Primed for Joy: May 19, 2024

Year B, Pentecost Acts 2:1-22

Last week I had the opportunity to complete my women’s leadership training through Princeton Seminary.  It started 18 months ago and included women from across the country.  We were split into small groups and our group had 7 women from 6 different states and 5 different denominations.  I have learned a tremendous amount from these women over the past year and a half.  

One of them is at University Baptist Church in Austin-- right across from the University of Texas.  During our time together, she shared what it was like opening her church up as a respite center for the college protesters.  Her church became not just a safe space, but a place of healing.  People could come after being sprayed with pepper spray and tear gas, a place people came to weep after being released from jail.  She said she never saw any violence from the students, but excessive use of force from the police in riot gear.  She spoke of poetry readings, interfaith worship, and the joy that accompanied these unexpected moments.  The group she encountered was made up of Jews, Muslims, Christians and agnostics, all working together.  One of the other pastors in our group said it sounded just like Pentecost and I thought…well Pentecost with riot gear. It made me wonder what would happen if Pentecost happened today.    

A lot of people think that Pentecost was always a Christian holiday, one of the originals that we invented.  But it was, and still is a Jewish holiday. Our story from Acts refers to a crowd gathering.  It says, “Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.” That crowd was there to celebrate the Jewish feast of Pentecost. In the Jewish faith, Pentecost marks the end of the spring harvest.  People gathered together to present their first fruits of the harvest.  It was a time to praise God and show gratitude for all God had given.   

Later in chapter 2 of Acts, it says that 3,000 people were baptized. Presumably not everyone present was baptized which means this crowd was at least 3,000 people.  That is significant crowd. They were there for their own purposes (the Jewish feast of Pentecost) and it must have been rather jarring to have their holiday suddenly usurped by 12 Galilean fishermen who were speaking in different languages. Their behavior was so bizarre that people assumed these disciples of a crucified Messiah were drunk.  It had to be very unsettling.    

Peter defended himself and his companions by quoting the prophet Joel and talking about the sun turning to darkness and the moon to blood.  That’s just a weird way to try to calm a crowd.  It seems to me that would have just stirred people up, which is exactly what the Holy Spirit is known for, stirring things up.  But the crowd didn’t know that.  They were there for a harvest festival.  They were not there for tongues of fire, blood moons and seemingly intoxicated disciples.  This was in Jerusalem…a city. This wasn’t in a field in the middle of nowhere.  What do you think would happen in Old City if there was an event like that…without a permit? Would there be police? Almost surely.  I would probably be the one calling them, because this would be alarming  

After Peter preached his disturbing, but inspiriting sermon, the people were clearly moved. That was why they were baptized.  Yet I can’t help but wonder what the Roman authorities were thinking. We don’t actually know if there were any Roman soldiers on the scene at Pentecost. The Roman military was known for getting involved in anything that might be perceived as disturbing the peace.   The years 27 BC to 180 AD are referred to as Pax Romana because it was a period of relative peace and security for the Roman Empire. Jesus’ life and death and the birth of the church falls squarely in that period.  But that peace was enforced by the Roman military.  One of the reasons that Jesus was killed was because they feared rebellion.  Yet, even if there were soldiers on the scene, they didn’t respond with violence, because that would have been included in the story. 

When I started thinking about this sermon, I wanted to talk about why our nation and world seems to deal with things so violently and I was going to contrast our present day with the peaceful Pentecost 2000 years ago. But the reality is that humans have been hurting each other since Adam and Eve’s eldest son killed the younger one.  We have just found more and efficient ways to do it.   

Now I understand that some of these protesters are bad actors and that many are breaking rules that are there for a purpose.  I also know that some of these protests have included anti-Semitic behavior.  And that is one of the reasons I have not wanted to discuss it. I have heard personal stories of some horrific anti-Semitic behavior. It’s terrifying and heinous.  But there has to be a way for people to express themselves on divisive issues without it escalating to violence.  Not every college protest has ended with the police coming in.  We are capable of disagreeing in this nation without it leading to violence. 

