What are you looking for this Pentecost Sunday? I know, not much really. Another Sunday, hymns and prayers, people in the pews, maybe an attempt to bring a smile or to boost one’s spirits. It’s another opportunity to give you the little bit of encouragement to face whatever is in store for you in the week to come.
It’s a nice place to be. A good place to be. And if you have to miss, no big deal, we can catch it the next time around. Like a soap opera you stop watching for a while and then come back only to find them in about the same place they were when you left. Not much has happened, same issues, same stories. Just a warm feeling that you did a good thing before getting back to the really important things in your day or your life.
Maybe I’ve undersold it a touch. But our expectations are understandably low. I say “understandably” because we never really see much happen in our worship experiences week by week. And so we have learned to come with everything on our minds but the possibility that we just might encounter God one Sunday morning. We’ve come to fix a problem, or to tweak a lifestyle, or to get a pat on the back or push in the backside to keep us moving on the right track. And any and all of those things just might happen and would be good outcomes for our investment of an hour of our time. But they seem so much less than what might be.
Here’s a story of worship gone awry, at least from a human perspective:
Acts 2:1-21 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. 5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs-- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" 13 But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine." 14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15 Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. 16 No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 17 'In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 18 Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. 19 And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. 20 The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day. 21 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'
Pentecost was originally an agricultural festival celebrating the first harvest of the growing season. Later it became a commemoration of the giving of the land of Canaan to the people of Israel, and the even later it morphed into an observance of the giving of the law to Moses on Mount Sinai. All important times of celebration, but nothing to indicate the power that was unleashed in this day. I’m sure it caught the disciples by surprise too. They were used to a low key holiday (not like Yom Kippur or even Rosh Hashana) but instead found themselves in an encounter with God that literally blew them away.
The poet Amos Wilder wrote “Electric Chimes or Ram’s Horns” in response to an advertizement in Reader’s Digest July 1960. The magazine was recommending church attendance, suggesting that good things would come of it. Wilder gleefully agreed, but then proceeded to include a warning. He reminds us, in a creative way, that church is not just about being nice, but about being transformed. It is about being empowered, being cleansed, being commissioned. This isn’t something that we ought to take lightly. We are dealing with nothing less than the Creator of the universe. Can you take that lightly? Is that something that we can yawn through on a sleepy Sunday morning?
Wilder concludes the poem with these final two stanzas:
To draw near is to take your life in your hand.
Going to church is like approaching an open volcano
where the world is molten
and hearts are sifted.
The altar is like a third rail that spatter sparks,
the sanctuary is like the chamber next the atomic oven:
there are invisible rays and you leave your watch outside.
Go, therefore, not to be tranquillized
but to be exorcised.
Follow the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud
with exultation and abandon,
with fear and trembling,
for the zeal of the Lord of Hosts
whether in the streets or the council chamber,
whether in the school or the sanctuary
waits not on the circumspect
and the flames of love
both bless and consume.
The Day of Pentecost came like the sound of a violent wind, Luke tells us. It was fire, it was power, it was chaos and noise, but it was meaning and it was hope. “Go, therefore,” Wilder writes, “not to be tranquillized but to be exorcised.” To have that which keeps us from being who God created us to be pulled out of us. And then to be filled with the power to be, the power to grow, the power to love like Christ loved.
That’s what Pentecost is all about. Not simply a birthday commemoration, just a marker along the road, a milestone passed. It is a moment of power, an offering of transformation. So, how about it? Ready to come to church on Sunday?
It’s a nice place to be. A good place to be. And if you have to miss, no big deal, we can catch it the next time around. Like a soap opera you stop watching for a while and then come back only to find them in about the same place they were when you left. Not much has happened, same issues, same stories. Just a warm feeling that you did a good thing before getting back to the really important things in your day or your life.
Maybe I’ve undersold it a touch. But our expectations are understandably low. I say “understandably” because we never really see much happen in our worship experiences week by week. And so we have learned to come with everything on our minds but the possibility that we just might encounter God one Sunday morning. We’ve come to fix a problem, or to tweak a lifestyle, or to get a pat on the back or push in the backside to keep us moving on the right track. And any and all of those things just might happen and would be good outcomes for our investment of an hour of our time. But they seem so much less than what might be.
Here’s a story of worship gone awry, at least from a human perspective:
Acts 2:1-21 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. 5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs-- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" 13 But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine." 14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15 Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. 16 No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: 17 'In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 18 Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. 19 And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. 20 The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day. 21 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'
Pentecost was originally an agricultural festival celebrating the first harvest of the growing season. Later it became a commemoration of the giving of the land of Canaan to the people of Israel, and the even later it morphed into an observance of the giving of the law to Moses on Mount Sinai. All important times of celebration, but nothing to indicate the power that was unleashed in this day. I’m sure it caught the disciples by surprise too. They were used to a low key holiday (not like Yom Kippur or even Rosh Hashana) but instead found themselves in an encounter with God that literally blew them away.
The poet Amos Wilder wrote “Electric Chimes or Ram’s Horns” in response to an advertizement in Reader’s Digest July 1960. The magazine was recommending church attendance, suggesting that good things would come of it. Wilder gleefully agreed, but then proceeded to include a warning. He reminds us, in a creative way, that church is not just about being nice, but about being transformed. It is about being empowered, being cleansed, being commissioned. This isn’t something that we ought to take lightly. We are dealing with nothing less than the Creator of the universe. Can you take that lightly? Is that something that we can yawn through on a sleepy Sunday morning?
Wilder concludes the poem with these final two stanzas:
To draw near is to take your life in your hand.
Going to church is like approaching an open volcano
where the world is molten
and hearts are sifted.
The altar is like a third rail that spatter sparks,
the sanctuary is like the chamber next the atomic oven:
there are invisible rays and you leave your watch outside.
Go, therefore, not to be tranquillized
but to be exorcised.
Follow the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud
with exultation and abandon,
with fear and trembling,
for the zeal of the Lord of Hosts
whether in the streets or the council chamber,
whether in the school or the sanctuary
waits not on the circumspect
and the flames of love
both bless and consume.
The Day of Pentecost came like the sound of a violent wind, Luke tells us. It was fire, it was power, it was chaos and noise, but it was meaning and it was hope. “Go, therefore,” Wilder writes, “not to be tranquillized but to be exorcised.” To have that which keeps us from being who God created us to be pulled out of us. And then to be filled with the power to be, the power to grow, the power to love like Christ loved.
That’s what Pentecost is all about. Not simply a birthday commemoration, just a marker along the road, a milestone passed. It is a moment of power, an offering of transformation. So, how about it? Ready to come to church on Sunday?
Who knows who you might be once you’ve been wind swept by the Holy Spirit.
Shalom,
Derek
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