Freedom to be Filled

Acts 2:1-21 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 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. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. 5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power."

12 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.” 14 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. 15 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: 17 '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. 18 Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. 

19 And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. 20 The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day. 21 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

INTRO

This morning, we conclude our worship series, "The Cup of Freedom." Throughout the Easter Season, we have explored how the resurrection of our Lord calls us to respond by moving into a culture of freedom as the cross liberates us. We explored how we are freed to step into Christ’s resurrection and live as people of the resurrection. On Easter Sunday, we began by exploring our freedom to move forward, to encounter God where we are, and to share God’s love with all we encounter, for God’s story continues to unfold all around us. Next, we explored our Freedom to Follow as we named both our differing ways of getting there and our freedom to let go of our failures and shortcomings as we follow after Jesus. 

Then, we explored our freedom to rise again and found that we must lay aside our preferences, understandings, plans, and judgment. We must lay aside how we have always done things and, at times, even our Biblical interpretation, as we trust God to raise us to new life in Jesus Christ. We explored our freedom to heal as we acknowledged the need for an honest process of healing, where we reclaim God’s vision for our lives and live into who God has called us to be. Last week, we explored our freedom to open our hearts, minds, and passions to God’s call, so we can fully engage in the Spirit-led work of Christ in the world. This week, we conclude our sermon series, 'The Freedom to Be Filled.'

Wind, fire, and chaos as each person began to speak in languages other than their own. This moment in church history has always wowed me. It makes me think about what it looks like, in today’s day and age, to be filled with freedom. In a church tradition that has been around for 295 years, in a denomination that is old enough to have denominational archives, liturgy, and structure, in a church that has its cultured way of being in the world, in our structured lives where chaos is frowned upon, Pentecost might seem a bit strange.

Maybe that’s why it is briefly celebrated on the seventh Sunday after Easter, and as quickly as it comes, it fades off into the sunset. Such an essential moment in the life of the church is celebrated just long enough to see the red paraments for one Sunday before they are stored back in the cabinet until next year. We celebrate Christmas and Easter longer than we celebrate Pentecost. Why is this? Maybe it's because we often make Pentecost about us. It's hard to read this text about the power of God filling the masses, as our sanctuary isn’t even half-filled, and we find ourselves asking what has happened!

Or maybe it is because we hear about this rushing wind, and the idea of that kind of energy is draining for those of us who struggle to get out of bed, get dressed on time, and make it to worship on this Pentecost Sunday. I imagine the energy of Pentecost in the embodied form is like the 2-year-old who is wide awake at 4:30 in the morning, ready to watch TV, play with trains, and demands you match their energy level. We come to Pentecost Sunday thinking: We don’t have that kind of energy anymore! This leaves us a bit cynical. “God, can we really live out this vision you have given us? Does the church really need to change? Do I really have to put effort into getting to know someone else?”

Pentecost has always been met with a bit of cynicism. Anything new is met with cynicism. Thankfully, God works among cynical people! Peter reminds those who think the disciples were drunk that God’s spirit chooses whom God wills, regardless of age, gender, or even social class. That God through the Holy Spirit gathers up the young and old, the sons and daughters, the slaves, and in Christ that which divides (class, age, sexual orientation, skin color) is lifted up in such a way that it brings about unity instead of division.

Some are moved to an honest inquiry under the Spirit’s influence, and others mock and scoff at that divine manifestation of God made known through the spoken word. Those who mocked the sacred spoke of the holy in secular and profane ways. “They are filled with new wine.” Why do they do this? Because seeing God reach across the boundary lines that we have drawn as “hard lines in the sand” makes us cynical people! 

The miracle of Pentecost is that a community, comprising both receptive and non-receptive people, gathers to witness the beginning of a community being broken open by the sheer act of God. We are still trying to comprehend the extent to which God acts and is acting to break us open.  God’s gracious work cannot be contained, as the winds of the Spirit are not just powerful but also uncontrollable.

Pentecost is a display of power; it is a moment of divine power that is used to signify the full presence of the Spirit, and it does so through the usage of language. Willie Jennings, in his commentary on Acts, says this: “We must not draw back from what is being displayed in Luke’s account. This is God touching, taking hold of tongue and voice, mind, heart, and body. This is a joining, unprecedented, unanticipated, unwanted, yet complete joining. Those gathered in prayer asked for power. They may have asked for the Holy Spirit to come, but they did not ask for this. This is real grace, untamed grace. It is the grace that replaces our fantasies of power over people with God’s fantasy for desire for people.”

