The last time we found ourselves in an Upper Room in Jerusalem was following Jesus’ crucifixion. His disciples, terrified of being apprehended and similarly executed, were in hiding.
This time, it is exactly seven weeks and one day after the first Sabbath of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (also called Passover and the day of the disciples’ last supper with Jesus). Or, you could say it was seven full weeks after the all-important first grain harvest in Israel.
Either way, it was the fiftieth day, which in Jewish tradition made it the Festival of Weeks, which later became known as Pentecost in Jewish circles because that is what the word means in Greek. The Holy City was filled with Jews from all over the ancient world because this was one of their three most important pilgrimage festivals.
From the window of that Upper Room, it looked and smelled and sounded like a global market place down below. You could see the brightly colored garb characteristic of each tribe and culture. The odor of native dishes cooked on makeshift stoves wafted upward. And the cacophony of sounds! So many languages blended together amidst the laughter and singing.
This particular festival had a double significance for the Jews gathered there. You see, men, women, and children had descended on the Holy City to celebrate not only the first fruits of the wheat harvest, but also to glorify Yahweh/God’s giving of the Torah, the Law, to the Israelites assembled long ago at the base of Mount Sinai.
Fifty days earlier, Passover had recalled the story of the Hebrew slaves escaping from Egypt and finding their freedom. Today, the Festival of Weeks celebrated the fact that Jews were a nation committed to serving Yahweh/God through the Mosaic law.
In this setting we find the disciples – now called apostles – along with others who believed the stories of Jesus rising from the dead. We find them all in an Upper Room down a back alleyway just off the main drag in the Jerusalem.
In that upper room – like the Jews in the street below - perhaps they were remembering their checkered history with the God who still loved them. After all, their whole heritage betrayed a certain rhythm: Turning away from God, yet time and time again God welcoming them back and continuing to care for them. Exile and return. Faithlessness and faithfulness. Independence and dependence.
Or it could be that they were once again recalling that last Passover Meal they had shared with Jesus 50 days before. He had instructed them then to keep sharing such meals as a way to remember him and all that he stood for – the compassion, the forgiveness, the open arms of welcome, the helping hands of service.
However, those stream of consciousness memories took a back seat to what was foremost on their minds. You see, before Jesus had disappeared for good, he had instructed them to wait - to wait for the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Breath of God that he proclaimed would always be there with them. And so the apostles were nervously waiting, and some of them were most likely grumbling impatiently.
Why? Because nothing had happened, and all this waiting was driving them up a wall. Besides, it was hot and very close in that Upper Room. Mingled with the fragrance of food cooking below was the overwhelming smell of good old-fashioned body odor. The air was very still, as if anticipating something, like before a wild and wooly thunderstorm.
“Whatever are we doing here?” a few of the apostles wondered. “It is no use. Jesus is gone, and, without Him, it is over! We might just as well face it. What is this Holy Spirit business anyway? Surely we misunderstood Jesus.”
It was then that they heard a sound. If they had known what a freight train was, they would have said it was beginning to sound like a freight train right outside their window. Within moments, it was drowning out the global linguistic demonstration in the street below. Though they did not know it at the time, what the apostles heard was the Breath of God beginning to blow into that Upper Room.
Though it first felt like a blessed breeze to cool them off and thankfully freshen up the air, soon it felt more like the rush of a mighty wind. The curtains flapped helplessly. Bits of food – bread and olives and grapes – were swept off the table. Andrew tried to catch some of it and, in the process, knocked over a pitcher. Water spilled and cascaded onto the dirt floor. Dust bunnies in the corners of the room swirled and twirled in eddies like tiny tornados.
When the apostles looked at each other, they noticed right away that all of them sported little flames – tongues of fire – above their heads. The fires were not burning them – or even really touching them, but they were just hovering there. Still, they felt their hearts and their hands strangely warmed.
Not knowing what else to do, the whole lot of them poured out into the street below. They caused quite a ruckus because they could not help babbling about what had happened up there – the wind, the fires, the flying food, the overturned pitcher, and the water cascading to the dirt floor.
