Spirit and Community

A sermon for Pentecost Sunday given at the United Church of Acworth, New Hampshire on May 19, 2013.

Acts 2:1-21
Romans 8:14-17

I think it is fitting that we are welcoming 
and commissioning Mark on this day in the church year.

Pentecost is called by many the birthday of the church.
That may sound strange depending on your definition of the word “church”

Pentecost was the day when a group of disciples had an extraordinary experience 
that launched them into the streets sharing the good news of forgiveness.

They had begun in fear.
They weren't certain what to do now that Jesus was gone.
They were probably meeting together on this day to pray and seek guidance from above.

And then into their midst, breaking through their peaceful prayer time
a sound like the rush of a violent wind, filling the house 
and a vision of divided tongues, as if made of fire, resting on each one of them.


Now I can't imagine having this kind of experience and remaining calm.

A sudden loud and violent wind – yet it's not wind, nothing is being blown around – it's just a sound.  But what a sound!

Fiery tongues split in two falling from the ceiling coming close to each one of their heads.

Fire + hair is a bad combination.  

But we're told that they just let the vision take its course,
we don't sense panic.

Or maybe there was such panic that they were immobilized?

We just don't know.

What we do know is that this strange and mystical experience produced the first fruits of what would become the church, the community of believers united in the Spirit of God.

When they went out into the crowded multicultural streets
(for this was a Jewish holiday, Shavuot, the celebration of first fruits of the season and 
the giving of the law to Moses)
thousands were in Jerusalem from Europe, Asia, and Africa.
And the strange result of these disciples' experience was that they went out speaking about God and the people of all these different countries, different languages and dialects, all of them heard the good news of God's love.

There was a fire that had entered the disciples, that stirred up a passion for sharing their message of hope.

And that fire was spread by a rushing wind out into the people of Jerusalem.
The first fruits of reconciliation.

The day's events culminated in a great sermon given by Peter and were told that at the end of the day 3000 people had joined this new movement.

And what kind of movement was this early Christian community?
At the end of Acts chapter 2 we get a description.

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.... All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.  Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. 

Something happened in that room.  A rushing wind and tongues of fire spurred a movement of the Spirit which brought people of all different backgrounds and nationalities into relationship with God and into fellowship with one another.

The Holy Spirit brings us into community.

Paul writes in Romans: 
...All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.  For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God....”

What the Holy Spirit does is bring us into communion with our maker, the source of our life.

By God's grace we are enabled by faith to call out “Father” to the one 
who made the universe in all its macrocosmic mystery and beauty.
Who knit us together in our mother's womb.  A fearful and wonderful creation.

We cry “Father!” because God's Spirit in us draws us to the one in whom we find our soul's rest and true joy.

The goal – the great hope of God as we have it revealed in Jesus is that all people no matter who they are might be able with Jesus to call God “Our Father.”

Might be able to sing with the Mexican Folk song, “Somos del buen Dios”
We belong to God.

It is to renew that intimate fellowship with the one who is with us always and who holds us in life and in death.

And the Holy Spirit brings us as adopted children into that fellowship, into that nurturing relationship – sometimes in a way that is unexpected.

It often requires a change of mindset, the Greek word metanoia, often translated “repent.”  We need to change the direction of our lives, our receptivity to God's work in and among us in order that we might, without being held back, enter into the joy and hope of our home in God.  For now in part, but then in full.

But that new relationship with our God inspires a way of relating to the world around us and the neighbor near us that is as radical as it is beautiful.

The Holy Spirit, Paul writes, is the “first fruits” of a redemption that God has in store for the whole world.

It's the small carrots, the lettuce, the spinach, the inspiring promise of a future harvest.

And the Holy Spirit is not a possession of one person, one language-group, one tribe.
The Holy Spirit moved the disciples out into the heart of Jerusalem, speaking not their own private inspeak language, but the languages of all the different people they encountered.

In order that many might be able to learn how to call God Father and receive that reconciled relationship with the one who made them in all their particularity.

We welcome Mark into this particular Holy Spirit born community, into this God-inspired fellowship.  And we look forward to what the Holy Spirit through him will do in our midst.

May he speak and act as he is led by the Holy Spirit to speak and act, in order to build up the fellowship of the Spirit in this place but also in order to make known God's love to the many different languages in the wider community.

And may we listen as those who share the same Spirit, who follow the same God, who hold the same hope that all might be renewed, all might be restored to wholeness in God.

Amen.