5/23/2010
Introduction:Today we celebrate the beginning of the Season of the Church year called Pentecost, which for Christians marks the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Christian church. In my teaching today, I want to focus on what the coming of the Holy Spirit meant for the community of Jesus' disciples then and what being open to the Holy Spirit might mean for us now. At the end, I would like to have time for us to consider a couple of questions to help us discern how we at 8th Day are being called by the Spirit.
Meaning of "Pentecost"
The word "Pentecost," meaning "fiftieth" is a Jewish Feast, also called the "Feast of Weeks" or "Feast of the First Fruits," which is held fifty days after Passover. In Jesus' day, it had three purposes: 1) commemoration of giving of the Law to Moses; 2) thanksgiving to God for the harvest; and 3) and offering of the first fruits to God.
The Story of Pentecost
In our lectionary passage from Acts, the disciples were gathered together on the Feast of Pentecost - presumably in an "upper room" of someone's home. They and were waiting, as Jesus had instructed them before ascending into heaven as Acts 1 says"...he charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise... which you heard from me, for John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit. " They were waiting, an expectant, praying community. Rather than being dispersed after Jesus'death, they came "together in one place" the writer tells us.
All their senses were engaged in this waiting, and then they heard with their ears the "sound of a violent rushing wind" which "filled the whole house where they were sitting. " They saw with their eyes flames which "separated and came to rest on each of them. " Rushing wind and fire denote God's power, purification and judgment in the OT, such as when Moses received his call from God in the burning bush and when Elijah was waiting for God on the mountain and heard a loud rushing wind that broke the rocks into pieces. The writer of the Acts account evokes these OT stories to mark a significant in-breaking of God's power in this story of Pentecost.
The tongues of flames separated onto each person's head, demonstrating that the Holy Spirit does not discriminate among persons. Then, "They were all filled with the Holy Spirit. " God's power is poured into every one, not only the designated "leaders." This is an accessible divinity, one that takes the shape of each unique individual. Then they began to "speak in other tongues" so that people from every corner of the known world could understand in their own dialect or language. One commentator says that there could have been well over 20 countries and regions represented in the Acts account.
This story emphasizes the universality of God's power and love. The people hearing the "many tongues" were "amazed" "bewildered" "confused" and "perplexed." They couldn't understand howGalileans, who were looked down upon for their poor pronunciation of Hebrew, could be speaking many languages so they could be understood! This was a truly multilingual, multicultural Spirit!
Genesis 11:1-9- The Tower of Babel
In the Genesis story for today, the people (probably Mesopotamians) had one language originally. They decided to build a well-fortified "tower of Babel" "that reaches to the heavens, so that we can make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth. " The tower may have been an intended observatory, as the people of Mesopotamia were astral worshippers, and the towers were places where the gods were worshipped and encountered. (Robert Utley) This was a grand plan that would exult their name, please the gods, and keep the people's power concentrated in one place.
God was worried and said, "This is only the beginning of what they will do. " Was God afraid of the power of human beings? God said, "They are one people and they all have one language and nothing they propose to do will now be impossible for them. " By "confusing their language" so they couldn't understand one another and scattering them all over the earth, God foiled this human attempt to bolster their own pride and power. Perhaps this was an act of grace. However, if one looks at the state our world is in today, I'm not sure God was successful in preventing us humans from using our power to make a pretty big mess of the planet. It strikes me that modern day versions of the Tower of Babel story, such as the sinking of the Titanic, the destruction of the Twin Towers in NY, and the recent disastrous sinking of the BP oil rig might be our current reminders of the potential of human power to destroy as well as to build and create.
However, in the Pentecost story, there is a reversal of the Genesis story. The writer of Acts is barkening back to the Genesis story and turning it upside down. God's Spirit empowers and emboldens the people gathered to speak in many tongues, for the purpose of uniting believers of many nationalities. That which had divided humanity and created tribalism and nationalism - namely human pride and desire for power and control - was now replaced by that which empowers and unites humanity - namely a Spirit of love, inclusiveness, and harmony. Is there, perhaps, hope in the Pentecost story for our world today?