The people who saw this spectacle were both amazed and confused. You see, even though the apostles were speaking as Galileans would speak, everyone gathered there for the Festival who had traveled from the four corners of the ancient world and spoke a different dialect understood what the apostles were saying. Language was no barrier.
Was this a miracle? Some of them thought so. Others wrote off the apostles as drunk, even though it was only 9:00 A.M. “A hundred bottles of beer on the wall, a hundred bottles of beer….”
Then Peter stood on the top step, surrounded by the other original apostles, and spoke in a loud voice. “Fellow Jews…”
And this illiterate fisherman who had spent three years following Jesus and chasing his dreams for a transformed world, who never really understood Jesus’ mission and had put his foot in his mouth more than once, who seldom could string two sentences together without getting something wrong, this illiterate fisherman - out of the blue - preached his first sermon, and it was the sermon of a lifetime.
Peter seemed to know Scripture backwards and forwards and extensively quoted the prophet Joel: “I will pour out my Spirit on everyone. Your sons and daughters will proclaim my message. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.” Then he witnessed to Jesus and all that he stood for.
It was a doozy of a preaching debut because, the author of the Book of Acts goes on to say, 3000 people became followers of the Way of Jesus that day alone. Now isn’t that every preacher’s dream?
And so the Holy Spirit did come to those who waited. It came like the wind. It set the apostles’ hearts ablaze. And on that day and in that diverse gathering, the church – the Christian Church - our church - was born.
Today – Pentecost – is one of the three major festivals in the Christian liturgical year – along with Epiphany (not Christmas) and Easter. We celebrate Pentecost not because it is a time to give the first fruits of our harvest to God (though showing such gratitude is not a bad thing to do). We celebrate Pentecost not because we are commemorating the giving of the Torah to the Israelites (though to recognize our ties to Judaism is not a bad thing either).
We celebrate Pentecost because it signifies the birth of the Church and the beginning of Christian community that makes the church possible. As Methodist pastor James Howell noted, “At Pentecost, the Spirit rushed, not on this or that individual, but on the Church, on the Body. It’s the church that is birthed, not a gaggle of solo Christians who happen to be near one another, on Pentecost.” We celebrate Pentecost because it gives sacred meaning to what the Apostle Paul later called the Body of Christ. That is what the church is, after all. The church is the Body of Christ.
Christian author Frederick Buechner said it so well, “God was making a body for Christ, Paul said. Christ didn't have a regular body any more so God was making him one out of anybody he could find who looked as if he might just possibly do. He was using other people's hands to be Christ's hands and other people's feet to be Christ's feet, and when there was some place where Christ was needed in a hurry and needed bad, he put the finger on some maybe-not-all-that-innocent bystander and got him to go and be Christ in that place himself for lack of anybody better.” That is the church: The Body of Christ – made up of anybody God could find who looked as if he might just possibly do, those folks as well as the not-so-innocent bystanders.
This amazing gathering of believers in the streets of Jerusalem on that first Pentecost seemed a fitting conclusion to the story of Jesus: The ones in the Upper Room feeling transformed by the mighty wind. More of them in the streets feeling their hearts ablaze with a fiery passion for good. All them bound together by a Spirit so hot and holy that it seemed as if Jesus himself was coursing through their veins, splashing onto their hands and feet until they were just itching to help someone in need, settling in their ears so they could hear the cries of pain around them, hiding behind their eyes so they could, for once, see a suffering world.
However, it was not all that easy to actually continue to be the Body of Christ. The Apostle Paul found that out soon enough. Not many years later, he was writing to churches inspiring them to solve whatever issues divided them so they could be back in the business of actually doing ministry and – yes - being the Body of Christ in the world.
The church in Corinth was no exception. That congregation was divided over spiritual gifts and whether deacons were to be more highly valued than Sunday School teachers and trustees more than treasurers. Some folks were doing a lot with their gifts. Others were doing nothing to support their faith community except taking for granted that it would always be there for them. So Paul took the bull by the horns and used the metaphor of a human body for the Body of Christ in the hopes of motivating the little congregation.
