Ps 104:24-35 & Ac 2:1-21

19 May 2002

Pentecost

“Hungry for a Vision”

            Today is Pentecost.  For some people, that conjures up images of so-called “holy rollers” treating the church sanctuary as though it were a gymnasium.  (I think I’m allowed to say that, since I used to be in a church like that!)  Some think of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Christian church.  For others, it means the color red—even red geraniums.  For still others, it means nothing at all.

            Pentecost is, after all, one of those days on the calendar that most people tend to ignore.  There’s a similar situation with the Holy Spirit.  I’ve heard the Holy Spirit referred to as the silent member of the Trinity.  The reason for using the word “silent” is because many people are unfamiliar with the Spirit.  Having been in the Assemblies of God, however, that is one word I would not use.  Pentecostals would be very unlikely to call the Holy Spirit silent!  The same is no doubt true of most of the traditionally black churches!

            Pentecost comes from the Old Testament Feast of Harvest, or Feast of Weeks.  This was the day, fifty days after the Feast of Unleavened Bread, when the Israelites were to present the first fruits of the harvest, especially wheat.  The word “Pentecost” means fifty.  Later on, the tradition arose that Moses received the law at Mt. Sinai on the day of Pentecost.

            For us today, Pentecost means that we get to hear Luke’s narrative and Peter’s sermon in Acts 2, with a focus on the reading in Psalm 104.  One of the ironic things about the Assemblies of God, at least in my experience, is that the day of Pentecost would come and go without any notice.  I found it interesting that Pentecostals would put so much emphasis on the Holy Spirit while disregarding Pentecost itself!

            Another meaning of Pentecost is one that I want us to look into more deeply.  I was introduced to this perspective a few years ago after reading a sermon on Pentecost by Jürgen Moltmann entitled, “There is Enough for Everyone.”[1]  Taking his cue from the last parts of chapters 2 and 4 of Acts, Moltmann speaks of the first Christians in Jerusalem as “the Pentecost community.”  This is a community in which everyone’s needs are met.  The love of God’s Spirit, which has been poured out on them, moves them to act with “glad and generous hearts,” as the scripture says (Ac 2:46).

            “Why does the Pentecost community always have ‘more than enough’?” Moltmann asks.  “Because the power of the resurrection and the Spirit of fellowship have liberated them from the fear of death and from anxiety about life.  If God is for us, if God is in our midst, between each and all of us, then there is no longer any want, in any sector of life.  People share everything and share in everything, divide and confide all that they have.  That is the message of the Pentecost community in Jerusalem, which made so many rich.  And that is their message to us as well.”[2]

            This theme of provision, both by God and by the people of God, isn’t something that immediately comes to mind when we think of Pentecost.  We’ll see this more explicitly stated in our psalm reading.  But it’s there, between the lines so to speak, in the scripture texts that deal with the sending of the Spirit.

            I’ve heard plenty of sermons that focus on Acts 2:1-4, but I think my favorite part of the chapter comes during Peter’s address to the crowd in verses 17 and 18.  He’s claiming that the day’s events fulfill the words of the prophet Joel:  “In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.  Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days, I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.”

            That’s Old Testament-speak for everyone!  Regardless of gender, regardless of age, regardless of social class—all are eligible for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  Let me put it this way:  if you have a pulse, you are qualified for a new vision.  If you are breathing, you are on the list for a new dream.  If there is life in your body, you are capable of speaking God’s word, of speaking God’s truth.

            A quick word about that last one:  to prophesy doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re a prophet.  And contrary to popular belief, a prophet is much less one who talks about the future than one who speaks the word of God to people in the here and now.  So, aside from any confusion about that, the Spirit of God can inspire all of us—male and female, old and young, rich and poor—with visions, with dreams, with words to utter.

            Some of you may have heard that comment about “old and young” and thought, “How little he knows!  Wait until he’s aged a few more decades, and then we’ll see what he says!”  Of course, I do realize, that as we age, we do different things; our capabilities change.  I know this to be true!  Whatever capability I once had to dunk a basketball is gone!

            Still, no one is too old to pray.  No one is too old to show love to other people.  No one is too old to have a living, active faith.  There are people who spend their entire lives on this earth and never learn that!  I would rather be in a church that prays and loves, yet is penniless, than to be in one that lacks faith and vision, yet is overflowing with cash.

            Speaking of money, which is related to the subject of provision, let’s look at our reading in Psalm 104, which has several examples of God’s provision to the creation.  This being St. Susan Sunday, as well as the day we’re invited to participate in Bread for the World’s Offering of Letters, I want to especially focus on the references to God’s provision of food.

