Scripture Lessons

From Acts, Chapter 2:
When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ²And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. ⁵ Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. ⁶And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. ⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? ⁹Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, ¹¹Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.’ ¹²All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ ¹³But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’ ¹⁴ But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them: ‘Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. ¹⁵Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. ¹⁶No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ¹⁷“In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. ¹⁸Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. ¹⁹And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. ²⁰The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. ²¹Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

From 1 Corinthians, Chapter 12:
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; ⁵and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; ⁶and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. ⁷To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. ⁸To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, ⁹to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, ¹⁰to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. ¹¹All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.
¹² For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. ¹⁴ Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many.

"Handed Out by the Spirit "

A Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Jean Niven Lenk

at the First Congregational Church of Stoughton

United Church of Christ

Back when I was seminary, I had to write a term paper on a faith tradition other than my own. I chose Pentecostalism, the fastest growing Christian movement in the world. In my research, I visited several worship services in the Pentecostal tradition, and they were far different – far different -- than the highly structured and carefully shaped worship of mainline Protestant denominations.

One of the services I attended was held in a converted warehouse in an industrial park, and as I entered the cavernous room, I thought I was walking into a rock concert rather than a worship service. A seven-piece band played upbeat praise music as the congregation sang, clapped, swayed, danced in the aisles, raised their hands heavenward, and engaged in the joyful and spontaneous abandon which characterizes Pentecostal services. Then, after a full hour of this spirited exuberance, the band slowed down the music, and the congregation entered into a state of prayer.

As I looked around the room during this prayer time, I could see people whose hands shook uncontrollably, others whose lips moved in a silent gush of words, and still others who crouched or lay prostrate on the floor. As I listened, I could hear the woman behind me speaking indecipherable words which resembled Italian or French. Throughout the room, people were yodeling, barking, and hollering.

I have to tell you, all of this made me feel more than a little uncomfortable. After all, I come from the Congregational tradition – our worship is orderly, our voices hushed, our demeanor reserved – well most of the time. But the Pentecostals seemed too passionate, too fanatical, too ecstatic, too over the top spiritually. In contrast to our orderly liturgy, prayers and hymns, Pentecostal worship felt to me like “holy chaos.” Pentecostalism gets its name from the Day of Pentecost, which we celebrate today and is considered the birthday of the Christian Church. And if Pentecostal worship feels like “holy chaos,” so did the events which took place on that first Pentecost almost 2000 years ago.

The word “Pentecost” means “fifty” in Greek, and the day was originally a Jewish Harvest festival celebrated 50 days after Passover. By the time of the events described in this morning’s Scripture lesson from Acts, Jewish believers had scattered among the lands that bordered the Mediterranean Sea, and the crowd that makes the pilgrimage to Jerusalem are from a variety of far-off cities speaking an array of different languages. But while the festivities carry on out in the city’s streets, a group of Jesus’ followers huddle together in a room, and they don’t feel much like celebrating.

They have lost their enthusiasm; enthusiasm – from the Greek, en theos, meaning “inhabited by God.” What this group of followers had been able to do with enthusiasm when Jesus was with them, they have been unable to do without him. They have no message to preach, no power to heal, no will to go on without their leader.

But on the last night of his life, Jesus had made a promise to his disciples. “I will ask the Father, and he will give another Counselor, to be with you forever”¹; “The Counselor, the Holy Spirit…will teach you all things and remind you everything I have said to you.”²

And as the disciples hunch together, spiritless, in that Jerusalem room, something happens. Something begins to move, to stir, like an unseen breeze that touches their cheeks and brushes back their hair. The breeze becomes a gust, and we can imagine the disciples looking around at each other as they feel the hair prickling on the back of their necks. What appear to be tongues of fire rest on each of them, and that gust of wind grows into a powerful gale, filling the room and their hearts, and blowing away their despair, their uncertainty, their fears. It is the Holy Spirit, and it transforms them into new people, filled with power and confidence.

