A sermon based upon Acts 2: 1-24; 37-42
By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
22st Sunday in Ordinary Time, September, 2 2018
21-14) Sermon Series: Church: Then and Now
Fred Craddock, late Professor of Preaching at Chandler Divinity School in Atlanta, tells of being interrupted by a student at the start of a lecture he gave on the West Coast. The earnest young man asked Craddock … are you a Pentecostal? The room grew silent. Craddock looked for someone from the school that might moderate and ask the student to hold his question until the end of the lecture, but Craddock got no help.
Realizing he was on his own, Craddock respond to the student: Do you mean do I belong to the Pentecostal Church? The young man said, No, I mean are you Pentecostal? Craddock said, Are you asking me if I am charismatic? Again the student said, No, I am asking you if you are Pentecostal. The great preacher was getting a little frazzled by the student. Craddock said, Do you want to know if I speak in tongues? The student was adamant, I want to know if you are Pentecostal. Fred Craddock said in surrender, I don’t know what your question is. The student said, Obviously, you are not Pentecostal. He left the lecture hall. [Story cited by Brent Blair in his sermon, Are You Pentecostal, Sermon.com, May 19, 2013]
So, let me rhetorically ask you this same ‘loaded’ question, are you, are we Pentecostal?” ‘Pentecostal’ means different things to different people, but in our time it’s often like asking: Do you speak in unknown tongues? Do you pray in the spirit? Are you a member of a Pentecostal church? Do you clap, shout, or jump up and down during worship? Is this really what it means to be Pentecostal?
In our text today ‘Pentecost’ was not like this. First of all, Pentecost was the Jewish festival held 50 days after Passover when Jews returned to Jerusalem to celebrate their heritage and to offer thanks for the ‘first-fruits’ of their harvest. But for the first disciples of Jesus, Pentecost took on new meaning, becoming a day to celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit into the world with so great a power that it gave birth to the church. Of course, this doesn’t mean that God’s Spirit wasn’t at work in the world before, but this was a unique moment when God’s power to save and to bless was being received in a new, dynamic and dramatic way.
Many years have passed since that first Pentecost. Times change. We change. Life changes. The meanings of words change. The world is always in motion and time moves on. What Pentecost meant then is not what it means now. So, what should Pentecost mean now? Are we supposed to be Pentecostal Christians? What would it mean if we were?
My favorite way to answer this question is not with an answer, but with a story. Some years back, New Testament scholar Gordon Fee, who is a noted and greatly respected Pentecostal Christian, was sitting with other attendees at a workshop talking about the power of ‘story’. The speaker was Eugene Peterson, his faculty colleague. Peterson mentioned a moment in which his four-year-old grandson jumped onto his lap and demanded, “Grandpa, tell me a story, and put me in it.” Upon hearing this account, Gordan Fee, the Pentecostal, began to weep, overwhelmed by the fact that this is precisely what God has done for all of us. At Pentecostal God was empowering the church to tell God’s great story, inviting all of us to be part of His story. (Teaching the Faith, Forming the Faithful : A Biblical Vision for Education in the Church, by Parrett, Gary A., and Kang, S. Steve. Westmont, US: IVP Academic, 2013. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 26 July 2017)
In this story about Pentecost, God invites us into His great story. This story is about God being at work in the Jewish and Christian Faith by given his disciples the spiritual power to take the message of God’s love into the world. Pentecost is an important part of God’s story because God did not stop revealing himself with Jesus Christ, but God continues to reveal himself through those who wait, pray and allow themselves to be guided by the God’s Spirit. We too, are being invited to be ‘put’ into God’s story.
‘EACH ONE HEARD…’ vs. 6
At the heart of this story, the ‘wonder’ of Pentecost was the Spirit of God coming with the dramatic sound of violent wind, with fiery tongues setting on the disciples’ shoulders, and the Spirit filling the souls of all those who were waiting, praying disciples (v.2-4). All this drama led to the culminating main event that they ‘began to speak in other tongues’ or languages (v.4). After this, a good question is posed by those who experienced this miracle: “What does it mean?” That’s the question that still begs to be answered by us too.
The first time I was confronted with the ‘Pentecostal’ question was in high school. I was a member of a Christian student group called ‘the Bible Club’, which came together regularly to support one another, to pray, and to hear testimonies and lectures about our faith. One particular year, around Easter, we had a young man come to talk to us about his faith in Jesus and the meaning of the cross for our lives. He made a very moving talk and after the meeting I went up to thank him for his moving words. He invited me, and a few others, to come to a home to learn more, so I went. I recall the talk was about the ‘filling of the Spirit’, which is a ‘second blessing’, as he called it. After the message, he started to pray, and he began speaking some unknown language. After his prayer was over, I asked him what language it was, and he said it was ‘angelic’. He explained that this was a special work and gift of the Holy Spirit only for those who were in a deep, close and most personal relationship with God.
