I have heard more than one person say: “the Spirit of God is in this place.”
I have also heard people make the counter observation about other churches, saying something like: “I no longer felt the Spirit in that place.” And I am sure that there are some who have made, and who still make, that observation about our church.
So, a good question for us to ask on this Pentecost Sunday is: “How do we know whether or not the Holy Spirit is here?” How do we know if any church ever experiences something like Luke described as a violent wind and tongues of fire? How do we recognize a Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit?”
As a child, I remember our congregation often opening a worship service by singing:
There’s a sweet, sweet Spirit in this place. And, I know that it’s the Spirit of the Lord; There are sweet expressions on each face, And I know that it’s the presence of the Lord (Doris Akers, 1962).
“Sweet facial expressions?” Is that how we know? I suppose I see a few of those today. But are you happy because the Spirit is here or because you know there’s some good food waiting for you at the end of the service?
I have heard some people talk about an outpouring of the Spirit as they describe a worship service where people are standing singing praise songs to Jesus with their hands raised and tears rolling down their cheeks.
I once served on a town’s recreation committee with the responsibility of organizing the summer church softball league. After leading worship on Sunday, I drove over to a neighboring church to deliver the schedule for the upcoming season. As I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed that cars were pulling out, so I assumed their service had just ended. As I opened and walked through the front door of the sanctuary, I was alarmed to see several people lying motionless in the aisle! The pastor, who was gathering his notes at the pulpit, saw me come in, and without even a hint of concern in his voice, greeted me with a smile saying: “Brother Banks, welcome! Come back with me to my office, and don’t mind those folks lying there in the aisle.”
More than a little distressed, as I walked around the bodies lying in the aisle, I asked: “Are these people ok?”
The pastor said: “Oh, don’t you worry about them. They’ll get up soon enough. We just had a tremendous outpouring of the Holy Spirit today where several people were slain in the Spirit. It happens from time to time.”
I anxiously followed the pastor into his office, where he asked me to sit down across from his desk. As I handed him the softball schedules, I must have had a not-too-sweet expression on my face, because he asked, “Brother Banks, you don’t ever have people fall out during your services, do you?”
I answered: “Oh, it’s happened a time or two, and each time, somebody called 911.”
He smiled and said, “Well, that’s how we know that the Holy Spirit is in this place.”
So, should be concerned that no body passes out in the floor during our worship here? That no one stands and raises their hands as they sing overwhelmed with emotion?
So, what do we mean when we say we feel the spirit in this place?
Some Sundays, I am amazed how the anthem that Jeremy selects or the hymns that Judy plays fit perfectly with the sermon. I sit back here and say to myself: “That’s the Spirit working!”
However, as amazing as that is at times, I am not sure that exactly what is being described by Luke on the Jewish festival called Pentecost.
Luke writes: “When the day of Pentecost had come…all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.”
I suppose we could ask someone who knows a few languages, like Brian Cox, to come up here and speak to us this morning. But there’s a problem with that. The miracle of Pentecost was not so much in the speaking as it was in the hearing.
Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘How is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?
If Brian comes up here and speaks to us in German, I am pretty sure we are not going to hear him in English.
Perhaps Luke, in describing the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, is trying to paint a portrait to help us see something larger, more wonderful, and more astonishing.
Perhaps Luke is describing what our country needs today, what our world needs today— a divine grace to listen, to hear, to understand, to empathize with others who may be so different from us that they speak a different language. Perhaps Luke is describing an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that produces a divine compassion for more people than the people we see as “our own,” a holy call for people to possess an empathy that transcends countries, ethnicities, sexual orientation, gender, and race. In this great Pentecostal outpouring-of-the-Spirit event, Luke just well may be describing the first Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Conference!
Luke is describing a Pentecostal outpouring that transforms the hearts and minds of people to have the heart and mind of Jesus who listened to, heard, and learned from a Syrophoenician woman, saw the Samaritan as his neighbor, and accepted Eunuchs, who Matthew records Jesus saying were “born that way” (Matthew 19).
Luke is describing a people who would never say “God bless America” without a sincere desire for God to bless the entire world. He is describing a group of people who would never condemn the genocide of one nation without condemning the genocide of another. He is describing white people who do not hesitate when they see a black man mercilessly executed by police in the street to stand up and say “Black Lives Matter” or to speak out at the school board when the history lessons taught to children in our schools are being whitewashed.
Luke is describing people who do not merely worship Jesus, but they follow Jesus, and teach the way of love that Jesus taught, a generous love that is expressed as goodwill for all people.
Luke is describing hearts that are so generous “they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.” These are people who never complain about food stamps, free healthcare, and increasing the minimum wage, because they truly believe in supporting the welfare of all people, so no one, regardless of their citizenship is in need.
Luke is describing people who feel a deep sense of connectedness to all people.
The COVID-19 pandemic taught us many things. Like all communicable diseases, that a virus can originate on the other side of the world and quickly spread to every nation on earth taught us how connected we all are to one another.
But it also taught us something about our refusal to acknowledge such connectedness. It taught us something sinister about our selfishness and self-centeredness as some refused to wear a mask in public or get a vaccine to protect their neighbor. Even some churches refused to abide by the stay-at-home orders at the beginning of the pandemic, revealing that we have many churches in America devoid of the Holy Spirit of the One who said the greatest commandment is to love our neighbors as ourselves.
It revealed that what this world needs today is some Pentecost, a serious outpouring of the Holy Spirit!
And by “serious,” I mean the world doesn’t need more people tearfully worshipping Jesus with their hands raised in the air. It needs more people following Jesus by extending their hands to help their neighbors in need.
The world doesn’t need more anthems or postludes that pair well with the sermon. It needs more people who are offering their spiritual gifts to pair with the needs of the world.
The world doesn’t need more people slain in the spirit on Sunday morning. It needs more people to be awakened by the spirit to a live a life of generosity for the goodwill of all people every day of the week.
And the world doesn’t need any more congregations with sweet expressions on each face. It needs more of the fire that was experienced on that day the Holy Spirit showed up enabling people of all nationalities, ethnicities, and races to see, to listen, to hear, and to care for one another.
The world needs more empathy and equity, more justice and generosity, more sharing and more goodwill, and not just for people who speak our language, are born in our country, share our pigmentation, or go to our church, but for all people.
The good news is that I believe this is indeed a spirit-filled church. Now, we are still calling 911 if you fall out in the aisle this morning, but there’s plenty of other evidence that the Spirit of the Lord is in this place.
The building and the blessing of the little food pantries, our donations to the Rivermont food pantry, our volunteers each month who serve at the Park View Mission, our folks who have signed up to deliver Meals on Wheels—these are all evidence of a Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit, or as my childhood preacher liked to say, “an unction of the Holy Ghost!”
And just this past week, our Outreach Team met with the Interfaith Virginia Center for Public Policy to discuss a partnership that will enable us to not only feed our neighbors in need, but to be advocates for justice, so our neighbors will not be hungry in the first place. This may be the strongest evidence of all that there’s Pentecostal outpouring in this place.
So, as we celebrate 150 years as a church, on this day which has been called “the birthday of the Church” (that’s Church with a big ‘C’), there is indeed a sweet, sweet spirit in this place. There are sweet expressions on some faces, but there are also some holy scowls, some furrowed brows, some eyes filled with divine determination, souls ignited by a fiery Call of Love to make this a more generous, equitable, and just world, not just for some of the people, but for all people. And I know that it’s the Spirit of the Lord. Amen.
Just Love 