            Prior to our scripture passage, we see examples of that in verses 14, 15, and 21.  Then in verses 27 and 28, speaking of the creation, the psalmist declares, “These all look to you to give them their food in due season; when you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.”  We can’t afford to be complacent about our position at the top of the food chain—at least, that’s where we think we are!  It’s really God who provides food for all of us!

            Of course, we have a role to play in that, as well.  According to the US Conference of Mayors, churches and charities are straining to serve rising requests for food from their pantries and soup kitchens, especially from working people.  In 2001, requests for emergency food assistance in 25 major cities increased for the sixteenth year in a row—by an average of 23 percent.  Thirty-seven percent of the adults requesting food assistance were employed.  That’s the situation in this, the mightiest country on earth.  In some countries the reality is much worse.  During the time we spend in this worship service, between 800 and 1400 children worldwide will starve to death.

            Psalm 104 ends on what may seem to be a strange note.  After all the beautiful language of praising the Creator for the multitude of blessings bestowed, we get this in the first half of verse 35, seemingly out of nowhere:  “Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more.”  Only the second half of the verse is in our lectionary reading.  As they sometimes do, the compilers of the lectionary have left out a difficult passage.

            Still, there is a purpose for this somber note about sin.  It reminds us that there are consequences to doing the wrong thing, to doing evil—to supporting others in evil, to making money off their evil.  And while we may not want to join the psalmist in praying for the extinction of sinners (that does include us, after all!), we are reminded of the many ways that, whether deliberately or not, we participate in sin.

            Jürgen Moltmann has asked the question, “Why have people in our modern world become so distorted?”  I’ve thought about that one myself.  There are so many ways in which we’re warped.  He goes on, “Because both consciously and unconsciously they are dominated by the fear of death.  For a person’s greed for life is really [one’s] fear of death; and [one’s] fear of death finds expression in an unbridled hunger for power.  ‘You only live once!’ we are told.  You might miss out on something!  This hunger for pleasure, for possessions, for power—this thirst for recognition by way of success and admiration—this is the sin of modern men and women.”[3]

            By opening themselves to the Holy Spirit, by thirsting for God’s love and truth, the first Christians in Jerusalem discovered a new way of living.  They discovered a new vision.  The lessons that Jesus had struggled to teach them came into new clarity with the Spirit’s help.  They understood and were empowered like never before.

            Again, Moltmann:  “When the fear of death leaves us, the destructive craving for life leaves us too.  We can then restrict our desires and our demands to our natural requirements.  The dreams of power and happiness and luxury and far-off places, which are used to create artificial wants, no longer entice us.  They have become ludicrous.”  (Artificial wants?  Without those, most advertisers would be out of business!)

“So we shall use only what we really need, and shall no longer be prepared to go along with the lunacy of extravagance and waste.”  This is important!  [When the fear of death leaves us] “we do not even need solemn appeals for saving and moderation; for life itself is glorious, and here joy in existence can be had for nothing.”[4]

The first Christians in Jerusalem were not strangers to suffering; they were not strangers to poverty.  Still, as Acts 4:34 tells us, “There was not a needy person among them.”  In the Pentecost community, no one went hungry.  That’s something we American Christians, to our shame, cannot say.

But friends, it doesn’t have to be that way!  If we are hungry for a vision, the Spirit will give us one.  We can be those who dream great dreams—to have God enable us to speak the truth in love.  We can see that people are fed, both physically and spiritually.  And if the time comes that we feel we’re too busy or that, if we’re honest, we just don’t care what happens, it’s okay to (and indeed, please) ask God to help us with our priorities—to give us the desire to care.  God knows I’ve prayed that prayer more times in my life than I would like to admit!  The Holy Spirit wants us to truly be the body of Christ on earth—to love others as Jesus did.  But be looking for the opportunity; it will present itself.

I want to finish by including a quote from the Scottish minister, George Adam Smith, who died early in the twentieth century.  My source for the quote is the man who was my pastor while I was in seminary, David McMillan at Overbrook Presbyterian in Philadelphia.

“The great causes of God and Humanity are not defeated by the hot assaults of the Devil, but by the slow, crushing, glacier-like mass of thousands and thousands of indifferent nobodies.  God’s causes are never destroyed by being blown up, but by being sat upon.”

         We can quench the Spirit, or we can be filled with the Spirit.  We can plunge ourselves into ice water, or we can let God set us on fire.  We can let the vision die, or we can be hungry for a vision.

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