Pentecost Sunday

This Sunday is the celebration of Pentecost, the day we remember and celebrate the event recorded in Acts 2:1-21 when God gave the apostles the gift of the Holy Spirit. There are oodles of things written about this text, but the one thing that always calls my attention is the apostles' ability to "speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability." Here we see the Jewish people who have been dispersed in the diaspora, having grown up in different countries with different cultures and languages, being gathered together again in one body. When combined with the day's second lesson regarding the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:3b-13), there is a clear theme of the Spirit's power to gather together a diverse community. This will preach; in fact, I preached it in 2002. It was even one of those rare sermons that I read again 3 years later and thought I would be glad to preach again.

Problem is, I preached unity in the midst of diversity last week. So, what to do?

There's a piece of this hearing and speaking miracle that I have often ignored. While the foreigners were amazed and astonished at being able to hear in their own languages, there was another group of people who didn't hear a miracle; all they heard in the apostles' speaking of Arabic and Phyrigian was so much babbling. They downright scoffed, loudly for everyone to hear, "those guys must be drunk!"

So, who were these who could not, would not, hear a miracle? Well, it seems they must have been the ones who didn't speak Arabic or Phyrigian, the ones who weren't amazed at hearing their own language because they got to hear it all the time. Surely the scoffers were the residents of Jerusalem (who never took a second language in high school). These were the insiders, the ones who expected to understand. Surely the apostles' could have given their message in Greek, the lengua franca of the time, and most of the people there would have understood. After all, the Arabs and Phryigians knew that this was the language of the Empire and so they would have learned it to do business and to be able to find their way around Jerusalem. Yet, the Spirit did not speak using the common language of the Empire; the Spirit chose to speak in the diverse language of the nations and gather people together in their diversity, rather than forcing them to conform to the dominant culture of the Empire (and of the Holy City of Jerusalem). The only ones who stood outside this new community were the insiders -- who heard in their langugage but refused to believe that God was speaking in the others. These were the ones to whom Peter now addresses his first missional sermon.

He begins by saying, "Men of Judea, these are not drunk as you suppose.." and then he goes on to tell the good news of Jesus Christ, who was tried by their city officials, crucified outside their city walls, and rose again for them. These are the people who ask at the end of Peter's sermon what they are to do and Peter tells them to repent and be baptized. And they do; and they are. Before his ascension Jesus had told the apostles they would receive the Holy Spirit and be his witnesses "in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." And Jerusalem is precisely where they need to begin -- this will probably be their toughest task, the conversion of the insiders. After all, those who live in a religious center have seen it all before, they've heard it all before, they are not ready to recognize the Spirit doing a new thing, they are not willing to see the way in which the Spirit is at work outside of their own culture and language. They are the ones who cannot see or hear the miracle. But once they do, their eyes are opened and they, too, are gathered into the community.

I'm not sure if this is what I will preach on Sunday, although it seems fruitful. I would still like to get at the second lesson and the Body of Christ imagery. Perhaps there is a way that these texts can go together? Your words are welcome.

Also, if you have an ATLAS subscription, check out this article that makes this exact point about the scoffers and relates it to Babel in a new and really helpful way:
"Babel and Empire: Pentecost and Empire Preaching on Genesis 11:1-9 and Acts 2:1-12" by Catherine and Justo Gonzalez, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia