Text: Acts 2: 1-21
They were all together in one place. That’s what the story invites us to picture. The 11, and the others who had found their way into Jesus good company in those powerful three years … there they are together, under one roof. Why? Because that’s what Jesus instructed them to do … they were his parting words … “stay put in the city and pray … pray and wait … wait and pray til the Spirit comes. You will receive power,” he told them, “when the Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses.”
So there they were all together in one place.
The intensity of it, the anticipation, the trusting without really knowing what exactly to expect … it could have made of them a tight little group of the specially chosen … sealed off in a way. But that’s not what happened! The Spirit descended upon them and made of them something else altogether … something wildly available beyond themselves! It began with this ability to communicate across language barriers as each was given the ability to speak in ways that others from all kinds of places could hear and understand.
And that was just the start of it. As the story unfolds past what Sue read to us, there are all these incidents of healing, of mercy and generosity, a radical sharing of life, as these same previously timid, fearful disciples spill out into the streets, making connections beyond this house where they were gathered, all together in one place.
Together: it's often where we find God. And when we're struggling to find God, together is how we hold on. To be sure there is a place for being together … just ask Cheryl as she finds herself at long last with us today under this one roof! But in the way and wisdom of the Spirit, together is not meant to be an end in itself. “Coming together for devotion, study, worship, discernment, fellowship … these are each indispensable but not for their own sakes. These are the ways that make us ready, so when the Spirit decides to move we will be moveable. These are the conditions in which the Spirit can come upon us and infuse in us God’s spilling-over, outward-oriented, life- affirming, barrier-breaking desire.” [1]
“When Pentecost day began, the disciples were all together in one place. When Pentecost day ended, the disciples had gone out from their one place. Together multiplied. New togethers formed. New dreams sparked. New songs arose. New witnesses testified. New generosity flowed.” [2]
And then there is this:
Pentecost isn’t a one time event, frozen in the past.
We already know that. Pentecost has happened more than once in the life of this very congregation. One of those times that stands out for me --some of you were even here to live it-- is that time in the late 60’s early 70’s when the Spirit blew with a gale force, breathing new life in all kinds of ways into this neighbourhood. I love it the way Marion Woods a member of the congregation at that time put it … “I’ve been asked many times,” she says, “to try and explain how it happened. I can say first that it takes a lot of love and caring. In our instance this comes from our love of God as we know him in Jesus Christ. Secondly, one must be ready to listen and follow the lead of the Holy Spirit as one hears and recognizes it in others. … All I can say is that we were caught up in a movement that simply flowed and there was no stopping it.”
Is that not ‘Pentecost’?!
I believe it’s that very same Spirit that over the last few years has been propelling us further on this journey of wider engagement … for it’s the way of the Spirit to move us out … to draw us into widening circles of relationship … to break open our lives to each other that we might discover our hidden wholeness that lies in our being together … all of us.
Today, the Board is inviting us into a conversation that at its essence is really a question of how we might be about conspiring with the Holy Spirit to be about more -- more life for us, more life for others. We don’t really know where that’s going to blow us … but then neither did those first disciples when they were gathered together in on place. And yet, without them, there, we wouldn’t be here!! And that’s mind-blowing.
That’s the Spirit blowing!
And so as I call upon Suzanne now to preside over our conversation, I invite us into a few moments of silence in which to give thanks for the Spirit among us and to attune our bodies, our minds, our spirits to the Spirit’s call … stirring within us, between us, and beyond us.
[1] Mary Luti, “Better Than Great,” Homily for Pentecost, May 24, 2015
[2] Rachel Hackenberg, “All Together,” Still Speaking Daily Devotional, United Church of Christ, posted on June 9, 2019
