05-23-10 Ordinary People, Extraordinary Love

The Pentecost Story - Ordinary People, Extraordinary Love

Acts 2:1-16 & 41-42

May 23, 2010

Rev. Nancy Pfaltzgraf

What a day it was! What a day!!! There we were all of us, the men, the women, all of us who had traveled with him, learned from him, loved him. There we were back in Jerusalem. It seemed crazy for us to be there. It was just 50 days ago that we came with him to celebrate Passover! So much has happened since then; the pain and fear, the grief and despair we experienced when he was arrested and murdered; then the surprise and shock, the joy and the hope we felt when we discovered that God had raised him, brought him back to life! What a miracle! He was alive and with us again. How we hung on his every word; cherished every moment!  We were certain then that God was truly with him and Jesus could accomplish anything!

But then he started talking nonsense again; something about us and what God wanted us to do; something about him leaving us for our own good! How could that be good? He kept saying that when he was gone, we would receive a gift from God. I'll never forget the last day he was with us; we had gone with him up to the mountain to talk and pray and he told us that after he was gone we were to head back to Jerusalem. He said we were to be his witnesses; that we were to carry his message to the ends of the earth. Us, was he crazy? We were just ordinary people, who would listen to us; who would believe us? After all, they killed him; what would they do to us. Smiling he simply said "trust me" and then he was gone. How alone we felt! We were confused, unsure, bewildered and more than a little afraid. But, after all we had experienced, how could we not trust him and do what he told us to do?

So we made our way back to the holy city, hoping that no one would recognize us as we looked for a place to gather. It was no easy task since there were about 120 of us. We talked, we prayed, we waited and waited and waited. Each minute seemed like an hour, each hour like a day, each day an eternity. Someone suggested that maybe we should select someone to replace Judas so we would have the necessary 12 man leadership team. To me it seemed like a useless exercise. How would that help? But we did it, casting lots to see who it would be. Some of us, myself included, were getting pretty discouraged. He had given us this task, promised to send us the help we needed, but here we sat doing nothing! I felt completely powerless. We sang the psalms and prayed and talked, but still nothing happened.

Meanwhile the city was filling up with pilgrims from all over the world; our faithful Jewish brothers and sisters who had come to celebrate Shavuot, the festival you call Pentecost, the time when we remembered the how God gave the tablets of stone to our great teacher, Moses. It would have been such a great opportunity for Jesus to get his message to so many people; if only he were here!

Then it happened! Without warning, the wind began to blow. None of us had ever experienced a wind like that -violent, terrifying, yet gentle all at the same time. We could feel it, hear it. It swirled around the room. It seemed forceful enough to overturn the tables and extinguish the lamps, but nothing moved. If anything the lamps grew brighter. The room was ablaze with the most intense light, like fire, but nothing burned. We looked at one another and we suddenly knew. This was what he was talking about. This was the divine fire. This was the breath, the wind of God, what you call the Holy Spirit.

We knew, each and every one of us knew. Here we were ordinary men and women filled, consumed, overpowered by the Divine presence. We had heard stories of how it happened to kings, to prophets and priests, not to people like us! But we felt it. It was real. The love we felt was nothing like we had ever known. The joy we experienced was beyond words but we had to share it. Without a second thought we rushed out the door. Without wondering how in the world we would be able to make ourselves understood we walked up to the people we saw gathered outside the temple and began talking. I was drawn to some brothers and sisters who seemed to be from Egypt and when I opened my mouth to tell them about Jesus, my words came out in Egyptian. Me, speaking Egyptian! Not far from me I heard John talking to some people form Mesopotamia in what I could only assume was Sumerian because they seemed to understand what he was saying. All 120 of us were talking at once and we each seemed to be speaking a different language. It was a sound even louder than the wind had been.

People were astounded -but no more so than we were. "They're just uneducated Galileans," I heard someone shout. "How can they be speaking so many languages?" Good question, I thought. Then someone else shouted, "They must be drunk!" But that was crazy, how could being drunk cause us to speak so many different languages? That's when Peter, bold impulsive Peter climbed up on the wall and somehow got their attention and a hush fell over the crowd.

"We aren't drunk" he said. Then he began to preach in a way that everyone seemed to hear and understand. He reminded us of the words of God spoken through the prophet Joel:

"I will pour out my Spirit on every kind of people: Your sons will prophesy, also your daughters; your young men will see visions, your old men dream dreams. When the time comes, I'll pour out my Spirit on those who serve me, men and women both, and they'll prophesy.

Peter went on for a long time, telling the people about Jesus and the extraordinary love of God that all of us had experienced because of him. His words stirred their hearts and 3,000 people asked to be baptized and joined our little band of believers.

What a day! But it didn't stop with that day; each of us in our own way felt God's extraordinary love empowering us to use our gifts as we dreamed God's dream, caught God's vision and worked together to spread God's love. It was as if in opening to that love and allowing the holy breath to fill us and guide us, the divine fire to stir and empower us we each lived into the fullness of who we were created to become.

I still have a hard time believing it, even though I experienced it. I know that some of you have doubts and sometimes when you read our stories you think we were something special but we weren't. We were ordinary people just like you; ordinary people transformed, empowered, set on fire by God's extraordinary love to live into God's dream for the world. That love, that power, that fire, it's here today. I can feel it. God needs you -each and every one of you- to dream dreams, see visions and allow God's extraordinary love to fill you, the holy breath to breathe you and the divine flame to empower you. There are people yearning for God's compassion. There are people aching for God's justice. There are people longing for God's healing. There are people waiting for God's grace. God needs you -your gifts, your passion, your hands, your feet, your heart, your voice. God needs you to shine the light of hope, bear the torch of grace and ignite the fire of love! God's extraordinary love will give you all you need to live into the fullness of God's dream for you. Open your heart and feel it, open your mind and sense it, step out in hope and trust it!