Community Church Sermons
Year A
June 12, 2011
Pentecost Sunday
Across Fire
Acts 2:1-21
Rev. Rhonda A. Blevins
LISTEN IN!I want you to see what I discovered on the floor at my house this week. It’s a piece of Easter grass. You know, the stuff the Easter Bunny uses in kids’ Easter baskets? I found this piece of Easter grass on my stairs this week. Now, lest you judge me, I have vacuumed since Easter. At least I think I’ve vacuumed since Easter. But it seems that about once a week since Easter, 49 days ago, I’ll find a piece of this stuff in some random place—remnants from my son’s basket—as if Easter is playing a little trick on me so I won’t forget it. So about once a week, I’ll bend down to pick up yet another renegade piece of Easter grass, and I remember Easter. And for a fleeting moment, I’ll recall the story of Easter. How Jesus died on a cross and rose on the third day. How Christians today wonder, “What does this mean?” How we’re no different that the earliest followers of Christ in asking that question. In fact, the entire New Testament was written to answer the great question of the resurrection, “What does this mean?”
After the resurrection, Jesus appeared to his followers for 40 days. He taught them. He ate with them. He convinced them that, indeed, he was alive. One of the things he told them was to stay in Jerusalem to wait for the Holy Spirit. 40 days he was with them, and then just like that, he was gone. The followers of Jesus were abandoned . . . again. That was it. So his followers did what all good church people do—they called a business meeting. Actually, it was a nominating committee meeting. You see, they had lost one of their members; they had to replace Judas. They elected Matthias. That was about it. After Jesus ascended to heaven, his followers just kind of hung around praying.
For eight days, that’s all we know. But on the ninth day after Jesus ascended, his 120 or so followers woke up that morning and started getting ready for a typical Jewish Pentecost celebration. The women applied their Mary Kay; the fellows dabbed on their Old Spice. They got in their late model Fords and Chevys and Buicks (no foreign cars for these folks!) They got to their meeting place and started talking with friends about current events—Sarah Palin’s big tour and Anthony Weiner’s big mistake. They sat down in their pews and wrote suggestions on the prayer concern cards. You know, it was just an average day, really.
But then the Holy Spirit showed up. The scripture says the sound of a “violent wind” was heard and tongues of fire began to appear over every person there, presumably men, women, and children. And this supernatural phenomenon granted them supernatural power! Suddenly, this room full of (mostly) blue-collar Galileans were speaking other languages! Now, I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to be granted a super power, I’d want to become invisible. I could have a lot of fun with that power!
But there they were—filled with the power of the Holy Spirit—and the power to speak other languages. And boy! Did they speak! I don’t imagine they took turns; I get the sense that they were all speaking all of these new, foreign languages all at once. Must have been some kind of ruckus! Now because it was a holiday, good Jews from everywhere were there in Jerusalem—Italians, Egyptians, “Grecians” (just making sure you’re awake)—hearing these good ole’ boys from Galilee speaking fluent Italian, Arabic, and Greek! You can imagine, they were pretty bewildered. The scripture tells us they began asking, “What does this mean?”
Let’s stop there and go back for a moment. The very last thing Jesus told his followers before ascended offers us a clue. Let’s read it together: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8). This “power” that Jesus promised right before his ascension? It came in the form of language, enabling his followers—men and women—to communicate across the primary boundaries that divide humans from one another. Across the barriers of race. Across the barriers of nationality. Across the barriers of religion. You see, that fire that rested on those early followers was a CROSS FIRE—giving them the power to tell the story of the CROSS ACROSS the dividing lines they inherited. Jerusalem? Yes! Judea? Of course! Samaria? Yes, even Samaria! To the ends of the earth! All peoples everywhere. And Jesus didn’t say, “I want you to be my witnesses,” or “I command you to be my witnesses.” He said, “You WILL be my witnesses.” In other words—it’s going to happen. It’s automatic. Witnessing to our faith is inherent to followers of Christ—it’s part of our spiritual DNA. We HAVE to tell the story, and when necessary, we even use words.
And you know how the story goes from there. That “across fire” burned so strongly within those followers they were compelled to communicate the story of the cross, and it didn’t matter who heard. Slave and free, Jew and Gentile, male and female. They had Holy Spirit power, and what does that mean? They had the power to go across the barriers that separate one human from another, to share the love of God Almighty. From those 120 people gathered for another ho-hum Pentecost meal, 3,000 were added to their number that day. 2,000 years later there are some 2 billion men and women who follow Christ—every color, every gender, every nationality, every sexual persuasion. That’s the power of “Across” fire!
But the story isn’t over. Every day God writes another chapter of that story through you and me. You see, that Pentecost fire burns within each of us, granting us the power to communicate God’s love, empowering us to reach across dividing lines and share the good news through what we say, yes, but most importantly through what we do.
