Sermon - Pentecost Sunday

Acts 2:1-21, John 14:8-17          

How Did They Understand?

When you are called upon to serve as a Lector you might think that your first response should be to go to the calendar hanging on your kitchen wall and determine whether or not you will indeed be in town and in church on the particular Sunday in question.  You might think that the most important piece of information is whether or not you have something else scheduled for that weekend or that day.  But no-o-o!  You shouldn’t consult the appointment book, what you ought to look at is the Liturgical Calendar.  You need to make sure that the day you agree to be the lector isn’t Pentecost Sunday - the Sunday on which you will have to try and pronounce every little village and town in the ancient near east.  I think (---------/--------) did a commendable job this morning.  Let’s give her/him a round of applause for her/his efforts.

Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia... the list is a killer.  The miracle on that first Pentecost was that residents from all these places could understand the words being spoken by the disciples.  The miracle on each subsequent Pentecost is that anyone can understand us as we try to pronounce all those names. 

It was quite a collection of vastly differing national, ethnic, and racial clans.  The persons who were milling about in the streets of Jerusalem did not share a common language.  They did not share a common worldview or history.  They came from diverse cities and villages.  They were as different as different could be.  And yet, we are told, each one understood as the disciples emerged from their upper room and began to tell what had just happened to them. 

How could this occur?

The text is a bit confusing as to the exact mechanics by which this happens.  At one point it says the disciples begin to speak in other languages, suggesting that the miracle was the ability to speak a previously unknown tongue.  But the verses which follow suggest that the miracle might have happened in the ears of these out-of-town guests.  Luke writes:  each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.  So, was the miracle in the sounds produced by the voice boxes?  Or was it the interpretation of the reverberations which flooded the ear canals? 

I would like to suggest a third option.  And I want to suggest this option particularly because we are drawing close to the last time I will stand among you and speak.  I want to suggest that the reason everyone is able to understand might have less to do with the mechanics of speaking or hearing and more to do with the Truth of that which is being communicated. 

You have probably had an experience in which someone tried to talk to you in a language that you did not understand.  If you have had that type of an experience, I hope you have had the follow-up experience of remaining in the conversation until you reached a point in that exchange in which you did begin to understand; understanding what they were communicating, even if you could not interpret their words.  That is what I want to suggest might have happened on that first Pentecost. 

In no way should such an interpretation lessen our appreciation for the miracle which occurred on that day.  But it does place the emphasis of the miracle solidly where it belongs.  It wasn’t the mechanics of speaking or hearing which enabled those Phrygia and Pamphylia to understand.  It was the importance and urgency of that which begged to be communicated.

I was involved in such an encounter yesterday morning.  I was out for a walk when a young man path fell parallel to my own.  Sensing that he might be an international graduate student, I struck up a conversation.  He was.  A civil engineering PhD, from Nepal.  I speak no Nepalese, and his English was quite good, but as is often the case we lacked the precise words to speak of the things we were discussing.  It didn’t matter.  The short exchange affirmed our shared wonder of the world’s beauties and our appreciation for the unique offerings of each tribe and clan.  At least, that is what I felt, deep in my soul, as we parted.  

On the Day of Pentecost, the disciples burst forth from their upper room and they began to speak of the wonderful thing which had happened to them.  The travelers who had gathered in the streets understood because of the power and truth of message contained in the words spoken by those disciples.

This is what I want I want all of you to remember hearing me say:  That the message of the first disciples and every disciple since is a wonderful message, a message so fantastic that it hardly needs words at all. 

The hope of hearing such a message is what had brought all those folks to Jerusalem in the first place.  They are described as “devout Jews from every nation.”  They were converts to the religious system of the Hebrews.  They had devoted themselves to the teachings and instructions of Moses because in these writings they had found an answer to that which was lacking in their lives.  They did not come to Jerusalem in order to avoid some unforeseen and future punishment, they came because they wanted to experience the shalom (the peace) promised to the followers of Yahweh.  They came because they had become convinced that living in accordance to the teaching of the Rabbi’s would make their lives fuller and richer and more meaningful.  They came because they wanted to be filled and fulfilled and they were hopeful that the God of the Hebrews would respond favorably to their request.

They came because they wanted to be blessed.  And as they are milling about the streets they are encountered by this group of hysterical men (perhaps with those tongues of fire still burning on each.)  And these men are letting it be known that their greatest expectations had been met and were indeed being surpassed.  Powerfully aware of God’s presence, these disciples of Jesus were speaking of all that God had done for them.

Here is what I want you remember hearing me say to you: the disciples were filled with joy and excitement.  Their cup was over flowing with expectation as a result of all that God was doing in their lives.  God had come into their lives to give them everything they needed, everything they wanted.  The Truth they communicated is the availability of these gifts to all those willing and able to listen. 

This is the story told in every expression of the Christian Church, not merely the Lutheran Church.  But, as Lutherans, we have something very important to offer the rest of Christendom.  The personal history of Martin Luther goes a long way in explaining why it is that we continue to be a separate denomination.

In his youth, Martin thought that the task of a Christian was to avoid the punishment of God.  He obeyed every rule he could find and he spent hours upon hours confessing his transgressions of those rules.  He tried hard, very hard.  But he realized it was a losing battle.  He could never live up to the line of scripture which says, be ye perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.  He just couldn’t do it.  Not only was this beyond his capabilities, he realized it is beyond any human effort.  Martin Luther was a teacher of the bible, a religion professor at the university in Wittenberg.  In reading his bible, and setting aside the popular interpretations of his day, he was able to return to the Bible’s central message.  He was able to reaffirm what Jesus had said and Paul had written.  God was not seeking strict obedience to rules and commands (God already had that in the form of the Pharisees).  God was in search of persons who would love God and who would allow God to love them.  And so Luther began to preach of the love of God and the desire of God that we would accept his gift of forgiving grace.

What I want you most to remember about my years among you, is that being a Christian has little to do with the keeping of those rules and a lot to do with the acceptance of God’s grace. 

What is it that you most need in your life?  What is it that you want?  God supplied the disciples with the assurance that He would always be with them.  God assured them that they would never travel along, that there would always be another believer at their side ready to lift them up when they were down, ready to support them when they were weak.  God told the disciples that He would come and make His home with them and fill them with His joy - a joy that is not dependent upon the waxing and waning of human circumstance but is built upon the solid rock of Christ’s love.  God sent the disciples His assurance that they would always have a home, with Him, and that home would be there for them throughout all of eternity.

We are Christians because being a Christian makes our lives full and rich and meaningful.  We affirm our faith in God because it is through that faith that we receive the things we need and that which we want.  The miracle is not in the speaking or in the hearing.  The miracle lies in the tremendous truth contained in the message.

Amen.