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Sunday May 11, 2008 "Changing Course" Acts 2:1-42 |
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Location: Blogs Brad's BlogBrad's Sermons |
 | | Posted by: Brad Miller | 5/12/2008 10:35 AM | I sometimes wonder why we don’t do more with Pentecost. What I mean by that is, why isn’t Pentecost a bigger holiday? The civic culture here in the United States, Christian and non-Christian alike, has come to accept Christmas and Easter as worthy of extended celebration. At Christmas, government offices even shut down and take it as a national holiday.
I do understand that the birth and the resurrection of our savior are big, big events: but why isn’t the birth of our savior’s church a big event? It is after all, the continuation of his ministry. It is the advent of what Jesus promised his disciples, the coming of the Holy Spirit to comfort, to empower, to guide. Isn’t what happened on that first Pentecost worthy of more?
Sure, we decorate the sanctuary and we wear red, but do we really grasp all that happened that day so many years ago? If we did, I think we would anticipate Pentecost much like we do Christmas and Easter.
Let’s start with the easiest part of all of this to grasp. Today we celebrate the anniversary of the birth of the church. Without Pentecost, without the rushing wind and the tongues of fire and the spirit led uniting of disparate cultures, without Peter’s bold statements of action, we would be not be here today.
I love birthdays. And even more than that, I love birthday stories. Birthdays are seminal events in our lives. They are not just for giving gifts and eating cake and wearing funny hats. They are about giving thanks for our very existence. They are about acknowledging that because we have been given this marvelous thing called life, the world has changed. They are about recognizing that when we each entered the world, someone else’s life changed course, dramatically.
On this mother’s day, I would put the question to every mother in this sanctuary: did your life change course after your child came into your life? Absolutely.
I never used to think too much about this. I have always been grateful to my mother and father for having me. I remember thanking my mother in law on Carol’s birthday for her precious gift to me. But, I never really spent a lot of time thinking about what changed when I was born.
The first time I really started to think about it was when my nephew was born some 24 years ago. My brother called me at home at about 6 in the morning and was just chatting. I finally said to him, “Hey, you didn’t call me at this hour to just chat. What’s going on?” “Oh, yeah,” he replied, “Kay had a baby boy this morning.” We chatted a while, he told me the baby’s name, David Bradley Miller, quickly followed by “Nobody else was doing anything good with that name, so we thought we would give it another try.” And then, more seriously, he said. “He’s really little…just like you were.”
That’s when it dawned on me. My brother, 5 and ½ years my senior, had concrete memories of the day I was born. I certainly had no recollection of the day, but he did. And so I asked him about it.
“Well, Daddy took us over to Grandma and Grandpa Conely’s house…it must have been a Saturday because Grandpa was home. He and I did some gardening in the back yard…he wore that pith helmet he used to wear outside. I remember we had grilled cheese for lunch and at some point, Grandma told Kay Lynn and me that we had a new baby brother. I asked what your name was, but she didn’t know.
Daddy came over that night for dinner and told us about you and we stayed there the next couple of days. When we went home we were so excited to see you.
When Mama carried you into the house, she laid you down in the middle of the dining room table and walked away to put up her stuff. I remember being terrified that you were suddenly going to roll right off the table and stood there with my arms outstretched ready to catch you if you fell.”
I was amazed. I had never heard any of this before. Later that day I called my mother and asked her about the day I was born. “What do you remember?” I asked. “Everything,” she replied.
“It was a Saturday,” she began, “and my cousin Irene was at our house giving me a home permanent when I started to go into labor. She and your dad rushed me to Highland Park General hospital and Dr. Jones met us there. When you were born you had really fine, curly hair and Irene told everyone that it was because I had been in the middle of a permanent just before you were born.”
And with the birth of her third child, my mother, and my father’s lives changed course once again.
When we celebrate birthdays, we are recognizing and celebrating the change of course that has taken place.
That is exactly what we celebrate with Christmas and the birth of Jesus, and with Easter and the resurrection of Jesus. And, I would argue, it is what we should celebrate with the birth of the church on Pentecost Sunday.
We know the story: lives were changed, attitudes were changed, history was changed, because of what happened that day. Gathered together to celebrate God’s goodness and abundance with the Pentecost harvest festival, the disciples of Jesus were unsure how to proceed. They knew what Jesus had promised, but like so much of what Jesus told them, they couldn’t be sure what was about to come. And so, like expectant parents, they waited: more than a little scared, full of anticipation, knowing full well that their lives were likely to change but having no earthly idea what that might look and feel like.
Then came the rushing wind and the fire like tongues that alighted on their heads. Suddenly they were in the streets speaking a cacophony of languages, languages unknown to them, but known to the gathered faithful. It must have sounded a lot like what happened at the tower of Babel with one important distinction: the language of Babel was the language of division; the language of Pentecost was the language of unity.
With a sense of urgency unlike anything he had ever felt before, Peter preached the sermon of his life. The Holy Spirit poured itself out on him and inaugurated the beginning of the “last days” as prophesied by the prophet Joel.
This is where the urgency comes from: the Spirit carried Jesus’ message of hope and liberation, but time was short. The last days had begun. The need to get the word out to all people was of paramount concern. They needed to know.
