I love Pentecost Sunday, maybe for the clamor and chaos of it- loud sounds, the crowd full of questions, bewildered and surprised by the Holy Spirit.  

During college some of my curious Christian friends started visiting different churches around town. They visited a small holiness church on the edge of town. Long before Billboard began tracking Christian music sales, this Pentecostal church worshiped with a buzzing bass amp, drum kit, and electric guitars.  The preacher began the service by calling on God to send the Holy Spirit in power. After some slower ballads, the band got thumping, whipping the church into a kind of religious rock-n-roll frenzy until the members, who generally believed that dancing was of the Devil, stood up, shook, and shimmied in the Holy Spirit.  My friends gripped the pew backs, as the bass line slid into a “Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho” and the preacher encouraged the flock to “knock down the walls of Jericho tonight!”  In Joshua 6,  the ancient priests blew trumpets as the people marched around Jericho for 7 days. The church folks emptied out of the pews, marched towards the altar, turned and headed down another aisle out to the Narthax, and marched back down to the front for a second, third, and maybe seventy-times seventh lap.  My friend slipped into shock when his two friends jumped up and joined in the holy conga line. He sat waiting for his two friends to march back around with the other liturgical marchers, but they never came back.  It seems they jumped into the line only long enough to march out the back door and into the parking lot. The idea of needing to fake a spiritual awakening to escape church made me laugh, but, surprisingly my friend confessed wishing that he could have felt free enough to have joyfully joined the dance line. Who knows, it might have been the kind of embodied physical and spiritual relief these intellectual university students needed? In 2 Samuel 6, King David, poet, psalmist, songwriter, king,  danced before the Lord with all his might while castanets, harps, lyres, timbrels, sistrums, cymbals, and trumpets blasted. King David names his own leaping and dancing before the Lord as “undignified”!   

A few years ago, I attended one of our Belmont Youth sessions around Implicit Bias. Implicit biases are those unconscious attitudes, prejudices and judgements that we all carry around with us that can unwittingly lead any of us into prejudicial decisions and actions. In the church we have lots of unexplored religious and theological biases. When Andrew introduced Nathanael to Jesus, Nathanael said of Jesus, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1) Unexamined bias allowed Peter to judge the Roman Centurion Cornelius as less than holy or good- despite the good deeds Cornelius was doing.  ( Acts 10) When exploring biases that might exist under the radar at Belmont, one of our young people said “we think that our worship is the only worship. (full stop period)” As you might imagine, that observation stirred up the discussion. Having helped broker peace as the pastor of a church in a worship war-  I know we all can almost unconsciously believe we are the only ones who see theology, politics and worship correctly.  One of our college students who grew up in a very different church than Belmont asked about our liturgy saying “what is that culty chanting thing you do?” What? Liturgies are  2,000 years old! When I became a Methodist my beloved Aunt asked, how can you stand all that liturgy over and over again each week?  Knowing she loved me, I asked about their Sunday night Hymn-Sings and how often they sang the same old beloved songs- instead of something new from the hymnal. She laughed and nodded!  A few years later, I offered a prayer at a family funeral, and Aunt Margrette asked me to use that prayer one day at her funeral.  So years later, I stood in her Baptist church’s pulpit and prayed “Dying Christ destroyed our death, rising Christ restored our life, Christ will come again in glory, as in baptism Margrette Sanders put on Christ, so in Christ may Margrette be clothed in glory”.  

“Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and Libya, Romans, Jews, Greeks and Arabs—we hear them declaring the mighty works of God in our own languages.”  Pentecost reminds the church that there is more than one way to understand God’s Good News.  Paul, In Ephessians 3, speaks of “the wisdom of God in its rich variety”.  God has created us as unique and beloved people, with different cultures, experiences, traditions and languages- so why do we sometimes feel the need to force everyone into our mold. Can’t we deeply celebrate our own experiences, and not think they are the only authentic expressions?  Pentecost tells us that God deeply values diverse words and expressions in worship and theology.  Paul defines his mission as bringing “the boundless riches of Christ” to  new people. (Ephesians 3)  Boundless riches are not locked into one language, hammered out in one creed, or bound up in one perspective. We even have 4 Gospels to remind us of this. 

The messiness of Pentecost should humble us- softening our harder theological and spiritual edges. Before the Spirit of God fell on the church in disruptive ways, everything was simpler, clearer, and less confusing.  Everyone in the story is  Jewish or a Convert.  They all are coming to the one Temple to celebrate the same feast!  Everyone could worship together reading and reciting the Hebrew prayers with one shared liturgy. They could all speak to each other in Aramaic or Greek.  Into this unity and conformity God’s Spirit sends diversity: “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit… Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and Libya, Romans, Jews, Greeks and Arabs—we hear them declaring the mighty works of God in our own languages…. What does this mean? …God says: I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young will see visions.Your elders will dream dreams. Enslaved peoples, men and women , I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.”  God cares about us- what we love and what feeds our souls, but God loves and values all people. God values diversity. Let’s celebrate that God’s love is not just poured out on us!  

“God’s Spirit poured out on all people” is messy. If God’s Spirit is poured out on all people it is harder for us to judge others.  So often, modern Christianity seems to be guided by arguments over theology and politics, lacking trust that God might be working with others in ways we do not yet comprehend.  We exchange faith, hope and love, wonder, beauty, mystery and relationship for a series of Bible claims.  We forget how Paul, who is credited with more of the New Testament than he wrote,  says in 1 Corinthians 13, “We know in part and we prophesy in part; but the perfect is coming, this partial stuff will end… shoot right now, we see the things of God as if we are looking through a glass of ice-water but one day we will see God face-to-face. Now I know partially but one day only faith, hope and love will remain!“ (adapted) That is a deeply humble statement- we know in part.  Knowing that God’s Spirit is being poured out on others, onto people with different languages, cultures and experiences should humble us. 

Pentecost reminds us that our way is not the only way! There is a Parthian, Mede, and Elamite way.  The Mesopotamians, Judeans, and Cappadocians have something from God to say.  Pontus and Asia, Egypt and Libya have inspired stories.  We can learn about God’s mighty deeds from the Romans, Jews, Greeks and Arabs.  Pentecost launches the church on a new widening circle of God’s love. “All your sons and daughters, young and old prophesying”: that is messy stuff!  “All people” is messy stuff.  Unity is not a matter of the same words, but more a loving movement of the heart- a connection to the deep compassion of Jesus and a trusting that God’s Spirit still comes into our lives. 

 There is a deep incarnational messiness inherent in Christianity.  Christ is Risen and going ahead of us- the Spirit is being poured out on all people. Indeed,  by the tenth chapter of Acts Bishop Peter declares “I really am learning that God doesn’t show partiality to one group of people over another. Rather, in every nation, whoever worships God and does what is right is acceptable to God. This is the message of peace God sent to us through Jesus Christ: Jesus is Lord of all!”  That is a broad, beautiful, welcoming message- but it is very messy.  The Risen Christ is hard to nail down or box up!  Today, let us celebrate the messy love of God poured out on us- God loves us enough to put the Good News in the language of our hearts- but let’s remember our way is not the only way: God loves all people.  May the messiness of Pentecost humble us, soften us, and open us to boundless love of God lavished on us and all people through Jesus Christ. Amen