Happy Pentecost! This is the day that Christians celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost, though, was an established Jewish celebration long before Acts 2. The Hebrew Bible refers to Pentecost as The Feast of Weeks. The Jewish Encyclopedia says this:
"The traditional festival of Pentecost as the birthday of the Torah, when Israel became a constitutional body and "a distinguished people," remained the sole celebration after the Exile. … Apparently the custom of studying the Law all night of Pentecost is old." http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/v
According to this source, as well as others that I referenced, Pentecost was a celebration of the giving of the law. It was called the Feast of Weeks because it was celebrated 7 weeks and a day after Passover. That adds up to 50 days, which is how we end up with the more recent name of Pentecost, which means 50th. The Hebrew Bible tells us that there was a lot more to the celebration of the Feast of Weeks than reading Torah. It was also the concluding festival of the grain harvest. We're barely in planting season here, so it's difficult for me to imagine harvest right now. But I think it's important that we try to find the origins of these things as often as we can for the sake of trying to make sense of where we come from as a people of faith and why we do what we do. That way we know when we depart from the celebration's origins and we can do it intentionally. Pentecost didn't happen in a vacuum any more than Christmas or Easter. I believe there is some strategy involved – some connections that are not apparent or at best are challenging to dig out. Whether it was God or the writers of these stories or both, there are reasons lost to us or at least difficult to attain.
The disciples gathered together in someone's home to celebrate The Feast of Weeks. This would be 50 days after Passover. It's been almost 2 months since Jesus' death and resurrection. The disciples were preaching Christ crucified and risen from the dead, but they were also practicing their Jewish faith. On this feast day, they were celebrating the law given to them by God.
The activities prescribed for this feast day are quite elaborate. You had to do some serious preparation to do it right. That's true of most Jewish feast days that I know of. The account in our book of Acts says that they were all in the house. They were ready to celebrate. And then this strange thing happened. The sound of a violent wind broke out. It doesn't say that there was actual wind … but there was the sound of it. And then a tongue of fire rested on each of them and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues. It seems their festivities were hijacked by the Holy Spirit.
By this time I imagine the disciples were getting used to going with the flow. Following Jesus had never offered them much predictability. At some point you have to either fish or cut bait. Or as a few of my friends say, "Go big or go home." In other words, Jesus didn't offer a namby-pamby or wishy-washy experience. He was often really confusing, but never luke-warm. So this sudden departure from their traditional Pentecost celebration might not have shaken them up as much as it did the devout Jews referenced later in the text who were amazed and astonished. I'm not saying that this wasn't a big deal, because clearly it was.
Later in Acts we hear about Paul's desire to celebrate Pentecost in Jerusalem if possible. In 1 Corinthians, Paul is planning on staying in Ephesus to celebrate Pentecost. As this new Jewish sect began to grow, they continued to worship and honor The Holy with their traditional celebrations, but over time they became re-shaped so that they were still relevant. Today we honor ourselves as being a people, a distinct group of people with a specific faith tradition. The Feast of Weeks was a celebration in honor of the law being given to the people after they were rescued from their lives of slavery. This law was considered a gift given to them by the Holy One. They had a purpose again. They had a God to serve and rules with which to serve that God. Even though the rules were bad in Egypt, at least they knew what was expected of them. In the wilderness where they were walking after they were rescued they had no clue who they were or how they should act. So these laws were a gift to them. It helped them become a community.
What I'm curious about is, why was it this feast day that the Holy Spirit decided to drop in? What was it about The Feast of Weeks, the day reserved to celebrate the giving of the law that made sense for the Holy Spirit to be released in such an extravagant way?
It seems to me that this experience of the gift of the Holy Spirit being given on a feast day designed to celebrate the gift of the law is one way God or the leaders of this new movement could dismantle the hierarchy of the oppressive religious institution of the time. In the book of Galatians, the writer is going on and on about what the law provides and what the spirit provides. It's a very provocative book and also not a little confusing. The basic tenet, as I understand it, is that if you put yourself in a position to be law-abiding, then you have to put yourself under the authority of the law and of those who maintain the law. If, on the other hand, you put yourself in a position to receive Spirit and be grace-abiding, then you are guided by love instead of law. Love is better than law.
