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WHAT WAS GOD THINKING?
Acts 2:1-21
A sermon preached at First Presbyterian Church by Carter Lester on
Pentecost Sunday, May 31, 2009
This week, as some of you know, Kerry and I celebrated our wedding anniversary –
our 30th. Thanks to some thoughtful but sneaky daughters who raided our e-mail account
and our address book, we were surprised to hear from a number of people near and far.
Along with the greatly appreciated cards bearing congratulations and best wishes for the
future, there were a number of pictures sent – pictures of us at different points along these
past thirty years. When you look at some of those pictures – some of the hair cuts,
clothes, and glasses – you cannot help but ask: What were we thinking?!
This coming week will mark our 15th anniversary serving as co-pastors at this
church. This past week, I found myself thinking about that first week 15 years ago. Just
before we began our official first day on the job, we received a letter from a church
member no longer around who suggested that Kerry stop hyphenating her name. The
church member was concerned that her hyphenated name showed a lack of commitment
to the marriage. And then on the first or second day of work, we learned that the finances
had really turned south during the winter just before we came: the church was projecting
something like a $64,000 deficit in a budget that only totaled $187,000. More than one
time that week, Kerry and I talked about how long would be a respectable time to serve in
this church before we moved on. Three years? Four years? And as we thought back on
the decision to move three young daughters to Pottstown, even though we had prayed
about it long and hard, we could not help but ask: What were we thinking?!
Anniversaries get you thinking and reflecting on what has gone before and on what
lies ahead. Today is also an anniversary day, although it is a day that is often overlooked
– Hallmark hasn’t even come up with a card yet for it. Today is “Pentecost Sunday” and it
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marks the anniversary of the birth, not just of this congregation or the Presbyterian
denomination, but of the church of Jesus Christ.
Pentecost was actually a Jewish festival date before it became a Christian
anniversary. “Pentecost,” which literally means “50 days,” was another name for the
“Feast of Weeks,” a Jewish holy day 50 days after Passover that celebrated both the
spring harvest and the gift of the Law to the Israelites. As such, it was a day for which
many people made pilgrimage to Jerusalem, as indicated by the long list of regions and
countries from which the people in Acts 2 have come.
Now, they “are together in one place,” – devout Jews and followers of Jesus Christ
wondering what comes next. The only thing they have really accomplished since Jesus’
death is picking a new man to replace Judas and join the inner circle of 12.
But then something strange and wonderful happens. There is a strange sound like
that of a violent wind. And there is a strange sight – so strange that Acts can only use
mysterious metaphors to describe it: “divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them.”
And then there is the wonder of wonders: people began speaking but everyone can
understand even though they come from different places and speak different languages.
What is going on here? Most of the people there do not understand what they have just
heard and seen: “they are amazed and perplexed,” Acts tells us, “saying to one another,
‘What does this mean?’”
What does this mean? To answer that question, we have to move both forwards
and backwards. We move forward to hear what Peter has to say beginning in verse 14.
Peter tells the crowd that as promised God is now pouring out his Spirit upon all flesh, and
that Jesus Christ, the one rejected and crucified, is actually the Lord and Messiah.
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In addition, we look back – because what happens here in Acts 2 is the fulfillment of
what John the Baptist talked about in Luke 3 – that Jesus would baptize his followers “with
the Holy Spirit and fire.” (3:16). And it is the beginning of what the risen Jesus promised
would happen in Acts 1: “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;
and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of
the earth.” (1:8).
What then does Pentecost mean? It means the birth of the church in which the
church is given its identity and purpose – and given the power to carry out that identity and
purpose. Pentecost is the occasion when the Spirit is poured upon “all flesh” among
Jesus’ followers – young and old, male and female, powerful and powerless – so they can
be empowered to witness to Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. As Jesus said to the
disciples, “as the Father has sent me [into the world], so I send you.”
Which cannot help but bring to mind this question: What was God thinking?!
After all, it is one thing to say that God is revealed in Jesus Christ. All of us can
agree with this. Indeed, most non-Christians find Jesus Christ a compelling figure – even if
they cannot confess him as Lord and Savior, they admire his teachings and his example.
But it is another thing to recognize the church as God’s chosen agent and
messenger. What is God thinking?
We know all to well how human and frail churches are. Even if you understand that
the headlines of abuse and misuse of funds is the egregious sin of a relatively small
minority, you cannot spend time around church congregations without realizing that there
are a lot of plain ordinary people in congregations, capable of acts of compassion and
kindness but also capable of pettiness and grumpiness.
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Look around here. We are all just so ordinary. We are ordinary pastors – I mean,
you will not see Kerry or me being interviewed on CNN or Fox News for our opinion on the
ethical issues of the day. And you are pretty ordinary yourselves. Perhaps it will be
different for some of you who are younger than say, 25, but for the rest of us, I cannot see
that there is anyone here who is going to be the subject of a book or movie because of all
of the good deeds you have done.
In addition to our ordinariness, there is the whole question of who needs a church
anyway? We live in a culture and in a time that values individual freedom and consumer
choices. An increasing number of people tell pollsters that they are “spiritual,” but not
“religious.” They may or may not believe in some kind of God, but they don’t see a need
for belonging to a group or attending a religious service as a way of living out those beliefs.
