Acts 2:1-21, 37-42
May 11, 2008
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Pentecost was a holiday before it was a holy day. 50 days after Passover, the Hebrew people celebrated the Feast of Weeks. It was one of the mandatory festivals when pilgrims would travel to Jerusalem. The festival marked the giving of the law to Moses on Mt. Sinai. It became a time to renew the covenant God had with his people and it happens to be during the season of the spring harvest too.
The mood in Jerusalem was celebratory perhaps even a bit of party spirit going on. But to the disciples and followers of Jesus, there was nothing to celebrate. They began with just 12, grew to more than 70, but they were still a small minority group. Jesus was gone from them, and life seemed hopeless and without purpose. Following Jesus’ instruction, they simply waited and prayed.
They gathered for worship probably in an ordinary room. Doors were shut, perhaps even locked. They started the service with the familiar acts of worship, singing the old familiar hymns, and being basically comfortable.
Then without any warning, there was a holy uproar. The wind blew in. The Holy Spirit descended like tongues of fire resting on each person’s head. And people spoke in unusual ways, and heard in unusual ways. People talked and people heard and understood one another. The church is born on Pentecost.
Outside where the disciples and followers worshiped, a crowd had gathered in the street. The crowd mocked what they heard was going on inside. They said, “They must be drunk!”
Now, Peter who not too long ago couldn’t even speak up for the fact that he knew Jesus three times; delivered one of the greatest sermons ever in less than three minutes. Peter summarized the story of Jesus for them in a thumbnail sketch with no illustrations, no snappy one-liners. Turning to the Old Testament, Peter found a text that might give some explanation for the strange things they were experiencing. He reaches for an obscure text from the prophet Joel.
When the mocking crowd heard Peter’s sermon, they were deeply moved, so much that 3000 people were converted, believed, and baptized right there. That’s a lot of people. What would you do with all those people?
Here at FCBC, we don’t have the tradition or practice of welcoming visitors to consider joining our church right after the worship service. Rather, our custom is to warmly welcome people into our community, encouraging them to attend worship regularly for some time, perhaps coming to a fellowship group meeting, and then finally attending one of the pastor’s Inquirers or membership classes. And even after that, they are interviewed by the Deacons and expected to give a personal testimony at a Membership Meeting. In our customs, we would not know what to do with 3000 people if they were all to come through our front doors this morning! Where would we put them? How could we get enough bulletins and hymnals?
Yet, this is the sort of unmanageable miracle that began the church. The church gathered, closed its doors, had a service, a mocking disbelieving crowd was transformed into 3000 believing people
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Proposed Sunday Schedule
As long as most everyone here can remember, we have had three Sunday morning worship services in the sanctuary for a long time. The English Youth Service starts the day at 9:00 AM and quite honestly, contrary to studies done on the sleeping habits of youth, it’s too early. They would rather sleep in than to get up in the mornings—every morning not just on Sunday.
We are the 10:00 English Service and to be exact, it’s at 10:05. But everyone still seems to call it the “10:00 service.” We have always needed to make our way into the sanctuary while the youth are exiting and then at the end of the service, we make our way out of the sanctuary while the Cantonese worshipers come in. It’s like a daily commute to work—we see traffic both ways.
The Chinese Service meets at 11:15 and enjoys the luxury of sometimes extending worship beyond 12:30 being the last service in the morning. Our Sunday morning schedule has become so established in our church that we might find this custom difficult to revise or change.
There is a proposal currently being considered by the Deacons and the CE Board to change the Sunday morning schedule that might create for us a Pentecost experience. For the past four years, the once new 9:30 English Worship Service that first met next door in the Chinese Playground game room and later moved up to Culbertson Hall at Cameron House will be moving into the sanctuary. Pastor Lauren and the 9:30 worship team would like to eliminate the weekly tasks of setting up and tearing down equipment for worship. Our sanctuary is fully equipped with a PA system, drums, and as you can see, a newly installed projector to enhance worship singing. Also, as more of the 9:30 Worship leaders and worshipers start to have children and more children, placing their children in the church nursery and Sunday school classes would be more advantageous to these parents when they are in the same building.
What all of this will mean is that the current 9:30 English Worship will become the 9:10 Service. This service, the 10:05 Service will be the 10:20 Service and the Cantonese Service will be at 11:30. Youth would attend the new 9:10 Service as well as other times of worship that may happen within the two-hour Sunday school time.
If this is approved and we see no reason for not seeing this happen, the change will be implemented in the Fall of this year. Now what does this have to do with Pentecost?
Our church would experience Pentecost because our stable, familiar world on Sunday morning will be disrupted just like the world of the disciples and followers of Jesus Christ in Acts 2 was disrupted by the Holy Spirit. You will have the option to attend the 9:10 service or the 10:20 service; there would be no more conflicting times. You will be able to access the 9:10 Service because it would be right here—no steep hill to climb! But the most significant Pentecost experience that we will all enjoy is to be able to see each other on Sunday mornings. As the 9:10 Service exits the sanctuary, we will rub elbows with them as we come inside for worship just like the way we rub elbows with the Cantonese service when we exit the sanctuary.
