Creekside Church Sermon of May 31, 1998 "The Prevalence of Pentecost" Acts 2:1-21	Rev. David Bibbee
Send this sermon to a friend

And they were all together in one place...Jews and Gentiles on the stage at the Pierre Moran Middle School. They were white, black and brown. They were Protestant and Catholic. Some of them spoke in different languages...Hebrew, Spanish, and Native American Indian. They represented different churches and religious groups and included yours truly. They preached, they prayed, they sang, all together, in one place the day before Easter. While the Ku Klux Klan staged their pathetic display downtown, people of every stripe and station gathered under a different banner to worship the God of all people who wills that all people live in peace.

It's hard to say what bringing all these different people together accomplished. You could say it was an effort well spent from the standpoint that it gave lots of people a way of saying that this city would rather work for harmony than give in to hate. I can't say if any lives were changed as a result of it all. As worship experiences go, I've been to better. It was not very cohesive or necessarily thematic. It was kind of like a religious Ed Sullivan show...lots of variety, a little something for everyone, lots of applause and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

Maybe the greatest accomplishment was just the fact that we were all worshipping together in one place. Usually we do not. There is no "one style fits all" way of worshipping, so we parcel ourselves into Pentecostal, mainline, fundamentalist, contemporary and liturgical. We keep to ourselves in different places. On the surface, it doesn't seem like a very good way to make a witness in the world, and it's probably not what Jesus had in mind as a means to establish God's kingdom. This is why the message of Pentecost is so important. Given the differences which too often divide the church, and given the dynamics which keep people apart within churches, it's a wonder we can accomplish much of anything at all.

I've often said that if you're looking for the greatest evidence of the existence of God, look to the church. It chronically falls short of its calling. Despite its best efforts, it is compromised and conflicted. It probably should have gone under long ago, and there is only one reason it has not...God wills it to exist. The church in its many configurations would not have made it this far without a larger purpose at work. That is something to ponder.

Jesus entrusted the future of his mission to disciples who consistently missed what he was saying and struggled even more to live it. Somebody said, "Jesus made his church out of human beings with more or less the same mixture in them of cowardice and guts, intelligence and stupidity, selfishness and generosity, openness of heart and sheer cussedness as you would be apt to find in any of us."

Why did he make a church out of people like this? Because people were the only things he had to make it out of! This is a sobering thought. We are all he has to make a church out of. You with all your saintliness and sinfulness. Me with mine.

Obviously something else has to be factored into the equation. When Jesus bid farewell to the disciples, he told them to wait for a visitor. Then on the Jewish festival of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit blew upon them like a mighty wind. As the spirit moved over the dark, watery chaos in Genesis and created a new order, the Spirit blew over the uncertainty and perplexity of the disciples, and created a way for people to come together across all their flaws and differences and brought them into a new relationship with the Lord and each other. People who were separated by language and religion and culture could now understand each other as the message of God's love for every person was proclaimed.

On that day the church was born. The thought of creating it hadn't crossed the disciple's minds. The church was Jesus' idea, not theirs. He called them out of their lives at the fishermen's wharf and the tax office and the kosher deli to become a difference in the world. Left to themselves, what do you suppose the chances would be of such a diverse group ever coming together to form the church? What, outside of Jesus Christ would ever bring folks the likes of us together in one place?

The wind blew, fire danced, languages were no longer a barrier, but the meaning of this exuberant, spirited event was not obvious. Some scratched their heads. Others accused the disciples of having taken an extended happy hour. An explanation was necessary for what was going on. Religious events nearly always need interpretation. I know of a pastor whose wife was gone four days. When she got back she had to push hard against the door to get in. The living room was littered with books, dirty clothes, toys, Coke cans and dried up pizza crust. Before she could reach her own conclusion, he had to explain that what she was seeing was a miracle of understanding and love and openness which took place between a father and his children in her absence.

Peter addressed the crowds, explaining that what seemed like chaos was really a miracle. He interpreted the present experience in light of an Old Testament prophecy from Joel. The Jewish Pentecost celebrated the first fruit of the harvest, and Peter explained the event as the first fruit of God's great harvest. "In the last days, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh." Notice the word, "all," he didn't say a select few, he didn't say some... but all. The Spirit comes upon all flesh precisely because all people are separated, pulled apart, and broken and the will of God in Jesus Christ is to restore relationship.

A church can be doing good and useful things, but if it is not about loving others, and healing hurts, and extending forgiveness, and showing hungry hearts where food can be found-if it's not about restoring what has been pulled apart, then it is not about the business Jesus told it to be about.

The Pentecost story uses dramatic images to remind us that coming together is not something we can achieve through just deciding to get along. Calling us out and bringing us together is Jesus' idea, not ours. When groups who have had nothing to do with each other because there was bad blood between them suddenly start talking, it's a sign of the Spirit at work. When for no reason you suddenly feel some warm regard for someone in church you regarded as an obstinate crank, when some wall crumbles and you recognize the one with whom you differ as a brother in Christ it is a sign the Spirit is unleashed and Pentecost is moving you to be what Jesus had in mind.

The church is His idea and His doing, not ours. He wants more from us than we want for ourselves.

There is much that needs to be done in this church that Christ has called together. It's time to stop what no longer serves His purposes. It's time to get the apathy, suspicion, mistrust, the us and them mentality, and the brokenness of the world which has seeped into the church, out.

We need wind from a source besides the ceiling fans. We need a wind to push us to one place and one holy work, seeing each other as we are seen by God-unconditionally loved. When we finally realize how much we need it...it comes.

Three weeks ago Katy McFadden was bringing the flame up the aisle to light the altar candles, but the flame went out. The matches that are usually in the pulpit, weren't. The lighter that was usually on the altar, wasn't. Poor Katy was snuffed out. The altar was dark. Then my wife, who never carries matches in her purse, for some inexplicable reason, had matches in her purse. The fire that was needed was provided. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

This sermon was inspired by Ronald J. Allen's sermon "With Tongues of Fire," which was published in the May/June, 1994 issue of Pulpit Digest.

All of the sermons that have appeared in text form on our Web Site since August 1996 are available here in the On-Line version. Use the search engine below to find the sermon you want. You may search by date, sermon title, or content. The sermons are full-text searchable.

Sermon Search:



Exact phrase    All words (AND)    Any word (OR)