Gifts of the Spirit

A sermon for Pentecost 2020

Today is the day of Pentecost, the day we remember the giving of the Holy Spirit to the disciples. Sometimes we call it the Church’s birthday, and I think it’s beautiful that we do that. We mark our birth not on Good Friday, when God died and the whole world changed  and not on Easter Sunday, when God showed us that even death could not keep God away from us, but from Pentecost, when the wind rushed in and tongues of fire rested on the disciples. We are Spirit-filled people. That is who we are.

And it’s amazing to me the variety of things the Spirit can do with us. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians that through the Spirit, we can share wisdom and knowledge and we can discern. I know those sound like overly intellectual gifts, but I can testify that the Spirit has been present as I’ve talked to each of you and you’ve shared your wisdom about this community and about faith. The Spirit has been present as you’ve shared your knowledge with me, from what to plant in our garden and when to plant it to the best way to cook Brussel sprouts and so many other things beside. I’ve seen the Spirit work within all of us as we’ve discerned the best way to get through this pandemic as a church community. Formal education can help, but we’ve seen over and over again that the Spirit is always ready to help us know the things we need to know.

But Paul also names those other gifts of the Spirit, the ones that we’re a little less comfortable with these days: prophesy, speaking in tongues, and interpreting tongues. We hear Moses speaking about prophesy in our first reading today and we all know the story of Pentecost, how the disciples were able to speak to others in their own languages. While there are many understandings of prophecy and speaking in tongues out there, and I want to leave the door open for all the ways the Spirit can genuinely work within us Spirit-filled people, I want to offer you my thoughts about both of those gifts of the Spirit this morning.

So first, prophecy. I want to center this understanding of prophecy in the tradition of the biblical prophets, prophets like Nathan and Elijah and Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Amos. For them, prophecy is not so much about predicting the exact day and time that events will happen or making general predictions about the future, as we might first think when we hear the word, “prophet” or “prophesy.” That’s the understanding that the soldiers have when they blindfolded Jesus and told him to prophesy about who hit him. That’s not the understanding I want to draw on today.

For these biblical prophets, it’s much more about seeing the world around them as it truly is, hearing from God how the world should be, and proclaiming that difference to anyone who could listen, sometimes with words and sometimes with actions. Jeremiah buys a field in the middle of a war against Babylon to put his money where his mouth is: the Lord has told him that, against all odds, the land of Israel will be restored and Jeremiah is preparing for that restoration. Isaiah prophesies that a young woman will conceive to remind the king that life will go on regardless of the king’s choice, but the king’s choice will impact the quality of life that goes on. Nathan comes to David with a story of a lamb stolen from a poor man by a rich man to convict David of his crime. Jesus overturns the money changer’s tables in the Temple, naming the corruption that made coming to God a burden for the poor.

Prophecy, then, isn’t so much about predicting what might happen in an individual life, but seeing the writing on the wall for all of our lives and witnessing to the change that needs to happen. Spirit-filled people with the gift of prophecy have a gift of seeing and saying, a gift of perceiving and proclaiming, even when that knowledge makes others uncomfortable. We have prophets today who proclaim, “Black lives matter” and “No justice, no peace” because these are Spirit-filled words. All lives matter to God, but after having seen over and over again the instances where Black lives are treated as inconsequential, the Spirit moves prophets to proclaim to us the truth God wants us to see. Prophets remind us, in the face of actions that speak to the contrary, black lives matter too. And our prophets today remind us, as prophets throughout scripture have, that peace is not simply the absence of violence, it’s the presence of justice. It is, after all, the Biblical prophet Amos who declares, “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Until that happens, any peace we have will be temporary at best.

I hope and pray each of you is able to hear me with an open heart as I say these things. I know that they might not be easy to hear. I know it sounds like coded, partisan political talk, but I don’t believe that to be true. I will never tell you that you need to register for one political party or another. I won’t tell you who to vote for. I want to leave plenty of space for healthy discussion about policies because there can be healthy disagreement about how to solve problems. You are wise, knowing, discerning people and there is always space for discussion among wise, knowing, discerning people, especially when we ask for the Spirit’s blessing in our conversations. I say these things because I believe they are rooted in the Biblical witness and because I genuinely believe the Spirit is at work in our world and has been at work in our world. I say these things because I believe that on this particular Pentecost, in the wake of the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, and I do think we have to call them murders, the Spirit is calling us to awaken to the work of the Spirit.

But, as Paul says, and no matter how much Moses might wish it, not all of us are given the gift of prophecy. The Spirit rests on us according to our ability, which is why I think the Pentecost story is so important for us this morning. When the Holy Spirit rests tongues of fire on the disciples, they’re able to talk to others in their own language, even though they’ve never studied it or learned it. Thousands of people are able to hear the gospel in their own language. With that language barrier gone, we see the truth of the gospel sticking. People are able to hear one another and be heard, to understand and be understood. It is the miraculous work of the Spirit that enables this to happen.

And if you’ve ever tried to communicate with someone across a language barrier, you know how important language is. If you’ve ever studied a foreign language, you know just how much is overcome by learning the language. As you learn the language, you learn culture and you learn mindsets, all sorts of things that are shaped by language. We see this all the time as we read the Bible. There’s a joke in the Hebrew that just doesn’t come through in translation. There’s an idiom in Greek or Aramaic that we miss when we look at the plain words. Speaking the same language as someone else lets you understand them more deeply, more fully, than you would otherwise.

I think that this Pentecost, the Spirit has gifted us all with tongues. I don’t mean literally speaking in other languages or speaking in the language of the angels, but being able to speak with one another and to speak with others and to be understood.

In the midst of this week, Black people in the United States have been sharing their stories. They’ve been sharing them online and directing people to books. The floodgates have opened and those of us who are not Black have been given the gift of beginning, in the small ways that we can, to understand what it’s like to be Black in the United States. The Spirit has opened up this metaphorical language to us. All we have to do is listen. Listen and learn and trust that we are being guided by the Spirit in this time.

And I know that this, too, is a difficult thing. I love my country. I love its natural beauty and I love so many of the ideals that we hold tight to. I believe so deeply in freedom that it’s become central to how I talk about salvation. I believe that Jesus came to set us free, to unbind us from all that holds us back from abundant life. I also believe that one of the things Jesus can set us free from is white supremacy in all its forms, because we ourselves cannot have abundant life until all have abundant life. This is the gospel message that we are convicted with when we listen to the stories of Black and brown people living in this country. The freedom those of us who are white experience is so very often not experienced by others. This is a difficult thing to hear. This is hard to grasp. This is difficult to admit. And yet, this Pentecost, in the midst of all these stories from our Black siblings, the Spirit is waiting, giving us the strength to wrestle with this difficult thing.

My friends, I invite you this week to remember that we are Spirit-filled people. God will neither forsake or abandon us, even as we confront difficult things. God will be right beside us as we weep with those who weep and as we feel our hearts dragged into despair alongside those who have endured so much loss and lived with so much trauma. God will guide us to the voices that we need to hear, the Spirit giving us the gift of tongues that we might understand. And while I’m hesitant to claim a gift of the Spirit for myself, I trust that the Spirit has made me an interpreter of tongues. If you are struggling with the events of this week, or with this sermon, or with why all of this matters, let me know. We’ll set up a time to talk. These are important things to talk about.

And we’ll start each conversation by praying for the Spirit to be among us. May the Spirit of Pentecost be with us all, now and always. Amen.