Acts 2:1-21
May 19, 2013
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
We have had quite a party this weekend! Thanks again to many of you who came to ABSW’s Commencement yesterday to celebrate my honorary doctorate along with all the other graduates and recipients of well-earned degrees. If anyone should get the applause, it would be those who actually earned their degrees! For me, I was just being faithful with my chin to the ground! And I see that the party will continue with a reception upstairs after this service today.
But in some ironic way, the party should be the rule and not the exception. We should be partying all the time!
Lionel Richie once sang, “We’re going to have a party. And we are going to party all night long. All night. All night long.”
Pentecost
Today is Pentecost and, of course, our text is Acts 2, the account of the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles in Jerusalem. This is a wild and funny story that has brought us together today to party.
The apostles of Jesus gather in Jerusalem and, without warning, there is a wild descent of the Holy Spirit from on high. And though they come from a wide variety of backgrounds, from many nations, and though they don’t have that much in common—other than that they are all Jews—they speak and they hear in ways that they understand. There’s a party going on in there.
A crowd gathers out in the street. And the crowd does not understand. The crowd scoffs, “They are doing the same thing they did when Jesus was with them. They are drunk!” At this party, it seems like there was an open bar.
What is it like to be drunk? Now, I wouldn’t know of course, I’m a pastor! But from what I’ve observed in others, to be drunk is essentially to be out of control. You are no longer reasonable, you say things and do things that you wouldn’t say and do if you were sober.
Peter says to the scoffing crowd, “We are not drunk. It’s only nine in the morning.” But in an odd sort of way, Peter was wrong. There was, a Pentecost, a strange sort of “drunkenness,” that is at the heart of the church.
When Peter quotes from the prophet Joel, he prophesies that ordinary people, young people without much education, and old people with very little future left in their lives will stand up and dream dreams and see visions and make stirring speeches. They will not let the despair and disorder of the world have the final word on what’s going on. At this party that inaugurates the birth of the church, young people, older people, middle-age people, ordinary people, people like you and me, we will be able to stand up at this party and make a toast, lift up a glass, and give God praise!
When the Holy Spirit descends, sometimes it feels like the destruction of our well-known world, but it may very well be the birth pangs of a new world, the birth of a new community where young people and old people—the people who generally are not listened to very well in our world—will speak up, will tell the whole wide world of the advent of a new world.
The risen Christ had told these people to “wait” in Jerusalem until he would give them his Holy Spirit. He told them to wait until he bestowed upon them the same power that empowered him. They can’t get that Spirit on their own, through their own striving. And after the frightening series of events that led to the death of Jesus, this group of frightened people was huddled behind closed doors and had no idea whether or not they would even have a future. But suddenly, the Holy Spirit crashes their private, quiet party and turned over the tables and they are drunk with the Spirit!
When these partygoers started to talk about God’s deeds of power, the crowd out in the street heard them and attributed all the commotion in the church that day to mere drunkenness. After the crowd listened to Peter’s sermon, they asked him, “What shall we do?”
Although they do not know the whole story about Jesus and the church, they know enough to know it demands their action. Just as the Holy Spirit crashes this private, quiet partying church and created such a commotion, so these people out in the street are welcomed in to the party. They repented, turned themselves around. They were baptized, making them a part of the new community. Now these who were outsiders are party members, now they are members of a new people who go forth and do as Jesus did. Just imagined, 3000 more people came to the party. That’s what happened on the Day of Pentecost.
FCBC Party
I have always said that our church knows how to party. We often put out a great spread whether it’s our occasional receptions on the sidewalk or upstairs in the Fellowship Hall or the feast of barbecue chicken at the church picnic. And if you just happen to be here when we party, you are also warmly invited to attend. Like the crowd, you can hear the commotion and we welcome you with open arms. Here’s a plate for you!
We are a church that knows how to party because we have learned from the Holy Spirit too. The church begins in the teaching of the Apostles because all of this stuff is unfamiliar to us, none of us is born with it, we must be taught. What we were born with is each person is for himself/herself. We were born to hoard and not share, it’s all mine and I deserve it. But the Holy Spirit makes family out of a group of people who are strangers. The Holy Spirit teaches us to share all things in common and have the goodwill of all the people in our hearts.
When we break bread together, we welded together both our physical and spiritual needs into one. When we share our food with the hungry they are fed, but we also share the body of Christ who is the Bread of Life. With Christ, we will never go hungry again. When we pray together, we not only pray for ourselves but someone greater than ourselves so we are graciously put in touch with God’s huge power that is beyond our own powers.
