Acts 2:14-21
Our North Dakota native theologian Marcus Borg once wrote: The Bible is full of many true stories, some of which happened. As many of you know, this is one of my favorite days in the church year, Pentecost, and I very much wish that all of it happened just like the story said. I want God to move the people with wind and fire so that they can't help but rush out and share good news. I want people to hear that news in every language and understand. I want there to be thousands of people converted to following Jesus with one sermon. Heck, I'd settle for two new members a year! Yet the more we learn from scholars about the early church, the more we know that none of it happened just the way Luke tells it in the book of Acts. Does that mean we can't use this story to celebrate? Of course not! Do we not keep the Easter Bunny, the tooth fairy and Santa Claus? We keep them because they make life magical and celebrate great moments in living. And the Pentecost story does the same.
Luke tells the Pentecost story in this particular way because writing 100 years or so after Jesus lived, he wanted to suggest that there is a large, unified movement that we know as the Christian church, which had a single origin. This is how it all began. In part he's right. It began with the conviction of the men and women who followed Jesus that even though he died, he was still with them. Even though Rome executed him, what he taught them made life better and should still be shared. The roots of the church really do lie in the followers of Jesus who were fired up about what he had taught them and wanted to share that good news with others. That part of the story is true.
Our assumption that they then created the Christian church as we know it is not true. No organization, no creeds, no common theology, no Bible, no Sunday school, no ordained preachers who've been to seminary. What they created was small groups of people who gathered to talk about things Jesus taught them, to share how they were putting those principles into action in daily life, and to support one another when life was hard for any one of them. And they ate. They broke bread and honored Jesus like he was still with them because they believed he was. Today we're going to get that part right when we share communion and then take the bread and add it to the potluck meal after worship. That simple act of eating bread together connects us with our spiritual ancestors back 2000 years ago, and that's a big deal. It matters.
What else is true about this story? I don't know if Peter actually gave a sermon and suggested that ancient prophets had looked forward to a day when God's Spirit moved the people to action. All the children prophesying. Young and old seeing visions and dreaming dreams. Even the enslaved, the insignificant in the culture, getting in on the action. I like to think about those claims as all the people fired up about possibilities. In spite of all the evidence of Empire around them, Jesus' followers believed God could change the world, their world. And if they couldn't change the big picture of politicians and occupying armies, of poverty and violence, then they could change the small details of how they lived. And that made a difference. They couldn't make Rome compassionate, but they could love their neighbor and care about each other. They couldn't equalize the economic system, but they could be sure everyone in their group had bread. They couldn't stop senseless executions or even most disease, but they could remember their members who died and give them a decent send-off. The origin story of Christianity is mostly about simple people taking care of each other the best they can as an act of resistance to a society that dehumanizes almost everyone.
Sometimes I get discouraged about the times we live in. There's a lot more war than we want. Just this week I've read about leaders wanting to give Ukraine to the Russians and some suggesting we drop nuclear bombs on Gaza and a report that once again there is mass genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan. Last night there was a young mom holding a sign at the corner of Sam's parking lot as a way to provide for her kids. On a global scale and the smallest scale there's a bunch of stuff broken about how the world works.
I suspect that you and I were raised to believe that because we live in a democracy, we can vote in good people and change the world so it works for everyone. I have a hard time when life proves that's not so much true. I want it to be so. But lately learning about the early church has given me hope. Their world was much harder than ours and there was much less they could do about it. We can and do make a difference on a large scale every once in a while. But even when we don't, we can follow their example and do what we can right here, right now. Every week we feed some folks and pay bills for some folks and that matters. After church we drink tea and coffee and talk about how we are, and that matters. Sometimes we write a letter or make a phone call and impact policy. That matters.
As a congregation we've been working toward a mission statement for a year or more. Who are we, what do we do and why? This week the Council made a commitment to a draft of that statement. First, they agreed our big vision is the words of Chris Gable's song: We're here for good. That sounds a lot like the early church to me. It also sounds like us. Then after lots of words we settled on this mission statement: We share God's light by being progressive servants in our community. We'll print that so we can all try it on for size and live with it a while. Maybe it's captured who we are and what we do. Maybe our why is the same why of the early church - this is God’s work and God is empowering us to do it.
I'll be honest with you, this week the weight of the work the world needs felt heavy to me. I'll bet you have weeks like that, too. So, I'm really glad to remember Pentecost today. I want to believe that the Spirit of God can move in us and through us and give us energy. I look forward to being empowered by good news. I'm excited about a little bit of rushing around telling people that life can be better, even showing people how life can be better. I want to be inspired by the dreams of young people and the wisdom of the old. And I dare to hope that even though 2000 years later there's a lot that's still broken in this world, there's a lot that's better than it used to be and tomorrow it will be better still.