There are days, I am sure, when all of us wonder about all this last days stuff. C’mon, the last days? It’s been 2000 years, and nothing has happened. Why is this so important? Because without the purpose of preparing for the last days, the church would quickly become corrupted by self interest. The church needs a purpose, and it needs an urgent purpose: the salvation of humanity is at stake! Our purpose is clear, today, as well as back then: to make disciples of all the world.
And it all began on Pentecost.
The people responded: “What should we do?” In my mind, this is the single most important question the world will ever hear. It is not enough to simply understand that Jesus Christ is Lord, what should we do? What actions can we take? It’s not about liturgy rubrics or the proper way to pray. It’s not about activities that keep us busy, it’s about actions that serve God’s purpose. Ernest Hemingway once wrote, “Never confuse movement for action.” These people wanted to know what they could do, what action could they take.
Peter gave a response not rooted in grand theological precepts. Nor did he give a detailed outline of exactly what actions to take. “Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” And with that, 3000 people joined the church that day, energized by the Holy Spirit, changing the course of their lives, even though they didn’t yet know what the new course would look like.
What a birthday story! It is a story we should celebrate, not only because it marks this new beginning, this change in course, this new life, but because it fits with the most important stories of our faith traditions: Passover, Christmas, Easter.
Like each of these three, it is about changing course and new beginnings, but it is also about freedom and liberation, which is at the heart of our Christian faith.
At Passover, our Hebrew ancestors celebrate the new beginning marked by their liberation from the tyranny of the Pharaoh.
At Christmas, we celebrate the new beginning marked by the birth of the one who would ultimately liberate us from the tyranny of sin.
At Easter, we celebrate the new beginning marked by the resurrection of the messiah and our liberation from the tyranny of death.
At Pentecost, we celebrate the new beginning marked by the presence of the Holy Spirit among us and our liberation from the tyranny of fear.
It is a big day. It is a day we should celebrate. It is a day we should remember. It is a day we should share with others. Unfortunately, it is a day that we too often take for granted, seeing it as so far out of our realm of experience that we gloss over it and say, “well, yeah, this is when the church started, but, all this speaking in tongues and rushing wind and fire and mass conversions…well, I don’t get that.”
The fact is, it’s a story we need to try and “get” because it is central to understanding the work of the church in the world. It is about being open to things we do not understand, things that sound absolutely crazy to us. It is about putting aside our disbelief and experiencing what we know to be real.
About 3 weeks ago, I came across a story that illustrated this point very well. It is a story that touched me to my very core. It is a story of the tyranny of evil, a story of the triumph of the spirit, a story of liberation so wonderful that we scarce can take it in. It is a story we need to hear, and so I want to end with that story today. It is a story by Michael E. Williams and he uses as his starting point, Acts 2:4 – “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to talk in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them power of utterance.” It is called “The Power of the Tongue”
“To this very day she would tell you that they were angels, dressed in khaki and speaking in languages from the world to come. For a long time I thought my grandmother was off her rocker, if you know what I mean. Not that I blamed her after all she had been through…it was still weird though, these stories she would tell to a little kid.
She told stories of her village in the old country. Of her father teaching her the Holy Scriptures, even though she was a girl. Of the synagogue where they worshipped. Of the day the soldiers came to take them away.
All the people of the village, including my grandmother and her father, were packed into railroad cars so thightly that there was no room to sit and hardly room to breathe. When they arrived at the camp, my grandmother was sent with the women and her father with the men.
My grandmother told me that there was one man at the camp, a physician who was supposed to promote life and health, who, whenever he arrived in his white, starched lab coat, was referred to as “the angel of death.” His touch was death, his look was death, she would tell me. While other children grew up with ogres and trolls, the figure who appeared to me in nightmares was this angel of death.
Even those whom the angel of death passed over were underfed and overworked. They slept without mattress or covers on hard wooden bunks. “We looked like firewood stacked there waiting to be burned. In fact,” she said, “we were waiting for the angel of death to come and call our number; we were waiting to be burned. And they gave us no more consideration than a stick of wood. We were not human; we were fuel. We used to joke and ask if anyone knew why we didn’t celebrate Passover in the camps? The answer was that it was our blood over the doors and even that could not stop the angel of death. It was cruel joke – but true.”
By the time the end of the war came my grandmother was so weak that she could hardly get out of her bed. One day she saw a vision – angels dressed in khaki speaking in unknown tongues. Yet she understood every word. She thought at first she was hallucinating, because she understood what they were saying. The language they spoke was neither Yiddish nor any other language with which she was familiar. She heard freedom. She heard life.
“Some said they were American soldiers,” she told me, “but I say they were angels speaking in angelic tongues. When I tell my Christian friends about it,” she continued, “they say it was Pentecost. But for me it was another holy day. For me, Passover had finally come.”
As I grew up I decided that Nana was not crazy after all. In fact, she is the sanest person I know.”
Let us pray: Touch us, Lord, as Peter and others were touched on that first Pentecost. Help us to ask, “What are we to do?” and mean it. Liberate us from our disbelief and help us to never forget that your Holy Spirit came to empower us and to remind us that with you, all things are possible. Amen. | | | Permalink | Trackback |
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