New Wine

Common English Bible Chapter 2

2 When Pentecost Day arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound from heaven like the howling of a fierce wind filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be individual flames of fire alighting on each one of them. 4 They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them to speak.

5 There were pious Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd gathered. They were mystified because everyone heard them speaking in their native languages. 7 They were surprised and amazed, saying, “Look, aren’t all the people who are speaking Galileans, every one of them? 8 How then can each of us hear them speaking in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; as well as residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the regions of Libya bordering Cyrene; and visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts to Judaism), 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the mighty works of God in our own languages!” 12 They were all surprised and bewildered. Some asked each other, “What does this mean?” 13 Others jeered at them, saying, “They’re full of new wine!”

14 Peter stood with the other eleven apostles. He raised his voice and declared, “Judeans and everyone living in Jerusalem! Know this! Listen carefully to my words! 15 These people aren’t drunk, as you suspect; after all, it’s only nine o’clock in the morning! 16 Rather, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

17 In the last days, God says,

I will pour out my Spirit on all people.

Your sons and daughters will prophesy.

Your young will see visions.

Your elders will dream dreams.

18 Even upon my servants, men and women,

I will pour out my Spirit in those days,

and they will prophesy.

19 I will cause wonders to occur in the

heavens above

and signs on the earth below,

blood and fire and a cloud of smoke.

20 The sun will be changed into darkness,

and the moon will be changed into blood,

before the great and spectacular day of

the Lord comes.

21 And everyone who calls on the name of the

Lord will be saved.

Introduction- A little about me!

Well, thank you all for waking up early with me this morning!

This all feels a little bit like speed dating, I have just a little bit of time to tell you all about me.

I love coffee.

I have a beautiful wife and twin 6.5 year old boys.

I love coffee.

I am an unabashed Pittsburgh Penguins fan.

I love coffee.

I have seen every Star Wars and Marvel movie about 600 gazillion times.

And I think the last thing you need to know about me is I love coffee.

But I’m also a preacher, a pastor, and a theologian.

Specifically, I am what those in the business call a “practical” theologian.

Some theologians start with a Bible verse, or a doctrine, and build out from there.

Practical theologians believe firmly that Jesus is active and moving in the world, and that we get to both witness and participate in that action.

Once we do that, we hold that action up to our scriptures and our traditions and our doctrines, and we see how to interpret our experiences.

And I think that’s huge for what we’re seeing today in our Scripture reading.

Bible Breakdown

What is Pentecost?

As with most holidays, we Christians borrowed (stole) Pentecost.

In fact, we stole it from our Jewish brothers and sisters, as the Disciples were already celebrating.

Deuteronomy 16:9-11 “Count out seven weeks, starting the count from the beginning of the grain harvest. At that point, perform the Festival of Weeks for the Lord your God. Offer a spontaneous gift in precise measure with the blessing the Lord your God gives you. Then celebrate in the presence of the Lord your God—you, your sons, your daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites who live in your cities, the immigrants, the orphans, and the widows who are among you—in the location the Lord your God selects for his name to reside.”

A couple of things that stand out from this verse:

God has blessed you!

There ought to be a spontaneous gift in response to that.

And all of that ought to be couched in a spirit and an attitude of celebration.

Where the Disciples Have Been

And so this is an odd place for the disciples to find themselves!

They have spent three years following this Jesus guy, and watching him do remarkable things.

They watched one of their friends, one of those closest to them, betray Jesus and hand him over to the governing authorities.

They watched Jesus die.

They then saw Jesus come back to life, leaning in to the resurrection lifestyle.

Then just last week in our lectionary, they watched Jesus be lifted up in to heaven.

I think that to say these disciples were in an emotionally raw place would be under selling it quite a bit, wouldn’t you say?

This is a big deal!

In the midst of this emotionally raw place, they have this incredible and spontanieous experience.

Tounges of fire come and rest on each of them.

And they are filled with the Holy Spirit.

Which apparently is as hard to understand today as it was back then.

And they get gifts.

They find themselves able to speak in other languages!

They didn’t even have to take a Rosetta Stone course or anything!

They just find themselves speaking in other languages.

Key Point: We hear them declaring the mighty works of God in our own languages!

And it turns out that this is really handy!

They are in Jerusalem, which is the center of political and religious life in their country.

And because of Pentecost, Jerusalem is filled with pilgrims from all around the world.

It’s a who’s who of difficult places to pronounce, enough to trip up any preacher who has to read this today!

And yet, people from all of these places, hear that the disciples are speaking in their language.

Specifically, they are speaking about the “mighty works of God.” in their own language.

This is vital for us today!

The disciples have had an experience with God.

They have seen God at work in Jesus.

They have seen God beat back the power of the grave.

They have seen God raise Jesus up to the place of power and authority.

And they have now seen God fill them with the Holy Spirit.

They don’t want to talk about anything else.

They don’t want to talk about the weather.

They don’t want to talk about Church strategy.

Lord knows they don’t want to talk Politics.

They want to talk about God and what God is up to.

And they want to do it not in their own language.

They want to speak the language of the culture around them, which at the moment is vast and complex and complicated.

Hold that thought...

To those who are uncomfortable- They must be drunk!

Almost always when someone is uncomfortable with God’s action in the world, they try to find something to blame instead of God.

That dream you had last night wasn’t really God. You just ate too much cheese before you went to bed.

That wasn’t God speaking to you through that television commercial, that was just a coincidence.

Who cares what God is calling you to! We’ve always done it this way, and we’re not changing!

