Lectionary Reflection — 20 May 2018, Pentecost Sunday
1-4 When the Feast of Pentecost came, the followers of Jesus were all together in one place. Without warning there was a sound like a strong wind, gale force — no one could tell where it came from. It filled the whole building. Then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks, and they started speaking in a number of different languages as the Spirit prompted them.
5-11 There were many Jews staying in Jerusalem just then, devout pilgrims from all over the world. When they heard the sound, they came on the run. Then when they heard, one after another, their own mother tongues being spoken, they were thunderstruck. They couldn’t for the life of them figure out what was going on, and kept saying, “Aren’t these all Galileans? How come we’re hearing them talk in our various mother tongues?
“Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; visitors from Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene; immigrants from Rome, both Jews and proselytes; even Cretans and Arabs!
“They’re speaking our languages, describing God’s mighty works!”
12 Their heads were spinning; they couldn’t make head or tail of any of it. They talked back and forth, confused: “What’s going on here?”
13 Others joked, “They’re drunk on cheap wine.”
14-21 That’s when Peter stood up and, backed by the other eleven, spoke out with bold urgency: “Fellow Jews, all of you who are visiting Jerusalem, listen carefully and get this story straight. These people aren’t drunk as some of you suspect. They haven’t had time to get drunk — it’s only nine o’clock in the morning. This is what the prophet Joel announced would happen:
“In the Last Days,” God says, “I’ll pour out my Spirit on every kind of people: Your sons will prophesy, also your daughters; your young men will see visions, your old men dream dreams. When the time comes, I’ll pour out my Spirit on those who serve me, men and women both, and they’ll prophesy. I’ll set wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billowing smoke, the sun turning black and the moon blood-red, before the Day of the Lord arrives, the Day tremendous and marvelous; and whoever calls out for help to me, God, will be saved.”
Other readings:
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I remember the first time I experienced Pentecost Sunday in an Episcopal church. Generally, when we get to the Gospel portion of the service, the designated reader proceeds to the center of the church (or close to it) carrying the Gospel book.2 The people in the congregation stand, turn toward the Gospel book, and listen to the reading assigned for that day.
But this time it was different.
When time came for the Gospel reading, people who spoke different languages all read the Gospel in another language! It was like a live reenactment of the day of Pentecost and it was amazing! I could pick out the different languages I knew or knew of — English, Spanish, French, etc. But there were others I couldn’t discern. Strange sounds and inflections carried around the room by breath. It was truly something to experience.
Except …
Like any other first — first car, first prom, the first Iron Man movie, etc. — as is so often in life, the once extraordinary became normative. The live reenactment of Pentecost lost its impact for me.
How often does that happen to you? Do things that once moved you now leave you indifferent to their beauty or mystery?
I imagine it was the same for the disciples. The great outpouring of the Spirit that first encounter was something to experience. But it seems to lose it’s wonder as time went on.
When Luke first tells us the story of the coming of the Spirit it’s full of “gail force” winds and a raging “wildfire”. But later on there’s only a mild earthquake (Acts 4.31). And later still, when the Spirit descended on some non-Jewish people, it was with a lot less fanfare:
44-46 No sooner were these words out of Peter’s mouth than the Holy Spirit came on the listeners. The believing Jews who had come with Peter couldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe that the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out on “outsider” non-Jews, but there it was — they heard them speaking in tongues, heard them praising God.
46-48 Then Peter said, “Do I hear any objections to baptizing these friends with water? They’ve received the Holy Spirit exactly as we did.” Hearing no objections, he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus the Christ.
Then they asked Peter to stay on for a few days.
The only evidence for the “gift of the Holy Spirit” was other people heard the “‘outsider’ non-Jews … speaking in tongues … praising God.” And this seems to be the norm from there on out. We no longer read of the gail force winds or raging fires.
Now, certainly, most people attribute the phenomena of Acts 2 to the first outpouring of the Spirit in a large scale way. But the subsequent stories show us that the Spirit continued to be poured out in large ways but the experience — or the recognized experience — seems to be less and less.
And I think this is true for us in many ways and not just with the Breath of God — the work of the Holy Spirit. It seems as time goes on, we because almost callous to the things that once took away our breaths. We don’t notice as much any more. The extraordinary has become ordinary.
When I sometimes ride with Mahina to work, she always seems in awe of the sunrise. Or when we’re on a walk, she’ll always stop to take pictures of the flowers. It’s like she’s seeing these things for the first time.3
What Pentecost means to me is a rekindling of that once, great, awe-inspiring moment. It’s to wake us up to the things of God and experience them as we never have before. Like Mahina looking at flowers, it’s a time to have our eyes opened to the things of God and see them — truly see them — as movements of breath filled sacredness.
And let’s not just think these things must happen within the walls of our churches. No. In fact, those moments that happen there are but a fraction of what God the Spirit is doing throughout the world.
May this season of Pentecost open our eyes and ears to the moment of the Spirit in us and in the world.
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In the Love of the Three in One,
Br. Jack+, LC
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1. Scripture quotations marked (MSG) taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
2. A large, ornate book containing the Gospel readings for the liturgical seasons according to the Revised Common Lectionary.
3. If you follow her on Instagram, you know what I’m talking about.
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