Pentecost and Membership Sunday
Scripture: Acts 2:1-4, Ephesians 4:1-6
If you were to ask me how the Holy Spirit has worked in my life, I’d probably have a tough time answering. On the one hand, there’s too much that I could point to – how do you narrow it down? I trust that God’s Spirit has been leading me through life in all kinds of big and little ways. Doors opened here, gentle nudges there, moments of clarity, moments of conviction, experiences of comfort and assurance, experiences of painful self-awareness, a sense of connection with others, a sense of connection with God, and the occasional epiphany that’s struck me to the core. What in my life does not bear the mark of the Holy Spirit?
But on the other hand, it’s hard to point to any one particular thing and label it with confidence as the work of the Spirit. It always feels a little presumptuous to decide for ourselves what is God’s doing and what isn’t. Jesus’ disciples get a little antsy on this score just before he ascends to heaven at the beginning of the book of Acts, and Jesus has to remind them that it’s not for you to know the times and the seasons that God has set. Instead, Jesus promises them the coming gift of the Holy Spirit. So the Spirit doesn’t necessarily reveal all. In fact, the Spirit is Jesus’ alternative to knowing too much.
I’ve certainly had a handful of moments where it really felt like something bigger was at work in my life. I have a friend who calls these “spiritually suspicious” experiences. Coincidences that don’t feel like coincidences, or paths that suddenly align just right, or confirmation of a new direction that comes from a bunch of places at once. Though one of the times I felt this most strongly, the door I thought I was being pointed towards didn’t open at all. So was that the work of the Spirit after all? Or was the Spirit just working in a way that I had yet to understand?
You’ll have your own stories and experiences too. And maybe you’ve been more attentive than I have to the Spirit’s presence in your life. Or maybe you’ve never much felt the Spirit around you and wonder what we’re talking about.
Well, as the story continues in the book of Acts, Jesus’ promise of the Spirit is fulfilled before too long. It happens on the day of Pentecost, a Jewish festival that falls 50 days after the Passover feast at which Jesus shared a last meal with his disciples. We know Pentecost as a Christian celebration of the Holy Spirit poured out, but all those folks were there in Jerusalem that day because it was an important Jewish harvest festival. A time to renew the covenant that God made with Noah and the whole of creation after the flood.
And on that Pentecost day, Jesus’ disciples were gathered in a room together when the Spirit came upon them like a rushing wind and tongues of fire. And as they were filled with the Holy Spirit they spoke in languages understood by all those visitors in Jerusalem from all over the Mediterranean world. And Peter rose to the moment to make some sense of this wild experience and connect it to the story of Jesus. Many, many people saw and heard all this, and joined the movement of Jesus’ followers. They were baptized and received the Holy Spirit themselves. And Christians have often looked back on this Pentecost festival as the birth-day of the church.
Of course, God’s Spirit is not a new arrival in the book of Acts, or in the New Testament at all. The Spirit is there from the first verse of Genesis, hovering over the deep as God begins the work of creation. And God’s Spirit winds all through the story of God’s people in the Hebrew scriptures. The Spirit leads and guides, the Spirit convicts, the Spirit heals and sometimes the Spirit disturbs. God’s Spirit saturates the pages of the Old Testament, animating a relationship between God and God’s chosen people.
But Jesus promises his disciples that after he leaves them God’s Spirit would be poured out in a new way. And Peter recognizes what has happened when it does. To all who see and hear the commotion, Peter says: “For this promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls.” The Spirit is poured out upon all humanity, as the prophet Joel had already seen. “No one will be left out!”
I always think it’s interesting that Jesus has to leave for this gift of the Spirit to be realized. This is how he talks about it in the gospel of John, as well as at the beginning of Acts. I am going away, and I am coming to you. In the Spirit, the risen Christ is present to his disciples in an amazingly close and intimate way. But not only those few disciples. In the Spirit, the gift of God’s presence is made available to all people. Not only those who shared time and space with the Word made flesh, but everyone whom God calls. Those far away as well as those who are near. The Spirit of God poured out on all humanity.
Last week another group of Jesus’ disciples were gathered in a room together. Ten individuals preparing to become members of this congregation at St. Jacobs Mennonite Church, along with their partners in faith and a few lucky pastors. They had gathered to share their stories with each other and name how God had brought them to this particular community of faith. And wouldn’t you know it, the Spirit blew through that room too. We may not have heard the rushing of wind or seen flames settle on our heads, but we did feel something. It was a beautiful and profound evening. Sacred ground as we told our stories and claimed a faith that now led to this place.
We did all speak in English, which simplified things a little compared to the many languages of the crowds in Jerusalem at Pentecost. But we recognized ourselves to be a pretty diverse bunch. The stories of faith that were told ranged widely, and had roots in a lot of different traditions. Not many who shared started out with connections to a Mennonite church. But here we all were, and from our different backgrounds we traced the story of God’s leading to this place. We each brought different languages and experiences of faith to the table. And by the grace of the Spirit among us we were able to hear and understand each other. Our various backgrounds were not an obstacle but a gift. It was a sort of renewal of the Pentecost experience, one that we now claim and celebrate on this day of Pentecost as well.
So, on this birth-day of the church we celebrate with a service of membership. How fitting. But I do think it’s worth asking ourselves on occasions like this why we do these things at all. Why do we become members of a church like St. Jacobs? Why go through this bit of ritual and formality?
Certainly the truth is that a membership service like this does not make anything happen. Paul is clear about this in that passage from Ephesians that Ryan read. “Make every effort to preserve the unity the Spirit has already created…” God has already done the heavy lifting. The Spirit has created our bonds of unity. Do we need a membership service so the Spirit can do its work? No. The unity of the Spirit is a gift. It is a work of grace through Jesus who breaks down dividing walls of every kind. And if membership becomes something that creates an inside and an outside, that threatens the unity that the Spirit has already been working among us, then we might be better to let it go.
But – I do think that recognizing and celebrating membership as we do today reminds us that faith is not a solo sport. That God calls disciples of Jesus into communities of love and witness. We are part of the body of Christ across time and around the world, and we are part of the body of Christ as it takes shape in this particular place. The Spirit of God draws people together. It transforms our differences of language, background, culture and history into gifts that can be heard and understood and received together. God calls, the Spirit blows and inspires and translates and unites, and we respond. We respond by saying yes to the gifts that God offers. We respond by receiving the waters of baptism that mark our identity as beloved children of God. We respond by joining communities of others who are also on the way. We respond by walking together through joys and sorrows, through mountain tops and dark nights of the soul. We respond by offering ourselves to the Spirit’s work around us, sharing a story of good news in a world full of pain.
So today as we receive these 10 companions into membership, we are only affirming what we’ve already discovered. That God has brought us together. That the Spirit has been at work in wonderful and mysterious ways. That our stories are gifts to be received with joy. That the journey always continues in ways we cannot anticipate. And that Jesus will not leave us without a comforter and a guide.
So it is with the Spirit of God.
Amen.