A Meditation on Pentecost
Acts 2
1.
In their first inklings of Jesus’ resurrection, their first intuitive moments of Easter joy, these ordinary disciples imagine that Jesus rises again to repair all that’s been ripped asunder or fractured by despair. And it’s a reasonable hope: that God raises Jesus from the grave, that Jesus embodies God’s passion for correction and restoration. So much has changed, and so fast. So much is up in the air, and insecurity brings out the angst in us all.
In fact, if you rewind the tape, and take up the Book of Acts from the very beginning, you hear these same angsty disciples asking Jesus, the Risen One, “Have you returned to us now to restore the kingdom of Israel?” In other words: Have you come back to make things right, to fix things up and (of course) to put us in charge? It’s a revealing line. And there’s a familiar (and pretty contemporary) human yearning in this text: for a return to normalcy, for things to be steady and safe again, for things to be as they always were. Or seemed to be.
So then, this Pentecost event—when the sound of a great windstorm comes from the spirit world above—is not at all what they imagined or hoped for. They’d expected familiar prayers, the steady comfort of old liturgies and sacraments. Right? But what they get on Pentecost is flames of fire resting on their heads. Make sure you hear that right. Flames of fire resting on their heads. And the Holy Spirit filling them with possibility, power and new life. Now—let’s be theologically precise with this—the Holy Spirit here is nothing other than the Spirit of the Risen One, the Life Force of Jesus himself. It’s not just some generic spirit, some generic good will. This is what Jesus has in mind for the church, somehow, somehow: a vision of possibility, power and new life, an experience to match. It’s a daring and even uncomfortable vision: I mean, flames of fire resting on your head? Can’t be too comfortable, right?
And all of this, so much of this, that they are speaking now in new and unexpected languages—the languages of other lands, the languages of love and peace, the languages that give birth to relationships, to partnerships, to communion and celebration. It’s an UNEXPECTED CHURCH!
2.
And I think this is so important for us, in our own moment, to hear and then to grapple with. Because far from restoring one particular version of the kingdom, one limited arrangement of the kingdom of Israel, this Holy Spirit gathers a wildly new and disruptively bold Israel—a people of peoples, leaning into one another’s languages and stories, delighting in one another’s traditions and songs. And risking a whole new kind of intimacy and connection. A whole new measure of trust and communion. Jesus’ church is always, always, always in the process of renovation and re-formation!
And this, yes this, is the vocation of the Easter church—at least, that’s Luke’s suggestion throughout the Book of Acts. This is the vocation of discipleship and the beloved community, the community in touch with Jesus’ life and teaching. The Greek word for this strange, spirit-guided, disruptive, joyfully connected community is KOINONIA. KOINONIA. They come from Land of Victory and Land in the Middle and Land of the Ancient Ones. They delight in the many ways of Land Between Rivers and Land of Promise and Land of Handsome Horses and Land of Black Waters and Land of the Rising Sun. They speak a thousand different languages and sing a thousand different songs in a thousand different rhythms.
And that’s how it is to be with us, with the church, with our KOINONIA in 2022. We are to learn new languages and sing new songs, not to discredit and lose touch with the old ones, but to expand and to stretch and to welcome. The Holy Spirit draws us out across boundaries, across rivers and borders, across all the fears that keep us from going. And out there, we are changed by one another, out there we are delighted and changed and challenged by one another. The Body of Christ. An UNEXPECTED CHURCH!
You see, that’s the gift and the promise of this feast day. This great festival of Pentecost. Let’s not miss it or rush by. Pentecost isn’t about the imposition of an old regime, or an old theological framework, or an old set of rules on many peoples. Pentecost suggests the Spirit’s appetite for newness, for imagination and for a love that gathers a wildly diverse people in a project Jesus called agape, in a project Jesus called mercy, in a resilient and beloved community.
