Everyone showed up on the day of Pentecost. The tragedy of Jesus crucifixion brought them together. The disciples were all together in one place. The first miracle of the day of Pentecost is that the followers of Jesus were all together in one place.
When they were all together in one place, suddenly, out of nowhere, came a sound like a strong wind, gale force--no one could tell where it came from. It filled the whole building. It was loud. It was disruptive. It was terrifying. It was Holy Spirit. Coming down. Descending on the Day of Pentecost. The sound of the wind was the second miracle of the day of Pentecost.
Then, like wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks and they started speaking in a number of different languages as the Spirit prompted them. Here was another sound on Pentecost day. It was the sound of different languages. That was the third miracle on Pentecost.
The day of Pentecost happened on what we may imagine as the religious version of Super Bowl Sunday in New Orleans. Pentecost was one of the biggest celebrations of the Jewish religious calendar. So Jews were in Jerusalem from out town, from out of state, even from other countries. The Old City of Jerusalem today looks sort of like Bourbon Street in New Orleans if you can imagine Bourbon Street being 1000 years old. People from all over the world were walking the streets of Jerusalem on that first Pentecost Sunday: Parthians, Medes, and Elamites; Visitors from Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia,
Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene; Immigrants from Rome, both Jews and proselytes; Even Cretans and Arabs!
The assortment of people from different cultures and religions reminds me of the Interfatih Ministries lunch several of us attended last week at a Muslim Community Center off Hillcroft near 59 South. There I learned the difference in polity between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Shia have a more top down polity with an Imam at the head of the church similar to the role of the Pope in the Roman Catholic Church. In contrast, Sunni Muslims are more akin to Protestants in terms of their less top down structured form of religious organization.
We Americans seem to think we are the first people in the history of the world to have to deal with the thorny problem of diversity. We Americans have to deal with diversity like all the rest. This nation is a melting pot of different peoples. Nowhere is this more clear than in this city. We live with greater diversity in this city than any other city except New York City. At our recent multicultural worship service at the last presbytery meeting a dozen representatives of a dozen different cultures led worship in a dozen different languages.
Because where the body of Christ is growing the people aren't trying to do church. They're doing Pentecost. Leonard Sweet suggests maybe it's time for us as a church to stop relying on our own powers and programs, our blueprints and boilerplates, and start doing what these early disciples did: trust the Spirit and do Pentecost.
When we do church, we're concerned about our protection and position in the church
When we do Pentecost, we're concerned about being out there in the world "hid with Christ in God."
When we do church, we're concerned about decency and order.
When we do Pentecost, we're concerned about fire and glory.
When we do church, we want God to leave us alone;
When we do Pentecost, we want God to order us around.
When we do church, we wear out our lives maintaining an institution.
When we do Pentecost, we set ourselves on fire, blow up evil, and our lives are spent setting off the gospel-dynamite of spirit and fire
When we do church, we worry over human dreams, schemes and appointings;
When we do Pentecost, we worry over divine anointings.
When we do church, it's all about human functions;
When we do Pentecost, it's all about divine unctions.
When we do church, we're organizing;
When we do Pentecost, we're agonizing . . . over a world God loved so much Jesus came to die for it.
It's Pentecost Sunday. Let's DO PENTECOST. It's time the world heard some different sounds . . . the sounds of eternal significance.According to our text, even Cretans and Arabs heard the gospel in their own language on Pentecost Sunday. Speaking the gospel, telling the good news in a way that people can understand it, is one of the "great ends of the church" according to our constitution, the Book of Order. We are supposed to be out there proclaiming the gospel in our community and in the world at large. We are to be out there sharing oru faith and inviting people to join us in church.
There are different ways of sharing the gospel but however we do it we must share the good news in the language of the people. Friends, we are speaking a language every human being can understand. We are speaking the language of H2O. We are spreading the good news of Jesus Christ by providing fresh, clean, potable water all over the world.
We have Living Waters to share with the World. Living Waters for the World provides the miracle of clean water to people who are so poor most of us cannot even imagine how little they have. They don't even have access to clean water. None. Not a drop. And we Presbyterians go into these poverty stricken villages and install clean water filtration systems in schools, churches, orphanages, schools, and hospitals in areas with unsafe drinking and cooking water.
Living Waters for the World is the mission project of the Synod of Living Waters of the Presbyterian Church, USA. The project was first conceived in the early 1990's by Rev. Wil Howie in Oxford, Mississippi. The Synod approved this mission project in Spring 1993. The first water purification unit was installed in Reynosa, Mexico in 1996. From this humble beginning, water systems have been instlled in Latin America, India, Africa, and points throughout the world. The system purifies water in 300-gallon batches, and is ideal for institutional settings such as clinics, churches, schools and orphanages.
After worship today we will hear about the latest water installation in Haiti by our church in partnership with ChristChurch Bellaire. We will also hear about our continuing ministry to orphans in Uganda. I sometimes wonder what the villagers say after they get one of these clean water systems installed in their village. I image they say the same thing that those Cretans and Arabs said on the very first day of Pentecost. I imagine they say: "Those Presbyterians from St. John's Presbyterian Church in Houston, they're speaking our languages, describing God's mighty works!"
We are being used by the Holy Spirit in our own day and our own time. We are being used in God's own way and with God's own rhyme. We are being used by the Holy Spirit to speak the truth of Jesus' love to people whose language we do not speak but they still understand what we are saying. When the clean water system goes in and the clean water starts flowing out, they know we are saying, "Jesus loves you," because everyone in the world understands the language of love, the language of pure water. That's what I call "Pentecost Power" flowing from this congregation to people all over the world. Sure, we know what Pentecost means. Pentecost means proclaiming the good news about Jesus in ways that people all over the world can understand. That is what we are doing through Living Waters for the World.
~Dr. Jon Burnham preached this sermon at St. John's Presbyterian Church in Houston, Texas, on Pentecost Sunday, May 23, 2010