While I don’t doubt the sincerity of that man, the ‘miracle’ going on in this text was not intended to be anything special only a select few. The intent of the ‘Pentecostal’ miracle is that ‘all’ can be filled (4), and that ‘each one heard’ (6) and understood God’s message. The truth in this story is not that God comes in special ways, but that God takes his message to all. One of my teachers wisely asked a very important question: ‘Was the Pentecostal miracle one of speaking different languages, or was it that ‘each one heard them speaking in their own language?’ In other words, was this a miracle of speaking or a miracle of hearing, available to all who want to hear?
Echoing what happened at Pentecost, the apostle Paul wrote, ‘Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Rom. 10:17, KJV), or as a more modern translation puts it, ‘faith comes from what is heard’ (NRSV). The emphasis of Pentecost is not on the one who does the talking, but the true emphasis should be on the power given to everyone, through the truth about Jesus Christ, to listen, to hear, to understand and to respond to God’s message of truth. And at the heart of Pentecost’s message about Jesus and from Jesus is that ‘all’ people belong to God, and God belongs to all people. Pentecost is the beginning of the universalizing of God’s love to the whole world (CK BARRETT).
Remember that fellow who came to Jesus saying: “Teacher, What must I do to gain eternal life?” Jesus’ answer reduced all religion down to two simple rules: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' (Lk. 10:27 NIV). “Who is my neighbor?” became the most important question from someone who was listening and hearing, not just what Jesus said, but what Jesus meant. Then Jesus told the unforgettable story about the Good Samaritan (Luke 1O: 30-37).
At Pentecost Jesus’ story of loving God, loving neighbor becomes the ‘Pentecostal’ story inviting ‘all’ to speak and ‘each’ to hear the universal language of faith, hope, and love. The miracle of Pentecost was both speaking and hearing, through God’s Spirit who constantly speaks to human hearts in the language that everyone needs to understand; that we belong to God, and we also belong to each other.
‘KNOW WITH CERTAINTY’. Vs 36
But this message of God’s great truth of ‘love’ cannot be sustained without ‘knowing’ ‘believing’ and obeying this truth. This brings us to the second part of the Pentecost story, where Peter addresses the crowd to explain ‘what’ Pentecost means (14-41). Peter claims that Pentecost is the beginning of the fulfillment of God’s dream in the world, expressed first through the ‘prophet Joel’ (16), who hoped that one day ‘God…will pour out his Spirit on ALL people’ (17). Why does God ‘pour out’ his Spirit? The gospel answer Peter gives is so that ‘whosoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved’ (21).
The contains the wonderful ‘whosoever’ messages of ‘whosever’, which make it an invitation to all, but this offer of God’s saving power through Jesus Christ doesn’t come without facing the truth, which can sometimes be difficult to face. True love, God’s love is freely given, but it still costs dearly. God gives a great invitation to the world, but this invitation includes an RSVP. This RSVP of the gospel of love is to face the difficult ‘truth’ about ourselves. Peter told those Jews from Jerusalem a very difficult truth. Peter told them that ‘this Jesus, through whom God worked ‘wonders and signs’ is the very Jesus ‘you crucified and killed…’ (23). Ouch! God’s truth is not only compassionate truth, but true compassion that cares confronts us with the truth. When people really love each other, they don’t run from the truth, hide from the truth, but they face the truth that is revealed to each other in their relationship, so that they can get better at loving, caring, and understanding. But this message of ‘confrontation’ is not simply a message that points out how low humanity can go, but it is a message that culminates as it also speaks to how ‘high’ God can go, because only God is about the counter and overcome the worst evil with good. This is what Peter underscores as the most important ‘truth’ of all, when he says: “Therefore, let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified (36).”
Pentecost, then, is not only a message of God’s love for all, but God’s message to be made clear is that this love is given to the world ‘by grace, through faith’ (Eph. 2:8). It is the ‘gift’ of grace given to save us from ourselves, so that we can take the message of grace and mercy to others. This is why God Spirit comes to us. This is why we have something worth believing. Peter tells the crowd, ‘with the help of wicked people, you put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead” (24). Only God can overcome the deceit, the denial, the defeat and the death we human bring upon each other. Only God has the answer, and God ‘by grace, through faith’ God wants to put the ‘message’ in you, so you can take the answer of grace to others.
One of the largest, and most respected churches in the United States is based on the ‘hard’ truth, and not ‘easy believism’. That church is located in Kansas City, MO, is the largest Methodist Church in the country, and one of the largest of any denomination. Adam Hamilton is the founding pastor, and the well-connected church has a membership of over 20,000. And do you know where this church was started? It wasn’t started in a suburb or a Country Club, a home or a basement, but it was started in Funeral Home. Yes, this church, named “Church of the Resurrection” was started by facing head on one of the most difficult truths of all; death. Its continuing purpose is to bring hope so that people can find ‘eternal life’ now.