The conclusion Paul so eloquently presented was that no single person can do everything. If the church in Corinth – or any church for that matter - is to survive, everyone needs to be involved. As he wrote in his letter:
A body isn’t just a single part blown up into something huge. It’s all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together.
If Foot said, “I’m not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don’t belong to this body,” would that make it so? If Ear said, “I’m not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don’t deserve a place on the head,” would you want to remove it from the body?
The point Paul was making was that, because no single person can do everything, everyone needs to do something for the body – if the Body of Christ – or the human body for that matter - is to work effectively or, over time, to work at all. “I cannot do anything. I do not have time. I do not have an inclination. Someone else will step up and do it” are no more than excuses and have no place if the Body of Christ is to survive and thrive. The long and the short of it is that there are no insignificant members of the Body of Christ. The Church is not like a country club. We are all in this ministry business together.
In this day and age when the Church - the Body of Christ – is in a particularly weakened position – more so here in Maine than in any other state actually – what with declining attendance and a lot of questioning about the church’s relevance in our post-modern secular culture – in this weakened state, the Church, the Body of Christ, the Body of Christ here in Raymond, needs each one of you.
Sometimes I think we have the wrong idea of what it means to be the Body of Christ and to do the work of the church. There seems to be a fairly widespread belief that, as blogger Ray Steadman wrote, “the real work of the church is getting together and having a great meeting on Sunday morning where we enjoy learning from the Scriptures and fellowshipping with one another.” And so we write into our busy calendars to show up for worship, expecting our pastor to draw in a big crowd and what evangelism each person may do is focused on – what?
"Come to our church. Our preacher wears golf shirts and jogging shoes."
"Come to our church! We wear shorts and sandals."
"We're fundamental."
"We're liturgical."
"We're liberal."
"We're moderate."
"We're denominational."
"We're mainline."
"We're dispensational."
"We have video."
"We have snare drums and screens."
"We're into political reform."
"We have a religious superstar preaching today."
"Come to our church! We wear shorts and sandals."
"We're fundamental."
"We're liturgical."
"We're liberal."
"We're moderate."
"We're denominational."
"We're mainline."
"We're dispensational."
"We have video."
"We have snare drums and screens."
"We're into political reform."
"We have a religious superstar preaching today."
Whatever happened to all that Jesus stood for? Now do not get me wrong. I am thankful for the contribution of the choir on Sunday mornings. I am grateful for the role the deacons play. Those are gifts you are sharing, but they are only gifts in light of what they do to inspire all of us to do the real work of the church.
Being the Body of Christ takes place out there, beyond these walls. Sunday worship is a training program - albeit an important one. As Stedman observed, “We do not come to church to fulfill the work of the church. We come here to get ready to fulfill it out there.”
Out there is where your gifts are really needed – in addition to those you may share in here. In fact, your gifts are essential out there – in the community - where I am pretty darn sure the Spirit is leading us.
And like the church Paul started in ancient Corinth, God gives different gifts to each one of you:
Some, a passion for peace;
Others, a passion for the wellbeing of the earth.
Some, a passion for the sacredness of life;
Others, a passion for forgiveness and mercy.
Some, a passion for the redistribution of wealth;
Others, a passion for asylum seekers and a compassionate immigration policy.
Some, a passion for evangelism;
Others, a passion for justice.
Others, a passion for the wellbeing of the earth.
Some, a passion for the sacredness of life;
Others, a passion for forgiveness and mercy.
Some, a passion for the redistribution of wealth;
Others, a passion for asylum seekers and a compassionate immigration policy.
Some, a passion for evangelism;
Others, a passion for justice.
At least one of those gifts is your gift, and when offered in the church works for the common good. The same Spirit gives them, and they are all necessary to effectively do the work of the Church.
And so my prayer for you this Pentecost Sunday is that you will feel the breath of the Spirit in your soul fanning a glowing ember in your heart. I pray that you will discover that the ember is your gift and that you will nurture that gift because, whatever it is, it is essential to our church here in Raymond. And finally, I pray that you will more intentionally share that gift, that passion, that glowing ember, so that together we can indeed be the Body of Christ – a real Christian community – right here in Raymond.
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