Pastor Heidi Torgerson-Martinez's Sermon from Pentecost 2015
Acts 2:1-212When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.5Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.6And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.7Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?8And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?9Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,11Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.”12All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”13But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”14But 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.15Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning.16No, 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.18Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.19And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist.20The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.21Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
Sisters and brothers in God’s family, grace to you and peace from God the creator, from Jesus our brother, and from the howling, rushing wind of the Spirit blowing through this place!Pentecost. This is a radically important day in the life of the church, dear friends. This is the day when we mark the birth of the church, the day when the Holy Spirit came roaring into the world to dwell within and among God’s people. We read this text from Acts, every year, on Pentecost. It’s a familiar story. It’s a mouthful – Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs . It’s a mouthful, but it’s familiar.I worry that it’s almost too familiar. “Yup, we know that story,” we think. “It’s as familiar as Christmas or Easter. The Spirit came, there were tongues of fire, there was sudden onset foreign language fluency, and the church dresses up in red to celebrate. Cool.” But if that’s as far as we get, friends, we’ll have missed the point. We’ll have missed a critical bookend to the salvation story that’s been flipping our expectations on their heads since the day Jesus – God’s son, the Messiah, the King – rode into Jerusalem, the seat of all power – on a stinky, braying donkey, his feet dragging in the dust as he straddled the animal.To get us started, it’s probably helpful to name that the story we hear from Acts wasn’t the first Pentecost. For a very long time, Pentecost had been a Jewish festival celebrating the day that God gave the Torah – what we might crudely shorthand as the first five books of the Old Testament – to Moses on Mt. Sinai. It was for this festival that people from around the known world had gathered in Jerusalem. The disciples were there too, hanging out together, regrouping after the torturous crucifixion of their leader and trying to figure out how they were going to bear witness to the gospel and to Jesus’ resurrection. Suddenly an intense rush of wind sweeps into the house where the disciples are sitting. As this wind whips through, divided tongues that looked like fire sweep in as well. I imagine tunics flying and hair blown back, cups rattling and dust swirling as that wind finally pushes the disciples out into the crowded streets. And somehow, from the mouths of a bunch of uneducated, rough-around-the-edges Galilean dudes – the disciples – the message of all the incredible works of God comes pouring forth. And it comes pouring forth in a myriad of languages.A crowd gathers at this commotion, stunned and completely confused by what they are experiencing. Each of them hears and understands the life-giving gospel in the native language of each. This is critical, friends. You see, up until now, language of God and of salvation had been held captive in the highbrow Hebrew that only well-educated religious elites spoke well. But that’s not the language through which God chose to speak on that Pentecost. Neither did God choose the Latin of the all-powerful Roman Empire and its occupying military forces to speak on that day. Instead, God’s voice breaks through in a wild diversity of languages. And each heard and understood the message of the gospel – God’s liberating message of new life – in the native language of each.Did you catch that? There are two astounding, world-altering things going on here. First, God chooses to speak not through the seats of religious and political power, but through a group of guys who were, by the world’s standards, a bunch of nobodies. And second, people from every land and nation, every language and social background, are able to hear and understand it. No fancy education or linguistic ability required. No seats at powerful and elite tables necessary.In this passage from Acts Luke names the different groups represented on that Pentecost 2,000 years ago – that mouthful I read through just a few minutes ago. God speaks through a bunch of Galileans, and people from all over hear and understand. I wonder, what might that mouthful of a list sound like today? Who are we, through whom God chooses to speak in this particular time and place in history? Who are we, who are able to hear and understand and stand amazed at the mighty deeds of God? Who are we?!We are White, and Black, and every shade of brown. We speak English, and Spanish, and Arabic and Hindi. We are women and men, transgender and cisgender, cross dressers and queer. We are gay and straight, we are bisexual and asexual. We are wealthy, and we live in poverty. We operate from a mindset of scarcity, and we operate from a mindset of abundance. We are gang members and social workers. We are cops, and we are protestors, and we are protestors who are cops. We are teachers. We are addicts. We are Wall Street tycoons.We are cat people and we are dog people. We are Republicans and Democrats and we think the government should be overthrown. We are married and we are divorced, and we are married and thinking about divorce. We are single and loving it. We are single, and wishing we weren’t. We are recently widowed and can’t see beyond the grief. We walk with a limp and we run marathons and we have cancer and we have an extra chromosome. We are autistic and we are albino and we have ADHD. We are feminists and misogynists. We have children and we wish we had children and we have lost children and we are estranged from our children. We are decorated war veterans and we are tree-hugging pacifists and we are grateful for those who serve our country.We are young and we are very, very old and we are somewhere in the middle. We are brimming with confidence and we are trying to hold it together and we are wondering why no one recognizes the wisdom we carry. We have wonderful families and we have dysfunctional families and some of us have wonderfully dysfunctional families. We have left abusive situations and we remain in unhealthy relationships and we have been the abuser and we have stood by helplessly, wondering what we could possibly offer. We are immigrants and we have been citizens from birth, we are documented and we are not. We are introverts and we are extroverts. We suffer from depression and PTSD and we cut ourselves and we have anxiety that leads to panic attacks. We are meat-lovers and we are vegans. We are anorexic and we have had gastric-bypass surgery and we are body-builders. We are used to people telling us we’re beautiful, even if we can’t see it ourselves, and we long to hear those words from anyone at all.WHOOSH!!!It’s Pentecost, dear friends. This is who we are, and through us and to us, God speaks. Present tense. Right here. Right now. God has anointed every crazy last one of us with the Holy Spirit that we might proclaim the liberating work of a God who shuns the seats of power to make a home within and among us. God speaks, calling forth a new and reconciled creation through the dreams and prophecies and visions of people at whom the world would more typically sneer. God speaks, and in a rush of wind every human-made division that seeks to separate us from God and from one another is blown aside. God speaks! Let us celebrate with boldness.I am grateful to my dear friend and colleague, Pastor Andrea Roske-Metcalfe, for her assistance with portions of this sermon.