4 Week Series

Week 1: Suddenly!

Acts 2:1-2

It had been a difficult eight months: a change in leadership of the ministry where I work, a move to a new home, a son leaving home for college, the loss of two staff members, and the hiring of two new ones to replace them. Needless to say, a lot of changes took place, and in the midst of all these changes was me. I became overwhelmed with all that was being asked of me. I began to focus on the demands of such change and began to feel out of control. I became the focus. After it all transpired, I was exhausted, struggling, self-centered, and hurt. Although the changes were good ones, I was not coping well with so much so fast. During the week of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday my staff and I decided to challenge our students in a worship service to commit themselves to using their God-given gifts to strengthen our community. Our community had been struggling with some issues and in this service we wanted to confront our students with that reality. We wanted to challenge them to do something like King and like others who had strengthened their communities. We opened the altar at the end of the service and invited students forward to make those decisions, to talk with staff if they needed to, and to come to the altar to pray. The response from our students was powerful. They began to pour out of the pews. You could sense that life-giving gift of God’s spirit present and working its powerful way with the hearts of our community. You could see it, sense it, feel it, know it, and behold its movement among our staff and students.

The scripture tells us that as they were all together in one place “suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.” I like that word, suddenly. It identifies so well how the gift of God’s spirit comes to us— suddenly. Without warning, without time to prepare, without a plan, without any sense of when it is going to come or what it is going to do, suddenly the spirit just comes. Isn’t that just like this God of mystery? Isn’t that just like this God who comes in his own time, in his own way, and in his own place of choice? This powerful story lets us know right from the beginning that the community of faith, the church, has everything to do with God and little to do with us. The church’s birth narrative seeks to be clear on one point: we know not the time or the place or the way in which God seeks to move and work.

Mostly we don’t care too much for this unexpected, unpredictable movement of God. We like being in control. We want to know. We are much more comfortable with a timetable, with plans, with being in on what is going on, and when it is going to happen. It seems to be human nature to be consumed with knowing. The author of Genesis reminds us in the creation story that it was this whole idea of knowing that got humankind into trouble in the first place. It seems as if God wants us to realize that what he is doing and when he will do it has little to do with us knowing much about anything. Perhaps part of what this story is trying to tell us is that God is moving, God is working, God’s spirit is alive in our lives and world. That movement has little to do with you or me. It is entirely dependent on God’s time, on God’s sense of life and history, on God’s perspective, and on God’s understanding of the bigger picture.

Those sudden moments in our lives when we realize God’s spirit moving and working among us should provide us with a sense that God knows what he does. Jesus told those who gathered that day that this day of birthing would come. And maybe that is what it comes down to for us. The faith that we must have in what God in Christ has said will be done. It is strange in the Gospel stories that when God’s promises in Christ, such as the resurrection or the coming of the Holy Spirit, do happen there is always such surprise and awe. Suddenly, God comes, God works, the spirit of God breaks through, and life is never the same again.

It is amazing what God does in the midst of community. It was not by accident that they were all together in one place. God calls us to be such a community. When the community gathers, who knows what God might do among us? One Wednesday evening, overwhelmed by life, frustrated by change, focusing on me, the community gathered. Suddenly, the spirit of God moved and everything changed. “Suddenly” brings with it a new perspective and a new way of seeing. Suddenly, thank God for suddenly.

Week 2: Filled!

Acts 2:3-4

Scripture tells us that as the community gathered and the spirit of God moved among them, a sign of the presence of God’s Spirit rested on them like tongues of fire. The work of fire in the Gospels is that of purification. Luke wants us to know that part of the coming of the Holy Spirit is to purify us. The Holy Spirit refines us and readies us. The nature of fire is not only to refine or purify, but also to consume or to burn away. God’s spirit in the life of this community is to strip away all that is unnecessary. It seeks to refine the community so that they are ready to do what it is the spirit of God leads them to do. I am reminded of Isaiah’s experience in the temple as recorded in the sixth chapter of Isaiah. When Isaiah saw the vision of God he saw himself and his community as they really were, as a people of unclean lips. God sought to refine the impurities of Isaiah with a burning coal from the fire. Then Isaiah became ready for God’s work among the people. The tongues of fire represent this refining work of God’s spirit as part of a process that purifies and readies God’s person and people for the work God calls them to do.

