Sermon - Day of Pentecost

The Rev. Allan Sandlin, associate rector
> click here for the Scripture for the day

Our children, Thomas and Lizzy, grew up while our family was living in Germany. For both of them, I suspect, German is as much their mother-tongue as English. So imagine what it was like for Lizzy that day we first visited the school she now attends. Her eyes lit up when she walked into the classroom and recognized that the 12 year-old students were all speaking German with their teacher. She heard the language of her childhood, the language in which she first learned to read, the language the children in her Sunday School class spoke when the adults left the room. I don’t know exactly what she was feeling that day, but it might have felt like she’d come home.

What does it mean to hear a story told in your mother-tongue when you’re accustomed to hearing things through someone else’s culture, through someone else’s native language?

This morning, we’ve listened again to the Pentecost story from the book of Acts. Things started off normally enough but then people began to stand and read the lesson in other languages, mostly in their mother-tongue. Several languages, interrupting each other, all at once. What a great noise!

It gives us, perhaps, a glimpse of the chaos, the energy, the surprise of the first Christian Pentecost. Hearing Albert read in his mother tongue, Krio, and Cara read in Vietnamese and Gerritt in Dutch also reminds us that at Holy Trinity, our home countries and our mother-tongues are not all the same. It’s a gift, this diversity.

But don’t think for a moment this was meant to be a re-enactment of the first Pentecost. No. That was something entirely different.

The gospel according to Luke ends with the ascension of Jesus. The beginning of the book of Acts, written by the same author who wrote Luke’s gospel, picks up the story line. We find the disciples, now reconstituted as the 12 with the addition of Matthias (chosen, you’ll recall, by rather dubious means), gathered in a house somewhere in Jerusalem.

Some of Jesus’ last words to them still echo in their hearts: Don’t leave Jerusalem. Wait there for the promise of the Father. You’ll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and then you’ll be my witnesses. So now, ten days after Jesus’ Ascension, they were probably beginning to wonder how long the wait was going to be, maybe fear had begun to creep back into their hearts and minds.

And then this wild, strange thing happened. First came the sound, without warning, like a gale force wind. Then, like a wildfire, tongues of flame spread and danced above their heads. And the Holy Spirit filled them, giving them the ability to open their mouths and speak in languages none of them had studied in school.

I suppose the windows of the house must have been open, because a crowd soon gathered outside. Included in that crowd were Jews from at least 12 different nations, all living there in Jerusalem. They were residents of the city, not just in town for the festival of Pentecost. But Jerusalem wasn’t home to them—they understood the language spoken by the natives but it wasn’t their mother-tongue. It must have taken their breath away when each of them understood the disciples to be speaking in their own language. The crowd from Elam heard Elametic. (I made that word up…) Those who hailed from Pamphylia heard Pamphylian.

After the noise died down and after the disciples finished speaking about God’s deeds of power, the crowd was awe-struck. Amazed and perplexed. Some of them seemed curious, willing to ask questions about what this might mean, wondering together at the very mystery of these simple, unsophisticated fishermen suddenly able to speak a new language with eloquence. Some of them were open and wanted to hear more.

But not all of them. These others scoffed and turned away in disgust. Their minds and hearts slammed shut as they sneered ah, they’re just a bunch of babbling drunks.

And that’s all it took. Peter stood up and found his voice. With strength and confidence, he began this passionate, articulate sermon. Keep in mind, this is Peter speaking. Peter who a short while ago was denying that he even knew Jesus. Now he speaks with assurance. The part of his speech you heard this morning, is only the prelude to a mighty powerful sermon, a sermon that will reach the hearts of many in that crowd. If you were to read all the way to the end of the sermon, you’d know that 3,000 people were baptized as a result of hearing it. Not even Rick Warren can match that.

No one expected Peter to be able to stand up and preach like he did. But here he was, stepping up to the task with authority and strength. Where’d he get that power? Where’d it come from?

And where did those disciples learn to speak languages they’d never even overheard in casual conversation? Where’d they find the power to speak so fluently and tell God’s story in language that sounded like a clear bell? How are people ever enabled to do things they should never in a thousand years be able to do? And over the air comes the refrain You’ll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and then you’ll be my witnesses.