Jesus said ‘the road that leads to life is narrow, and few are those who find it’ (Matt. 7:14). One angle on what Jesus meant is that it is not easy for people to face the truth. A good example of that is what happened in Charleston, South Carolina, several years ago, when Dillion Roof choose what he wanted to believe about Black people, rather than what he should have known, and he went into that historic church during a Bible Study and shot and killed innocent people. Dillion Roof choose the kind of reality he wanted to see, know, preach, and live and die for. But it was Dillion’s truth, not God’s truth.
What kind of ‘truth’ we allow ourselves to face and receive will either take life away from us and others, or it will be the kind of ‘truth’ that gives an opportunity for more life, abundant life, which the Bible calls ‘eternal’ or ‘enduring’ life. We all know too well that people still decide the kind of ‘truth’ they want to know or believe. When the German public was confronted with the ‘truth’ about the Holocaust, they did not want to learn the most difficult truth about themselves and their society. When the South the Civil war, there were those who still want to believe in White Supremacy? The ‘truth’ can be a very hard ‘pill’ to swallow, but if we will swallow it, ‘Pentecost’, real ‘power’, that is ‘spiritual’ power can come into the human heart.
Not long ago, about the same time as people were celebrating the 50th anniversary of the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., a report was made about a new Memorial and Museum being opened in Montgomery, Alabama to remember all those Black people who have been ‘lynched’ in American history (4,000 or so). There are some tragic stories in that museum. One is about a Black man being lynched just for showing up late for work. Another was lynched for passing a note to a white woman. Another major part of the exhibit chronicles the lives of those who have been falsely convicted and incarcerated, some who were later exonerated after spending decades behind bars. This not only happens in America, but the late Chuck Colson, spent the rest of his life, after being found guilty in the Watergate scandal, helping those who were behind bars, and learning just how many ‘innocent’ people were there.
What I like about the goal of this “Lynching” Museum, which has been established by the Lawyer and Justice Fighter, Bryan Stevenson, is how he explained the goal of the museum: “We are not trying to be divisive’, but “our goal is just to get people to confront the truth of our past with more courage... Why? Because ‘all our survival is connected to the survival of everyone“.(https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/16/us/memorial-alabama-victims-lynching.html).
In other words, my survival is connected to your survival because we are in this ‘together’. Pentecost is one moment when some people heard God’s truth, even the hard truth, which paved the way for the possibility of a more compassionate world.
“DEVOTED THEMSELVES” v 42
The outcome of the ‘truth’ Peter preached at Pentecost was not condemnation, but the building of a new community based on God’s Spirit. God’s Spirit, in contrast to the spirit of this world (Eph 2:2), is a spirit of grace, compassion and hope, rather than a spirit of hate, violence, and condemnation.
So, if you wonder what kind of ‘teaching of the apostles’ the early church ‘devoted’ itself to, you don’t have to guess. Pentecost makes it clear that the Spirit of God is building a new community based upon ‘the repentance for the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38, 5:31). For a community that is willing to confess its sins to one another, and lives a spirit of repentance and forgiveness is a community that can be rightly called ‘Pentecostal’.
What all this means is that God’s church, is Pentecostal when we are a people who ‘belong’ to Christ and to each other, who are willing to be challenged and changed by the truth they are willing to believe, and who are devoted to becoming the kind of people God has created them to be. This is the true ‘spirit’ of Pentecost; not speaking in ‘unknown tongues’, but speaking the new language of the Spirit, which points to Jesus Christ as the source of faith, hope, and love.
On an ABC News Special titled “In the Name of God,” Peter Jennings interviewed the founder of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship, John Wimber. Wimber did not grow up in church. He said after he read the Bible and decided to enter a church for the first time, he expected dramatic things to happen. But after going to church for three Sundays, he became frustrated.
Following the service, he talked to an official-looking man and asked him, “When do they do it?”
“Do what,” the man replied.
“The stuff,” Wimber answered.
“What stuff?”
“The stuff in the Bible.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, multiplying loaves and fish, feeding the hungry, healing the sick, giving sight to the blind. That stuff.”
“Oh,” the man replied apologetically, “We don’t do that. We believe in it, and we pray about it. But we don’t actually do it.” (From William H. Willimon, Pulpit Resource, Vol. 27, No. 1.).
Do we ‘do’ the stuff? Of course, we can’t repeat the ‘miracles’ of the New Testament, since Jesus said we’d do even greater works than ‘these’. Do we speak, live, and witness to this ‘new’ spirit of love, truth, compassion and community? Are we ‘devoted’ to a spiritual way of living, loving, and doing that goes against the grain of this world? You will know that we are truly a ‘Pentecostal’ church when people visit and start asking the same kind of questions that were asked on Pentecost: ‘What does this mean’ and ‘What should we do? If people aren’t asking, then we need to do more waiting, praying, and become more ‘devoted’ to the teachings of the Spirit that wants to create a new community of faith, hope, and love through us. Amen.
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