Peter and the Prophet Joel
Not understanding how these Galileans could be "in their right minds" - some made fun of them, saying they were drunk. This inspired Peter, the one who had denied Jesus three times and slunk away after he was betrayed, to stand up boldly and give an explanation, by quoting the prophet Joel:
"In the last days, God says, I will pour out my JSpirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will poour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. "
This OT prophesy fulfilled now, says the Spirit of God will not discriminate against women or men, young or old, servants or masters. All will dream and vision and prophesy. Everyone will have a voice. Everyone's tongue will be heard, no matter their age or position in society, their race or tribe, their color or sex, their religion or ethnicity.
John 14:8-27 - Union and the Promise of the Holy Spirit
In the John 14 passage, Philip asks Jesus to "show us the Father and we will be satisfied." Jesus seems a little exasperated that the disciples still don't get it. He tells his disciples that whoever "has seen me has seen the Father... The Father who dwells in me does his works... Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves. " So Jesus is saying, "When you see me, - what I do and how I live - you see God, because we are inseparable." Later, he says, "lam in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. " So this means that just as Jesus is in God and God is in Jesus, so the disciples are in Jesus, and therefore in God - and Jesus is in the disciples, and therefore God is in the disciples. John Shelby Spong calls Jesus a "Spirit person." He says, "...in the particular life of the Spirit person Jesus, [people] saw not only God, but also a picture of what each of us might look like in our fulfilled spirit state."
Not only is Jesus inseparable from God, but we are inseparable from Jesus and God. However, the caveat is, we must do the works and bear the fruits of living in God and Jesus. The inseparability of Jesus with his Father, God, and of his disciples with him encompasses BOTH loving and doing. Jesus says, "If you love me, you will keep my word. " — i.e. "If you love me, you will do what I do - and more." Finally, Jesus says that God will send the Holy Spirit, "the Counselor" who will teach us and remind us who Jesus was and what he taught. He ends this passage with a promise of peace - "not as the world gives, " but a peace that will "calm troubled hearts" and take away fear.
In this passage, Jesus also says, "Who believes in me will also do the works I do; and greater works that these..." This seems to remind us of the Genesis passage, when God fears what humans will do. Some wonder whether we have unleashed powers of violence to destroy our environment and beings in it, to the point of no return. In the face of these impending tragedies, we sometimes feel powerless. Yet Jesus said we will do "greater works" than he did. Do we have faith that we, his modern day disciples, will be able to do "greater things" than Jesus did? Do we believe we can come up against the forces of destruction in our world?
Pentecost and Community - Acts 2:44-47 and 4:32-35
The arrival of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost brought a renewed strength and power to the little band of Jesus' disciples, enabling Peter to speak with new boldness, enabling Paul, a staunch persecutor of the followers of Jesus to be converted, and enabling the apostles to go out and form little communities all around the Mediterranean. Pentecost was not an individual experience, it was a communal event. It brought the band of Jesus' followers together in a new way, solidified their commitment to one another and to their mission.
[Read Acts 2:44-47] "All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. "
In this picture, we see that the Spirit inspired those who had wealth to share with those who had needs, so they "had everything in common." We see the Spirit bringing them together to share meals with gratefulness and humility. We see a people whose spirit of generosity and joy inspired those around them to join them.
One of the manifestations of this new Spirit, was the way material possessions were shared in the first communities. Just as Jesus modeled his unity with his Father and with his disciples, so the early Christian communities modeled their unity with one another and with God. Just as Jesus counseled his disciples to show love by obeying his Word and by doing good works, so the early Christians tried to live out this unity and love in their daily lives. Those who had wealth offered it to the community for the up building of all. Robert Batson says, A "community chest" was established which developed into a "sophisticated network able to respond to a variety of needs wherever they arose..." including the needs of strangers and persons outside the communities.
David Batson in his article, "Community Care and the Growth of Early Christianity" in The Fourth R journal, says that Christians were small in number in comparison to the general population. "It is all the more surprising, therefore, that such small and scattered communities began to exercise a degree of influence on Roman society which seems quite disproportionate to actual numbers involved." People of all socio-economic status joined these communities, including the wealthy who helped support the communities. This practice was clearly distinguished from the normal system of patronage in the Roman society, in which subordinates used wealthy patrons to move up the social and economic ladder. In this system the genuinely needy were excluded. The Christian communities' way of sharing, on the contrary, says Batson, "effectively dismantled barriers between the classes which had existed from time immemorial in Greco-Roman society."
