to his own isolated misery.

The days passed and the evil that had visited the mission, infected the whole place. My lead counselor came to me and said that I had to do something. Eight men had relapsed, one student had been found having sex with another, there were numerous fights and the men and women were angry and confused. But I just looked up from my desk at the counselor and I thought, how can I do anything? I who in the midst of crisis denied Christ, how could I now proclaim and offer hope and reconciliation to the students? But it was no use, I could not hide. I either had to resign or I had to speak to the students, so I asked the counselor to call a special meeting. I prayed to God to forgive me and to help me claim Jesus as my Lord and Savior of God’s kingdom of goodness and righteousness. But God did not seem to answer my prayers.

As I entered the lunchroom, I hesitated at the door and looked at the crowd of students. I wonder if Peter had similar feelings as he stood in front of the crowd. If he does, Luke gives us no indication of this. Instead, Peter, now full with the power of the Holy Spirit addresses the crowd. He denies their accusations that he is drunk and then begins to proclaim the good news by adapting a passage from Joel. In so doing, he proclaims the new age of God’s kingdom, where all people, men and women, young and old, slave and free, proclaim, see and dream. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus are God’s unexpected great reversal of the earthly kingdom. Through out, Jesus has preached that God’s promises are for the poor, the weak, the sinner and the widow. The crowd urgently awaits the answer to their question, What does this mean? The meaning of the Good Friday and Easter events of Jesus is not only hard for us to understand in a world with competing claims, it is also hard to appropriate for our community. We might understand that the kingdom of God is here and present, but to live in its promise we must speak it, see it and dream it. When we do, Peter promises “All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Our Scripture reading ends with this promise but Peter will go on to recount to the crowds the meaning of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And the Spirit will cut the hearts of the hearers, and three thousand will be added to the faithful that day. And the faithful will gather together and share all things in common.

As I hesitated at the lunchroom door at the Mission, I still had no idea how to proclaim the promises of God to the students gathered. Horace, saw my hesitation and he stood up and approached me. He extended his hand to me and gently said, “Thank you for praying for me.” At that moment, a violent wind filled the whole room and great tongues of fire rested on each of us. I began to speak in English, but in a way that was hearable and understandable to those gathered. I do not remember what I said that day but I am confident that it was the message of the gospel. The students too began to speak and soon where once there was only brokenness was a unified community that shared all things in common. Our hopes, fears, joys and sorrows. On that day, we became a community that proclaimed, saw and dreamed the kingdom of God. On that day, all who called on the name of the Lord in the Spirit were saved. On that day, we claimed the Good Friday and Easter promises of Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. On that day we celebrated Pentecost.