“Moving Out”

Text: Acts 2:1-21

© May 27, 2007 by C. Edward Bowen at Crafton United Presbyterian Church.

There was a minister and his wife who taught their daughter to be very careful with strangers. So, for example, the parents taught her that if a stranger called on the phone and asked for her father, and if neither he nor her mother was home, she were supposed to say, “I’m sorry, but he’s in the shower right now.”

Well, one afternoon the minister and his wife had to go out for a little while and they left the daughter alone at home. But shortly after they left, one of the church members called and said that she needed to speak with the minister. So the little girl replied, “I’m sorry, but he’s in the shower right now.” So the caller said, “Well, then, can I speak with you mother?” The little girl hesitated for a moment and then said, “Uh, she’s in the shower too.”

The sad reality is that children today are often brought up to be wary and cautious of strangers. The sad reality is that there is often a need to bring up children to be like that. After all, right here in our own borough of Crafton, just a couple weeks ago a guy in his 20s apparently tried to abduct a 9-year-old little girl as she walking along by herself down on a sidewalk. The sad reality is that all too often children are forced to learn at a young age that there are some people out there in the world that you need to be afraid of.

That was a reality that those first Christians were well aware of too. As the scene opens in this story that we heard today from the book of Acts, we are told that all of the believers, who at that time numbered around 120, were all together in one place. Now they were probably all together in one place not just because they enjoyed each other’s company, but also because they probably figured that there was safety in numbers. You see, at this point it had been less than two months since Jesus had been arrested and beaten and tortured and crucified. And even though Jesus had been raised from the dead, being a Christian was not a popular thing to be. A lot of the same people who had had a hand in getting Jesus killed were still out there in the streets of Jerusalem. And so Jesus’ followers huddled together inside for fear that those people out there might do to them what they had done to Jesus.

So that is what Jesus’ followers were doing when the day of Pentecost arrived. Now nowadays Pentecost is not exactly the most well known or the most widely celebrated holiday that there is. After all, most calendars that you buy don’t have this day marked as being Pentecost Sunday. When I walked through the greeting card section at Giant Eagle last week, I didn’t notice a single “Happy Pentecost” greeting card. And whoever heard of giving Pentecost presents, or putting up Pentecost decorations, or having special Pentecost dinners? But even though Pentecost is not a key holiday for most people today, back in the time when this story was taking place, Pentecost was one of the most important holidays out of the whole year.

You see, for centuries, Pentecost was one of the three times each year when Jewish people were strongly encouraged to travel to Jerusalem, the city where the temple of God was. Pentecost marked the fiftieth day after Passover. (“Penta,” of course, means five. A pentagon is a five-sided shape. And so Pentecost means fifty, or five times ten.) And basically Pentecost was a harvest festival, fifty days after Passover, celebrating the way that God brings life and growth.

But on this particular Pentecost day some pretty strange and amazing things took place. You see, after Jesus had been raised from the dead, he continued to appear to his disciples and others for about 40 days. But at the end of the period, as he prepared to ascend up into heaven, he had said to the disciples, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). And so it happened that on that day of Pentecost, Jesus’ promise was fulfilled and the Holy Spirit came to them.

And when the Holy Spirit came, it didn’t arrive in any quiet, unassuming sort of way. No, we’re told that when it happened, all of Jesus’ followers were together inside this room. But even though they were inside, a strange and powerful wind began to blow around in their midst. And then as they looked around, they saw bits of flame dancing over each of their heads. And when they opened their mouths to speak, they discovered that they were no longer speaking their own native language — no, they were all of a sudden speaking in all kinds of other foreign languages, languages that they had never studied or learned before.

Pretty soon a crowd assembled out on the street to see what all the commotion was about. And when the disciples went out to those people, people who had gathered there in Jerusalem from virtually every country in the known world, each of those people was able to hear in their own native language what the disciples were saying about Jesus. Now some in the crowd mocked and made fun of what was going on, saying that the disciples were drunk. But many people in that crowd were stunned and amazed, and hung on every word that the disciples spoke. And by the time that day was over, some three thousand people had become believers.

At Pentecost one of the real temptations is for us to focus on the “supernatural” happenings of that day — the mighty wind, the tongues of flame. But I believe that the real miracle of that Pentecost day was how the Holy Spirit came to those believers and made it possible for them to step outside their comfort zone, to overcome their fears and step outside their meeting place, and connect with people, with the Holy Spirit giving them the right words to speak, the words that needed to be heard by those people.

A few years ago a 15-year-old boy bled to death just 35 feet outside the emergency room doors of a Chicago hospital. It seems that the teenager was an innocent bystander who had been hit by a bullet when gang members started shooting at each other. After he was shot, friends of his managed to pick him up, carried him, and laid him down just outside the hospital. Apparently the friends didn’t stay with him for fear that they might have been accused of being the ones who had shot the him. But it seems that that bleeding youth was left there unattended for 25 minutes, because it was against hospital policy for doctors or nurses to go outside the building to treat anyone. Instead, they had to wait for an ambulance to arrive to transport him inside. But by the time an ambulance finally got there and got moved him inside, the young man was dead.

I wonder if churches aren’t sometimes like that hospital. We figure that if people make the effort to come inside our doors and become a part of us, then of course, we’ll be nice to them, we’ll give them the care they need. But even though that’s the attitude we often have, if the Holy Spirit is truly alive and present in our midst, like it was on that day of Pentecost long ago, then that’s not the way it’s supposed to be. No, if the Holy Spirit is truly alive and present in our midst, then we are going to be led to go out into the world, outside of our comfort zones, and make connections with people who are hurting where they are —people who are hurting physically and people who are hurting spiritually. And as we do that, as we trust the Spirit to lead us out into the world, outside of our comfort zones, we can also trust the Spirit to show us the right words to speak and to show us the right things to do to communicate to people the love and the forgiveness and the compassion of Jesus Christ.

Of course, if allow the Spirit to move in our lives in that way, not everyone we encounter is going to be receptive to what we have to offer. It was the same way on that day of Pentecost long ago. Despite the amazing things the people in the streets saw and the powerful words they heard, some people mocked the disciples. They laughed at them and dismissed what they had to say.

But even though some people ridiculed the disciples, many more responded to what they had to say. They responded and became believers — some three thousand in one day. In the same way in our lives, who knows what might happen if we truly prayed for the Holy Spirit to come and fill our lives in the same kind of way that the Spirit filled the lives of those first disciples? Who knows what might happen if we truly prayed for the Holy Spirit to come and push us out into the world, trusting the Spirit to show us what we need to say and what we need to do to help other people discover for themselves the love that God has for them?

At times it can be a dangerous world out there. At times the world out there can be a cruel and even hate-filled place. But what the story of Pentecost reminds us is that that dangerous, cruel, and hate-filled world out there belongs to God. It’s the world that God made, and it’s the world that God desperately wants to have brought back into relationship with God. And so, on this day of Pentecost, do we dare to accept God’s invitation for us to help make that happen? On this day of Pentecost, do we dare to accept God’s invitation to pour out the Holy Spirit upon us so that we might be empowered to take part with God in leading people back to God? On this day of Pentecost, may that be our desire and may that be our prayer: come, Holy Spirit, come!

Let us pray. Almighty God, on the day of Pentecost you sent your Holy Spirit to the disciples, filling them with joy and boldness to preach the gospel. Empower us with that same Spirit, so that we also may witness to your redeeming love and draw all people to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.