This day for us marks the giving of the Holy Spirit. We are called to be grace-abiding people. This grace that we have been given, prompts us to live with the core values of the law written on our hearts. No longer do we have to display in some religious way that we are keeping up with the religious codes of our religious system. Rather, it is by living our lives out as devoted followers of Jesus the Christ, prompted by love, that others will see who we are and what we stand for. We need not manufacture do's and don'ts.
I also believe the Pentecost story tells us that we will make connections with people who are otherwise speaking a different language than us. The way we give ourselves to our calling – to Spirit and to Grace – profoundly impacts our surrounding community. We don't act a certain way because those are the generally accepted and expected norms of our church or our denomination. We do not have to be looking over our shoulder waiting to be caught because we broke some religious law. We act according to love. We extend the grace that was extended to us. We share the food that is shared with us. We do any number of things because we were taught love not law.
This, my friends, is counter-cultural. We have to explain ourselves often because we're not doing things that people expect us to do. We're not being in ways that people expect us to be. For instance, many of us here identify ourselves as lesbian, gay, bi, trans, or queer. Many of us also identify as Christians too – some of us specifically as Baptist Christians. I don't need to tell you how that confuses and sometimes angers some folks. Pride month is just a few weeks away. When we march in the parade with our church banner and signs and pass out our information, we get some interesting looks. But if we're going to do this thing and be this way, I encourage us to do and be with as much enthusiasm as we can muster! I am kind of an enthusiasm junkie … I know that … And there's lots of folks in my life who sometimes want me to just try to sit still. And I do from time to time. But the gift of the Holy Spirit moves in me in a way that I can barely contain myself sometimes. I'm not you. You're not me. We are us.
The Holy Spirit reshaped the celebration of the Feast of Weeks for the new Jewish sect called the Way. The more traditional Jews wondered what was going on. They'd never seen such a celebration before. But they were drawn in because they could recognize something of themselves in it. There's something about us that's recognizable too. Sometimes it's discouraging always having to explain ourselves. We don't always see favorable results. But we can't know what the spirit is doing in the lives of those with whom we share. We can't make assumptions that they didn't get it or we didn't do it right. Remember that we have been given the gift of the spirit, not the law. We are moved by love and grace. We haven't been called to manufacture anything. We are called to be who we are and to live out the teaching of Jesus the best way we know how. Some people are going to think we're crazy … or drunk … or immoral. Teaching moments will present themselves to us.
Rituals have to be reshaped for the times. We are ushering in a new time – in our church specifically and in our society. It's not always clear what it will look like or how it will feel. We don't know how others will react. Can we take the risk to let the Holy Spirit flow within, around, and between us? I believe we can. I believe we will. I believe we are.
This week I encourage you to feel the stirrings within you. Don't discount what you are moved by or moved to. It may be something totally different than you'd ever considered before. It may be an old longing that you discounted years ago. You may feel drawn to go deeper into your known gifts or you may find yourself considering something totally outside of your comfort zone. Maybe you'll want to lead communion and you've never done that before. Or maybe you'd like to not lead anything for awhile, and you've never done that before. There are whole ranges of possibilities. Whatever it is, let yourself feel it and bounce it off of what you know about the Holy Spirit. Does it feel like it builds up love? Does it extend grace? Does it make you feel more whole, even if it's a little scary? Can you do it enthusiastically, knowing that your enthusiasm may look entirely different than mine? Chances are high, actually, that your enthusiasm looks entirely different than mine. Whatever it is that you are called to and that this community is called to, my prayer is that we accomplish what is said in verse 6 of the 2nd chapter of Acts – Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were amazed and astonished, because every person could recognize something of themselves in what was going on.
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