Languages of Fire...

I relied heavily on the work of Scott Hoezee, Bruce Epperly, D. Mark Davis and Brian Peterson for this week's sermon. What follows is by no means the only way to look at the events of the Day of Pentecost or the work of the Holy Spirit in the world.

That's kinda the point... there are an inexhaustible number of ways that God moves in the world, and that we can and do experience the Holy Spirit.

Acts 2:1-21

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?” 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. 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.’”

This is the Word of the Lord.

In the New Testament, it is only the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts which divide Jesus’ resurrection, his ascension to Heaven, and the giving of the Holy Spirit into three distinct events. For example, the Gospel of John puts Jesus’ resurrection and the giving of the Holy Spirit on the same day, and without the rushing wind and tongues of flame.

For the writer of the Gospel of John, the Holy Spirit is the Advocate, the continuing and comforting presence of Jesus with the church, and the source of peace. The Apostle Paul also writes quite extensively about the Holy Spirit throughout his Epistles, and for him the Holy Spirit is that which unites us to Christ, makes us into his body, and gives particular gifts to each person for the sake of the community.

For the writer of the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, the Spirit is the power of God, the mighty burning wind that blows the church into new and unexpected places of ministry.

It is through these disparate views of the Person of the Holy Spirit that we gain important insight into the breadth and depth and reach of the love of God. The Holy Spirit isn’t one-dimensional. God has not left us with powerless comfort, or comfortless advocacy, or a community without purpose and direction. The Holy Spirit is our Advocate, the presence of Jesus with the church, the source of peace, our unity in the Body of Christ, the author and power behind the gifts of that body, the fuel that fires the church into ministry in new and unexpected places and ways.

In the Gospel of John, the Holy Spirit is given in a gentle manner; Jesus breathes on his disciples. In Acts, that breath is violent, a tornado, a wind carrying cloven tongues of fire. All this violence, the roar of the wind, but what the people outside that room hear isn’t that cacophony… No one says, “hey, what is that windy sound?” No, the response is, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language… we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power…What does this mean?”

That’s right. The power of God reveals itself to them in words. Languages.

I am simply offering a thought here, but you know how we generally interpret the phrase “tongues of fire” to be a descriptive term, painting for us a picture of how the Holy Spirit looked as it was given to the one hundred and twenty people in that place? Well, is it not true that the word “tongues,” in both the original Greek and in our own English, means “languages?”

Think for a moment of what this means: gathered in Jerusalem, for the feast of Pentecost, are people from all across the known world: Parthians, Medes, Elamites, folks from Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, visitors from Rome, Cretans and Arabs…

Some of these folks had been born Jewish, some had converted to Judaism, and it is entirely possible that these visitors from Rome, among others, weren’t Jewish at all. Even for those who shared a common belief in the one true and living God, there were different experiences, background, cultures, beliefs… fertile ground for misinterpretation and offense and exclusion, divisions and differences...

And the voice of God spoke to them all.

The mighty breath of God, the wind of the Holy Spirit drove the message out from that world and into the streets!

And it was, of all people, Peter – the very one who denied Christ three times – who finally stood before that astonished, amazed, perplexed crowd (which was not free of detractors, by the way, people who passed off what was happening as the ramblings of drunkards) and answered their questions – who spoke the word of God from the prophet Joel.

And what a word, for them and for us!

“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.”

On the day that Jesus died on the cross, the veil of the Temple was torn from top to bottom, and the most secretive portion of the Temple, the Most Holy Place, was laid bare, open to any and all who wished to look, wished to enter therein. The sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf opened the way for each of us, for anyone, to, in the words of the Apostle Paul, “boldly approach the throne of grace.”

And while it is a fact that Jesus is the way, the truth, the life, and that no one comes to God except through Christ, what Peter makes clear to us all in his invocation of the prophet Joel is that Jesus is no more one-dimensional than any other Person of the Trinity. There are a multitude of expressions of the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Everyone can experience God! All are invited to healing and salvation.  The paths to experiencing God are myriad: some dream, others see visions, still others ecstatically share God’s wisdom.  No age, sexual, racial, cultural or economic community is left out of in this lively democracy of the spirit.  The Holy Spirit invites all to say “yes” in the dynamic call and response of God and humankind.

