Empowered by the Holy Spirit

Acts 2: 1 - 4; Galatians 4: 1 - 7; 5: 16 – 26

Since last September, we have been on a journey through scripture. 

 

Beginning with foundational stories in the Hebrew scriptures, stories about Adam and Eve and Abraham and Joseph and David, continuing then to study the life of Jesus through the lens of Luke’s gospel and then Acts of the Apostles, we end our annual scripture pilgrimage today on a feast day – the celebration of Pentecost, sometimes understood as the birthday of the church.

 

Since Easter, we have been following the apostles as they discovered the resurrected Jesus and then, per his instructions, began the work of waiting on the promised arrival of a helper for their mission.

 

And today marks and celebrates that arrival.

 

On Pentecost, we remember how the Holy Spirit made herself known to the early church.

 

Let’s unpack some things that give this day important context.

 

In Jewish tradition, Pentecost (which translates to means 50 days), also known as Shavuot, is one of three pilgrimage festivals. It occurs 50 days after the Passover. 

 

At the Passover, Jewish people recognize and celebrate their liberation from slavery as a gift from God. 

 

In the days that follow, Jews count the days (all 49 of them, seven weeks) and reflect on the undeserved gift of liberation God granted them. Then, on the 50^th day, Pentecost or Shavuot, they recall the occasion of God giving the Torah to the Israelites on Mount Sinai. 

 

Torah was also a gift from God – the gift of a container to hold their lives and their actions and their behaviors – the gift of a way of being God’s chosen people in covenant relationship.

 

In celebration of Shavuot in the first century, people would pour into Jerusalem from the surrounding countryside. They would eat together by lamp light and hear the 10 commandments read in the Temple. They would pray, they would remember, and they would rejoice.

 

I invite you to imagine a city teeming with happy pilgrims – the noise, the laughter, the smell of foods cooking, the colors of all the clothing from many places.

 

In the first text read today from Acts, the apostles, who are faithful Jews, are gathered in a house in Jerusalem, preparing for the Shavuot celebration. They are still “waiting” as they were instructed by Jesus in Luke 24: 44 – 49 after he was revealed to them following the resurrection:

 

⁴⁴ Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” ⁴⁵ Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, ⁴⁶ and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day ⁴⁷ and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. ⁴⁸ You are witnesses of these things. ⁴⁹ And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised, so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”       

 

It is as they wait on the brink of Shavuot that they are startled by the rushing in of what seems like a howling and fierce wind. They see something like flames. And at once they are able to understand others in spite of language differences.

 

We don’t read further in Acts today – but from the point at which the Holy Spirit rushes in on something like the wind, the apostles are changed and they are sent out to proclaim a time of repentance and forgiveness in Jesus’ name. 

 

A word about the difference between a disciple and an apostle here - a disciple is a learner and a follower. An apostle is one who is sent out to teach in another’s name. Jesus had sent out the seventy earlier in Luke’s gospel  -- essentially deputizing those closest to him to be apostles. 

 

But today those earliest apostles are given a new tool in their travel bag on this day of Shavuot. 

 

Instead of being accompanied by Jesus, instead of being accompanied by their memories of Jesus and his teaching, they are now filled with and accompanied by the Holy Spirit – the Holy Spirit transforms them to communicate in new ways. 

 

The Holy Spirit empowers them to heal and to perform miracles as they move about. As apostles, they will go out to make disciples, who will eventually become apostles themselves, sent out with the power of the Holy Spirit to make more disciples.

 

All of that is a backdrop to the work that Paul is doing as he travels and teaches and evangelizes and shares wisdom with communities throughout the Mediterranean.

 

A couple of weeks ago, Rev. John Campbell shared a good word about Wesleyan grace, the way God surrounds us before we even know that we need a relationship with God. 

 

That teaching sprang from a portion of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, a letter addressing a conflict that was about circumcision. It seems that one of the pressing question in gentile communities who wanted to follow Jesus in the middle of the first century was whether or not followers of Jesus needed to be circumcised, becoming Jewish and committing to all of the Law, in order to be included in God’s family.

 

Paul argues that such conformity to Mosaic law is NOT required of gentiles. What is required is faith. 

Today’s excerpts from the same letter to the Galatians draw a relationship between faith and the work of the Holy Spirit – that is why our lectionary writers have included these bits and pieces today.  

 

We could take a deep dive here – but I’m going to instead offer a flyover – because you know how I feel about Paul’s writing. It’s overly complicated to our modern ears. 

 

In today’s readings from the letter to the Galatians, Paul is reminding or teaching the community about the things that the Spirit does for believers. 

 

The Spirit provides assurance of salvation – remember that Rev. Campbell talked about John Wesley’s experience of his heart being strangely warmed? In spite of his frequent doubts and misgivings, John Wesley was overcome by a sense of knowing in his body and spirit that he was loved and held and saved by God as he sat with scripture. 

 

Paul also asserts that the Spirit binds all who believe into God’s big family – the Spirit makes us siblings to one another and creates a bond which allows us to cry out to God as Father (ABBA) just as Jesus did. We don’t need to follow Jewish law – it is the Holy Spirit’s work to gather us all in. 

 

By the power of the Holy Spirit we BELONG to something bigger than ourselves. 

 

And when we allow the Holy Spirit to be at work in us, when we join the work, then we bear fruit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. 

 

Not only do we bear good fruit, we are also less apt to do things that harm ourselves and others.  We are transformed – BECOMING disciples of Jesus – and as we are transformed, the love we share has the power to transform the world.

 

This isn’t our doing – it is not the work of our hands and heads, but we play a role in deciding to dance with the Holy Spirit. We play a role in putting our faith in something greater than our own actions and inclinations. Our faith, our willingness to put ourselves in the presence of God, to let the Holy Spirit nudge and lead us, to take those nudges and move through the world led by something - that’s what happens when we BELIEVE in the good news – the news that we are beloved of God and that we have been created by that loving God, called to walk in the footsteps of Jesus and then surrounded by that Holy Spirit who animates the ways we live out our faith.

 

This Spring, the Council of Bishops spoke a new vision statement into being for The United Methodist Church – and it begins with this: “empowered by the Holy Spirit.” After so many years of leaning on a mission to “make disciples,” leaders have named with great specificity that our work as Christians is empowered by the Holy Spirit.

 

We will accomplish nothing if we do not allow ourselves to be infused by the Holy Spirit. And today we remember that gift – but please, let’s not limit our remembrance and thanksgiving to a single feast day in the church year. 

 

Let’s remember our history – the promises Jesus made, the way the Holy Spirit showed up in a room full of apostles who waited, the way John Wesley felt that Spirit’s nudge as a call to do a new thing to reach people with the good news of belovedness and life eternal.  

 

Can you remember a time when the Holy Spirit showed up? A time when you were nudged, prodded, encouraged?

 

When we live our lives in connection to the Holy Spirit, we are led to transformation and service, love and worship so that we might love boldly, serve joyfully and lead courageously.

 

And fear not – we’ll talk about those things more in weeks to come. For now, let’s breathe in the Spirit’s presence and breathe out God’s love as we set to follow Jesus day by day.

 

May it be so.

Amen.