Pentecostal Pandemonium-Theva

Pentecostal Pandemonium!

Acts: 2

Prayer: Spirit of God, may these words bring you closer to us. May your spirit recreate us to be the people of God again. Amen

 The ancient Jewish people gathered on this day for a festival of harvest. It was called the festival of the weeks or the feast of SHAVUOT. This was also a day of commemoration of the giving of the Torah or the Ten Commandments in Mt. Sinai. Today’s Acts story refers to the same festival with many people from all over the world; Egypt and Ethiopia, Galilee and Cappadocia and something inexplicable happened on that day in the temple. They experienced the descending of the Holy Spirit. It was the spirit that moved over the waters in the creation story. It was the spirit that (Genesis 2:7) breathed life into the dust and created the first human being. It was that spirit which blazed with holiness and filled the temple with smoke and cleansed the lips of Isaiah and called him for a vocation of prophecy. It was the Spirit which made a prophet like Amos to rage and roar with a deep conviction of justice “LET JUSTICE ROLL DOWN LIKE WATERS AND RIGHTEOUSNESS LIKE AN EVER FLOWING STREAM. It was the spirit which warmed the heart of John Wesley who pioneered the Wesleyan movement and referred to this whole world as his parish. It was the spirit which endowed Martin Luther King Jr with a dream for freedom and racial justice for all people. And his dream was such an inspiration and it woke up America from the deep slumber of apathy and inhumanity.

        Several years ago when I was walking along one of the sea beaches in Sri Lanka I saw a bunch of children playing with kites. As I passed by them I asked how do you know whether the kite is up on the sky, because it was invisible to my eyes. And the child who was holding the kite on a string said “I know it by the pull. I want to talk to you this morning of the pull of the Holy Spirit. Have you been energized and empowered and sustained and inspired by the Holy Spirit. I believe that I am a spiritual being clothed in this body with mind and heart and veins and arteries. When Jesus was pulled by the power of this spirit he said the Spirit has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind and to let the oppressed go free. The people of Nazareth had never heard a Rabbi explain the word that way before. They were astonished by the attractiveness of the word articulated by one of their own young men from the village. On this day in Jerusalem 2000 years ago the same spirit descended on the people with a mighty sound. The spirit clothed herself with the gushing wind and flame. There was also however a wild uproar and it was a scene of turmoil and it was chaotic. These acts are characterized by a single word according to Webster dictionary and that word is pandemonium.

 It is in the midst of chaos and confusion, uncertainties and ambiguities, life often finds new directions. Failures pave way to success, and defeat to victories. And death to life. This  to me is the meaning of Pentecost.

        Just as when the spirit of the Lord invaded the life of Jesus, he came up with a Nazareth manifesto, so on this day the spirit anointed the gathering and a new community came into being. They were filled with new energies. They received a fresh vision for living. They learned to enjoy life with extended families. When they were enveloped by the spirit, their fears were replaced by faith, they began to sing and to dance and to study the word and to worship. Today we are here to relive that moment. This community then gathered more leaders like Paul and Barnabas and Silas and Titus and Aquila and Priscilla, and branched out to Corinth and Philippi and Ephesus and Thessalonica. Where is that Pentecostal power in the church today? Why are we Holy Spirit shy? A few Sundays ago your Pastor Margaret walked through the center aisle of this sanctuary and asked you to share the different ways the Spirit works in your life and many of you responded to it well. I was impressed.

        I have been part of these spirit filled communities since birth. With close knit groups of people who always gathered in church to worship, celebrate their birthdays, wedding anniversaries and to offer thanks to God for the beginnings and the endings of lives. I have been part of this spirit filled churches where children gathered to sing songs, to play and to pray, where the young people found their mentors, friends, even their life partners within its fellowship. I have been part of this church where people gathered to give a friendly hand to those needed help in the neighborhoods. I have been part of this spirit filled communities where people struggled to dismantle the systems of injustice and oppression. Please don’t tell me that this kind of churches and communities are now pushed only to a distant past. And they live within us only in memories. Why is that only a few churches are claiming that they are the specialists in the work of the Holy Spirit today? In the whole Pentecost story there is an intriguing line: Each one heard the message in his or her own language. In our confusing and conflicting world we need to hear the word spoken to us in our idioms, and our familiar nuances. When this happens we understand other people better and begin to appreciate other cultures. Only when we begin to speak the language of love without any bias a new world will be born.

         Friends I know that this modern world is pulling us in many different directions. When I said I can’t see the kite up there the child said I know by its pull, it is there. How often do you feel the Holy Spirit pull in your soul is the question? 

The little boy Johnny was on the back porch playing sort of rough with a reluctant cat. When they got to making a right sizeable commotion, his mother heard it and yelled out at him, “Johnny, are you pulling that cat’s tail? “No, Mama”, the little Johnny said, “I’m just holding her tail. She is doing all the pulling.”