It’s that fire that helps us reach across generational lines to share God’s love. I want to share an example. A couple of Sundays ago, we had a medical emergency here in our church, right in the middle of Marty’s sermon. Some of you have commented that you appreciated Marty’s handling of the situation (just so you know, I taught him everything he knows.) Marty stopped the service, asked people to exit the sanctuary, but not to leave the grounds until after the ambulance had arrived, so as not to block their entrance. Several comments were made that we “cancelled” church. But I’d like to suggest, that we as much of a “church” in that moment as we’ve ever been. As many of you were exiting the sanctuary, I was walking over to the scene to offer pastoral comfort. Here’s what I saw. A gentleman I knew, his name was Chet, had passed out. I know Chet in part because he and his wife, Marilyn, volunteer with our Tellico Family Connection, a ministry recently started to reach out to families—kids and young adults in our community—with the love of God. Chet and Marilyn have given of themselves to the kids and parents involved in that ministry. Well in this moment, the tables were suddenly turned. Two of those young adults were the first to act. Phil, one of our young dads, made some quick decisions, having had first responder training in the past. Rick, another young father, moved quickly to call 911. And when I arrived to offer what comfort I could, Marilyn, visibly shaken, was leaning on—literally holding onto—Carrie, one of our young moms. Chet and Marilyn had invested themselves, given of themselves, to these young families, expecting nothing in return. Was it any coincidence it was these young adults who ministered back to them in their time of need? We were CHURCH in that moment. Generations reaching across those artificial boundaries with the love of God. That’s the power of “across” fire!
That fire empowers us to reach across generational boundaries, and it empowers us to reach across racial boundaries. You know it’s “Bob Puckett” day in our church. As I’ve gotten to know Bob over these four years, I’ve heard some amazing stories about his journey. I’ve grown to respect and admire Bob for his personhood, for his ministry, and for his involvement in the Civil Rights movement back in a day when that was not a popular decision for a young, white boy in the South. I interviewed Bob this week, and asked him to tell some of those stories. Here’s what he said:
“I remember one time when I was in high school—it was during the war, the Second World War—I got a job during the Christmas vacation . . . I got a job with the post office delivering parcel post because all the able-bodied men were in the military all scattered all over the world. And I worked, the first year I must have been fifteen, and that year I worked with a black fellow who was a regular postal employee, and we used an army truck to deliver parcel post—guys were all over the world sending stuff back for Christmas for their families, and we were delivering them. And I liked him! We had a great time together. We worked together and ate together. But after he went back to being a postal clerk and I went back to school, I caught a bus going home after school, and he got on the bus, and it was full, and there were people standing in the front and back. Buses were segregated, and I was in the last seat before the black section. And the seat next to me was vacant. And when he came back there—I knew he had been walking and delivering the mail—I said, ‘Sit down.’ He said, ‘You know I can’t do that.’ I said, ‘Yes you can. I can have anybody sit next to me I want to have sit next to me.’ So he sat down. Then the bus driver turned around and said, ‘Nigger, get up and move to the back of the bus.’ And I put my hand on his knee and said, ‘You stay right there. I can have anybody sit by me that I want to have sit by me.’ Then the bus driver got up and came back there, and said it again, ‘Nigger, get up and go to the back of the bus.’ I said, ‘I can have anybody sit next to me I want to have sit next to me.’ And the bus driver reached over and grabbed me by the collar and literally picked me up and threw me out the back door of the bus. And I had to walk home. I didn’t have another nickel to ride the bus. And I was angry. And I’ve been angry about that kind of injustice ever since.”[1]
That fire empowers us to reach across generational boundaries, racial boundaries, even religious boundaries. I recently heard a story about a young man, in his twenties, who lived through the terror of being in the World Trade Center on the day the twin towers came down. He was on the forty-seventh floor, and when the people were told to stay, his youth and his instincts told him otherwise. You see, he was able to run down forty-seven flights to safety. Sometime after September 11, the young man made an appointment to see his pastor, indicating some sort of faith crisis. His pastor imagined that he was having survivor’s guilt. But when the young man got there, that wasn’t it at all. Instead, he was having difficulty reconciling the scene that he left behind on that 47th floor. People of all ages, races, gender, and nationalities praying—praying in languages he could not understand, in postures of prayer with which he was totally unfamiliar. But they were all praying to one God. He asked his pastor, “What does this mean? What am I to make of that? To whose God did they pray?” “Suddenly,” he said, eyes tearful, “My God seemed embarrassingly narrow.”[2]
Sometimes that Holy Spirit fire feels like compassion or friendship, like experienced between generations in our church. Sometimes that fire feels like holy anger, like Bob Puckett’s stand against racial injustice. Sometimes the Holy Spirit fire feels like doubt, causing us to question narrow religion that attempts to exclude so many from God’s love. Can you feel it? Can you feel that fire prompting you to extend God’s love to someone outside your race or class or faith or sexual preference or nationality or political party? One God. One people. We build the walls. It’s up to us to tear them down.
Prayer: Fire of God, burn in us a desire to extend your love to your children everywhere. Grant us courage to look deep within ourselves to illumine the dark places where prejudice and hatred fester. And lead us in the way of compassion, justice, and inclusivity. In the name of Jesus, and for his sake we pray. Amen.
[1] Robert M. Puckett, transcribed from a video interview conducted on June 7, 2011 at the Community Church at Tellico Village, Loudon, TN.
[2]Story adapted from Joan Brown Campbell, “Dangerous Dreams,” 30 Good Minutes, Program #5406, 11/11/10. http://30goodminutes.org/csec/sermon/campbell_5406.htm