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Parris Pentecost Sermon on Youth Sunday & Bullying 5-19-13

“Pentecost: Those Speaking in Tongues & Those Wagging their Tongues”

Good morning, St. Stephen’s! Today we celebrate youth Sunday and we are also celebrating Pentecost, that glorious day when the Holy Spirit came down on the disciples and believers in the early church community. We just read the New Testament account of the first Pentecost as recorded in Acts chapter 2 which shows how the believers experienced the Holy Spirit as wind and also as fire. And just in case folks missed the fantastic flames or the big breezes created by God, the Holy Spirit also caused the believers to speak in all sorts of different languages as a small crowd gathered to watch and talk about what was taking place. Such a spectacular event easily captures the attention of many; but according to verse 13 not all of the attention was good. While the believers were living their miracle and watching for God, some of the onlookers were watching at them. And as those crowds watched the believers, brothers and sister, our readings today tell us that in spite of the miraculous move of God, some of the onlookers were just not impressed. In an interesting but all-too believable report in acts chapter 2 verse 13, we learn that while watching the church folk, some of the onlookers made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”

Even as the spirit visibly changed atmospheric wind, flames, and miraculously moved the tongues of the disciples, then and even now there are people who did not believe nor acknowledge that God was  moving through the believers. Instead of recognizing the work of the Holy Spirit, some doubters questioned the blood-alcohol-content of the disciples. And if these doubters had a soundtrack, their tune would most likely be featuring the lyrics of that popular Jamie Foxx song “blame it on the alcohol.”  They blamed what God was doing on liquor rather than to try to understand the move of Holy Spirit taking place right in front of their faces. (and) Even as God changed the world around them, they bad-mouth the disciples over an instance that they clearly did not understand.

As an educator, I see instances of students bad-mouthing one another like this sometimes and even facilitated anti-bullying student rallies and discussions this quarter with students who were tired of seeing bullying themselves. And now especially in light of the cases of teens who have killed themselves because of bullying, more people in our society are becoming more vocal in decrying psychological, physical and verbal attacks inflicted in the school environment. Many rush to support and defend the victims of bullying but what about the bullies themselves? Aren’t many of them a lot like the doubters in the Book of Acts?

Like many bullies in our society the doubters in the book of Acts would rather gossip than to grow in knowledge. They would rather open their mouths than open their minds or actually get to know the disciples much less heed this visual fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit as a comforter to fill the people. The naysayers also clearly never learned the old Guyanese proverb that: People have two eyes to see twice as much, two ears to ear twice as much and one mouth to talk half us much!

Nor did the doubters heed another similar Guyanese proverb : “When fool ah talk, NOT fool ah listen.” Guyanese elders knew and shared that negative words are double-edged swords to be wielded with great caution since they inflict harm to the very people who say them as much as they seek to harm others. In light of this folk wisdom and the related scripture Proverbs 18:21 that life and death is in power of the tongue, there is the sense that the naysayers destroyed their own experience of Pentecost.

When those naysayers opened their mouth to gossip, they killed their chance to be moved by the Holy Spirit alongside the disciples as they denied the power of God and maligned the disciples as drunks rather than fellow saints. They did not allow their own selves to have a positive Pentecost while they spewed negativity from their mouths and minds and basically missed out on a miracle.

Brothers and sister, we must learn from this kind of mistake and open our own spiritual eyes to see and our ears to hear what God is doing through the Holy Spirit on Earth. With God being willing to pour the Holy spirit on all flesh, there are not many differences between the doubters and the true disciples in this story more important than the difference in their attitudes. And while the believers embrace the Holy Spirit with open hearts and arms, the naysayers deny and dismiss the power of God with their words. While the believers have an attitude of gratitude and welcome for the Holy Spirit, the doubters focus on disbelief and denigration.

How do we avoid this mistake? And should we?

After all, the disciples probably did look strange speaking in tongues and other languages– But even if the tongues and other languages appeared as foolishness or even drunkenness, there is no way to explain away that fire brought on by the Holy Spirit. On that First Pentecost day with that strong wind blowing everything else away and those disciples speaking in a similarly miraculous way, no natural substance and especially no alcohol could have spontaneously combusted the way the atmosphere did when the Holy Spirit came down.

When we focus on the fire that came down on that first Pentecost in our reading, we focus on the miraculous nature of God and we also get some insight about why it’s in our best interest to embrace God. Rather than fall into the trap of the doubters and the naysayers, we have a chance to experience Pentecost with the Holy Spirit ourselves if we take a moment to reflect on the image of the fire that came down that day. Even if we simply use our common knowledge on what fire is and what it does in our world these days, we find that fire is something that enhances our physical and spiritual lives. Fire is something that humans use every day to have proper shelter & food and it is also a symbol of many of the gifts of the Holy Spirit that we’d be hard pressed to live without.

Fire provides warmth and light in addition to purifying metals and any compound strong enough to withstand the large amounts of heat energy in its blaze .

The LIGHT of FIRE in particular can burn through any darkness and allows us to see people, places and things for what they really are.

On Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came to each and every believer like fire and stayed with them that way, God was filling them with the power to be fire-like sources of light and warmth to other people. As Matt 5:16 states, the believers and all Christians thereafter are called to “Let our light so shine …” in this world as God guides our way and motivates us with the consuming energy of the Holy Spirit as well.

We need to remember such aspects of the fire of Pentecost as a light for our journey through life as the Body of Christ and especially during the cold and lonely points of life. When circumstances or people are especially cold, the warmth of the FIRE of Pentecost is an important comfort to us all. The warm temperature of fire represents the equally warm love that GOD has for us, as is demonstrated by the sacrifice of the son of God that happened in the gospel story not too long before Pentecost.And even when that love-like warmth of a fire turns into a destructive blaze, that power to destroy sin even to the point of his own death was shown by JESUS and offered to us with the fire of Pentecost as well.

If we meditate on these kinds of aspects of fire given to us in our readings, we can see all of these mercies and more. Let us embrace each of these mercies of God and welcome the Holy Spirit in our lives to the point that we experience Pentecost everyday.

Let us go forth from church today determined to live a Pentecost kind of life where we not only embrace the Holy Spirit but also bear its fruits. And we know from Galatians 5:22 that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, and faithfulness. With God’s Holy Spirit we can and will bear that fruit no matter what people say and come what may…

In the name of the Father,, the Son and the Holy Spirit . Amen