Rev. Tom Sorenson, Pastor
June 12, 2011

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.

I don’t know about you, but it has taken me a long time to come to appreciate the significance of Pentecost. I’ve known the story of Pentecost for many years of course. We just heard it. The story is set fifty days after Passover, on a Jewish feast day called Pentecost. Jesus’ disciples, being faithful Jews, are gathered together to celebrate. Then, with a sound like a violent wind and the appearance of tongues as of flame, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the very Spirit of God, descends upon them. It gives them the ability to speak foreign languages that they couldn’t speak before. It reminds me of an old joke. A woman breaks her hand and says to her doctor Doc, will I be able to play the piano after my hand heals? The doctor says yes, I see no reason why you shouldn’t be able to do that. The woman says That’s strange. I couldn’t play it before I broke my hand. These disciples couldn’t speak any language but Aramaic before the Holy Spirit descended upon them, but afterwards they could. They can speak essentially all of the numerous languages of the peoples of the eastern Mediterranean and of Rome. They are so giddy with enthusiasm, so literally inspired, that is, in-Spirited, that people thought they were drunk. Peter has to tell the crowd that had gathered no, they aren’t drunk, “for it is only nine o’clock in the morning.” Which always makes me want to add Give us time. We’ll get there. We’re just not there yet because it’s too early. It’s a remarkable story, a wonderful story.

Pentecost, the day when we remember and celebrate this story, has for a long time been called the birthday of the church; and maybe it occurs to you to ask, as it has often occurred to me to ask, why? Why do we call Pentecost the birthday of the church? I mean, we think of the church as the people who are Christ’s disciples gathered together, and the first disciples already were gathered together without the Holy Spirit descending on them. So why is Pentecost called the birthday of the church?

Pentecost is the birthday of the church, I think, because when we think of the church as being merely people who self-identify as Christians gathered together we’re missing something. We’re leaving something out. People who consider themselves Christians gathered together precisely as Christians is one thing that makes the Christian church the church. It is one thing that distinguishes the church from, say, the Kiwanis Club. But when the Christian tradition calls Pentecost the birthday of the church it is pointing to the reality that Christians gathered together are not really and fully the church until the Holy Spirit is gathered with them. Christians gathered together are the church when they feel the presence of the Holy Spirit among them. Christians gathered together are the church when they are filled with the Spirit, when they are moved by the Spirit, when the Spirit enlivens them, when the Spirit transforms them, when the Spirit sends them out into the world to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to build the Kingdom of God, to transform the world from the way it is to the way God dreams it can be. A bunch of Christians sitting around, even sitting in church, not feeling anything and not doing anything in response to the call of the Spirit aren’t really the church. They’re just a bunch of people sitting around saying “we’re Christians.” They may be Christians, but if that’s all they’re doing they are not the Christian church.

Being the church means being filled with the Spirit. Being church means being so filled with the Holy Spirit that you just can’t keep it all inside. You have to shout it from the rooftops. Being church means being so filled with the Holy Spirit that you positively burn with the love of God and a passion to serve God’s people. Being church means being so filled with the Holy Spirit that you absolutely must sing and dance and shout for joy. Yes, I know that’s not really the Congregational way. We may sing some, but we aren’t much into dancing and shouting. More is the pity. If we really felt that Holy Spirit among us anything like the way those disciples did on that first Christian Pentecost, we wouldn’t be able to stop ourselves from doing those very un-Congregationalist things.

That’s what Pentecost was for those first disciples as they tried to figure out what to do now that Jesus was gone. The crowd that gathered at the sound of the wind didn’t know what to make of it. They tried to relate it to the ordinary experiences of their lives. The closest they could come was to say that the disciples were drunk. They couldn’t explain what was happening in ordinary words because the coming of the Holy Spirit isn’t an ordinary experience. Yes, God is always present with us; but the Pentecost experience is a peak experience in which the presence of God the Holy Spirit becomes so much more real, so much more alive, than it is for most of us most of the time. Ordinary words won’t capture. Luke, the author of Acts, doesn’t say there was a great wind. He says there was a sound like a great wind. He doesn’t say there were tongues of flame. He says there were tongues as of flame. Simile was the best he could do because the experience of the coming of the Holy Spirit is an experience of God, and our human words can never capture God.

Being church means being touched by holy flame. So let try something. I’ve already done it some with the kids earlier. I invite you to close your eyes. Now listen. Do you hear it? It’s a sound like the wind. It starts faint, like the sound of one of our trains that you hear in the distance. It’s getting louder. It’s getting louder. It is filling this whole space. It sounds like a hurricane but it doesn’t destroy anything. It just fills our space with sound.

Now, do you feel it? On the top of your head. Something touching. It’s warm. Really warm, but it doesn’t burn you. You feel the warmth on your head, then you feel warmth spreading down your head, down your neck, into your shoulders and your arms, into your lungs and your stomach. down your legs, into your feet, into your toes. It’s warm. Really warm. It’s physical. It’s in your gut. It’s in your heart. Warmth. Fire. Passion. You haven’t felt like this before. It feels good. Really good. As your body fills with heat your heart fills with joy. You want to leap up and shout for joy! You want to sing! You want to dance! You know that nothing can harm you, and you have no fear. You know that nothing can harm you, and you feel no pain. You’ve been touched by the fire of God, warmed, inspired, empowered.

So if you feel like jumping up and shouting, please. Jump up and shout. If you feel like dancing in the aisles, please. Jump up and dance. If you feel like shouting out for joy, please. Shout out for joy. It’s Pentecost. The Holy Spirit has come upon us. The Holy Spirit is among us as we gather, making us Christ’s church. Happy birthday to us. Amen.