I have struggled so much with this sermon because while I never pretend to have all the answers in any sermon, I try not to leave you more confused at the end.  I have been thinking, what’s missing in our world…or maybe not missing, but it short supply?  What had made us so quick to attack rather than finding ways to communicate? We had our last class on spiritual disciplines, which Noah brilliantly led.  And our final spiritual discipline was celebration.  We spent a lot of time talking about the things that bring us joy.  And I realized…that’s what’s in short supply.  It’s joy.   I am not talking about happiness which we often equate with worldly things or even things that we have to earn---I am talking about the joy that comes when we see God in the world around us—when we show gratitude for what God has given us, which is exactly what the first Pentecost was. 

When my friend at the University of Texas talks about everything going on, it comes out in a mixture of tears, smiles, laughter, and more tears.  She has found so much joy in this new community that she is witnessing. She has also seen a lot of pain. If she can see joy in that tense and volatile situation, then we still have hope.  There is joy in our world.  Sometimes it is more subtle and sometimes quite obvious. We have a beautiful opportunity to witness joy today in our service because what is more joyful than a baptism?   What is more joyful than welcoming a new person into our community? What is more joyful than telling someone that they are marked at Christ’s own forever? 

But what about those times when joy is harder to recognize?  Our Acts reading is full of energy and joy.  The reading from Romans speaks to those times when joy and hope are elusive---times when it’s hard to pray and praise. In those times Paul (the author of Romans) writes that the Holy Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. The Holy Spirit doesn’t just come to us on happy occasions, or in tongues of fire, or even worship.  It comes to us in one on one conversations, sometimes painful conversations.  Sometimes moments of silence, or when we choose to listen instead of talk.  It come in sighs too deep for words…  

The Holy Spirit is here for all of it. I wonder if the answer is in that very first Pentecost.  That crowd gathered was there to praise God, to thank God for the harvest God had given them.  That joy and gratitude—it primed them to hear what the disciples were saying, even though it wasn’t at all what they expected.  That is why prayer and praise helps us, not just in our relationship with God, but in our relationship with one another.  It primes us for joy.  

Diversity isn't a punishment: June 5, 2022

 Year C, Pentecost                                              Genesis 11:1-9 and Acts 2:1-21                                                                      

            Every once in a while, our lectionary gives us options on what readings we can use on a Sunday.  Typically we have a reading from the Old Testament, the Psalms, the New Testament and then a Gospel reading.   You might have noticed that in the season of Easter, we haven’t had an Old Testament reading.  Instead we have read from the Book of Acts.  On this Pentecost Sunday, we have the option of skipping the Old Testament reading again.  Often I do that on Pentecost, because it bothered me the way the story of the Tower of Babel was always set up against the story of Pentecost, as if Pentecost was a solution to the Tower of Babel.  It’s more complicated than that. 

            This year I found myself curious about the Tower of Babel. So often when we hear or tell the story, we tell the children’s Bible version of it. The people were bad and God punished them accordingly. If you read it that way, then one could conclude that diversity is God’s punishment to humanity and that just doesn’t ring true.

Photo by Ronan Furuta 

            When we tell or interpret the story of Babel, people often talk about the pride of the people.  It makes sense given what we hear from the people who are building the tower. “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”  They were trying to reach the heavens.  Why else would you try to reach the heavens unless you are competing with God? There probably was a bit of human pride going on.   However, I am not sure that was what was really bothering God.  If God punished humanity every time we demonstrated pride in an achievement, we would be in serious trouble.