Pentecost is an eschatological event, a God-given turning point for the world. The promised new time has begun, and this new age is one not only of God’s power but also of God’s grace, and that it is intended for the whole world.

In the book of Genesis, the story is told of how humanity tried to build a tower that would reach to God. Humanity tried to mount up to God and fell into confusion as a result. But that was not because God did not want fellowship with humans. God did not confuse the languages of humans, did not frustrate the people at Babel because God just can't stand human company. God's ultimate goal, as a matter of fact, is to have fellowship with us. To get that goal, God eventually became human himself! The problem at Babel was that this storming of heaven was being done in an arrogant way and on human terms alone.

The gospel shows us what can happen when God, on God's own terms of humility and grace, brings heaven down to us. God himself snuck down the back staircase of history to deposit a baby into a manger one starry night long ago. In humility, not pride, the Son of God built his own reverse tower from heaven to earth not so that we could claw and climb and sweat and toil our way up but so that God could come down. What happened on Pentecost was another example of this same movement: since we cannot get to heaven, heaven comes to us. And in those tongues, those languages, of fire which blew down from Heaven, Babel is reversed! Instead of being scattered, people from all across the known world were brought together, are brought together! Instead of confusion, a gospel clarity comes. Instead of being a maddening barrier, the multiplicity of languages is transcended so that the same message gets through to everyone.

The Holy Spirit of Pentecost was poured out for so many reasons. The Spirit now gives us gifts and talents, provides us with our life's callings in whatever vocation and work we pursue. The Spirit animates our every worship service. The Spirit is behind every note played on the guitar, behind every lyric we sing out of the hymnal, behind every word you've ever heard me speak from this pulpit.

The Spirit keeps faith alive even when our bodies are dying, allowing even the gravely ill to testify to the hope that is within them. The Spirit touches us at the graveside of a loved one, allowing us somehow and against all odds to say the Apostles' Creed and to believe it when we say, despite the casket in front of us, that we really do believe in "the resurrection of the body." The Spirit pours itself out at the baptismal font and stays with our baptized children even in those far countries where the prodigal sons and daughters sometimes travel. And when one of those wandering sheep returns to the fold, there is never any doubting that the Holy Spirit led this one back home.

The Holy Spirit of Pentecost does all of that and more. But let us not forget the very first effect this Spirit had: the Spirit of God brought people together, allowed a common understanding of the same gospel among people who were very different from one another.

We live in a fiercely partisan and divisive age.   It seems that finding “wedge issues” that divide people has become something of a cottage industry in the United States. Too often we Christian people are part and parcel of all that, absorbing the divisive rhetoric of talking heads and consuming as a kind of latter day “bread and circuses” the shouting matches that pass for intelligent conversation on talk radio and cable news stations. We seem to enjoy such things these days. We seem to revel in divisiveness. We try and try and try to draw the circle tighter, to exclude and limit and categorize and ignore.

May I suggest that maybe Pentecost tells us that the Holy Spirit that dwells within us is opposed to the forces of division and animosity. The Holy Spirit unmade the chaos of Babel and calls us to be unified, not divided. This Holy Spirit is the very Spirit through which Jesus Christ brings true peace in chaotic times and true calm to hearts that have every right to be troubled. That Holy Spirit gives to all who believe a Life, a Liveliness, and unity and a calm that really does pass all understanding.

More than that this Spirit who arrived on a screaming, uncontrollable torrent of wind is alive and moving even today, in amazing and unpredictable ways still insisting on drawing the circle wide, on including and accepting and welcoming and loving, on bringing the Good News of new life in Christ, of relationship with the God of grace and love, the compassionate Creator, to everyone.

And that is more than sufficient reason, on Pentecost Sunday but also at all times and even forevermore, to say “Thanks be to God.”