Acts 2:1-21
Given on Pentecost, 2019
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 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. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.” But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 16 No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
A few weeks ago, while bemoaning the sorry state of my chef’s knife, Jennifer Smith suggested that I take it to a lady she knows who sharpens knives in Birmingham. She told me the lady had a booth at the Market at Pepper Place. Now, I should say that I had heard whispers of this Pepper Place since I moved to Trussville but I had no idea where it was or really even what it was. Now, if you’ve never been, it’s quite a sight to behold. In addition to being where near as I can tell everyone in Birmingham goes on Saturday mornings, there are also vendors of all kinds. There are folks who make local art and folks who make local cheesecake. (You don’t have to imagine which booth my boys made a beeline for!) There is jewelry and coffee and cheese and something called Pudding Amore Gourmet Banana pudding which I can only imagine tastes heavenly. And so, yesterday, we all loaded up and went to Pepper Place and after getting my knife sharpened, which, by the way, knife sharpening for $5 is a great deal, and after my boys had sampled the aforementioned cheesecake and Lesley had tried and procured some halloumi and gouda. I focused in on Pepper Place’s actual purpose, that of being a farmers market. And I found some beautiful bib lettuce and Japanese Eggplant and green tomatoes for frying and peaches. And all returned home happy.
One of the things that happens if you spend anytime going to farmers markets is that you see the process of growing plants much more up close and personal. You can meet the farmers, hear about their products, see the sweat and toil and permanently calloused hands that they possess. Moreover, you can see the dedication and joy that they have to raising a good crop and feeding the folks to whom they sale their lettuce or tomatoes of eggplants. You see much more intimately than you do in a grocery store the process for taking something to seed, nurturing it, making sure the ground is in a good condition to receive the plant, protecting it, and finally harvesting it. In the produce section we get our tomatoes for the week trying to make sure we don’t get one of the ones that has been sitting in the little tomato area for too long and only if we pay attention do we know even what country they came from. We buy our carrots and they are already cleaned and peeled and, if you are like my family, whittled down into little baby carrots. Our peaches, likely either too hard or too mushy and harvested at some point in the past only to come and dwell in the peach bin at the Publix. My point being, when one sees the grower and their products brought to market largely in their harvested condition, we get much more the sense of both where our food comes from and the hands that have grown it. You get to see the folks who were present when the miracle of life happens again and anew and the labors of their life come to fruition and the ground births something new into the world. Something brought about not by chance, not by random happenstance, but something where the creative powers of the Divine Spirit of God come together with people who are willing to allow the spirit to move through them until what is left is miraculous and beautiful and holy. The book of Acts tells us a similar story and in our scripture for this morning we see the birthing of the church into the world and the earliest followers of Jesus who were willing to allow the spirit to set the whole of the world on fire with a fire that will never, ever be extinguished.
We are told that after the resurrection of Christ, after he had spent time with them, after he had taught them about the scriptures and of his fulfilling them in his life, death, and new life, after he had returned to the Divine essence from whence he had come, the disciples returned to Jerusalem filled with Joy and going to the Temple each day to offer prayer and praise to God. And just before he had returned to God, Jesus told them of a final gift that he was giving them— the gift of one who would advocate for them, the gift of a spirit that blows where she will yet always moves folks back to God, the gift of a conduit between God the creator and the people of God, the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so, in addition to preparing themselves each day by returning to the Temple and praying, they began to wait. And as we all know, waiting can be tough. It can be hard to know that something is coming in the future and yet not know when it will arrive. And so as the disciples gathered all together in one place, there is no indication whatsoever that they know that something so powerful is about to take place. Yet, we are told that in an instant, a might rushing wind blew through the whole of their little room and filled the whole of the space. Yet not like any wind that we have ever experienced because we are told that it filled the entirety of the house where they were staying. And then it happened, tongues of fire appeared in the room and came to each one present and rested on each one present and all that had existed before that moment was blown away by the wind and consumed by the flame until the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit and could no longer contain the gospel that each had found dwelling in the center of their souls.
