Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
May 31, 2009

Scripture:

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

It’s one of those all too familiar stories. The earliest disciples of Jesus are gathered together in one place. And we’re not talking the Louisiana Superdome here. All together in one place means a very small place, no more than a small room in a small house. That’s all there was in those days except for the very rich, and the disciples weren’t very rich. So when the evangelist we know as Luke, the author of Acts, tells us that the disciples were all together in one place he’s telling us that there weren’t very many of them. Probably not as many as there are of us here this morning. In any event it’s a very small group, and we can infer some other things about the group. The one they had followed, the one in whom they had believed, the one to whom they had devoted their lives has been crucified by the Romans. But then he rose from the dead, and they had seen him and talked with him. Then he had been taken away from them up into heaven. At least, that’s the way Luke tells the story. They have chosen Matthias to replace the traitor Judas. I imagine that they are scared, puzzle and perplexed. Surely they were sitting around wondering: What now? What are we supposed to do? Are we supposed to do anything? Should we just break up and go home? How can we do anything else? He’s gone. We’re alone. We’re a small group of ordinary people, of no particular account in the world. Surely we have no future. We might as well pack it in.

Maybe that’s reading too much into Luke’s bare bones story, but one thing we can be pretty sure about. They weren’t doing anything to invoke the Holy Spirit. Luke doesn’t even say they were praying. He just says they were all together in one place. That’s when it happened. The Holy Spirit descended upon them. It sounded like the wind and looked like tongues of flame. It touched each one of them, the women and the men alike. It touched them and it filled them. It filled them and it transformed them. It not only gave them the ability to speak languages they couldn’t speak before—after all, they were only a bunch of backwater, ignorant Galileans who couldn’t be expected to know foreign languages—it also told them what to say. Luke says those who heard them heard them speaking of “God’s deeds of power.” We can understand that to mean God’s deeds of power in Jesus Christ, the power of his life, his deeds, his teachings, his death, and his resurrection. They spoke new languages and they spoke new words of the Good News of Jesus Christ. They hadn’t asked for, but the Holy Spirit found them and transformed them. They and those who came after them then went out and transformed the world.

Which is all very well and good, I suppose. But this story is about something that happened almost two thousand years ago to some people of the ancient world in a place very far away, a world, a time, and a place very different from ours. So we could, if we wanted to, think of this story as just that, an interesting story perhaps but one that hardly has anything to do with us. We could think about it that way if we wanted, but consider this. As I have said here many times, the power of the great Bible stories is that they aren’t just about something that happened to someone else a long time ago in a place far away. They are about us. That’s why the Bible, that collection of diverse writings the newest of which is something like 1,900 years old, still has the power that it does. It is living document that can teach and inspire people like us, people so vastly different from the people for whom it’s various writings were originally written. So we ask: What does this ancient story, the story of Jesus’ first disciples on that ancient Pentecost day, have to say to us here today? And I’m sure it won’t surprise you that I think it has a great deal to say to us here today.

We too are a small group of people. We may be a bit larger than that original group on Pentecost, but I imagine we aren’t a lot bigger. And like those first disciples on that first Christian Pentecost we don’t spend a lot of time invoking the Holy Spirit. We may say “God Is Still Speaking”, but we aren’t Pentecostalists. We don’t expect the Holy Spirit to descend on us and cause us to speak in tongues the way some Christians do. So even though we live in a very different world from the world of this story, we have some things in common with those disciples about whom Luke writes. We’re small, and we aren’t sitting around expecting the Holy Spirit to descend upon is in some dramatic way. But we have one more thing in common with them. The Holy Spirit came to them, and the Holy Spirit has come to us. If some of you people who are newer to the church don’t believe that, ask some of the longer time members. Or ask even me, and I’ve only been here seven years. In those seven years we’ve done things some of us never thought we could do and none of us knew how to do. The Holy Spirit renewed, inspired, and invigorated those first disciples so long ago, and the Holy Spirit has renewed, inspired, and invigorated this little church too. If someone who knew what we were seven years ago but had been away since then came back today, they wouldn’t recognize the place. We’re twice the size we were. We are alive with children when before there were none. The life of the congregation is filled with opportunities for learning and for service. We have an active ecumenical partnership with the churches down the street. We’ve raised the money to replace the roof on the sanctuary (or very nearly), and before we didn’t even know if we could raise the money to keep the doors open. We’re still small, but then so was that first group of disciples. Like them we have been touched and led by the Holy Spirit into new energy and new life.

But here’s the thing. The Holy Spirit has done much work with us, but the Holy Spirit is not done with us. The Holy Spirit didn’t leave those first disciples after the dramatic events of that Pentecost day, and the Holy Spirit isn’t about to leave us at this point in our life together either. Of that I have no doubt. I am convinced that we have much more work to do together. We have more seekers to encourage, more outcasts to welcome, more families of every description to embrace, more troubled souls to comfort, more lives to celebrate, more people in need to help. We have more worship to strengthen us, more music to inspire us, more fellowship to delight us, more learning to deepen our faith, more questions to stimulate our minds. We even have things to do that we haven’t even thought of yet. And it’s not just we who have those things to do. The Holy Spirit has them to do too, and the Holy Spirit intends to do them through us. Again, of that I have no doubt.

Our tradition calls Pentecost the birthday of the church. It’s not specifically the birthday of this church, but never mind. I say: Happy birthday to us. Happy birthday to this church that welcomes strangers like no other group of people I have ever known. Happy birthday to this church that proclaims God’s unconditional welcome for all people, most of all those whom the world and so many other churches say are not welcome. Happy birthday to this church that welcomes questions, encourages inquiry, and doesn’t require anyone to check their brains at the church door. Happy birthday to this church, a church that I am convinced many, many more people would flock to if they just knew about us. If everyone in Sky Valley knew about us, we’d have to buy land and build a new church building to accommodate all the people who would run to us. Again, of that I have no doubt.

On that first Christian Pentecost the disciples began to preach the Gospel to people who had never heard it before. When they did they changed their world. Not overnight, but they and the Holy Spirit changed it indeed. We can change ours too. We can change it for people who think Christianity isn’t for them because the only Christianity they know is narrow, judgmental, anti-intellectual, exclusivist, and preaches a violent God who demands the sacrifice of innocent blood before He—always He—will forgive sin. We can change it for people who think God has rejected them because of who they are or something they may have done. We can change the world for people who are isolated, lonely, and longing for community. Together with the Holy Spirit we can do all of that. We just need to get the word out.

So let’s be like those first disciples on that ancient Pentecost day. Let’s start proclaiming. Let’s start evangelizing. Not the way so much of Christianity does. Not with fear but with hope. Not with judgment but with welcome. Not with pat answers, not even with pat questions, but with invitation, encouragement, and support. The Holy Spirit’s not done with us. We aren’t done with the Holy Spirit. There’s work to do. Let’s get on with it. Amen.