Batson says: "An ethos of communal care became a prominent feature of the early Christian church and established the foundation of a social welfare system for generations to come. " He goes on to say that this system had its roots in Judaism, which required the well off to care for the needy. This generosity was proof that God was revealing himself to God's chosen people. Batson comments that this system of sharing was not only "an effective way of protecting the vulnerable in society and guaranteeing the survival of the group, but also of removing from the better off all concerns for the safeguarding of their worldly possessions." (P.5) [Repeat] Further, he notes that the Jesus movement did not have a hostile attitude towards wealth, but saw that it could be employed for the good of society as a whole.
"Jesus' injunction to the rich young man to dispose of his worldly possessions and join the band of itinerant followers (Mark 10:17-22) was a clear endorsement of the need to harness the proceeds of property in order to help the most vulnerable in the community. It had nothing to do with social protest or dropping out of a society with whose values one felt little sympathy." (p.6)
[Read Acts 4:32-33] AH the believers were one in heart and mind. No-one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everthing they had...much grace was upon them all."
In this passage it is clear that the Spirit brought unity of heart and mind which led to the sharing of possessions. There was a care for the whole and a focus on "kingdom priorities" in these first communities that inspired material as well as spiritual sharing. A sense of the spirit's abundance and grace resulted in no one being needy.
As is obvious from Paul's letters, this unity did not mean they agreed on everything. (Good news for 8 Day). Social cohesion in the non-Hebrew societies was more difficult than the first church in Jerusalem. At one point Paul addressed the Corinthian community, for instance, in which there were apparently some well off members who brought their own food and ate it while the poor went without. "The question of how to support those in need was inextricably linked to issues of social cohesion and, in particular, how to manage the divisions between the classes, an issue that had caused so much dissatisfaction in the Corinthian communities. " This issue, I believe is a key underlying one in our community.
Pentecost as the Re-realization of our Connectedness
In closing, I want to bring in the larger picture of our interconnectedness with all peoples on the earth and with all creatures and living things on the earth. Just as the Genesis story of the Tower of Babel is the realization of our separateness into tribal, cultural and national divisions, then the Pentecost story is the realization of our ultimate interconnectedness with one another and the planet. If Pentecost is the energizing and unifying of community, it must also be the enlarging of what and whom we include in community. Just as other peoples from the "known world" of the early followers of Jesus heard in their own languages the message that they too were included, so we must broaden the borders of our tent to include peoples of other tongues and tribes, and creatures and plants of every species in our caring community. Pentecost must be a re-realization of our connectedness with our Creator, one another, and our planet. Our Pentecost must carry the message of inclusivity to all who are willing to hear.
Albert Einstein said,
A human being is apart of the whole called by us universe, apart limited in time and space. [We] experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of our consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Al Gore said, "And just as the false assumption that we are not connected to the earth has led to the ecological crisis, so the equally false assumption that we are not connected to each other has led to our social crisis. " I say with Speth that these two crises are interconnected. Shaffer and Anundsen in their book Creating Community Anywhere say "#y opening to grace, your small community will heal and thrive. And by providing a model for others, you will also serve the planetary community, enabling it, your greater body, to heal and thrive. " (p. 325)
If we believe that we are a "Pentecostal" community, a community infused with the Holy Spirit, then we must heed the call to share with one another, not only spiritually, but by living interdependently. What are the works the Spirit is calling us to now in the life of this community? How can we share our lives and our wealth more, so that all may live more abundantly" How will God's grace shine out more clearly through our community so others may say, as they did about the early Christians, "See how they love one another!" How can 8th Day contribute to the healing of our fragile community which is our planet earth? These are big questions. Are we up to the challenge of doing works "greater than these" which Jesus promised us?
Questions for 8th Day to Ponder
What are the "fruits" of the Spirit in 8th Day?
Whose "tongues" need to be heard more in our community"
Where is the "fire" in our lives, the passion to forge new pathways in response to the movement of the Spirit?
How can we be the visible sign of God's action in the world today through our 8th Day community?