After the tongues of fire rested on each of them, the scripture tells us that they were “filled with the Holy Spirit.” It is interesting to note that not just some of them were filled, but all of them were filled. In the midst of this community on this particular day, as God sought to begin and create this new expression of life, he left no one on the sidelines. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit. A consistent theme throughout the Gospels is the concept that God invites everyone to the table. This theme remains consistent; Luke makes it clear that God filled them all.

The work of the Holy Spirit in this time and place was to fill the community. Once refined and purified, those gathered were then filled with the Holy Spirit. The image of filling something or someone is used to instruct: that which fills is then used and poured out. When I fill a pitcher with water it is for the purpose of pouring it out for others. When I fill my car with gas it is so that the gas will be used to power the engine of my car. This idea of these being filled with the Holy Spirit implies that the community filled for some reason other than simply to remain full. How can you talk about filling something up if you don’t also imply the idea of being emptied? The point of being filled is to be emptied. In the church, we fall in love with the idea of being filled. We design worship to be inspirational. We go to Bible studies to be nourished by God’s word. We go to Sunday school to learn and to grow. And yet, the follow-up to such activity must do something with the inspiration, must respond to the nourishment we receive, must allow our growth to affect who we are and what we do in life. God filled the community that day. There was a purpose for the filling they received.

The passage implies that the work of God’s Spirit is to fill us. So many people cannot be filled because they are already full. They are full of hatred, full of anger, full of resentment, full of pity, full of self-importance, full of so much stuff. Is it any surprise that when we go to worship we leave disappointed? How can we be filled with anything of God when we are so full of so much? Perhaps one reason that God could fill them that day was that they were together in one place as a community of people who had emptied themselves of their fear, of their misgivings, of their disappointments, of their presumptions, of their anger, and of their selfimportance so that there was room to be filled with what mattered most—God’s most Holy Spirit. God’s Spirit is seeking us out in order that we might be filled.

Week 3: Purpose and Power!

Acts 2:4

The heart and soul of the church’s witness to faith is that of proclamation. The first action of the Holy Spirit as it fills these first followers is that of proclamation. As God initiates and begins to do God’s work in the world, God first empowers the witness of proclamation. The scripture is quite clear as to the source of the church’s proclamation of faith: the Holy Spirit of God.

It is this spirit of God that gave them this ability to proclaim. Proclamation in the church is always a gift from God’s Spirit. Proclamation is not earned; it is not forced; it is not manipulated; nor is the source of its power anything less than God’s Holy Spirit. Proclamation in the community of faith is from God. It comes as a gift of God and is given in the grace of God. It is given for a reason, as it was on that day, and it is given in the midst of community. Jews were gathered from all over the world in the Holy City of Jerusalem. The purpose behind this powerful gift of God’s Holy Spirit was to empower the message of God’s love into proclamation so that all gathered that day would hear what God was seeking to do among humankind. There is always a purpose behind what God is seeking to do through the gift and work of his Holy Spirit. Without a sense of God’s Spirit the church’s proclamation would have no power or purpose.

God’s purpose and God’s power must be at the source of what the church seeks to proclaim. The early church began as a community founded upon the purpose and power of God’s Holy Spirit. God’s Holy Spirit thus became the source of the identity, the mission, and the birth of the early church. Such a foundation empowered the early church’s identity, their proclamation, and their mission. The early church became the instrument through which the will of God’s Holy Spirit sought expression. When the church witnesses, performs its mission, and has its source in the Holy Spirit, then the church fulfills its reason for being and doing.

This powerful passage reminds the church today what its identity, mission, and proclamation must be rooted in if it is to fulfill its legacy. The source of the church’s identity, mission, and proclamation must be God’s active, life-giving Holy Spirit. Only God’s Holy Spirit can give the church the ability to be who the church needs to be and do what the church is led and called to do. I am reminded of the scripture that says, “Unless the LORD builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Psalm 127:1). At the center of who the church is and what the church seeks to do in its life and mission must be the gift and work of God’s Holy Spirit. Without such a foundation the work of the church is done in vain. The church without the Holy Spirit is separated and cut off from its only source of identity, proclamation, and life.

The context of this passage identifies that the church was gathered that day in that place in response to Christ’s instruction to the disciples to go to Jerusalem and wait for this gift of God’s Spirit. What makes this story possible is the obedience of those first followers to the leadership and direction of the Christ. We must also keep in mind that those instructions were given by a risen Christ. The greatest news in all the world has just been experienced by these followers and now the word they have been given is to wait. It makes no sense in light of the empty tomb and a risen Jesus. And yet, Jesus says to them, “Go and wait.” The early church was obedient to the instruction of Jesus.

