Pentecost
Acts 2: 1-21
Marilyn Zehr
It is another good morning to be gathered together as the people of God on this Pentecost Sunday.
The wind is blowing – have you seen it?
Our summer theme, which we begin today, invites us to recall times when we have seen the wind.
In biblical and doctrinal terms we are being invited to notice when and where we have seen evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit.
Beginning with an earthly and material experience of wind, here in Toronto this week, we had an opportunity quite literally to see the wind in action. Wednesday evening a dark and eerily green sky and a heavy stillness foretold the coming of a powerful wind; one that whipped about in many directions and in some places it drove hail and rain with it. Leaves and branches were stripped, hydro wires, trees and property were damaged. As the storm passed, my neighbour went out and shoveled the hail off his sidewalk. Given the heat – this seemed strange to me, but you never know how people will react to the effects of wind and storm.
I couldn’t help but think of this most recent storm and powerful wind in light of our text in Acts this morning.
Acts 2:1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.
2:2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
And I wondered were they prepared for what happened?
When there is a windstorm like there was this week there are usually clear signs that something is about to burst forth.
The colour of the sky and clouds,
the shape of the clouds
and usually a heavy stillness of the air are all signs that give us time to prepare ourselves and our property for a storm. We have time to “batten down the hatches,” so to speak. Of course if you’re not paying attention to those signs, environment Canada will try to get your attention with wind and storm warnings and watches.
In Luke’s narrative in Acts, followers of Jesus through several encounters with the living Christ post-death and resurrection were asking, “what now?” They ask Jesus, “Is this the time that you will restore the Kingdom to Israel?” Jesus replies that they will not know the time or seasons for these things (something Harold Camping may want to make note of) but Jesus promises them that they will receive the power of the Holy Spirit so that they might be witnesses throughout Judea and Samaria and even to the ends of the earth.” And so the disciples prepared themselves in a few ways. They gathered together regularly and they devoted themselves to prayer.
But were they really prepared for what happened? How does one prepare for the unexpected; a sound from heaven like a violent wind and tongues as of fire on each of their heads so that they spoke in many languages.
“They were amazed and bewildered,” the text says. No matter how we prepare, wind action is always unpredictable.
Our wind chimes this morning gave us one example of the varying effects of the wind/spirit. By the way, I wish there was an English equivalent to both the Hebrew and Greek words for Wind and Spirit. In Hebrew and in Greek the same word can mean both wind and spirit. Sadly our English is limited here.
Back to our wind chimes, the wind can make them whisper pleasantly, it can produce lovely harmonies and music and with enough force can crescendo to a disturbing cacophony.
Luke’s narrative tells us that this experience of the Holy Spirit was in the disturbing cacophony realm.
Amazed, astonished, bewildered, perplexed, the people didn’t know for sure what meaning to draw from this sudden infusion of Holy Spirit power.
This disturbance drew a lot of attention. Not only did the 120 people gathered in the upper room experience the effects of Spirit power – but the nature of its primary gift – the gift of tongues or languages meant that the people who were gathered in Jerusalem from the surrounding nations heard and were astonished. Before my trip to Turkey and Greece this summer, one of my primary concerns when I got to a list of nationalities like this one in the Bible has been whether or not I could pronounce them all properly. After a few trips now to this part of the world and most recently to Asia Minor and Greece, these geographical names have taken on a few more geographical faces. Parthian, Medes, and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt and parts of Libya., and Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Arabs and Cretans. Luke takes us through a large circle of geography and peoples surrounding Jerusalem and says that all these people (likely in Jerusalem for the Jewish Feast of Pentecost – ingathering of First Fruits) heard in their own language about God’s deeds of power.
What now? Again how to make sense of this infusion of Holy Spirit power, the kind that one can only prepare for through gathering and prayer if at all.
In our narrative, the “what now,” begins with Peter’s Spirit empowered speech where he clarifies that these people are not drunk but Spirit-filled just as God had promised that all people one day would be – and that in the face of all kinds of difficulty, everyone who calls upon the name of Jesus will be liberated – a liberation that will move through every known nation – even to the ends of the earth. The rest of the narrative of Acts shows the many ways that the Spirit’s power will not be contained. The same Spirit that anointed Jesus for his ministry now anoints and empowers the church in his name. Miraculous healings, angel visitations, Spirit infused speeches in the face of power are all par
t of this uncontainable, unpredictable, untamable, Spirit/wind.
And so I ask, the same “what now?” question for us. Did the more dramatic work of the Spirit cease after the church got underway? Where have you seen the wind? Where have you experienced the wind? I invite you to ponder that question this summer. For me, I think the wind is again at work in the very nations where the church began so many centuries ago. Part of that work of the Spirit has been dubbed – “Arab Spring.” Powerful forces are at work in that part of the world – for good and for evil. Fear and repression are struggling against hope for new forms of justice and freedom. And on the side of fear and control there are those who think that they can make things happen through violence and force. How can you force the wind to blow where you want it to go? I wish someone would tell that to the NATO forces who seem to have become predictably mired in the Libya situation.
On a very different note the forces of the Spirit/wind are alive and well here at home among Canadian Mennonites. I saw the Spirit at work when Jack Suderman so capably helped us to understand that being a faithful church means that spiritual and biblical discernment of faithful living is a non-optional vocation of the church. In this work of discernment we can be confident that God has been with us and will be with us through the power of the Holy Spirit. In his paper, “Being a Faithful Church: Testing the Spirits in the Midst of Hermeneutical Ferment,” (hermeneutical means – how we read/interpret the Bible) Jack reminds us that in the midst of the church’s discernment practice, there are three practical options.
First, the church can repeat again what it has said before,
second, the church can modify what it has said before, given some new spiritual understandings, and third, the church can change what it has said before because new perspectives have become apparent and compelling, but still within the realm of the authority of the canonical voices – but where a shift of emphasis on the relative authority of different voices has been discerned to be necessary. (For examples of all the ways the church has done this in the past, Jack’s article can be found on the TUMC website TUMC Community – Congregational Meetings – Background documents).
Guidance from this paper will be foundational for the way Mennonite Church Canada will hear a Sexual inclusivity motion that will be presented at the national assembly in just a few weeks July 4-8 in Waterloo. This motion will be presented at the Assembly on July 6th. There are articles about this motion in the most recent Canadian Mennonite. Over time the Spirit continues to be at work – even in the face of difficult and sometimes divisive discernment issues.
Our awareness of the Spirit’s work may ebb and flow, but the work of the Holy Spirit continues unabated. As at Pentecost sometimes the effect of that wind can be amazing, astonishing and perplexing.
Do you know what the wisest thing to do is when you are inside a house in the face of potential tornado force winds? The best thing to do is to throw open your windows and doors. Yes, the wind and the rain will sweep through the house. Chances are very good that you and your furniture and floors will get wet. But variation in air-pressure between the outside and the inside of the house won’t have a chance to break the windows if you simply let it in. In the same way, it’s not advisable to close the windows and doors to the Spirit. It’s better to fling them wide-open. The power of the Spirit will have its way regardless and maybe with a little less damage.
So let us prepare for Pentecost moments of the Sprit by not ceasing to gather and by devoting ourselves to prayer, let us open ourselves to receive the Spirit by opening wide the windows and doors and let us respond as the Spirit empowers and enables us to do so. And may the Spirit as at Pentecost once again renew the Church.