Acts 2:1-8, 12, 17-18, 43-47
Last Sunday I was in Ohio with my sister, and was telling her that I was excited to be home the next Sunday because it was Pentecost. My sister turned to her friend and commented that her church in Africa also celebrated Pentecost in a big way, and she just couldn’t understand it. How could churches celebrate Pentecost when they didn’t believe in the gifts of the Spirit – by which she meant speaking in tongues. What we have here is a colliding of two worlds. One world takes this Pentecost story literally: it’s about speaking in unknown languages and everyone becoming Christian. When we talk about Pentecost being the birthday of the church – which we often do – we’re lining up with that world. This is the literal day that the first church was born and baptized 3000 members. That’s a great story, but it’s just a story. It’s a story told long after the fact by folks who weren’t there and who needed a way to give their Jesus movement some history. In actuality, there’s no way Roman soldiers less than 2 months after crucifying Jesus were going to let 3000 people join a movement in his name in the heart of Jerusalem. By the time this story was written down, Rome had completely destroyed Rome and torn down the Temple for less than that.
All week I’ve been thinking about why we celebrate Pentecost – why it’s my favorite Holy Day. I want to be on record here and now that Pentecost is much, much more than just ecstatic languages and the institution’s origin story. It’s about God bringing the people together and giving them life – new life. So just like we celebrate Easter/resurrection every Sunday and we celebrate Christmas/incarnation every time we sense the presence of mystery in this world, we celebrate Pentecost whenever we connect with hope and community – which is to say virtually every day.
Why do we celebrate Pentecost? Pentecost is about finding hope in the face of despair. The story tells us the followers of Jesus – many more than just the disciples but all the men and women who had traveled with Jesus and signed on to his mission – were all together in one place. They were hiding out because they were afraid. Jesus had been executed at Passover, a festival when Jews from near and far were gathered in Jerusalem to remember their common heritage. Now it was Pentecost or Shavuot, the first of several harvest festivals. Jews from across the Empire were once again gathered in Jerusalem to bring the first of harvested grain to offer in the Temple. It was a celebration of life, and Roman soldiers were once again in the city in large numbers to keep order. Jesus’ followers wondered if more of them would be executed as part of the crowd control for the holiday. They were afraid.
And then God set them on fire and they were not. They already had the sense that Jesus was resurrected – still alive and among them in the strongest way. They were beginning to understand that his death hadn’t been the end of his ministry, but that there was still more to do. Still ways to tell the story of God’s love the way he had told it. Still the possibility of being the reign of God in their time, like he had told them they were. We don’t know exactly what changed, but they went from hiding in fear to preaching to anyone who would listen. They had a story to tell of a better way to live, and they were going to tell it. Maybe not to thousands in the public square, but to friends and neighbors and people they met on the street. What Jesus had given them wasn’t dead but still alive and strong within them, and it was too good not to share. It overcame fear of Empire and gave them hope that new life was real.
Then they set about living that life, the way Jesus had taught them. They healed folks the way Jesus trained them to do. They accomplished tasks they never believed they could do. The gave praise to God because God’s love was strong in them and they felt it. They pooled their resources and took care of each other, and a lot of folks around them. They ate together. They enjoyed life together. They made a difference in their neighborhood by helping others. And they grew – not by thousands in a single day, but slowly and steadily they became a movement that spread across the known world.
Here's what we’re celebrating:
God’s love overcomes fear. The Empire can be strong. Public opinion can be against you. Life can feel unsafe at times, but God gives courage and people stick together. The possibility of new life is more important than fear.
New life is possible. The Roman Empire did its best to divide people and to make them fear both Empire and neighbors, but you can live under Empire and still live by Jesus’ vision. You can love your neighbor. You can share your bread. You can care for those who become ill and shelter those who are homeless. And you can have a good time doing it.
There’s always hope. Hope is a gift of God that is planted in our hearts as a sign of our humanity, and it’s stubborn. It doesn’t depend on life around us being hopeful. It’s like that fire that burned in the first Pentecost story and touched everyone without harming them. It can be dimmed by circumstance, but you can’t put it out.
Courage. Life as a community. Hope. Those are great reasons to celebrate. I propose that we celebrate them all summer long. We begin by naming them as our Pentecost today, and then we explore the many things they can mean together week by week. Let’s build ourselves into a courageous, hopeful community that makes Jesus’ vision real right here, right now. And let’s have a good time doing it. Let’s celebrate!