Or, there’s always the excuse that some skeptics gave the disciples.

These guys are drunk!

Peter- We’re not drunk! That comes later!

Another thing you need to know about me, I love Peter.

Peter’s whole move is “Ready! Fire! Aim!”

And that’s kind of what he starts with here:

We’re not drunk!

It’s only 9 AM!

We get drunk later!

Don’t forget, Jesus gets accused of being a drunkard and a glutton, because the people he hangs out with are big on celebration.

That would certainly include these disciples.

This was totally predicted from our own tradition!

But then Peter does what we need to do when it comes to being practical theologians.

God has acted

They recieved the Holy Spirit.

They were able to speak to other people in their own languages.

This action had to be from God, because it doesn’t make much sense any other way.

And now Peter is going to hold it up to this book, or at least the version of this book they had at the time.

How does this experience compare with what our Scripture and traditions have to say about God?

And so Peter turns to the Prophet Joel.

Young people will see visions

It is worth noting here the age of the disciples.

We’ll unpack this a little bit later, but it’s pretty convincing when we read between the lines of the text that Peter is the oldest disciple at about 18 or 20.

Everyone else is probably at this point in the story 15, 16?

These are teenagers.

And they’ve been given a vision.

They’ve been given a vision where God acts.

They’ve been given a vision where they are witnesses to those actions.

They’ve been given a vision of an expanded and expanding Kingdom, where everyone belongs.

Elders will dream dreams

They aren’t content to let the haters have the last word.

Some people are accusing them of being drunkards.

And they are, just not at 9 am.

But some people are catching this.

Some people who have been set in their ways for a long time are starting to open their minds to a new way of doing life.

Some people who have been locked in to a tradition that was given to them by their parents and grandparents and great grandparents are starting to wonder what else is out there.

The young people are starting to have visions and the elders are joining them in dreaming dreams.

Everyone who calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved.

This last line is one that is quoted so much that we can become numb to what is really being said here.

These folks are in Jerusalem celebrating Pentacost.

Jerusalem, and the whole Jewish tradition, was set up to exclude folks.

If you were a Jewish man, you were set.

If you were a Jewish woman, you were welcome but from a distance.

If you were a Gentile (non-Jewish) man, you could watch from the courtyard.

If you were a Gentile woman, forget about it.

So to walk in to that place, and say to those people, that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved?

Everyone?

Him?

Her?

Them?

This is an expansive Kingdom.

We humans are terrific at building dividing walls between ourselves.

And the Holy Spirit’s main job seems to be tearing them down.

Application

What mighty works of God have you seen?

One other thing you might want to know about me is that in a former life, I used to be a youth pastor.

I think teenagers are odd and wondrous people, and they have a lot to tell us about what it means to live in the world today.

One of my favorite things to do when I was with a teenager for coffee or lunch or something was to ask each person the same question over and over again:

What’s God up to in your life?

And not surprisingly, there were some predictable answers that went in to one of a couple of categories:

1) They would tell me about their devotional life, how they were reading the scriptures or offering up new prayers or going to church more.

2) They would tell me what was happening in their lives to them, like how a teacher “hated” them or their boyfriend dumped them or something like that.

But you might notice, neither of those categories answers the question.

It’s not about what we’re doing in our lives, or what’s being done to us.

The question is, what’s God up to in your life?

Where can you point and see God at work?

Is there any evidence of the Risen Christ in your life?

How has the Holy Spirit dwelled in you?

When I became a pastor, I started asking the same questions of adults, and wouldn’t you know it...

We have the same answer as teenagers!

If we are going to speak the mighty works of God to folks, we ought to pay attention to the mighty works of God!

My encouragement always is to carry a little notebook around with you like this, or an iPhone if you’re more hip than me.

Any time you see something that sort of kind of looks like God at work in your life, write it down!

Even and especially if you feel like it “Just sounds crazy.” That’s all the more reason to assume it’s God.

But then, you have to tell someone!

What language is the world speaking right now?

As a youth pastor, I have to admit that there were times that two teenagers could be standing right in front of me, and I would have no earthly idea what they were talking about.

What’s a Lady Gaga?

And TikTok does what again?

Let’s be honest, we’re not likely to come across someone who speaks a different language in our day to day lives.

Except that...

We Christians have our own language, don’t we?

We speak in terms like Grace and Spirit and Hymn and Confession that aren’t often used in the day to day vernacular of our culture.

I wonder if the Spirit is inviting us to find new ways to speak to the culture around us?

I wonder if the Spirit is inviting the church to new places

I wonder if the Spirit is inviting the church to new experiences.

I wonder if the Spirit is calling us out of our comfort zones.

Again, not just to fill our pews or pad our stats.

We want to be able to speak this new language of the culture because God has done marvelous and mighty things in our lives, and we want the world to know about it, don’t we?

Pray to be filled with the Spirit to speak those things

Now, if you want to watch a room full of Presbyterians break out in to a sweat, just mention the word “evangelism.”

Sorry to have to do that to you on our first Sunday together!

But that’s what this text is calling us to!

This text is calling us to pay attention to God’s actions in our lives.

This text is calling us to yes, worship together and interpret that action against the scriptures.

But this text also says we need to go out and tell people what we’re experiencing.

This text is ultimately about sharing our faith.

So I invite you to be in prayer, just as these teenage disciples were, that the Spirit would fall on each and every one of us, and give us the strength to declare the mighty works of God in the language of our culture.

And you know, maybe take a cup of coffee or two along for the journey.