A Fourth Church Sermon by Judith L. Watt

Day of Pentecost, Sunday, May 15, 2016 | 8:00 a.m.

Judith L. Watt
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 104:24–33
Acts 2:1–21

Great ideas, it has been said, come into the world as quietly as doves. Perhaps, then, if we listen attentively, we shall hear amid the uproar of empires and nations a faint flutter of wings, a gentle stirring of life and hope.

Albert Camus

In the first chapter of Acts, the disciples press Jesus during one of his resurrection appearances, wanting him to tell them when the end times will be—when the kingdom will be restored to Israel. They wanted answers, and they wanted to know what the future held. Jesus responded, “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority.” In other words, only God knows the answer. Jesus didn’t stop there, though. He continued and told them that they would receive the Holy Spirit. They would receive the power of the Holy Spirit. When that happened, Jesus said, they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. To the very ends of the earth.

Folks, at that time Chicago, Illinois, was the end of the earth, totally unknown to those disciples. Totally unimagined. But, here we sit—the church—in this present day. We are the result of that promise that Jesus made to those disciples. We are proof that on the Day of Pentecost they were filled with the Holy Spirit. They, and so many others evidently, became his witnesses, just as he said they would, because here we are—proof of it, in Chicago, Illinois. We are the church in a place that was at one time surely among those places Jesus and those disciples would have considered to be the ends of the earth.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1:8)

The rest of the first chapter of Acts tells what the disciples did after Jesus delivered that promise, after his ascension into heaven and before the Day of Pentecost. That interlude of time—between the promise and before the actual outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost—must have been a confusing and anxiety-producing time for them. But this is what they did: they prayed, and they reorganized themselves. When they didn’t know what else to do, when they didn’t know what the future held, they prayed and reorganized themselves, perhaps to ready themselves. And then the Day of Pentecost came.

The Day of Pentecost came, and the disciples were in the upper room. Suddenly from heaven came a sound—a sound like the rush of wind, a sound that filled the entire house. Divided tongues—something that seemed like fire—came among them; a tongue rested on each of them. The coming of the Holy Spirit was like a sound that filled the room, like the sound of a rush of wind. It was like the tongues of a flame—combustion-like, jumping and popping, faster than could be contained.

Whatever happened that day was unusual, and everyone knew it. They knew it because they felt it, and they knew it because there were observable results. The disciples and those other Galileans started speaking in different languages, and the crowd of Jews gathered there suddenly were able to hear, in each of their own native languages, what was being said. They said, “How is this possible? We hear, each of us, in our own native language?”

Pentecost was a miracle of barriers being transcended so that understanding and knowing would be possible.

We’re part of that miracle. I think we should spend some time thinking about that, because we have heard this story so often that there’s not much that is new in it for us. But to think about what has transpired since then, and to realize that our presence here today is somehow tied to that event, gives us pause and hopefully a little awe. And maybe some gratitude.

Different languages were spoken, and the language of faith spread. Somehow that language of faith was understood across national and ethnic boundaries, and the church became a reality. It’s fascinating to wonder about each of our own religious histories. One side of my family was Eastern Orthodox. My maternal grandparents were Serbian. At some time in history, someone must have proclaimed the gospel to one of my ancestors long ago in Serbia. In what village would that have been? And from that time on, on that side of the family, the Christian faith was passed on, generation to generation. The other side of my family included a German grandmother—German Lutheran. Who might have been that first German ancestor who decided to align with the Christian faith? How long ago might that have been? What made them decide? My grandfather on that side of the family was French Canadian and Catholic. Who first spoke the Christian faith to that ancestor long ago? Was it in Canada? Or was it longer ago in France? Which priest? Which friend? Which witness was responsible, and how long ago was that? Serbian. German. French. And now English. The barriers of a language were transcended, and witnessing took place. Faith was received and passed on.