The church is renewed when the people gather to be infused by the Holy Spirit. We can’t gather “in theory.” We have to actually gather in time and space. It’s only when we devote ourselves to sharing time and space together that the church has any chance of the lively spirit described in the Bible.
Mocking Crowd
When we gather as the church, we close our doors to prevent the outside street noise to come in. If we’re not careful and begin to think that church is what happens inside this sanctuary, we will become a closed club of insiders. The Greek word for the church is ecclesia—it means literally “the called out.” To be in the church is to be called out of the world into church. Church is this, but due to Christ’s mandate, church must be more than this.
In Acts 2, there was this mocking crowd. When everything started to happen inside this gathering of disciples and followers and they began to sing with jubilation, speak in different languages and saying “Amen” because they understood what was being said, the mob outside became curious to know what the ruckus was about. There was wind blowing, fire in the shape of tongues over the heads of the disciples, and finally it was time for the disillusioned disciples to start partying. The crowd outside said, “What do we need to do to get in on this?”
It’s like when we have good worship in our sanctuary. We sing at the top of our voices. The organ is piping out notes shaking even the very foundation and bricks in this building. And when we flood outside onto our sidewalk with smiles on our faces, the mocking neighbors are saying to us, “What do we need to do to get in on this?” I like the fact that our street sidewalk is our real vestibule or lobby. I know too many churches that have these lovely coffee hour lounges located deep in the inside of the church where all the enthusiasm from worship is toned down before any mocking crowd can see or hear it. I just love the fact that we can talk and meet visitors and friends and share our lives with each other professing the truth that God is mighty good right outside in the open where the whole world can see us.
What happened in Acts 2 is that those 3000 mocking crowd of people had their disbelief transformed into belief when Peter told them that they were not drunk because it was only 9:00 in the morning but that it was the power of the Holy Spirit coming to them. This is the real miracle of Pentecost. This is the divine intervention that gives birth to the church, not just on Pentecost but always.
Once Peter shared his sermon, God acted in these people’s lives and called them out to be Christians. You can’t be Christian without being called, called out, and called in. That’s how you got here. It’s an act of God. Born again, saved, converted, dying and rising—Christians have a host of images to describe this miracle. It’s not the Inquirers or church membership classes that lead you to become a Christian, God has called you out personally. All we get to do is to recognize the miracle. This miraculous growth in Acts 2 was not something that the church programmed, prayed for, asked for, or planned. It was an amazing act of God’s grace.
And I believe this is what is happening to us. When the 9:30 English Worship comes into the sanctuary this Fall, we pray that we will continue to experience miraculous growth. We are seeing this in our church nursery with growing number of babies and toddlers and we know that more are coming! All of us know that a newborn baby is a miracle already but the real miracle is the reality that these new parents are committing their lives and family time to make church life an essential part of their life. Another miracle is to see the many people who are volunteering their time on Sundays and even on Wednesdays when a Mom’s Group meets to care for our young ones.
A Good Problem
When we have 3000 people who want to come into our sanctuary, we will then have a good problem.
We have a nice gathering here in this room with our closed doors. We look around like the disciples, the inner circle, and said, “This is the friendliest church in town!” Or, “We’re just like a family!” We have enough hymnals to go around, an attractive retrofitted facility and we are thoroughly enjoying the good fellowship among ourselves.
Now just imagine this: God moved, acted, and 3000 folk whom we hardly know demanded entrance, 3000 people who a moment before had been mocking and making fun of us, wanted in! And now we have a problem. They started asking questions like, “Why do you do it this way?” They demanded new programs we had never had before. They know nothing of the Bible, church tradition, or the way we had done things. We have to add more Christian education programs. They asked upstart questions. They wanted us to give reasons for why we did things. We had to knock down walls, open doors, and in short, be converted because God had converted all these people!
God’s grace is often amazing and sometimes it is a problem. But some times, by the grace of God, God’s grace can be a gift. It’s a gift, just when the church gets all settled in, settled down—a cozy religious club of people just like us—to have the church get opened up, opened out, and be transformed.
Pentecost was the day when the gift of God became a good problem for the church. The church expanded, changed and grew from 70 people to be over 3000 people. And behind all of this are some questions for our church: Are we willing to forsake our settled, comfortable arrangements and follow the leading of the lively Holy Spirit? Are we willing to let the living, active Spirit grow our church, not on the basis of our plans and designs, but on the basis of a living God’s constant call to the whole world?
We pray that when the new proposed Sunday morning schedule is implemented in the Fall of this year that you will shout with joy that truly Pentecost has come to FCBC again!
Let us pray.
Lord, we are here in this church because, through the Holy Spirit, you have reached out to us. Your Spirit has gathered us. Your Spirit breathes upon us and empowers us to do your will. On this Pentecost, we thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit and we pray that we are open to grow and change from our set ways in order to welcome all friends and strangers alike to know your Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Give us the grace to be a truly Spirit-filled people so that we might be faithful to all the gifts of your Spirit. Amen.