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June 8, 2003; Pentecost, Year B
    The Rev. Harold "Skip" Comer, Rector

A week ago yesterday I took my son and grandson to the Benzie County Zoo.  Have you ever been there?  It’s located in the Back Cast Fly Shop.  Well, at least eighteen-month-old Tommy was entertained by the fish, birds, and little furry creatures.  Fortunately he is not old enough to have thrown a fit because we didn’t come home with a mouse or some goldfish.  We then ventured down to the toy department at Shop-n-Save.  Boy was that a mistake!  Tommy had balls rolling down the aisles and trucks out everywhere.  But he was most fascinated with this (hold up Groan Stick).  When I showed him how it worked, he started talking to it.  Evidently it spoke his language.

“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.”[1]  The story of Pentecost, often referred to as the birthday of the church, is about the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples.  Now I could go through the account of Pentecost as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles and explain every detail, like the symbolism of the wind and the fire, why so many Jews from different regions of the Mediterranean were gathered in Jerusalem, and so on.  But then we might miss the whole point of what Pentecost is really about.

Pentecost is about empowerment.  As H. King Oehmig states, “(Pentecost) is (about) the power to express Jesus Christ to the world.” [2]  Certainly, Pentecost is about the descent of the Holy Spirit on the disciples, but the Holy Spirit came for a purpose.  As the last words of our reading from this morning state, “in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.”[3] 

The ability to communicate.  While the kids were here I marveled at the way Tommy’s mother, Celina, could understand what Tommy was saying.  Most of the time I had no idea what those noises, or words, meant.  For all I knew Tommy could have been speaking a foreign language.  What happened on Pentecost was that the disciples spoke in foreign languages that they did not know, so that those who were gathered in Jerusalem from other counties could hear the message that they were inspired by the Holy Spirit to speak.  

What were the disciples speaking about?  They were telling the people about Jesus Christ.

It is easy to focus on the eleven disciples speaking languages they did not know; or as some would even claim, of them speaking in tongues.  Even I would admit that that is a pretty good miracle.  But the far greater miracle is that eleven uneducated men all of a sudden speak with eloquent boldness about the man that they had been following for three years, proclaiming him to be the Messiah. 

How well did they speak?  Well, in the verses that follow our reading in Acts this morning, Peter preaches to the crowd that had gathered around the disciples and three thousand were so moved by his sermon that they responded to what some might identify as an “altar call” and were baptized.  That, my friends is what Pentecost is about.  If it did not happen, that is, the Holy Spirit inspiring and empowering people to communicate the Good News of Jesus Christ, down through the centuries, we would not be here this morning.  Christianity would have ceased to exist within one hundred years of Christ’s death and resurrection.

Yesterday twenty-four people recommitted themselves to Christ during the deanery confirmation service at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Elk Rapids.  Even though they were confirmed or received into the Episcopal Church, the Bishop made a point of telling us that they were recommitting themselves to Christ and not the Episcopal Church.  I believe that those twenty-four people were there because others, inspired and empowered by the Holy Spirit, had communicated the Good News of Jesus Christ to them.  They had communicated it in such a manner that they were able to understand and were so moved so as to respond, in what some might call an “altar call.”

I keep mentioning “altar call.”  It is really a foreign concept to Episcopalians.  It is my Baptist heritage coming out.  Episcopalians are more dignified than some other denominations.  We like to have things neat and orderly.  In order to give or recommit yourself to Christ you have to make an appointment.  Spontaneous commitments must be scheduled in advance so that the proper liturgy for the occasion can be printed in the bulletin.  Heaven forbid that the Holy Spirit should move someone during a service to a spontaneous “Amen” or come forward to give a testimony of their acceptance of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

To be honest most, if not all of us attend the Episcopal Church because the expectation of coming forward during the service and witnessing to our faith in Jesus Christ is not a part of our piety, the way that we do things.  That is ok to a certain extent.  But when we believe that our faith is a personal matter between God, and us, then we are stifling the Holy Spirit.

I say this because I believe that we have all received the Holy Spirit.  We may want to believe that it was in the form of a gentle dove, but in reality the Holy Spirit has come upon us like a violent wind and tongues of fire.   We may have misinterpreted the moment, like the Groan Stick, unable to understand what it was saying or what it meant.  The job of the Church is to try and help you interpret and understand the experience so that you will become disciples inspired and empowered to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ to others.

Who, me!   You might say.  But I don’t know what to say, or how to say it.  Well the disciples didn’t know exactly what to say or how to say it either.  They just knew that something had happened to them and they were like a bottle of Coke that had been shaken up and were ready to explode.  They had to say something even though they didn’t have a seminary education and know the Bible forwards and backwards.

In reality they were afraid, just like we are afraid, to talk about Jesus Christ. What if people don’t want to hear what we have to say about Jesus?  What if we embarrass ourselves?  What if people ask us questions and we don’t have the answers?  I’ve been there and done that, just as I know some of you have been rejected, embarrassed, and unable to answer all of the questions.  It didn’t stop the disciples and hopefully will not stop us from continuing to try be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.

May we become more and more aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives and the gifts that we have received for the strengthening of our faith community and so that we will become witnesses of the Good News of God in Jesus Christ to others. 

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