Pentecost Sunday

May 15, 2005

Acts 2:1-13

“Watch Your Language!”

“When the day of Pentecost had come (the Greek word here is “pentecoste” meaning, the fiftieth day of Easter), they were all gathered together in one place.  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.  Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages.”

     One thing that is certainly clear about the awesome, Spirit-filled beginning of the Christian Church, is that it’s primary purpose was to go to everyone in the city of Jerusalem and share the Good News of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  For this purpose, the believers were given the gift of foreign languages so they could speak clearly with other people about God’s forgiving, saving love in Christ.

     Over the years, however, the Church eventually became a large and well-established institution, in many ways moving far from its original purpose.  It didn’t seem so important to tell the neighbors about Jesus because so many of them were already part of the Church.  Evangelism came to be seen as less the task of the everyday Christian and more the task of those who went out to do mission work in some distant land.  So well established was the Church in many places that all that was necessary was to open the doors and people would come.  For hundred and hundreds of years, this is the way it was.

     It might still be this way in some parts of the world, but for many Christian communities, things are changing.  No longer can we assume our neighbors are believers.  No longer can we just open the doors and expect the pews to be filled.  Increasingly, it seems the Church is in a hostile environment where the conventional wisdom is that the Church may be seen but is not to be heard.

     A few years ago, Loren Meade, a writer for a Christian think-tank called the Alban Institute, wrote a book titled, “The Once and Future Church”.  In it he described what he believes is the greatest reformation in the Church’s history, and he says it is going on right now.  He says the Church must realize and accept the fact that the world has changed and that its ministry must become again what it was at the beginning.

     The first Christians lived in a hostile environment that was not supportive of their faith.  Their neighbors weren’t Christians.  They couldn’t just open the doors and expect people to show up.  So the Lord gave them what they needed most – the inspiration to go out and tell everyone they met about the great hope they had in Jesus Christ.

     Meade argues that we need to be doing exactly the same thing, that we can no longer depend on inertia but must reclaim evangelism as our primary calling. 

     Now, with the very real possibility that the sub base will have to close, this church’s role as a place of wholeness, healing and hope, may well become all the more important.  And even if that doesn’t happen, consider all our neighbors today who are lost and lonely, hurting and broken, in need of the words of love and peace that have been entrusted to us.

     On this day when we celebrate the Sacrament of Holy Baptism and receive new members into our fellowship, it is a particularly good time to remember our calling to share the Good News.  Thank God for the good people who first shared it with us.  Now it’s our turn to move beyond these doors and into the community with the forgiving, saving love of God we know in Jesus Christ. 

     This is our calling.  This is our time.  O Lord, fill this place with your presence and inspire our hearts!  Come, Holy Spirit, come…and send us forth!