For ordinary people such as us, living at times such as this, we have the same
question as the Christians in Acts 2: “What does this – this Pentecost anniversary mean?
What is God thinking?
Of course, we have no answer as to what God is thinking. We have only the
answers that God has revealed to us. But Acts 2 does reveal answers about what
Pentecost means for us. The answer is the same thing Pentecost has meant since the
beginning, as unlikely as it may seem. God has chosen us – and has empowered us – to
witness to Jesus Christ – to be the body of Christ on this earth since Jesus has ascended
into heaven.
We are not chosen because we are special – we remain ordinary frail human
beings. But together we are made special because God chooses to make us special. God
has given us this identity and purpose of being Jesus’ witnesses. Even more importantly,
God has given the Holy Spirit and has poured it on all flesh, ministers and laity, adult,
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youth, and children, long-time member and new convert alike. And because God has
poured the Holy Spirit on the church, extraordinary things can happen even among
ordinary people in ordinary congregations.
You see, in God’s plan, the church is a necessity. Communities of faith are as
essential for our spiritual health as regular meals, exercise, and sleep are essential for
healthy bodies. We can pretend otherwise. We can live otherwise. But we will not be as
healthy. That is just the way God made us.
Communities of faith provide us models and examples – for children certainly, but
also for adults. Here we learn to live with and care for those who are not related to us by
blood or common interest or common politics. Here we can find support when we need it.
But it is not always about what we get. Here we come to worship God. And here we come
because someone else needs us. Communities of faith give us opportunities to use our
gifts to help others.
What is God thinking? I don’t know, but in God’s plan, it is up to us for Jesus’
message to be carried to those who don’t know it, or who cannot hear it, or who once knew
it but have forgotten it. And just as the cross and tomb proved to be no obstacle to God
doing His will, so the ordinary people and ordinary congregations of the church have not
prevented God from accomplishing what he wants to accomplish. Just think what has
happened since that first Pentecost day - how far and wide the church has grown – from
that room in Jerusalem to the ends of the earth. Think about this: Presbyterian
missionaries took Christianity to Korea and now there are more Presbyterians in Korea
than in the United States. Missionaries from the West took Christianity to Africa and now
there are more Christians in Africa than in Europe and North America combined. The
communists in China and Russia did all they could do to suppress the church – and now
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there are more Christians in those countries than ever. The wind blows where it wills –
and nothing can stop the wind.
The church is the means through which God has chosen to spread the good news
of Jesus Christ throughout the world. But that does not mean that the church is always a
Godly place or Godly people. For we are human and we are sinners. Apart from God we
are nothing. Unless, we in the church recognize our sin and our frailty and seek the
guidance and power of the Holy Spirit, we will be useless to God, and we will offer a stone
rather than bread to a hungry world.
But empowered by the Holy Spirit, extraordinary things happen in and through
ordinary people and ordinary congregations. Not necessarily in big and dramatic ways, but
always in some way, one person at a time. The wind blows where it wills.
This week, ordinary tutors traveled again to Barth Elementary so that a young man
might get some help in school – and so that he might know that he matters even to a
stranger who had never set eyes on him before this year. This week, an ordinary doctor
and her husband in India, with our support, provided jobs, school, and the good news of
the gospel to families living among the garbage dumps in a city in India.
This week, at least two people went to the doctor for tests and knew that they went
with the support and prayers of many ordinary people waiting on the results. It makes a
difference – just ask them. This week someone we have been praying for found a job –
working with another church member. This week, ordinary people came and found
themselves renewed and strengthened in worship to serve and be available to be used by
God. As one woman said in a Bible study this week, “What if I what I do and say is the
only Bible that someone else sees this week?”
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Fifteen years ago we recruited several couples to work with the Junior and Senior
high Seekers. They joined the Picardis who had volunteered to keep the Seeker program
going during the interim before we got here. Not long after the Seeker program had
started in the Fall, we asked the advisors whether they might be interested in taking the
youth on a mission trip that summer. We told them we had done it in Richmond and
thought that both the youth and adults who went found it pretty meaningful.
Their reaction was polite – but incredulous. We had recruited them to come out
several Sunday nights a month for youth group, and they were doing that and were glad to
do it. But now we were talking about taking a week of vacation off of work – not to go to
the beach or a lake in the mountains, but to go someplace where they would sleep on the
floor of a church, work hard, and spend the whole week with youth. What were we
thinking?!
We agreed that it might be too much – so we waited a year and tried again. And
this time enough said “yes,” so that we could go. You know the rest of the story. And
though the names have changed with one exception – a Campbell has been on every trip
– these adults keep taking a week of vacation from work to spend a week sleeping in a
church with a bunch of youth – and find it worth it.
Why? Not because the other adults or the youth are so extraordinary. But because
the Holy Spirit shows up – and when that happens, ordinary people doing ordinary work as
the people of God experience something extraordinary. It has been that way ever since
the Holy wind started blowing on that first Pentecost.
Happy Pentecost! Let us ride the wind!
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