May 31, 2009 ~ Pentecost Sunday
Acts 2:1-21
“One Amazing Day In The City”

[Sorry, no recording was made of today's service!]

The Scene: Pastor Allen is sitting at a desk with a computer.  Different folks from the church come by and greet him...

Pastor Allen will talk a little bit, then end with the phrase: “God, I need help with my Pentecost Sermon!” Then you come up and begin chatting, something like this:
“Hi Pastor Allen. What are you doing?

He’ll respond, blah, blah blah. Then you say something like:
“Oh, can I help you with that?”

He’ll respond, Oh, no thank you, blah blah blah… Then you’ll say something like:
“Oh, okay. Bye!”

And then go sit down.

After all five have come up, Pastor Allen will get REALLY frustrated, and then finally yell out: “Oh God, give me my Pentecost Sermon!”

Then all five of you will stand and say:

“Pastor Allen, WE ARE your Pentecost Sermon!”

Then I will come to you one by one and ask you to share “My Pentecost Gift To The Church is…”
 

Here are some of the points Pastor Allen struggles with:
1. The disciples were out in the community, no longer hiding and afraid like after the crucifixion, but boldly worshipping God in the city even though Jesus had ascended (i.e. left a second time).
God, I need help with my Pentecost sermon!

2. The radical diversity of the people was not seen as a problem to be solved or a hindrance, but a necessary prerequisite to the power of God coming upon the disciples.
God, I need help with my Pentecost sermon!

3. The disciples had to risk being seen and accused of immorality in order to do God’s work. They were not confined by “being nice” nor by doing what was “socially acceptable.”
God, I need help with my Pentecost sermon!

4. The message that came to Peter that day reflected God’s Open & Affirming, Anti-Racist/Pro-Reconciling, Accessible vision for the church: the old will see visions and the young will dream dreams; the divisions of the world will fall away and slave and free, male and female alike will be equal partners in the church.
God, I need help with my Pentecost sermon!

5. This was not about “speaking in tongues” but about speaking AND HEARING the good news in languages that everyone can understand.

“Oh God, give me my Pentecost Sermon!”
 

Now, here is a meditation that Pastor Allen wrote about Pentecost.  He did not need to share it then, but has it here for your inspiration:

Pentecost is about two things, both equally powerful and both equally important. Pentecost is about speaking about the truth and the love of God in such a way that everyone can hear it. And it’s about hearing the voices of the people who have not had a voice, or whose voices are not heard. Pentecost was a double miracle, a miracle of tongues AND a miracle of ears. Too much of the Western Christian tradition has failed to see this doubly-blessed event.

That amazing day in the city, lo those many years ago, was a moment in which God chose to reveal to us for all time some essential qualities of the people who would soon, and throughout the millennia, gather in God’s name and committed to praising God and doing God’s will. The church God intended would be radically diverse, but not as an afterthought, nor as an obstacle, but as a essential characteristic of what the church is.

Do you get that? The Church cannot fully be the Church if everyone in the pews looks the same, talks the same, acts the same, loves the same, learns the same, teaches the same, serves the same… And what better place to help the church be the multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, intergenerational, Open & Affirming, utterly diverse community it needs to be than the city! Of course God is at work on the rural roads and rolling hillsides of our world! Of course God’s power is present in small villages and town squares near and far. But Pentecost, Pentecost demands that the Church, as best it is able in the context it has sprung up, to be as diverse as it can be. And there is no better place to be diverse than in the urban core, in the city.

And more than that, the Church must seek out, nurture, and sustain that diversity. It’s not simply about opening the door and hoping “those” people will come in. It’s about setting a place for others at the Table of God. It’s about hearing and receiving and making a place for the diverse gifts of God’s people to be shared. It’s about going out into the community to not just TELL about how we know God, but to HEAR about how God is at work in the people in our community. It’s about those who are in power giving up power so that those who do not have power can receive it, use it in their own unique ways to “glorify and serve God,” as our mission statement says. It’s about widening the circle for ALL God’s children.

The issue is easy when we are talking about including those we know and love, and maybe then expanding it to people who look like us, think like us, act like us, talk like us. But that’s not what the Gospel calls us to, nor the Pentecost experience. It is to welcome the STRANGER.

Jane Jacobs, in her book The Death And Life of Great American Cities, talks about the difference between cities and other types of human gatherings: towns, rural areas, suburbs. She says the primary difference is the presence of strangers, and the the overwhelming presence of strangers. And, more importantly, the presence of strangers is what makes cities great, and what makes people attracted to them. Because the diversity that comes with large numbers of people, most of whom will always be strangers, provides joy, interest, and a multiplicity of options for us all.

In other words, hearing and welcoming others gives us what we need ourselves.

The rub is that we cannot do this work of diversity BECAUSE it takes care of our needs. That short-circuits the system and causes it to fail. We do it because it is the right thing, the Christ-called thing to do (Matthew 28) and oh, by the way, it probably will result in our own fulfillment.
 

Rev. Allen V. Harris
Franklin Circle Christian Church
www.FranklinCircleChurch.org


 

Copyright 2009 -- The Rev. Allen V. Harris

Franklin Circle Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

1688 Fulton Rd., Cleveland, OH 44113-3096