Yet we’re not just recipients of what happened on that Day of Pentecost so long ago. We are implicated in the charge Jesus gave to those disciples, too—that charge being that we are to become witnesses to the ends of the earth. What would those ends of the earth be for us? Our kids, so many of whom no longer attend church? The elderly who have been forgotten by almost everyone else? Millennials? Teenagers? The imprisoned? Those in the LGBTQ community? Disaffected Christians who have been hurt or abused by the church? What are the ends of the earth for us, and to whom are we called to witness to God’s everlasting love and overflowing forgiveness—to God’s amazing grace?

What does it take these days to witness? Is witnessing just speaking what we believe and know of God? Or does being God’s witness today include equal amounts of listening and understanding? Are we called to witness to God’s amazing grace in our lives to our Jewish and Muslim friends and coworkers but also with an equal measure of listening—wanting to hear how God has entered their lives too?

In her book The Great Emergence, Phyllis Tickle reflected on the work of Anglican bishop Mark Dyer and described the regular “garage sale” that the church experiences every five hundred years or so. She and others look at the church today and see the possibility that we are in the middle of one of those inspired, cosmic rummage sales. She would describe this time as a refocusing of our hearts and minds on what the good news means in our own day, while honoring the contributions of those who have gone before us. Tickle and others like her see this as a time of great renewal for the church and the churches, an opportunity for reexamination of the fundamental questions of a recommitment to a renewed living of our faith (Kathryn M. Matthews, “Sermon Seeds: Gathered and Scattered," www.textweek.com, 2016).

That’s perhaps what we are doing here in this church, as we focus on issues of discipleship. As we think through our work using a template of discipleship to examine what we do. How do we talk about what we do? What does it mean to be a disciple? What does it mean to be a witness? What is our responsibility to pass on the faith, the good news of Jesus Christ, to the ends of the earth? What is the role of witnessing in this day and age? How do we speak the language of faith, and how do we hear others into their own speech about their experiences of faith?

While President Obama wasn’t speaking about faith issues to the graduates of Howard University just a couple of weeks ago, he spoke words of wisdom about the hard work of opening ourselves enough to hear another’s language and to understand. He said, “We must expand our moral imaginations.” He implored those black graduates to recognize “the middle-aged white guy whom you may think has all the advantages, but over the last several decades has seen his world upended by economic and cultural and technological change and feels powerless to stop it. You got to get in his head, too.” It was quite a statement from our first black president to a graduating class from a historic black university. The same goes for any of us, no matter what our backgrounds—that it’s incumbent upon all of us to “get into the head” of the other and to pray with all our might that the Holy Spirit dances on our shoulders too, so that we can understand. We need to do the hard work of witnessing—both speaking and straining to understand—so that there can be those “aha” moments.

In the day of the disciples, the promise of empowerment that Jesus made to them would have seemed extraordinary. His naming them as his future witnesses would have puzzled them. The prophets had linked the ourpouring of the Spirit to the end times, and so, in a way, on that first Pentecost day, the disciples experienced the end time breaking into present history. They were enabled to see a bit of the future breaking into present history.

Sister Helen Prejean says in a different way what our task is as the church. She is the nun who wrote the book Dead Man Walking—the book upon which the movie by the same name was based. She has tirelessly spoken out against the death penalty, and the book Dead Man Walking is the story of her witnessing beyond her comfort zone, across cultural boundaries, to a man on death row, convicted of murder and awaiting his execution. Because of her ministry with this man and her words and her teaching, week after week after week, he found the love of Jesus at the end of his life, hours before his execution, and experienced forgiveness. Helen Prejean says this: “Even the way I pray is changing. Before, I had asked God to right the wrongs and comfort the suffering. Now I know—really know—that God entrusts those tasks to us.”

We are Christ’s witnesses, you and you and me, right here in Chicago, Illinois—to the ends of the earth. We are Christ’s witnesses, not because we ourselves are powerful, but because the Holy Spirit has promised to show God’s power through us. Alleluia. Amen.