Obedience is not a very popular word in today’s culture. In the midst of a culture obsessed with independence and freedom, the word obedience is met with some suspicion. Outside of meaning and a sense of purpose, independence and freedom are both overrated. Obedience is behind this Pentecost experience. Through the disciple’s obedience they find themselves at the time and place of God’s choosing. Behold, the gift of the Spirit comes upon them, fills them, and breaks their lives wide open. This story reminds us as God’s church that we are called to be an obedient people regardless of and despite how we feel about what God is seeking to lead us to do and God’s claim upon us. As a community of faith we are to be faithful followers of a God who is seeking to lead us in ways that often we just simply do not understand. Understanding has never been a prerequisite to following God’s lead and probably never will be. The church must learn to be obedient to God at any given moment regardless of appearances. Through the church’s obedience to Christ’s commands, the community was gathered where it needed to be; doing what it needed to do. Only there did God’s Spirit break in upon them and something new was begun.

Today the church needs once again to be obedient to who God is calling it to be and to what God is calling it to do. The source of the church’s identity, mission, and proclamation must be rooted and grounded in the gift and work of God’s Holy Spirit. When the church fulfills its call to be and do according to the work of that life-giving spirit of God, its purpose will become clear and its work will be empowered in such a way that the world will be amazed and saved.

Week 4: What Does This Mean?

Acts 2:5-13

One of the amazing truths about the biblical witness of faith is its honesty. This passage from Acts is no different. This amazing story of the birth of the early church unfolds as the response of those who witness it is one of perplexity and amazement. The penetrating question this event elicits is a good one: “What does this mean?” This type of question often follows an expression of God’s work and love among us. I am reminded of when Jesus calmed the storm on the Sea of Galilee. After this occasion the disciples wondered in amazement, “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?” (Luke 8:25). There is apparently nothing wrong with asking such questions. What is sometimes wrong is how we seek to answer the questions.

The passage states that all asked the question, “What does this mean?” but follows with an explanation by some, “They are all filled with new wine” (Acts 2:13). The nature of the human drama is that some just don’t “get it.” In the midst of events we don’t understand, we regularly pass them off as some aberrant or unnatural expression of life. Such answers to life’s mysteries seem to dismiss too easily that there are many experiences that go beyond simple explanations. Acts 2 is a powerful example of how God seeks to work amid the ordinary and everyday experiences of life. God evidently moves among us, in us, with us, through us, and all around us. Such work by God makes some people uneasy. Rather than recognizing the mystery of life and God, and seeking to be open to what life might teach us or where God might lead us, our experiences of God become so much easier to write off as unnatural. Or we offer an explanation we understand but rarely fits. To dismiss the phenomenon that took place that day, by saying they must have been a little drunk, closes us to who God is and what God is seeking to do. We human beings are not that comfortable with those life experiences that defy what we seemingly think we know. Such a response, however, is irresponsible on our part and misses the point of how God seeks to work among us.

The very message God sought to bring was lost on those who responded with such an inappropriate explanation. When we stop to consider what was at stake for those who so easily explained away the obvious, the mystery of this experience was the very message they desperately needed to hear. This story, while splendid and exciting, also has a very tragic bent to it, as stated in verse 13. How many times in the life of the community of faith have we gotten so wrapped up in our own sense of what God was doing in our lives that we failed to sense that there were those who just didn’t get it? The story refers to them as “those others.” What we in the church must recognize and see is that in the midst of what God is doing, there are always those other persons. We have a responsibility to these others just as we do to those who do understand and who do see. We might remember that the whole reason the gift of proclamation was given that day in a variety of tongues was so that all could hear. The community of faith needs to take more responsibility for those others who so often just don’t get it.

Our lesson today is followed by Peter’s sense of responsibility for those others as he expounds on the experience just witnessed, with that same proclamation now focused on those who struggle to understand. It becomes so easy for the community of faith to just go with those who get it. To do so means that we have misunderstood the whole work of God’s Spirit in the first place. If the community of faith is unwilling to meet people where they are with the questions they have, then we have become very irresponsible with all that God has entrusted to us.

“What does this mean?” becomes a relevant question that the church must wrestle with for those who dare ask it. If the God experiences of life cannot hold up to the honest questions posed by those who dare to ask them, then the church has failed to understand the very nature of what God is doing and how God seeks to do it. Such questioning in this story captures honestly for us just who people really are and how people really act when confronted with the mystery and power of this God who continues to move and work among us.

Adapted from The Abingdon Preaching Annual © 2005 Abingdon Press