To this day even after being with you for 15 years, of course, not as long as many of you who have been at FCBC, I am still amazed over how our church mirrors Pentecost every Sunday. We have two official languages spoken at our church and amazingly; we understand enough to be church. We have three morning worship services at two locations and amazingly; we have one unified mission/vision. We have sons and daughters and old men and women and amazingly; we see a common vision and dream dreams of the beginning of a new world, a new family, a church. It’s no wonder that we party at FCBC all the time.
Party Away
While our party is going on, who else should be invited to party with us? We are usually okay about people who look like us, speak like us and dress like us. But how welcoming can we be to invite those who are not like us? When Peter went outside to address the crowd, he said, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let it be known to you, and listen to what I say.” Who are all the people who live in San Francisco to whom we have something so wonderful, so glorious as the Good News of Jesus Christ to say to them?
Now it’s one thing to party together here in San Francisco. But if our party is so wild, fun and wonderful, we should also take our party to other places and around the world. Just like the Jerusalem party rewrote the history of the world, we too are challenge to spread our partying to the world. Those of us who visited Germany two weeks ago saw how Christianity spread westward into Europe and then across the Atlantic, going west to California and to San Francisco. And now we want to share that FCBC party with the hill tribes in Northern Thailand when our mission team goes in June.
The small band of apostles who were once silent is speaking up, telling the world what’s what, the advanced vanguard of a whole new movement. It’s not just the beginning of a new organization, but the breaking open of a whole New World. We are now a part of that new movement of a New World!
It’s a sin for the church to hunker down as if nothing new has happened. The church was not created to be that stable, fixed resting-place for timid partygoers. Rather, we are to be noisy, making a big commotion, speaking the truth in different languages, opening up our front door to invite more people in to party and to experience the foretaste of the new wine of a whole new world.
One of the most beautiful sights when those of us visited the Lands of Luther in Germany was the great cathedrals and churches. They were huge and magnificent. Our sanctuary counts as one of the small chapels these cathedrals have on the side. Our stained glass windows are nothing compared to those that were created centuries ago. While these houses of worship may be grand and incredible, they are also empty of people. Have the people forgotten the power of the Holy Spirit on their lives? Every time I saw one of these beautiful hallow places, I wished that we would have such large facilities at FCBC. But if I had to choose between a small church building with faithful people who like to party in the Holy Spirit or a cavernous cathedral without a soul, there’s no contest! I would choose a wild party anytime!
Marin County writer Annie Dillard said that if we consider the potential for the wild eruption of the Spirit in worship, we ought to wear crash helmets out in the pews. The Spirit most certainly is a great comfort, a holy solace to us; and yet the Spirit inevitably catapults us out of the building and into mission.
The New Testament’s Greek word for Church is ekklesia, which means “called out.” We are called out from the peripheral and into the dance hall. We are called out to grab the hand of somebody who is hurting, lonely, poor, hollow and invite them to the party. We are called out to not just party among ourselves in a private, quiet party but to take this party outside into the streets where the crowds out. We are not drunk with wine but we are definitely drunk in the God’s Holy Spirit who is ultimately in control!
All Night Long
The full name of Acts is the “Acts of the Apostles.” This means that at the beginning of the church when the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles afraid and hiding behind locked doors, they are now called out to action, to be on the move.
There is really no ancient, old church to come back home to—not in Germany, not in Jerusalem, not in our imaginations. For the church to be the church, we must be part of that breathless race to keep up with the movements of the Holy Spirit. That’s who we are as partygoers. Where the Holy Spirit is sponsoring the next party, we are invited to come! This is how we began and it’s the only way we can continue as a church—racing to keep up with the next Holy Spirit party.
What might our church be if we constantly kept ourselves more open and receptive to the next party that the Holy Spirit is throwing? Where might this new party be that would lead us to new discoveries and meeting new people and thus restoring our faithfulness and Christian hospitality?
Maybe rather than to just party from 11:20 to 12:30 on Sunday morning, God is calling us out to party “all night long, all night, all night.” We are going to have a party and you and me are invited and so is the rest of the world!
Let us pray.
Almighty God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—come and empower us to do things that we would never have ventured without your heavenly prodding and pushing. Come Holy Spirit and teach us to say things to the world that we would never have said by ourselves. Come Holy Spirit and disrupt our settle, stable world with your life-giving power. Come, Holy Spirit, come and let’s party together. Amen.