I could have kept addressing the gun violence problem in the United States. I could have brought up Pride month. I chose instead to stick to the inspirational message of getting out there and being the light of Christ in the world.
So, I guess I addressed gun violence AND Pride after all. Quit hiding. Quit waiting for someone else to be the change we want to see in the world. WE need to participate and take action!
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Prayer: O God, take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, take our hearts and set them on fire for Jesus’ sake. Amen. (adapted from William Sloane Coffin, Jr.)
Happy Pentecost!
And Happy Birthday to the Church!
We call this “the church’s birthday” because of that intense scene we had in our First Reading from the Book of Acts. On this occasion, where the followers of Jesus are all huddled in the upper room, the long-awaited Holy Spirit blows in with the most dramatic flair.
Previously nervous and somewhat tentative disciples find themselves caught up in a passionate exchange of praising God in whatever native tongue they spoke…or even perhaps some second or third language they knew.
The one common theme in all of this crazy cacophony of sound is that it was all praise of God.
A God of Love.
A God of Compassion for the world.
A God that no longer wanted them hiding in fear of their oppressors.
This was the very early church, before Constantine had his vision that Christ would help him win a battle and veered the church off in the direction of being exclusively a chaplain to the rich and powerful instead of a comforter and advocate to the afflicted and powerless.
So it’s no small matter that the Holy Spirit took their minds and thought through them…their lips and spoke through them…and definitely set their hearts on fire for Jesus’ sake. And nobody exhibits this drama better than our beloved biblical ancestor, the apostle Peter.
I know I’ve poked fun at Peter and his way of seeming to understand Jesus but always falling just a little short of the mark.
I love Peter, I really do.
Peter represents us… the today followers of Jesus…so well. We all have a little bit of Peter in us. We’re all likely to be ready to say we love Jesus…but when faced with the risk of our own skins…figuratively speaking…we can just as likely fall back into silence and complicity. It’s a very rare person who likes to be the odd ball or the unpopular one. And it’s common for those who are in the minority to take a “let’s just keep our heads down and hope nobody notices us” approach to life.
It’s survival mode.
But that’s what the Holy Spirit is blowing up in blowing in to the upper room. No more mere survival.
It’s time to live, to thrive, and to reach out and not hunker down.
So let’s get back to Peter.
He denied knowing Jesus at that fateful hour in the courtyard where his friend was being interrogated.
Peter was scared. The cock crowed after his third denial, and he was plummeted into a sense of remorse and shame.
Upon Jesus’ resurrection…we have the epilogue in John’s Gospel where Jesus takes his friend Peter aside and offers him forgiveness and redemption for the betrayal with the whole “Do you love me? Feed my sheep” discussion. Jesus also charges Peter with the weight of his impending responsibility to be a leader…letting him know that the days of doing whatever he wanted were over because someone was about to “fasten a belt around his waist and lead him where he did not wish to go” (John 21:18d).
In the text, there’s this sidebar that Jesus was warning Peter of the type of death he was about to endure and legend has it that Peter was also crucified, but asked that it be upside down.
But the predicted death of Peter was not just the literal, physical death of being killed.
Peter was also about to die to self-centeredness and become fully alive in Love.
We can hear that in this beginning of his testimony to those who were not part of the babbling crowd.
To the outsiders, the disciples speaking in many tongues appeared drunk.
It’s interesting that the sneering “others” in the text declare that the disciples are “filled with new wine.” In one way, they were!
Think about what Jesus reportedly said…and it’s in both Matthew and Mark’s Gospels…that ”no one pours new wine into old wineskins” (Mark 2:22; Matthew 9:16-17).
This was a literal truth because if one did put new wine into an old wineskin it would burst during the fermenting period. But the new wine of the Holy Spirit had already been poured into the new wineskins of Peter and the disciples.
Jesus had done all the preparation work with them to get them ready to receive the new wine of the Spirit. His ascension gave them those 10 days to let the wine ferment and be ready for the great uncorking by the Holy Spirit.
They weren’t drunk on spirits; they were drunk on THE Spirit!
Peter’s opening statement recalls the words of the prophet Joel. We might remember these same words as they are often part of the readings we do on Ash Wednesday.
Peter raised his voice. He proclaimed with boldness…to the men of Judea…the people of Jerusalem…the city that has the reputation for killing the prophets…that in the last days…God will pour out God’s spirit upon all flesh. Your sons AND daughters will prophesy. Young men will have visions. Old men will dream dreams. And—oh—the Spirit will be upon not just those of an inner circle. This fire is going to light up inside the slave, the free men and women (Acts 2:17-18)…this is going to be a bonfire of bold witness…coming to reorient the world toward more unity…so that every tongue will speak in the language of Christ’s love.
Peter has gone from being a wobbly-kneed foal to a galloping thoroughbred…deeply steeped in the Jewish tradition and Hebrew Scriptures and well-versed in the language of love to speak with authority and reason.
And he and the other disciples are fired up and ready to quit hiding in the upper room and go meet the people, speak their language, and teach them this language of love they learned from Jesus.
This is the wonder and power of this day…passed on to us.
Just like Peter and the disciples, we have heard the words of Scripture.
We have sung the hymns that reinforce those words.
We are re-membered into the Body of Christ every week when we partake in the bread and wine of our Eucharistic feast.
Now is the day and this is the time that we take all of that with us out of this place…and carry it out into the community around us.
Be the light and love of Christ not just while you’re inside these four walls.
This message of Jesus…
to bring good news to the poor in spirit,
sight to those blind to the needs of the community,
release to those who remain captive to any number of addictions,
and freedom to anyone still feeling the crush of oppression…
that’s the important life-giving work we’re all called to do in our every day lives. When we are charged at the end of the worship to “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord” there is a joy in that moment.
There is excitement in that possibility.
There is the potential to keep the Spirit rolling and growing and introducing new people to the sweet spirit that is in this place.
And that’s why we say, “Thanks be to God!” and Happy Birthday to the church.
In the name of God…F/S/HS.
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