And that must have been a moment of sheer chaos as they began to speak, each in new dialects, new languages. These are folks who were uneducated. These were folks whose accents betrayed their rural and pastoral upbringing in the countryside of Galilee. And yet, when they opened their mouth the spirit erupted and they could overcome the language barriers that had existed only moments before. And because this was Pentecost, the festival of weeks, Shavuot, in Hebrew, the festival of the harvesting of wheat, the city of Jerusalem was packed with faithful Jews and merchants from throughout the known world. It would have been a time when to go through the marketplace would have been to experience some much broken Hebrew brought together with all manner of other languages as folks tried to sell their wheat to the highest bidder and folks from other countries tried to speak in a language they could understand and it must have been utter chaos. And it was into that chaos that the spirit casts these newly inspired earliest followers of Jesus. It was into that chaos that the disciples faithfully opened their mouths and allowed the spirit to speak through them and say the thing that each one in their midst needed to hear that they might believe. And at first, their voices must have just been drowned out by the hustle and bustle and rosetta stone of languages that was already taking place, because upon hearing the men speak, some just assumed that they had started in on the new wine a little early in the day. But then Peter stands up and among them and you know, God love Peter. David Perry will tell you that Peter is the most relatable person in all of scripture. Peter stands up and reassures the men now surrounding him that the disciples are not drunk…for it is only 9:00 and then it happens. Peter, himself filled with the Holy Sprit, is transformed in front of our very eyes. He is transformed from the simple country fisherman. Transformed from the guy who couldn’t wait to walk out on the water with Jesus until he found himself sinking in it. Transformed from the guy who was terrified of the little servant girl in the courtyard of the high priest while Jesus is being tried. He was transformed into the rock upon which the church would be founded. He was transformed into the mouthpiece of the Divine for the people of Jerusalem and all those within the sound of his voice. He was transformed into the guy who brought Tabitha from death to life. He was transformed into the healer, the leader, the bearer of the light of Christ into a darkened world. And just like that, in the middle of a bustling marketplace where there is little doubt that not everyone was listening to him, in and amongst Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs, to all those he spoke the gospel of Jesus Christ and the church was born.
And it continues to be born again and anew in countless moments in history and in countless moments in our everyday lives. Just as new crops are birthed into this world with each new growing season, just as the little sprouts push their way through the muck and the mire and the dirt of the world to experience the wonder of new life, just as seeds return to the ground the next generation begins to arise, so, too is the church birthed into this world, this moment, and this one, and this one. And we can know this. And we can trust this. And we can believe this because look at what comes next. From that moment, Christianity began to spread throughout the empire into every city and town, every village and hamlet. Within 300 years or so, it would become the official state religion for the Empire. Then would come the desert fathers and the mystical mothers, Augustine and the City of God, Aquinas and the natural law, Anselm and the faith that seeks understanding. Then Martin Luther would stand and say, “Here I am I can do no other,” and the Reformation of the church, led by a group of folks derisively called “Protestants.” The church is born and again anew each time anyone, any group works for greater justice, wholeness, and dignity. It is born again and anew when anyone, any group lets go and allows the same spirit that blew through that room 2 millennia ago to go where she will today. It is born again and anew anytime when anyone, any group sows seeds of peace when the drums of war are roaring, hope when all anyone can see or hear is despair, love when cycles of hatred spin unabated. And we can see that birth taking place a new and again in our midst today as right here in this very place Eleanor Rayne Humphreys arose out of the waters of baptism signifying the love of God present in her life from the first moment to the last. Like fresh sprigs growing a tree as old as time we are reminded of our own baptisms, our own reemergence into the world, our own moments of newness and holiness and wholeness. Eleanor is born a new into this world to go and do things and dream dreams and have visions that we can’t even imagine. She is born again and anew into this church where we have promised her to take care of her, to teach her about Jesus and what will she be called to do in this world Where will she plays her one grain of spiritual sand in order to bring about a greater supply of goodness and mercy, of hope and passion in the world that needs all of that and more. She is, as we all are, a little explosion of God’s grace and a gift to the world and we are truly blessed to play even a tiny role in her life.
On this day when we remember and we celebrate the emergence of the Holy Spirt in the world, when we mark the birth of the church some two thousand years ago, what new place is the church called to be birthed into now? Where is this church called to move courageously into the world? Where is the 1 inch of in faith that we might step out and allow the spirit the first blew through that upper room and that fire the first a’lit the world and the light in the darkness that the darkness can never ever overcome to move through us this morning? When the Holy Spirit touched the disciples they quite literally could no longer contain the love of God flowing through them and they were immediately able to reach people right where they were. They were able to bridge the gaps that language and culture and society so often place between folks. They were able to tear down the old edifices of the world that all might be united in Christ Jesus. And they were able to do all that because God’s love overcame. Sisters and brothers, in our time and in our place, let’s be overcome with love, then lets flow out into the streets, being Christ’s hands and feet for the least of these right in our midsts, regardless of their language or skin color, regardless of their culture or class, regardless of their creed. Let’s be Christ’s hands and feet to everyone we meet. Glory be to God in the highest and on earth peace amongst all God’s peoples, Alleluia, Amen.
Image: Art by Laura Reddick-Reichert, hanging in the narthex of Cahaba Springs Presbyterian Church