Pentecost Moments

May 19, 2013 Acts 2:1-21

Rev. Lesley Weir

I love the history of the Pentecostal Church. In fact, truth be told, I think I harbor some jealousy around that tradition. If you are not familiar, the Pentecostal Church is fairly new, as churches go; an infant actually. The church grew out of the Holiness Movement, a renewal movement in Christianity at the turn of the 20th century. A three year long revival gathering at Azusa Street in Los Angeles is considered the birthplace of Pentecostal churches everywhere. And I mean every where! The movement has spread around the world in less than a century, and is still the fastest growing form of Christianity in South America. A 2011 Pew Forum study found that Pentecostalism is the largest member of the Protestant family of churches worldwide, with over 12% of all Christians following this practice.

So what is it I am so envious of? Well, Pentecostals take the feast of Pentecost seriously. Now, I'm not implying that we don't take Pentecost for a fact, naming this day as the birthday of the church. Yes, we get all that. We love to tell the story of the rushing sound "like a wind" and flames "as of fire" over the disciples heads. But I dare say for most of us, this is a story about something that happened 2000 years ago. But for the Pentecostalists, this is a story that happens every day. You see, Pentecostalists believe, as we do, that God is the same always....God was is and will be the same for eternity. The thing is, from that belief they then draw the conclusion that this forever same-ness applies to the Holy Spirit as well. And if the Holy Spirit behaved this way at the Pentecost 2000 years ago, well then we have every expectation that the Holy Spirit STILL acts this way. In other words, while we might think the story we heard in Acts this morning is a miraculous tale of something that happened once right after Jesus died, well the Pentecostalists believe this is a miraculous event that happens over and over and over. Then and now. Forever.

And that is where my un-Christian jealousy comes in. Because as faithful as I think I am, I really don't think it is within me to believe, truly believe, that the Spirit is going to come blowing through here this morning, or any morning, with the force and the affects of the tale from the Acts of the Apostles. But the Pentecostals DO believe that, and not only do they believe, they experience. Yes, these are our brothers and sisters in Christ that some of us think of as a bit wild, a bit off their rockers, a bit sensational. These folks are often known as the charismatics of the Christian family, and they often scare the begeezes out of those of us known as the Frozen Chosen. These are the folks who speak in tongues, practice lots of faith healings, and can become physically overcome by the Spirit. These are the folks who look to outsiders like the apostles in today's text; the apostles who were accused by outsiders of drunken behavior. There is a part of me that wants to thaw out, wishes I could thaw out and experience the Spirit as these Pentecostals do. There is a part of me that longs to experience the Spirit in ways that get me accused of being drunk. But that does not seem to be my lot in my life of faith.

All of this has gotten me to thinking about expectations and how our expectations really do affect our experiences. I don't expect the Spirit to blow down the walls here, and so it probably won't. The Pentecostals expect to speak in tongues and be moved to gyrations by the Spirit, and so they are. I also believe that the diversity of the world and all of us in it, reflects God somehow. That if we are made in God's image, then all of us are reflecting some facet of God, meaning that God must like to blow like the dickens, but God must also like to be more reserved. But I think the Pentecostals are onto something that we can learn from. Pentecost was NOT a one time event. No, there are pentecost moments all the time. We must live in places of expectation for the work of the Spirit that is over and beyond anything we would normally expect. Back to those expectations! Are our hearts and minds open to expect pentecost in the here and now, in our lives today at St. Luke? What are our expectations?

When I first started ruminating down this path towards today's sermon, I was very caught by the idea of repeated pentecosts in the life of a congregation. Remember, Pentecost was not something that happened to the apostles as individuals; it was a community experience. A community experience that led to growth of the community, a spreading of the word, a new wonder at God's awesome power. Pentecost affected the whole community, enhancing their lives together and their future expectations of what could happen when we let the Spirit blow. It was about the church collective. In our individualistic society we often think of faith in the singular. But the church is God's vehicle for God's mission. Pentecost is about the church. Pentecost is about the affects of the Holy Spirit on the community, not on individuals.

So what have been our pentecost moments here at St. Luke?

Well immediately I thought about our just completed hymnal campaign. Talk about something that was bigger and grander than what we could ever have imagined. Worship committee started last fall with more of a question....did we even dare imagine new hymnals for our congregation? What was the new Presbyterian Hymnal project really about? How would the new hymnals be different than what we already had? How would we fund them? Fast forward to April 7 when we kicked off a fund, inviting all of you to participate. We weren't sure what would happen. Would we get the 250 orders we needed to replace all our current hymnals? Would others see this as the great opportunity that we did on Worship Committee? What would our contingency plan be?

I hardly have to remind you that the orders flew in, blew in to use the word of the day! So quickly and with such volume that we had to shut the campaign down early! Talk about a pentecost moment. The Spirit blew through here, whipping our fund into so much more than we could have imagined, or dreamed of. The order was placed on Friday. Not for the 250 hymnals we said we needed, but for 270. That's how pentecostal this event was. Even closing up shop early, we exceeded our need, exceeded our expectations.

And there we are back at expectations. In today's telling of the first Pentecost event, Peter quotes the prophet Joel. Joel's words that God's spirit will be poured out on ALL. That those on whom the Spirit falls will prophesy, will see visions, will dream dreams. Dream dreams....that is exactly what happened with our hymnal project. The dream of new music made possible by the pouring out of the Spirit. I leave it to you to think back over your time here at St. Luke to recognize other Pentecost moments in our history.

But going forward, I want us all to think of this telling of Pentecost in Acts as really just the first Pentecost for us as Christians. I want us to remember that the Spirit is poured out on all of us every day. And with the right expectations, we will experience the abundance, the awe and the wonder of God's mighty power through the Spirit. We may not speak in tongues or gyrate in dance as today's Pentecostal Church members do. But we can have Pentecostal hearts; hearts that dream dreams, hearts that see visions, hearts that are ready to proclaim the goodness of God's glory to all the world, hearts that have expectation for the impossible, here and now. Let's be open to pentecost moments in the life of our congregation, to expect the wind of the Spirit to rush through and create a church beyond our imaginings. Let's all expect moments that show us that we are not in this alone. Moments that assure for us that God has a plan for us, a BIG plan. Moments that testify to God's presence here and now. Pentecost moments. Amen.