Pentecost suggests—for example—that the whole church might march together in the Portsmouth Pride Parade at the end of the month. Because we love big. And because we are learning to speak the language of love in a whole bunch of different languages. Pentecost suggests—for example—that we should try just about anything, and open every imaginable door, to welcome and include and embrace college students in this congregation, to mentor them in the ways of agape and mercy, to learn their stories and speak to their pain. Because we love big. And because we are learning to speak the language of love in a whole bunch of different languages. You see. Pentecost suggests the Spirit’s appetite for newness. It’s not about the imposition of an old regime. It’s about love and compassion and KOINONIA. And that’s the Easter Church. Love one another like Jesus loves. Risk love and justice together, like God’s people can. Suffer for one another, because that’s the cross we carry. Feed one another, because there’s abundance within and around us. Sing new songs and old ones and tell new stories and old ones too. And for God’s sake, always for God’s sake, be changed by one another!
And this is the piece that I love so much about the church. It’s a community of love, a sisterhood of grace, a brotherhood of mercy—where we can be and so often are changed by one another. I’m thinking, in particular, about the KOINONIA groups I’ve had the great joy of gathering and facilitating this year. I’m thinking about the ways you have opened up your lives and fears to one another, and then the ways you have listened to those stories, honored and cherished the prayers of others. And grown together. You have risked being changed by one another! It’s not magic, not at all. It’s so much more than that, so much more beautiful to watch, so much more lasting in impact and blessing. To be heard by another. To be prayed for in a circle. To discover Jesus in a hand held and tear wept and a risk taken in love.
I want to remind you all that we’ll be rekindling our KOINONIA program in the fall, in different spaces and different windows of time. And I really do hope you’ll consider joining a group, if you’re curious and if you’re looking for a way to bring the spark of spirit in your heart—the spark you know is there, you cherish and treasure—if you’re looking for a way to kindle that spark and share it in community. These groups have become a key source of congregational energy and creativity. And you’ll be a most welcome addition to the program next fall.
4.
The thing is, though, that this “pentecostal” project requires not just passion, but perseverance; not just excitement, but effort. It takes time and perseverance to learn new languages, to listen long enough to appreciate one another’s stories; to sit patiently enough to catch the pain in those stories, and then maybe the longing, and then maybe the hopefulness. It takes time and perseverance to learn how to pray together, and how to sing together, and how to take risks together.
I visited this week with a friend who lost her job last fall, suddenly and unexpectedly, and then four days later lost her husband to a terrible accident. All year long, she’s been on a journey—a dizzying, bewildering journey—of unimaginable grief. And as we sat at her kitchen table, picking apart a couple of sandwiches, I realized how carefully I had to listen for that pain, the cadences of her grief, the unanticipated confusion in her heart, the awful and brutal newness of it. There was no way for me to rush in with deep wisdom. There was no way for me to analyze and make sense of her pain. In order to hear her, in order to appreciate her language, the language of her loss, I had to submit to the conversation. I had to sit and listen and take it all in. I had to pay attention.
And our casual lunch became something like a holy communion, broken sandwiches, chocolate chip cookies in pieces—and a new language, the language of my friend’s loss, and the language of friendship in face of life’s strange and sometimes breathtaking sadness.
And that’s where we’re going, my friends, as a church, as a beloved community, as KOINONIA. As wildly wonderful as this morning’s vision may be—and it is wildly wonderful—Pentecost is just the beginning. The beginning of a journey into the promises of God, where peoples of all kinds come together to grieve and weep, and to sing and dance, and to serve and protest and imagine a world of peace and justice. What the Risen Christ has in mind for us, what the Holy Spirit intends for us is not a simple restoration of past glories, and it’s not a simple fixing of what’s broken. What the Holy Spirit intends for us is newness and wonder, intimacy and celebration, and the languages of human longing, human hoping and human communion. What the Holy Spirit has in mind for us is a most UNEXPECTED CHURCH.
Amen and Ashe.
