Spirit-Filled

Scriptures:     Acts 2:1-21,  Psalm 104:24-35

Romans 8:14-17    John 14:8-17, 25-27

Today is Pentecost, when we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit.  Pentecost has been called the birthday of the church, because it was at Pentecost that the ragtag followers of Jesus were formed by the spirit into a community, and we’re told three thousand were added to their number. 

Before Pentecost was a Christian holy day, it was a Jewish festival.  Set fifty days after Passover, Pentecost or Shavuot as it’s known among Jews, celebrated the gathering of the wheat harvest and God’s provision of food.  Later it was associated with God’s giving the law to Moses.  We might say that while Moses received the law on tablets of stone, the Holy Spirit makes God’s will known to us by writing it on our hearts and minds 

Similarly, the Holy Spirit is not only recognized by Christians.  In Genesis, at the very beginning, we’re told “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” (Genesis 1:2-3)  Isaiah speaks of the shoot coming up from the stump of Jesse – which Christians interpret as a reference to Jesus - saying that “The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—
    the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
    the Spirit of counsel and of might,
    the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—
 and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.” (Isaiah 11:2-3)
The Holy Spirit is also identified with wisdom, as personified in Proverbs chapters 8 and 9, “Does not wisdom cry, and does not understanding raise up her voice?.... And now, my children, listen to me:
    happy are those who keep my ways.
³³ Hear instruction and be wise, and do not neglect it.
³⁴ Happy is the one who listens to me,   watching daily at my gates,     waiting beside my doors.
³⁵ For whoever finds me finds life  and obtains favor from the Lord; ³⁶ but those who miss me injure themselves;  all who hate me love death”
In Acts, the coming of the Holy Spirit is associated with visual and sound effects – a sound like the rush of a violent wind, tongues of flame on the disciples heads, a wildly diverse crowd from all over the known world of the day hearing the gospel proclaimed in their native languages.  But John’s gospel paints a much more subdued picture of the coming of the Spirit, as in John’s gospel, when the disciples first encounter the Risen Christ,  Jesus simply breathes on the disciples and says to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.  Whose sins you forgive are forgiven; whose sins you do not forgive are not forgiven.”  So in Luke’s gospel the coming of the Holy Spirit is literally spectacular, that is to say, a spectacle, while in John’s gospel the Spirits coming is as simple and quiet as breath. 
The Spirit is mysterious, unpredictable, boundary-breaking, impossible to contain within the neat, well-defined boxes of doctrine and dogma.  As Jesus told Nicodemus, “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. (John 3:8)  We cannot see the wind itself, but we know when the wind is blowing when we see leaves fluttering and branches swaying, when we feel gusts of wind blowing a hat off our head, messing up our neatly-combed hair, shoving us in this or that direction as we walk.  Like wind, the Spirit is visible mostly through its effects. 
What are the effects of the Spirit?  What difference does the Spirit make?  We remember that in the Acts account of the day of Pentecost, the pilgrims to Jerusalem heard the disciples from Galilee speaking the good news in their own language.  And so the presence of the Spirit is often associated with what is called speaking in tongues.  Pentecostal Christians lift up speaking in tongues as evidence of having received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  Now, what is called speaking in tongues differs from what is described in our reading from Acts.  In our reading from Acts, the disciples from Galilee were heard speaking the language of the pilgrims who had visited – languages that were known and widely spoken, just not in Galilee.  But what is called “speaking in tongues” is a kind of private, ecstatic prayer language that is known to the speaker but not to those around them, and that speaking in tongues provides a direct communication with God.  This was controversial, even in the earliest days of the church; in the Corinthian church, those who spoke in tongues felt themselves superior to those who didn’t, so that Paul had to put things in perspective.  In I Corinthians 14, Paul wrote, “For those who speak in a tongue do not speak to other people but to God; for nobody understands them, since they are speaking mysteries in the Spirit.  On the other hand, those who prophesy speak to other people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.  Those who speak in a tongue build up themselves, but those who prophesy build up the church.” (I Corinthians 14:2-4) 
A number of years ago, I visited a number of Pentecostal churches who were considering affiliating with the United Church of Christ.  Their services included times when everyone would speak in tongues at once, as the volume level became louder and louder and louder still, to the point of being nearly deafening; some would dance in the aisles, others would fall backwards, as others came up behind them with a sheet to catch them.  Now, I have to say, this is different from what Paul recommended to the Corinthians, when he wrote, “When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. ²⁷ If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be only two or at most three, and each in turn; and let one interpret. ²⁸ But if there is no one to interpret, let them be silent in church and speak to themselves and to God. ²⁹ Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said. ³⁰ If a revelation is made to someone else sitting nearby, let the first person be silent. ³¹ For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged. ³² And the spirits of prophets are subject to the prophets, ³³ for God is a God not of disorder but of peace. (I Corinthians 14:26-33)
All of this is likely outside the experience of most of us, as it’s outside my normal experience.  Most of our UCC churches take very seriously Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians, “Let all things be done decently and in order.” (I Corinthians 14:40)  But because most of us don’t speak in tongues, that does not mean the Spirit has deserted us.  There are other gifts of the Spirit.  In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul lifted up these gifts:  wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues. (I Corinthians 12:8-10).  In his letter to the Romans, Paul listed prophecy, service, teaching, encouragement, generosity, leadership, mercy.  And here at Emanuel, many of these gifts  – wisdom, faith, service, encouragement, generosity, mercy – are very evident and very visible among our members.  They are not as flashy as speaking in tongues, but they are very necessary for building up the church.
Perhaps more important than the gifts of the Spirit are what Paul called the fruits of the Spirit.  These fruits of the Spirit are not special abilities given to some believers but not others, but rather qualities of character that are to be found to some extent in all Christians: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Galatians 5:22-23)  Paul contrasted these fruits of the Spirit to the self-seeking and self-obsessed fruits of the flesh. 
So our Pentecostal sisters and brothers do not have a monopoly on Pentecost!  The Spirit, in the Spirit’s unpredictable and boundary-breaking way, equips each believer and each congregation with different spiritual gifts, while producing the fruits of the Spirit in all. 

At Pentecost, the Spirit took people who had traveled from far places, brought them all together, and helped all understand the good news of Jesus in their own language.  And a motley mob became a church, a called-out community of faith.  We need the Spirit today to bring us together.  In our divided country, even where English is the majority language, we are losing our ability to communicate to one another.   Any given word or phrase may mean very different things to different groups of people, inspiring ardent devotion or abject horror, depending on our viewpoint.  We find ourselves in bubbles or silos of likeminded persons, speaking only to those who agree with us, listening only to news that reinforces our own views, each bubble or silo with its own “facts” and their own “reality”.  These silos of group-think can grow into veritable Towers of Babel.  We need the Spirit to come afresh to tear down the silos of group-think and burst the bubbles of conformity, so that we can hear one another with empathy and love, even when we disagree.  Within our bubbles and silos we think we have a monopoly on truth.  We would do well to take seriously the words of Paul, “All of us possess knowledge.  Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” (I Corinthians 8:1)

From our opening hymn:

“O Spirit of the Living God, thou  Light and Fire Divine,

Descend upon Thy Church once more and make it truly thine.

Fill it with love and joy and power, with righteousness and peace.

Till Christ shall dwell in human hearts, and sin and sorrow cease.”

May the Spirit descend, and continue to descend, upon us here at Emanuel Church.  May the fruit of the Spirit, especially love, be visible in each of us.  Where the Spirit leads, may we follow. Amen.