Power From Above

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

May 11, 2008

Text: Acts 2: 1-21

They were told to go to Jerusalem and wait. Wait until the Holy Spirit is poured out upon them. Wait until they were empowered.

I’m not very good about waiting, especially when I do not know that for which I am waiting. I must occupy myself with something: a book, a legal pad, my Treo 650. Then the time will go by quicker. I can at least act like I am doing something important.

This human tendency to fill time may explain why Peter and the other 10 apostles decided to fill a vacancy. Judas Iscariot’s place must be filled, or so they believed. So, in addition to praying, they put forward two names of disciples who had been with them from the beginning: Joseph Barsabbas and Matthias. They asked God to choose by means of the equivalent of a roll of the dice---the casting of lots. Matthias it was.

The church is tempted to do something instead of sit there. We sometimes take matters into our own hands, organize and venture forth with banners unfurled. Going anywhere is better than waiting for God!

There is something a little cheeky about Peter assuming his place as the leader of this re-convened traveling band. Peter, the one who had denied three times that he knew Jesus? I have always been fascinated by what happened to the 11 apostles in the three days between crucifixion and resurrection. Wouldn’t it have been interesting to be a fly on the wall as they came back together to wait on-----nothing is particular? This must have been the definition of “misery loves company.”

But then they were surprised by the resurrection of their Master, and his appearance and ascension. And now they were waiting in Jerusalem for power.

On one thing we could all agree. These are human beings like we all are: frail and often fickle and certainly not powerful in any perceptible way. Yes, if anything more was going to happen in the Jesus movement, they would have to receive power from somewhere beyond themselves.

So they were “all together” in one place. Waiting. It was Pentecost, the festival of receiving the Law through Moses, conflated to include the celebration of the Spring Harvest.

And here is where we have to “let the story have its way with us.” For this story was passed on through the early generations not as an historical account, but for the purpose of telling us something about this re-constituted group which came to be known as “Church.”

Tongues like fire, the whoosh like wind, blowing through their dwelling. (Imagine you are in Lubbock in the Spring!)

Here is an account of “something strange, beyond the bounds of imagination, miraculous, inscrutable….” The Holy Spirit did not well up from within them as some feeling of excitement. The promise of power came from God and was poured out upon and into them. “Things were coming loose and breaking open.” We are reminded of Genesis 1: 2. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep; and the Spirit (or wind) of God was moving over the face of the waters.” And then God said, “Let there be light…..” However we want to explain the process of creation, here the mystery is laid out: Something came out of nothing. (Will Willimon)

And so it is here with these mortals waiting for power. The Spirit of God moved and God said, “Let there be Church,” and there was Church.

And what do these disciples do? They proclaim in different languages. This is not glossalalia, speaking in tongues----a practice in the early church which required interpreters. (That is a sermon for a different time.) They were telling in the common languages (of the people who had gathered as a result of the commotion) the marvelous things God has done in and through the Lord Jesus Christ.

And the crowds which gathered, so soon after breakfast were bewildered. Their explanation is that these guys must be inebriated. Peter’s response is one of the most humorous lines in the New Testament: “They are not drunk; it is only 9 in the morning.” They are not impressed with Galileans (relatively unlearned people) daring to preach to people from every place in the world. There must be some other explanation.

You may remember that, when the young Jesus was asked to read in the synagogue, he read that the Spirit of the Lord was upon him to preach good news to the poor, recovering of sight to the blind, release to the captives. And the response of those who heard him was to say, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” Who is he to be claiming such a role for himself!? They ran him out of the city and would have thrown him off a cliff if they had caught him.

There is something about those who make claims for truth that irritates us, especially when we have just about decided that one person’s truth is as good as any other person’s. (Those who are persuaded that all things are relative are making an absolute claim but are not self-aware enough to know it.)

Here is the double miracle: Peter and the others who failed the course in discipleship 101 are re-constituted as the bearers of a transcendent truth: “God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”  And, the people from all over the earth were now hearing this truth, each in their own language.

Nothing much could happen until the Holy Spirit was given. It was nothing less than the same Spirit of God which led and in-dwelled Jesus.

“The Spirit is the power which enables the Church to go public with its good news, to attract a crowd, and….to say something worth hearing. A new wind is set loose upon the earth, provoking a storm of wrath and confusion for some, a fresh breath of hope and empowerment for others.” (Willimon)

“The Spirit is the engine that drives the church into all the world.” (Willimon) “The Holy Spirit is the [energizing] force whereby Jesus, the Lord, builds up [the Church] in the world as his Body, as his own presence in ordinary life.” (Barth)

Here is where the Pentecost account expands our understanding of the Holy Spirit. In our time, isolated individuals that we are, we tend of speak of the holy spirit as the bringer of inner peace to us when we are alone. The Lord knows, in our noisy world, we need to go apart as Jesus did, to be alone with God and receive healing. But here is a different view, as expressed from Fred Craddock:

“The peace that is given is not as the world gives; that is, it is not a truce with one’s environment whereby hassles are avoided and comfortable nests are undisturbed….The peace of God is the confidence that God is God and neither our gains nor our losses are ultimate. It is the trust that God loves the world, is for all creatures, and is present with us in every endeavor to make real that love in concrete ways. Hassles as we go through life neither prove nor disprove God’s presence and therefore neither create nor void the peace of God.”

To admit that the church has often done this badly does not take away from the commission that the church is given. We are forever “translating” the wonders of God into the language and thought-forms and idioms of people all over the globe.

This story speaks to our lives as Christians today, and to us as Church.

Do we expect the Holy Spirit to be with us when we are “all together in one place?” Worship, committee meetings, Council sessions----are we receptive to new wisdom, open to “the third option?”

Do we rush ahead to get things done our way when we could be waiting for God’s way?

Are the windows of the Church open enough that those outside can hear us telling the wonderful things God has done?

Do the winds of the Spirit impel us outward to show and tell and invite? Are we a church which supports the members who serve the cause of Christ in daily life---in their neighborhood and secular jobs----as much as we support those members who serve in the gathered life of the church---through committees, teaching, etc?

“Come, Holy Spirit, come….

Come as fire and warm our hearts.

Come as the wind and awaken.

Come as the water and purify.

Convict, convert, consecrate,

Until we are wholly Thine.”