That's the Spirit!

(Scriptures: Numbers 11:24-30 Acts 2:1-21
I Corinthians 12:1-13 John 20:19-23)

Today we celebrate Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the believers and empowered them for ministry and proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Pentecost is also often called “the birthday of the church”. Before the coming of the Holy Spirit, Christ’s followers were a frightened huddle, meeting behind closed doors, uncertain what the future held for them. After the coming of the Spirit, they were united into the church, the body of Christ, empowered and equipped to proclaim and to serve.

Today’s Scriptures give us a variety, a kaleidoscope of images associated with the Holy Spirit. Our reading from the book of Numbers comes at a time when Moses was feeling overwhelmed by the burden of leading the Israelites through the wilderness. Moses told God that he’d rather that God killed him right there where he stood, than have to put up with the peoples’ complaints. Instead, God tells Moses to choose 70 elders that would help to share Moses’ leadership burden. God took some of the Spirit that was on Moses and gave it to the 70 elders. This is fairly typical of the Old Testament – it was not given to everyone to receive the Holy Spirit. Generally, when God wished to equip kings, prophets, and other leaders of the people, God gave the Spirit to them to provide the special stamina and insight needed for their special tasks. Likewise, when God had a special message that God wished to proclaim, God’s spirit would come upon the prophet or person God designated to carry the message. In our Numbers reading, we get the striking image of the Spirit falling upon the two elders who had stayed behind in the camp, so that they prophesied where they stood. Joshua is horrified and wants Moses to make them stop, but Moses responds that he wished the Spirit would fall on everyone. As it happens, Moses’ wish came true in our reading from Acts.

Our readings from John’s Gospel and from Acts give us two contrasting images of the coming of the Spirit. John’s image is quiet, almost unnoticed – Jesus breathes on the disciples and says “receive the Holy Spirit”. With that Holy Spirit comes the power to forgive sins. But John gives us none of the ecstatic behavior we see in Acts. In Acts, between the Ascension of Jesus and Pentecost, the disciples more or less mark time. They deal with organizational housekeeping matters – they felt a need to find someone to fill the position held by Judas, and choose Matthias for that role. But there were no mighty acts from them until the coming of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost. The 2nd chapter of Acts gives the image we usually associate with the coming of the Spirit – the rush of a mighty wind, divided tongues of fire on the heads of the disciples, and the disciples declaring the Gospel in the languages of the many foreign pilgrims who were in Jerusalem.

Nowadays, we usually associate Pentecost with…..Pentecostals, whose manifestations of the Holy Spirit include “speaking in tongues”, “being slain in the Spirit” and other forms of ecstatic experience. Indeed, Paul’s letter to the Corinthians indicates that speaking in unknown tongues was a divisive issue in the church at Corinth. But in the Acts account of Pentecost, the disciples were speaking in tongues unknown to themselves, but known to those listening. While “speaking in tongues” was a divisive issue for Paul’s followers – and is still an issue that divides churches today – in Acts, the speech of the apostles was not intended to divide, but to unite; not to confound, but to make clear the Gospel to those present. It was sort of the Tower of Babel story in reverse: in Genesis, human beings were united in their hubris in trying to build a tower so they could climb up and look in on God – in modern terms, to climb up to heaven so they can walk up God’s sidewalk, ring the doorbell, and say ‘howdy’ - and God confused their language. On Pentecost, through the Holy Spirit, persons of many different languages who normally would be unintelligible to one another, were able to understand what the apostles were saying. Human initiative and human overreaching resulted in division and confusion. Divine initiative resulted in mutual understanding among humans.

In reading these passages together, we may be left with a question: why was the experience of the Holy Spirit opened up to so many. In the Old Testament, the Spirit was uniquely bestowed on select individuals gifted for ministry. And this appears to be the model in John’s Gospel as well – just as God had anointed Moses, David, and others with the Spirit in preparation for their leadership responsibilities, in John’s Gospel, Jesus bestowed the spirit on his disciples in preparation for the work they were to do. But in Acts, it is such a dramatic, open display of the Spirit, by contrast with the other readings. Why is this account seemingly different?

Part of this is because it is expected that, in the church, all believers, not just a select few, would be carrying out the ministry of the Gospel in various ways. Our reading from Acts, quoting the prophet Joel, says that in the last days the Spirit would be poured out on all flesh – sons and daughters, young and old, even slave and free alike – and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. I Peter 2:9 speaks of the church as “a holy nation, a royal priesthood” – and as ministers, those in the church – all believers - would need to be baptized with the Holy Spirit in order to be prepared for their duties. In his letter to the church at Corinth, the Apostle Paul goes to great lengths to describe the different gifts – wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues – given to equip the church by the one Spirit. In the words of a newer hymn that we sang earlier in the service, “Many gifts, one Spirit, one love known in many ways.”

However, the point I want to underline is that, while in our reading from Acts the Spirit is more widely distributed, the purpose has not changed. The gift of the Holy Spirit is to prepare us for ministry, for worship and service. This was the case in the Old Testament, in John’s Gospel, in I Corinthians, and in Acts. The Spirit is not given to us for our own gratification. While the Spirit acts as our Advocate before God, interceding for us before God with sighs to deep for words when we ourselves cannot find it in ourselves to pray – it is there not only for us, but rather to make us more able to be there for others. This is where the Corinthian church went off track – those with the more flashy gifts, such as speaking in tongues, felt that this gift conferred some special merit on those who practiced speaking in tongues, lacking in those who did not. And this is where some modern-day Pentecostal churches may go wrong as well, if they see their speaking in tongues as something that sets them above and apart from others. But in Acts and in Paul’s letters, quite the opposite is the intent – tongues and other gifts of the Spirit are intended, not to divide, but rather to bring us together as the Body of Christ.

What does the coming of the Spirit look like in Bridesburg? What does it look like here at Emanuel Church. What are the signs of the Spirit here? Our congregation will not likely be mistaken anytime soon for what is commonly called a Pentecostal church. Anyone coming to Emanuel church to see people speaking in tongues, dancing in the aisles, falling to the ground, slain in the Spirit as the saying goes, will walk away sadly disappointed. The Spirit has not endowed Emanuel Church with those gifts. But look at the gifts the Spirit has given us. Here we bring together our Bridesburg neighbors with those who live in other neighborhoods. Here we are equipped to view our daily work not just as a way to earn a living, but as vocations dedicated to God’s glory. Here those who are weighed down with life find new hope and strength. Here the members of a small church “pray big”, remembering persons and situations all over the greater Philadelphia and New Jersey region. Like the small frightened huddle of disciples emerging from their locked rooms to go forth and minister across the known world of their day, we through our partnerships with the Bridesburg Council of Churches and the United Church of Christ send our prayers and our offerings to join with those of others to bless struggling people outside our door and around the globe.

As I said at the beginning of this sermon, Pentecost is called the birthday of the church. So, as we prepare for Communion, let me say, “Happy birthday, church.” As we prepare to approach the table, may we open our hearts to the Spirit’s prompting. Amen.
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Please join us for worship on Sundays at 10 a.m. at Emanuel United Church of Christ. We're on Fillmore Street, just off Thompson. www.emanuelphila.org