Sermon: Acts 2: 1-21

Today, we celebrate the birth of the church. And, as we gather for this celebration, our party is a dangerous one. In fact, this party has been a dangerous event from day one.

Our story begins on an ordinary day, roughly 2,000 years ago when a small group of believers isolated themselves all together in one place. These disciples huddled together in isolation because they were afraid. It is quite likely they were afraid of outsiders so they stayed clustered and cloistered together as one group. Had they known what was about to happen, they would likely have separated and spread out. You see, after all they had been through, what was about to happen would have freaked out even the bravest amongst us. As they clustered together in their small group, they were in danger but not from outsiders. The danger they were in as they huddled all together in one place, was from a God who was about to crash the party and bring in everyone they were trying to avoid.

Yes, God did crash that party and, with the force of a mighty wind and flames and voices speaking in many languages, God brought into that small gathering people from all nations. And, in the midst of their bewilderment, their amazement, the chaos, and the cacophony of voices, 2 that gathering exploded into the church – something the world had never before witnessed. It was a new creation!

Quite frankly, I think the present-day church has, in many ways, been gathering in fearful isolation from society, from culture and from the world. By keeping ourselves isolated from the world and not connecting with others, we try to keep our little gatherings comfortable, cozy, neat and tidy. Friends, in many ways nothing has really changed all that much from that gathering 2,000 years ago. You see, people are people and we still live in fear. Among our cloistered gatherings we find the emotional ones, the naïve ones, those who insist on naming others and reducing people to labels, those who see us and them, and those who see people who are different as “other.” As we gather together we have the flawed, the smug, the confused and the amazed. But, in this gathering of broken, diverse people and personalities, we discover we are the very people to whom God sends the Spirit. And, guess what! God has not changed! And, God still crashes our parties, abolishes our carefully chosen guest lists, and invites into our gathering the people we often try to avoid. And, yes, the people God brings into our midst are going to change us! You see, when God enters and works in our midst, we are always going to be changed! We may want to always have a nice, warm, peaceful, fuzzy feeling kind of a 3 gathering. But, when God crashes our party, warm fuzzies are not what we get. I love what Lutheran pastor, Nadia Bolz Webber, says about this. She writes:

The Spirit, while called the comforter, does not bring the warm chocolate chip cookies and a night-night story kind of comfort. The Spirit brings the comfort of the truth – and if you’ve had any experience of the truth whatsoever you can testify that it’s not exactly cozy.

Friends, as we gather together we are much like those early disciples: fearful, flawed, confused, and even amazed. And, yes, we are the very people to whom God sends the Spirit to mess everything up! God has not changed and God is always going to be crashing our comfortable parties, messing things up, and moving us into God’s future where God’s guest list includes all. We are being changed as we open ourselves to welcoming the stranger, as we intentionally work to engage the greater community, as we open ourselves to diversity and as we become a Reconciling In Christ congregation.

Yes, God still crashes our parties and invites in the people we are trying to avoid. As Nadia says, this is “the thing about the Pentecost Spirit of truth: it feels like the truth might crush us. And that is right. The truth crushes us, but the instant it crushes us it puts us back together into something real. Perhaps for the first time. Because the radical and 4 mysterious and dangerous thing the Spirit does has always been to form us into the Body of Christ. Sometimes despite us, sometimes against us, but always for us. Because it is only the Spirit who can turn us from a “they” into a “we.”

So, today as God crashes our party, we receive the same Spirit as that community of believers 2,000 years ago. That Spirit has been loosed into the world. And, that Spirit opens us to newness, and utilizes our authentic voices, gifts and skills to love and serve others.