"Led by the Spirit"

Acts 2:1-21

A Sermon preached by The Rev. Douglas M. Donley

May 30, 2004

University Baptist Church

Minneapolis, MN

On this final Sunday in May, we remember all of the people who have given the ultimate sacrifice. We think of those families who have lost a loved one in this war and all previous wars. We remember that a major part of our work as Christians is certainly to provide comfort to those who grieve, but to also make the world a place where wars are no longer needed.

We can only do any of this work if we are led by the Spirit of God. I say this because God’s Spirit is the one force that is stronger than any military weapon, stronger than any voting block, stronger than any force of evil out there. The Holy Spirit desires good for all people of the world, not just one race or one religion. The Spirit of God calls for all people to break down the dividing walls of hostility. This Spirit is the Spirit we celebrate on Pentecost.

The story we have recorded for us today from the books of Acts recounts a new day for the life of the early church. The setting is the feast of Pentecost. This is the final day of seven weeks of praying since Passover when the Jews are said to have received the law of Moses.

I don't know what the disciples expected to receive. It would seem that they were not ready for what happened. Jesus had died and had risen and appeared to the disciples a few times, but even those visits were becoming a distant memory. They were sure that they were commissioned to start a new movement, but they just didn't have a whole lot of energy. They lacked vision. They lacked power. They lacked the wonder which comes from dreaming. They lacked any kind of fire held up in their bones. They lacked that which would sustain them. They lacked the passion that they needed in order to actually start the movement. They lacked a sense of enthusiasm. They lacked followers.

So, they went back to the old rituals. They went with everyone else to Jerusalem to celebrate the traditional feast of Pentecost. But they forgot what God does when people are gathered together.

In ancient times, the people gathered in order to build a tower as high as the heavens, but God did not like the fact that they wanted to have such direct contact. So God dashed down that tower of Babel and confused the language of the people, ostensibly creating linguistic diversity, which brought cultural diversity, and which soon begat nations, which begat rulers and powers and principalities.

God, we know, has always been suspect of the power of nation-states and their so-called rulers. Thirty three plus years before Pentecost, one such ruler called all of the people together to be counted. God used that event to incarnate God's self in Jesus.

And now at Pentecost, God was about to give another gift to the people in so much need.

Think about your needs. Are you broken down by all of the messages out there? Do you need your Spirit re-charged? The people at Pentecost sure did.

God gave the gift of the Holy Spirit to the people on that Pentecost feast. And for a while, a brief while, the barriers which languages wrought were disbanded and people were able to converse with each other. It's a lot easier to be the enemy of someone you don't understand, but when you can communicate, the walls are broken down, at least for a bit.

A professor of mine at Union Theological Seminary, James Cone, always said that true theology is only done in dialogue. That means getting to know the joys and fears of those you oppose, listening to their music, discovering what gives them life. Then and only then can we really do theology. The people at Pentecost had amazing dialogue.

Many of you may remember that I joined with the local Soulforce Twin Cities chapter and the Rainbow Sash movement in an action at the cathedral of St. Paul back in March. A few dozen of us wore rainbow sashes to Mass to advocate for the full inclusion of GLBT people in the Catholic Church. This was a big action because there were a bunch of Cardinals there, not the baseball team. Those wearing rainbow sashes were served communion and everything ws very low-key.

Today, in about an hour, I will again join Rainbow Sash people and Soulforce people at the Cathedral for the Pentecost Mass. This is an annual event. But this year the opposition has made a commitment to stopping the Rainbow Sash people from receiving communion. I don’t know what will happen this afternoon, but I bet it will be memorable. I learned about this counter-demonstration when I got a call earlier this week and was invited out for coffee. I met two people from this men’s group who were organizing the action. I had met one of them in April at the Cathedral. They were truly interested in setting up dialogue. They mentioned that they were the moderates of the group but that they wanted to truly hear where our side was coming from. I found this to be a refreshing, Pentecostal experience. We actually sat down and spoke each other’s languages and tried hard to hear what the other was saying. It was a time of truth-telling and truth-hearing. I hope that encounters like this will continue. It is the stuff of Pentecost.

At that first Pentecost, the people were amazed as I am sure you would be, too. This is what they needed. Something happened that day which told the people that God had visited them with power, not just any power, but with the power of the Holy Spirit.

This was a power which would lead them to a new plane, a new power, a new strength. They found their passion. They found their enthusiasm. They had the Holy Spirit.

Throughout Luke’s Gospel, there is a constant refrain. When ever something happens or the action changes, Luke says "led by the Spirit"

The Holy Spirit when you really have it, will give you a strength and a power you have never had before, and since it is from God, it will empower you to do great things. Maybe you'll be able to pay attention to what's going on.

Pentecost caused the people to go from the upper room to the streets. Pentecost was the first evangelical event.

On Pentecost, Peter found his voice. He stood up and unleashed what had been burning in his belly. Scared Peter, denying Peter, falling asleep Peter, loving Peter finally started fishing for people. He stood up and shed his anonymity. He said defiantly that this Jesus who was killed almost two moths ago was not just some common criminal and his followers were not just a bunch of fuzzy-headed idealists. No, this Jesus was the very hope of the world. And he did not just say these words. He preached, he probably danced a bit, for this man was on fire. This was a man who was finally free.

3000 people were baptized and were caught up in that Pentecostal fire and with that the movement of the church was begun. The people were caught up in this Spirit, not just a spirit of inward serenity, but a Spirit of action, a Spirit of enthusiasm. So excited were they that they sold all of their worldly possessions and held everything they had in common with the church.

And it is that response that the liberal churches are good at. We are good at doing things. We're not ready to give all our worldly possessions to the Christian Community, and yet we feel guilty when we are not doing enough.

The reason that social action churches are often boring is that they are so focused on social action, that they have not caught a hold of the Spirit. The reason that personal holiness churches, who are exciting in their services but have no action beyond that are so irrelevant is that they have not really caught onto the Holy Spirit. We are called to be a different kind of church.

As long as we stay at either end of the spectrum, then, my friends, none of us have really received the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is that Power which will transport us all to a new plane. It will be from that plane where we will dream the dreams and bring into being the life of the church--the hope for this world.

Point: We can do amazing things when we are led by the Spirit. Sometimes we try to lead the Spirit, or lead ourselves and then say that the Holy Spirit led us there. A kind of divine endorsement. But we can only do the truly amazing things when we are led by the Spirit.

Led by the Spirit, the early Anabaptists refused to conscript to the army or to confine their belief systems into creeds.

When they came to this world, led by the Spirit, Roger Williams called for the rights of Native Americans and the end to slavery.

Led by the Spirit their daughters and sons worked for women’s rights and civil rights for all of God’s children.

Led by the Spirit we celebrate Lynn’s Ordination next week.

Led by the Spirit, Jim and Jan move on to a new home in Rochester in a few months.

Led by the Spirit, we dare say things that set us apart.

Led by the Spirit, we have the power to do things we didn’t know we could do.

Led by the Spirit, we uphold our Baptist principles in the face of denominational fuzziness

Led by the Spirit, we house families next week in Families Moving Forward.

Led by the Spirit, we take those tentative steps toward reconciliation when everything in our culture seems to shy away from it.

Let the Spirit lead you. This is the same spirit that Jesus invoked in his first sermon, "the Spirit of God is upon me because God has anointed me to preach good news to the poor, recovery of sight to the blind, to set the captives free and to proclaim the acceptable year of God’s reign."

Led by the Spirit we dream dreams and clear our eyes.

Led by the Spirit, we can and do do amazing things.

So I encourage you to listen to the Spirit.