The Spirit is at work connecting people with the mission and passion of Jesus Christ through the intimate spaces of voice, memory, sound, body, land, and place, for it is our differing languages that run through these things.  For example, everyone quickly finds out that Brosville is not called “bro’s-ville.” Speaking someone's language brings one of the most intimate connecting points; speaking a language is speaking a people, and there is a connection and relationality that occurs. Surely, this is not what the disciples imagined when they were told to wait prayerfully. This kind of power from the Holy Spirit, this kind of ability, means ongoing submission. Dr. Jennings wrote, “To learn a language requires submission to a people.”

God wants us to hear, to sit with, to “speak the language” of others that we might all be convicted to repentance, that we might all know that we are loved and valued by God.  That God might break down the walls of division “Jew, Greek, Young, Old, Straight, Gay, Black, White” But first we have to submit ourselves to hearing the stories and getting to know the language of the others around us who look different than us.

One commentary notes this about the Christian Pentecost:  “At the Jewish Pentecost, God wrote His Law on tablets of stone for Israel’s moral government. At the Christian Pentecost, He wrote His moral laws on hearts of flesh for the moral government of mankind. The former was external; the latter was internal. The former was legal; the latter was spiritual.”

To walk in the Spiritual realm means that one can trace the working of the Holy Spirit’s movements throughout time. If we are honest, every Church begins in a Pentecost Moment. They’ve heard the cry of the community, and God has stirred within them a passion for Justice!! Yet, the gift of the Spirit must be sought anew often…in order to keep moving where God is calling that group of people to go.

 Saint Luke’s for example, was aware of the need to pivot to a different way of doing Church. An article from 1989 says, “With congregations older and smaller with each year, Calvary, Sledd Memorial, and Piney Forrest Merged April 1st, 1988 into one numerically and financially stronger group: Saint Luke’s United Methodist Church. A new facility was planned - one that would attract younger people…we have to offer them something different than what we were offering in the 50’s and 60’s.”  

Then in 1991, another article said, “The hungry and the homeless are stretching the capabilities of American Cities, a national survey reported this week. Fortunately, that’s not the case in Danville, at least it won’t be on Christmas Day, when about 5000 are expected at the downtown Farmer’s Market for a free holiday dinner sponsored by St. Luke’s United Methodist Church.”

Then, in 1995, the church had a certificate of use and occupancy that included a Childcare for 2 1/2 and older.” The church was on the move, pivoting often; the church had, and I believe still has, a vision to be a new kind of church that emphasizes families and shares congregational life.

A book I am reading speaks to what is happening within our midst. It says this: “Yesterday’s church has no power to attract newer generations. The inward orientation of so many churches is a barrier to those who share little loyalty to tradition but passionately care about making a difference in the lives of people and their communities. Churches that pursue their own welfare apart from a commitment to the common good of their communities will have little to offer the young and others not already connected with churches. While no one thing is the absolute key to reengaging with people not currently reached by the church, one practice that could go a long way toward this goal is for churches to show love and concern for their communities, as they did in the early days of their histories. The longer a church has been in existence, the less knowledgeable it is likely to be about its community and the less connected it becomes with that community.”

Saint Luke’s United Methodist Church, a lot has changed in the past 36 years. The world has changed, the community has changed…how well do we know those gathered in the building and those outside these four walls? The Spirit of Pentecost is calling us back to the vision that spurred Saint Luke’s into action — to be “a new dimension of church life, emphasizing the family and the need for strong congregational sharing and experience.”  

We need to recapture the vision instead of fighting over a what rooms go where, what group does what, and what music should be played on Sunday morning…we need to stop fighting over what is “scriptural” and we need to really seek to love people where they are…we need to fall back in love with our community…and we have no excuse! The community meets in this building 5 days a week! So how do we engage those both inside and outside these walls?

We start by tearing down the dividing walls found within this very room. We listen to one another and realize that the building does not make up the church; those who gather here make up the church, and each of us has the ability to be empowered by the Holy Spirit. We like those in our text this morning can have our hearts warmed and convicted by the Spirit or hardened….and the choice is ours to make.

Yet, my prayer is that we let God guide us. To be guided by the Spirit means to be open to being filled with new ideas, new ways of being in the world. It means realizing that God’s Spirit can not be tamed. That God’s love cannot be tamed, controlled, or planned, and once unleashed, it will drive the disciples (us) to constantly question “Where is the Holy Spirit taking us and into whose lives?”

It might lead us to build new buildings like three congregations once did, it might lead us to change some rooms around, or we rethink what language is God calling us to learn….because the work of ministry, the call of God, is a call to submitting to get to know people and to love them where they are….Might we this Sunday…ask Come, Holy Spirit, Come…and once it’s unleashed…might we enjoy the journey of discernment.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.