Text: Luke 4:18-19, Acts 1:8, 2:1-4, 38-39
One of the things that we have re-discovered and remembered this year is that church is not a building.
We have a building, sure.
But the church is the people.
You and me.
The body of Christ.
In the same way, the presence of God is not confined to this physical structure.
And, we don’t have to travel to the Holy Land to be in the presence of God.
It is right here.
Among us.
Wherever two or three are gathered, there I am… Jesus said. (Matthew 18)
Well, that is exactly what happened on that Pentecost morning.
The disciples were gathered together, worshipping, praying, waiting for whatever was supposed to happen next.
Waiting for the power of the Holy Spirit.
And then there was a sound…
Like the howling of a fierce wind…
The entire room was filled with an overwhelming presence…
Tongues of fire danced over their heads…
The Spirit of the Lord was upon them.
The presence of God was right there, in their midst.
When the Spirit of the Lord first appeared to Moses in the burning bush, he heard the call to go back to Egypt and liberate the oppressed.
That power and presence of God released the slaves and set them free for the promised land.
Through a pillar of fire and smoke, the Spirit of the Lord was with the people as they journeyed.
God provided food for their hunger and water for their thirst.
God led them and healed them.
God dwelt among them.
On the mountaintop, the power and presence of God was seen for miles around in wind and fire and Moses journeyed back down forever changed.
He brought with him commandments that would allow them to live according to God’s will.
Laws to help them love God and to love their neighbor.
God wanted this people to bear God’s image to the world.
Yet, as time went on, and the people became settled and rubbed shoulders with folks from lots of different places and cultures, it became harder and harder to stay connected to God’s presence and power.
While the spirit of God continued to call prophets and leaders to keep reminding the people, it was easy to forget about a God who dwelt somewhere else.
So God decided to dwell among the people again.
The Word became flesh.
Jesus entered our lives.
And the Spirit of the Lord was upon him.
As Luke tells us, the Spirit of the Lord sent him forth to preach good news to the poor and heal the sick and to set people free.
People experienced the presence of God through his touch and his words.
And then Jesus promised this same power would be given to the people.
That the Spirit of God would come upon them.
That the presence and power of God would dwell in them.
And they, too, would be sent forth to preach, and to heal, and to change the world.
God would turn the world upside down starting in Jerusalem… heading out to Samaria… and to the ends of the earth.
This was not a promise just for the disciples.
Not just for the Jewish people.
God’s Spirit was pouring out on all people.
On that day of Pentecost, tongues of fire danced over their heads.
God’s presence filled their hearts.
And people from every corner of the world experienced it.
They heard God speaking to them.
They felt God’s presence among them.
And they allowed the gift of the Spirit to fill their lives.
Three thousand people were added to their community.
It is good to be in this space together with folks once again.
But I have to be honest… It is not the space that makes this time of worship holy.
The psalmist may have cried out “How lovely is your dwelling place” and at the time they were talking about the temple.
But the miracle of Pentecost is that the spirit of God dwells in you.
The very presence of God that set that shrub in the wilderness on fire…
And that led the people of Israel through…
That dwelt in the temple…
That filled the life of Jesus Christ…
The Spirit of God filled those first disciples… and then three thousand…
Through them, the presence and power of God moved from Jerusalem…
To Samaria…
To Rome…
And across the oceans…
And right now God’s spirit is upon you.
God’s power dwells in you.
Oh, and how lovely are your faces.
God’s presence is right here in this very room because you are here.
God is with you at home… on your couch… sitting around the kitchen table.
Because the gift of the Holy Spirit is yours.
Right here in the greater Des Moines area, God is with us.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon us right here in this city…
One of the unexpected miracles of Pentecost was the way that this presence of God brought people together.
In the time of exile, Jewish faithful were scattered the winds.
They made their homes in far away places and learned new cultures and languages.
But when able they made the pilgrimage back to Jerusalem to be in the presence of God.
Over these last fourteen months, we have felt a bit scattered to the winds.
We have felt like we were in exile.
Exiled from one another and familiar places.
But that exile is not just a result of quarantines and distancing.
This past year we have experienced political discord and division in our responses to racism and vaccinations and masks.
Although the official language we might speak is the same, the words we use have meanings that separate us.
And so even when we gather in the same space, we are not unlike those pilgrims to Jerusalem who can’t understand one another.
When I read through these verses in Acts once again, I am reminded that this division and discord is not what God intends for us.
As Jana Childers writes in their commentary on this passage, “The human community… begins to be mended. As the Spirit arrives… instead of widening confusion, there is dawning comprehension, incipient reunion. What was divided is mended… The Spirit-baptized are drawn together, this time in the Spirit’s power, for the purposes of extending the realm of God.” [1]
We are drawn together in the Spirit’s power to extend the realm of God.
When Jesus stood up in the synagogue at the beginning of his ministry, he read from the scroll of Isaiah.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, he said,
God has chosen me to preach good news to the poor.
To offer forgiveness and pardon to prisoners.
To be an agent of healing and ease the load of the burdened.
And when he finished reading he sat down and told the people, “Scripture came true just now in this place.”
Right there in Nazareth, the realm of God, the Kingdom of God, was at hand.
The as the disciples claimed the gift of the Holy Spirit and began to preach and teach and heal in Jesus’ name… the realm of God became a reality on the streets of Jerusalem.
People who had been divided began to hear and understand.
It didn’t matter their background or their language or their culture… the presence and power of God rested upon them as the Holy Spirit danced in their midst.
And over the course of this summer, we are going to explore just what it meant for those first disciples to be led by the Holy Spirit and how the realm of God expanded.
We’ll learn about what it means to be a community centered in God.
How to speak God’s truth in the face of opposition.
Along the way, we’ll meet sorcerers and centurions and kings.
We’ll experience earthquakes and shipwrecks, tragedy and miracles.
In the footsteps of Peter and Paul, Barnabas and Silas, Lydia and Tabitha, we will witness how the Spirit of God becomes known to the people of Antioch and Damascus, Lystra and Philippi.
And we will discover how we are “part of the widening circle begun in Acts – part of the growing momentum, building ripple by ripple…”[2] until the realm of God stretches to every corner of this world.
As United Methodists, we see ourselves as part of that widening circle. In our Book of Discipline, we claim that:
“Guided by the Holy Spirit, United Methodist churches throughout the world are called afresh into a covenant of mutual commitment based on shared mission, equity, and hospitality… we commit ourselves to crossing boundaries of language, culture, and social or economic status. We commit ourselves to be in ministry with all people, as we, in faithfulness to the gospel, seek to grow in mutual love and trust. We participate in God’s mission as partners in ministry, recognizing that our God-given gifts, experiences, and resources are of equal value… creating a new sense of community and joyously living out our worldwide connection in our mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” [3]
The Spirit of the Lord is upon us right here in Des Moines.
We might have a diversity of perspectives and backgrounds and gifts, but there is one Spirit.
And right here in this city, God is calling us afresh to focus on our mission… to cherish what each person uniquely brings… and to reach out in love welcoming all.
The Spirit of the Lord is upon us to bring good news and offer forgiveness and heal what is broken and divided.
May the winds of the spirit blow…
Amen.
[1] Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 3, page 19.
[2] Ibid.
[3] 2016 Book of Discipline, ¶125, p. 95-96
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