Acts 2:1-21
Pentecost Sunday / Year A
Happy Birthday
everyone! Did you even know it is your
birthday today? Or, I should say
birthdays! The Christian Church first came into being on
this day – Pentecost Sunday – fifty days after Jesus’ Resurrection. Before he ascended into heaven, Jesus promised
to send “another”, a “comforter”, to take his place. As we just read, this happens when the Holy
Spirit falls on Jesus’ disciples as they are gathered in a room in
Jerusalem. That was nearly 2,000 years
ago, around 33 AD it marks the beginning or birth of the Christian Church.
Today is also the day we here
at St. Paul’s celebrate the establishment of our parish by an act of the
Virginia General Assembly in 1642. One
of three parishes founded in what is now the city of Suffolk, we were known
then as the Parish of the Upper Nansemond.
Because we know only the year this happened, but not the exact date,
Pentecost seems an appropriate time to celebrate our local historical origin.
And we have one more
birthday to celebrate today. This is the
131st anniversary of our first service of public worship in this
space in 1895. It took place on
Pentecost Sunday, which in that year was June 16th, but we fix our
celebration to the Liturgical Calendar.
We have on display in the Chapel the Parish Registry of Services
dating back to our first Sunday here. It
was lost to history for some time, then it fell out of the ceiling of my
bathroom when I was doing demo work several years ago! (the house I own
initially was built by the church in 1935 to serve as its Rectory… so who knows
what other important documents are tucked away in its walls!).
One Sunday, three
birthdays. We are closing in on 2,000
and we are 384 and 131 years old… take your pick.
I am so glad we have the
Olde James River Jazz Band here to help us celebrate. And I am glad we got to sing the old African American Spiritual He’s got the
Whole World in his Hands because it fits in perfectly with the very first
question ever put to the Christian Church.
We heard it just moments ago:
Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these
who are speaking Galileans? And how is
it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?” Acts 2:7
Since the first Pentecost, God has pushed, prodded,
cajoled, admonished, and begged the Church to embody fully God’s dream for all
people. It has not always been easy for
us and we are not yet there, but ours is a story of a pilgrimage to a holy
destination which is a way of life emulating Jesus. With every day and every step, we are getting
closer.
The first big step for the Church involved a simple
question about the of the limits of God’s love.
With whom should the first disciples share the Good News of God in
Christ? Who did Jesus want to welcome
into his Kingdom? From the very
beginning we learn Jesus does not intend for the Church to be a private club
for his first followers. Why else would
the Holy Spirit give them the miraculous ability to be heard in the languages
of such a diverse group. “How is it each
can hear what is being said?” – the very first question asked of the
Church. The answer, “Because the Good
News of God in Christ is for all people.
No exceptions. No one is to be
left out.”
I’ve told you before my core theology:
God exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in perfect
relational harmony. And God invites all
people to join in this relational harmony, thus drawing us into ever-widening
circles of fellowship.
Ever-widening circles of fellowship part can be a
challenge. The early Church thought it
extended only to Jews, to God’s chosen people.
Take any controversial thing the Episcopal Church has faced in our
lifetime, put it on steroids, and you won’t even come close to the kerfuffle
that erupted after Peter baptized Cornelius and his family. They were first Gentile converts and when
Peter baptized them – something happened unthinkable at the time… the Holy
Spirit was manifested in them as it had been among the disciples on
Pentecost. When Peter reports all of
this to the Apostles huddled in Jerusalem, they explode. They held Gentiles are unclean, not worthy of
God’s blessing, and certainly are not to be welcomed into the movement founded
by Jesus. Yes, the circle is
ever-widening, but often the stretching involves pain for the Church because
God’s love extends beyond our comfort zones.
Out of curiosity I Googled this question: “What are
the limits of God’s love?” It led me to
several sites, each of which told me God’s love is limitless; citing specific
bible verses to back this up. But those
same sites, perhaps uncomfortable with no qualifications, each added something
to the effect of God is going to punish unrepentant sinners and those who do not
confess the truth, again citing verses.
Like at the Church’s birth, we are still uncomfortable
with the expansiveness of God’s love, especially when it welcomes in those we
struggle to love. Let me confess the
circle of fellowship I am naturally inclined to draw has its limits, just as I
suspect yours does. Still, God does not
let us rest in our oasis of provincial comfort.
While the audience at the Church’s first sermon asks
“how” it was possible for each on them to hear in their own language, we in the
Church should be asking “Why is it possible?”
Why is God giving us this ability and what does God want us to
achieve? Here is a clue offered by the
Reformed theologian Lewis Smedes:
The God who has the whole world in his hands has grace
for the whole world in his heart.
When God sends another, the Comforter, this Spirit
brings to us all the mercy, grace, and love that lies deep in the heart of
God. It abides in us and dwells in us
and becomes every bit as vital as breath is to the body. Yes, at times we fight it. But the Spirit moving in us moves us proclaim
God’s grace and to manifest it in and through all we do. It is God’s birthday gift to us and we cannot
help but share it with all who enter this place (as we have for the last 131
years), with all of Suffolk (as we have done since 1642), and with the whole
world (which we have been doing for nearly 2,000 years).
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