Of course, there are different ways of witnessing. In the telling of the Pentecost story this morning, the first language we heard was not actually heard at all. You saw it. Ginny moved to the center of the aisle and began to interpret the story in American Sign Language. What a witness our interpreters are—and what a gift to us are those who speak and listen through their hands.

Everything we’ve heard thus far suggests that receiving the gospel has to do with words, words, words. The disciples were given words to speak that would open hearts to God. Peter used words to confront people, to remind them of what they already knew about Jesus and to enlighten those who’d never heard anything about him.

But there are ways to witness to the gospel of Christ without using words.

St. Francis of Assisi is given credit for being the first to say it like this: Preach the gospel. If necessary, use words.

But sometimes it’s the very language we use in church that blocks the ability of some to hear. While those of us who worship here week after week might feel right at home, if Episcopalese isn’t your mother-tongue, well…how welcome would you feel?

Or how would you receive the good news of God in Jesus Christ if you are a single mother with a challenging 4 year-old in tow or a gay couple wondering if it would be ok to have their photo taken together for the parish directory or how do you hear the gospel if you are still learning to speak English or if your home at the moment is the Decatur Inn?

How do you hear, how to you receive the good news God is offering?

There came a point came in my life when I could no longer hear the good news of Jesus

through the voice of the Baptist preachers who formed me in the faith. Maybe the volume just got turned up too loud. But I could no longer hear love, I couldn’t hear compassion, I couldn’t hear anything above the din, the loud seemingly uncompromising voices.

Did you happen to read Tracy Wells’ Pentecost meditation in the e-news last week?

Tracy calls to mind the 4th chapter of Luke’s gospel. In particular, it’s a verse Luke must have still had in his mind as he was writing the book of Acts. Early in his ministry, Jesus stood up in his hometown synagogue and read from the prophet Isaiah: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

Then, Tracy asks a good question. How has the Holy Spirit anointed you to preach the Gospel?

For don’t you know, all of you who’ve been baptized have already been anointed by the Holy Spirit to be witnesses. It’s part of the covenant made at baptism and reaffirmed again and again throughout our lives in the church. So the question is, how will you do that? How has the Holy Spirit anointed you to preach the Gospel?

Last week, I attended a conference for preachers. Preachers like me, who do this week after week. Five days of listening to sermons, at least 3 a day, and singing hymns side by side with 1,500 other preachers from across the country. And oh, my goodness, the preachers we had with us. It was like going to the All-Star game, although instead of Manny Ramirez and Chipper Jones, we had Fred Craddock, Barbara Brown Taylor, Raphael Warnock and oh yes, Desmond Tutu. It was a rich time. It was really something to hear those people preach the gospel.

But we also heard the gospel through some very fine music and singing—a little jazz and some awfully good gospel music—but it was the congregational singing that really rocked the place. The organ was grand but it was when the organist would lay out for a verse or two and let us sing a capella…that’s when we began to preach the gospel. Maybe you’ve had such an experience—a moment when the music carried you to a place where the spoken word could not go. But maybe that’s just me.

There are other ways the gospel can be preached, other ways to witness to God’s love.

Some people go their whole lives without standing in a pulpit, but they find other ways to preach the gospel. Other ways to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. I’ve been told that Russ Wallace doesn’t really enjoy being in front of the congregation, not even to read a lesson from the Bible. But those 17 years of mission trips to Honduras, taking medicine and his skills as a doctor to places and people where they are so desperately needed—that’ll preach!

How has the Holy Spirit anointed you to preach the gospel?

Well, that’s one question. And it’s a good one.

Then there were those in the crowd who listened closely and attentively and heard the good news in a way that went straight to their hearts. They received a gift from the Holy Spirit as well—the gift of hearing.

By the way, did you catch what Jesus said toward the end of the reading from John’s gospel this morning? What Jesus says there feels almost subversive to me. Lest we imagine that everything we need to know about faith and life is contained in words recorded in the Bible, Jesus himself comes along and says

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you in all the truth…

Now I wonder. How has the Holy Spirit anointed you to hear? Were you paying attention? And what did you hear?