            Instead, look at the actual reason they gave for building the tower.  “…otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”  They were looking to settle in one place.  It says that in the 2^nd verse of the chapter.  “And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.”  The word that is translated to settle is the same word as sit.  It literally means that the people stopped moving.  And who can blame them? They had been traveling, wandering perhaps. They were ready to settle down.  They didn’t want to live out of tents anymore.  It’s like how you hear people talk about moving into their “forever home.”  It’s usually when people are a little later in life, they realize they don’t want to move anymore. They are ready to settle in one place, the place.  So maybe these people are just ready for their forever home.  Is that so bad?

            Let’s consider where we are in the story of the people of God.  This is the book of Genesis. It’s actually pretty early in the Book of Genesis.  (Show where we are in the Bible)  We have a lot more to this story.  You don’t settle in your forever home at this point in the story, especially when the story is God’s story and the people are God’s people.  Of course you can’t really blame them. They might not have realized how important it was for them to continue to scatter and migrate. They were thinking of their own stories.  And you know what sounds great in our own stories?  Big accomplishments.  Big towers.  But God was carrying a much bigger vision.

            When we consider God’s response, we tend to focus on what he says.  He says, “Let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”  That just sounds kind of mean.  Instead, let’s focus on God’s action.  What did God do?  “God scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.”  God forced them to keep moving.  God would not allow them to get comfortable in their mammoth tower where they could protect themselves from outsiders.  No, God forced them to leave the confines of this walled city and scatter. 

            Was it a punishment?  Maybe, but it was an effective punishment in that it forced them to learn and to grow.  Sure, it started with some confusion.  But so much of our education and formation begins with a little confusion.  I feel like every time I have learned something really important, it started with me completely baffled.   Confusion is only a bad thing if we choose to dwell in the confusion and never find our way out.

            A lot of people say that the story of Pentecost in Acts was a solution to the confusion and scattering that happened in Genesis.  In Acts 2, everyone  was together.  But they weren’t living together on a commune. They had come together for a festival in Jerusalem.  When the Holy Spirit descended, the apostles were able to speak in different languages and the people present were able hear in their own language.  The Holy Spirit didn’t meld all the languages together or make Hebrew the official language.  The Holy Spirit simply allowed more people to hear the word of God in their own language.

            If Pentecost was the solution or the opposite of the Tower of Babel, the people would have all started speaking in the same language and subsequently stayed in Jerusalem.  But that was not what happened.  The people retained their native tongues and the apostles learned to speak in new languages. And after the sermons and the 1,000s of baptisms, then what?  Did they all decide to form a tight knit community and stay in Jerusalem? No!  The people who were visiting presumably went home. The disciples moved outside of the walls, far outside of their comfort zones. The Spirit descended on the disciples when they were in a locked room, but the Spirit also inspired them to break out, to break out of the locked room and scatter.

            God doesn’t want some kind of monoculture.  If that was what God wanted, we would all look the same, talk the same, think the same.  And perhaps we would be united in our sameness.  Maybe there would be less division.  But we would be boring.  And we would probably fight more.  Have you ever noticed that the people who are hardest to get along with are the people most like you?  We should thank God that he scattered the people who were building that tower. He gave us a beautiful gift in doing that.

             I think most of us are pretty capable of embracing diversity.  Once I heard the Mayor of Hampton point out that we started as the most diverse city in this nation.  We of course had the Native Americans, the first Africans and the colonists from Europe.  It took us a long time to figure out that was a good thing. We committed some grave errors at the beginning.  But now I think most of us can embrace the beauty of being in town with so many different kinds of people. The great thing about Hampton is you don’t have to go very far to meet the other.  You might only have to walk about 10 feet.  But you do have to leave your comfort zone…your safe place. 

            Our church is a safe place and it should be…but it shouldn’t be safe in a way that shields us from different people or different opinions.  It’s not a place we can cloister ourselves.  This cannot be our Tower of Babel.  We must scatter through the city, maybe even to Newport News and Norfolk.  We don’t have to move—just visit. We must scatter because we have received the gift of the Holy Spirit and it is God’s divine mandate that we scatter and share it.