Acts 2:1-21                                                        Pentecost Sunday

 I love Pentecost. On this day I feel like I can be like Paul and Silas in prison, singing God praise until the shackles fall off my legs and I am free. Because God the Spirit is with us and nothing in life or in death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. I love the power of the Spirit, the unpredictability of the Spirit, the global nature of the Spirit, daring to speak all languages at once and inviting all people – rich and poor men, women, children to dream dreams, share visions, and be prophets speaking truth to the world. As our prayer for spiritual insight we are going to pray “Come Holy Spirit” in many languages.

 What do you call someone who speaks two languages? Bi-lingual. Three languages? Tri-lingual. What do you call someone who speaks one language? American. Okay, you monolinguistic people, learn three words in a new language. Look at the screen. Try one of these languages. Say it right. Say it wrong. I don’t care, but say something. Let’s all pray, all together, all in many languages. Say the same one over and over again or try them all.

 You know there’s a special place in France, a Christian retreat community where people from all over the world gather to worship God. This community brings together people from all three major branches of Christian faith – Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant – to study, worship, and serve. They sing many prayerful chants like the one we are going to sing now. The choir will begin in four separate sections. If you hear a note you like, join in, and repeat the words, “Holy Spirit, Come to us” over and over again. Let the Spirit of God with fresh wind blow over you. Let God’s power strip away all the unnecessary worries of your life. Let the Spirit of God burn in your heart, renewing in you the grace and peace that has existed from the beginning of time.

Sing Veni Sancte Spiritus. Now hear the story of Pentecost.

 

 ^NRS Acts 2:1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. ² And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. ³ Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. ⁴ All 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. ⁶ And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. ⁷ Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸ And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? ⁹ Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰ Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, ¹¹ Cretans and Arabs-- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." ¹² All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" ¹³ But 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. ¹⁵ Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. ¹⁶ No, 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. ¹⁸ Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. ¹⁹ And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. ²⁰ The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day. ²¹ Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'
 

 We are called to be prophets, visionaries, and dreamers. By the power of God’s Spirit hovering like a fire over us, igniting us with holy perspective, with wisdom and imagination, we become the people we are called to be. William Butler Yeats, Nobel Prize winner in Literature, once said, “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.” Plutarch much earlier said, “[The human] mind is not a vessel to be filled, but rather a fire to be kindled.”

 Fire is one of the five essential elements, going back to ancient civilizations. In Holy Scripture, God’s presence is often symbolized by fire. In the book of Exodus, God calls Moses from out of a burning bush. God leads the Israelites out of Egypt and through the desert by a pillar of fire. God appears on Mt. Sinai in fire and smoke when the Ten Commandments are given. And on Pentecost, that special fire was given to everyone, all flesh. “The image in this account is that of a violent wind breaking up the Pillar of Fire from Exodus – God’s fiery presence — into a thousand pieces over the heads of those present “from every nation under the sun.” Peter gets up to explain the whole thing and quotes the Old Testament prophet Joel who said that God’s spirit would be poured out upon “all flesh.” Sons and daughters would prophesy, young people would see visions and older adults would dream dreams. Even male and female slaves would receive this fiery blessing. Prophets, visionaries and dreamers of every conceivable category of human beings, without reference to their social status, their gender, or age, are all included. (I am indebted to Dr. James E. Brenneman, President of Goshen College, who in baccalaureate sermon led me to many of the references and quotes in this sermon.)

 Prophets, visionaries and dreamers are change agents, transformation specialists who imagine a world different than the dominant point of view. That’s what the church was from the beginning. That’s what the church is called to do now – imagine that life can be different. Albert Einstein said “imagination is better than knowledge!”

 Jesus helped his followers to imagine a new world through his teachings and parables. You have heard it said, but I say to you...was his refrain in the Sermon on the Mount. He took what they knew and stretched it to a higher level. Paul says, “If anyone is in Christ, behold there is a new creation. The old has gone.”

 The rock star Bono, prophet, visionary and dreamer, imagines a world, for example, without AIDS; a world in which poverty is overcome; a world in which God’s mercy and love and grace extends from the horn of Africa to every nook and corner of the world.

 A teacher in a middle school in Houston, Nolan Dishongh, has a classroom filled with rough and tumble kids, many of them with little or no motivation for achievement. Several years ago, he let his imagination loose for a bit and thought of a new way to inspire his students. At the beginning of the school year, he tried an experiment. He asked his students to lay their head on their desks and think about their mothers. “Think her holding you in her arms, caressing, loving you. Think how much she loved you even before you were born. Think how happy she was when you took your first steps. How proud she was when you first said `Mama.’” Then this visionary teacher asks them to take five deep breaths and pretend that those are their last breaths of life. And then he asked them: “What memory do you want to leave of yourself with your mother? Is it a memory she will be proud of or one which might cause her pain the rest of her life?”

 His students have gone on to the high success rates and are getting college scholarship because he simply believed that if a child can imagine, even for a moment, that life can be different, if they can begin to stoke the fires of hope, they will start acting on the new image of who they perceive themselves to be — an image that would make any mother proud!

 You may have heard the old story of the traveler who visited the French town of Chartres to see the great church being built there. He asked several worker what they did. One said, “I carve stones.” Another, “I make slab of stained glass.” Another, “I pound iron.” Then the traveler met an older janitor woman, sweeping up the stone chips and wood shavings and glass shards from the day’s work. He asked her, “What are you doing?” And the woman paused, she leaned on her broom, and looked up toward the high arches of this great building, and replied, “Me? I'm building a cathedral for the Glory of Almighty God.” (p.74-75, Robert Fulghum, It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It). What an imagination!

 And we are building God’s church here in Lakewood Ranch, a place where people can find the peace that passes understanding. We are setting the world on fire with hope. We are daring to speak prophetic words of truth which will change our land. We are dreaming of ways to bring joy to farm workers and homeless people, and others in need. We are clinging to Christ’s vision that all people will come to know the love of God and will bow down and worship. One person at a time, one community at a time, we are changing the world, Peace Presbyterian, because the Holy Spirit is alive and moving, giving us the power to imagine.