When the Holy Spirit appears to Jesus’ followers in that safe and secure Jerusalem room, it cannot be contained and neither can they. Energized, enthused – “en theosed” – they move beyond those walls, rushing out into the streets of the city, telling everyone what they have just experienced, and hoping that others will feel it, too.

Jesus promised his disciples that the Holy Spirit would remind them of everything he had told them, and it is the Holy Spirit that helps them make the transition from being Jesus’ disciples, learning from him, to being his apostles, going out to preach, teach, heal and minister in His name, to creating the Christian Church. And the same Spirit which empowered and energized Jesus’ follower 2000 years ago in Jerusalem also empowers and energizes us to do God’s work in Christ’s name in this time and place, “en-theosing” us for the common good.

In this morning’s Epistle lesson, the Apostle Paul writes, “God's various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit. God's various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit… Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people!”

In other words, the Holy Spirit doesn’t just empower and energize us to do God’s work; the Holy Spirit equips each one of us by giving us talents and abilities for doing God’s work. To us, some of the gifts Paul lists may seem downright weird – like speaking in tongues. But if we get hung up on the nature of the gifts he lists, we’ll miss Paul’s point – that everyone has God-given gifts, and those gifts are to be used for the “common good.”

Paul’s list of gifts in First Corinthians is by no means exhaustive – he mentions additional gifts in his letters to the Romans and the Ephesians. Today, Paul might add to his list leadership, creativity, patience, ability to care for others, administration, financial management, and so on. These gifts are given to us not just for our personal use, but also to build up Christ’s body, the church.

Pentecost is one of the most important days on the Christian Calendar because every Christian tradition traces its heritage back to the miraculous out-pouring of the Holy Spirit which occurred on that day. And the term Pentecostal should not refer just to a narrow band of ecstatic Christian believers.

The term “ecstatic” is often used when describing Pentecostals. But the word literally means to come out of being at rest, to come out of standing still. Thus, to be “ecstatic” means to come out of our stillness, our complacency, our stagnation. To be an ecstatic person or congregation or church, does not mean we have to writhe in holy Pentecostal fervor, like I witnessed in that converted warehouse; it means that touched by the Holy Spirit, we realize that we are called to do something in this church, in this world. Just as the disciples moved out of the stasis of their Jerusalem room with a renewed sense of hope and energy, we are called to move out of passivity and move into the world, knowing that we are part of God's holy mission.

The Holy Spirit of Pentecost gathers us together, but it doesn't allow us to stay huddled in our own little world, stuck in one place. To celebrate Pentecost is to be turned outward and forward, to be opened to the Spirit's movement among us. Or, to put it another way, we are all called to be ecstatic Pentecostals! And today, after worship, we all have an opportunity to live up to that name and our Christian heritage, because we have an opportunity to offer our God-given gifts to build up this body of Christ.

We thank all of you who have served on boards and committees of our beloved church in the past, and we thank all of you who have agreed to serve in the coming year. But we have many slots that remain unfilled, and if you are not yet serving in some way, we ask you to prayerfully consider doing so. Even if you are not an “official” member of this church, there is a place for you. Because being part of a church, part of a covenantal community, is more than showing up in this sanctuary for an hour every week, and it’s more than contributing financially. You can’t stand at a distance, hoping to be inspired, edified, and spiritually nurtured without giving of yourself, giving your time or effort. Being part of a covenantal community is a two-way street of both receiving something for ourselves, and also offering something of ourselves back to the church.

And so, let us claim the gifts that the Holy Spirit has handed out to each on of us. Let us embrace our ecstatic Pentecostal roots and move out from the stillness, the stasis, that is contained within ourselves, move out into the life and the work of Christ’s Church within and beyond these walls. And, like the prophecies of Joel which St. Peter boldly preached to that Jerusalem crowd, may we dream dreams and see visions and follow the Spirit of Pentecost that calls us ever outward, ever forward in Christ’s name. Amen.

¹John 14:16-17a

² John 14:26