Pentecost for the Rest of Us

Acts 2
The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost
1When the day of Pentecost came; they were all together in one place. 2Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. 5Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. 7Utterly amazed, they asked: "Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? 8Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? 9Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11(both Jews and converts to Judaism Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!" 12Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, "What does this mean?" 13Some, however, made fun of them and said, "They have had too much wine."
Peter Addresses the Crowd
14Then Peter stood up with the Eleven raised his voice and addressed the crowd: "Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. 15These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning! 16No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 17" 'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. 18Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. 19I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. 20The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. 21And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

About a hundred years ago, a movement was started which today claims about 300 million followers. It began when a man named Charles Parham, at Bethel Bible College in Topeka, Kansas, held a revival service in which most of his students began speaking in tongues and it just so happened that the day this occurred was Pentecost, hence the Pentecostal movement was born. It still exists in America mainly under the denominational banners of the Assemblies of God, Churches of God and the Holiness Pentecostal Church. The Pentecostal tradition has become more realized on the African and Asian continents and in the Third world.
Our Pentecostal friends believe in the dramatic, spontaneous some would even say sudden movement and filling of the Holy Spirit. These “gifts” are usually made known in speaking in tongues, faith healings and other supernatural activities. Suffice to say, these are not necessarily Presbyterian definitions of what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We, like most Protestants, believe in the events described in our scripture lesson this morning; the Holy Spirit is real, powerful and ultimately, accessible to believing Christians. But when it comes to supernatural matters; speaking in tongues or spontaneous healing, can be difficult to understand.
Maybe you heard the story about a Presbyterian worship service a man began to be moved by the Spirit. Out loud he said "Amen!" People around him were a little disturbed. Then louder he said, "Hallelujah!" A few more people were becoming disturbed. Louder still he shouted "Praise Jesus!" An usher moved quickly down the aisle. He bent over and whispered to the man, "Sir! Control yourself!" The man exclaimed, "I can't help it. I got religion!!!" To which the usher responded, "Well you didn't get it here!"
Please understand that I am not saying that healings and “tongues” do not happen, or do not matter. They do, and they do. I am not saying that God does not sometimes convert people with wonderful suddenness. He does. What I am saying is that the idea of separating heaven and earth sets up the wrong framework for understanding what is going on in the events of Pentecost. Specifically, it excludes the truth that God’s presence and power already exists within the “natural world”. In other words, the Holy Spirit can and does work in many ways; some are dramatic, some are more seemingly mundane.
A few years ago, my family and I were headed to Louisville for something and we were listening to a song called “I Will Rest in You” sung by Jaci Velasquez, a contemporary Christian artist. We were almost all the way across the bridge and all of us were singing together (all five of us).
Take me back to You,
The place that I once knew as a little child;
Constantly the eyes of God watched over me.
Oh, I want to be
In the place that I once knew as a little child,
Fall into the bed of faith prepared for me.
I will rest in You,
I will rest in You,
I will rest in You.

and this doesn’t happen all that often, but I was just filled with what I believe was the Holy Spirit. Peace, Joy, Happiness, chills down my spine, Goosebumps, you name it- I felt it and I won’t soon forget it.
Jesus said in John 14 that the Spirit will help the disciples recognize the presence of the Father—the presence of the Father that had been there all along even though the disciples initially missed it because of the utterly mundane nature of Jesus—and that the Spirit would remind the disciples of everything Jesus had said. What’s more, the Spirit would not necessarily be recognized by the wider world because, apparently, you have to have the Spirit to discern the Spirit. All of which seems to mean that even people who are full to the brim with the Holy Spirit of Pentecost may end up looking fairly ordinary to the unsuspecting and the undiscerning.
The saint Teresa of Avila once said, "Christ dwells among the pots and pans." But we'd rather that Christ dwelled among only the more glorious and obviously pious parts of life. Some would rather fast-forward the sacred journey along the way to heaven so that they can feel like they are in heaven already. And if they cannot quite manage that, then they will at least make their lives sound as heavenly as they can. So in some circles Christian people get together and one man talks about what Jesus said to him at breakfast that day just as he was eating his Cheerios, and a woman talks about what God had done for her yesterday afternoon at about 2:23 right there in the mall, and still another man talks about how the Spirit had gifted him in such a way that right after he visited his friend Jim in the hospital, why, the very next day ‘ole Jim was healed.
I've been with people (and you probably have too) who talk on and on like this detailing spiritual lives which seem constantly to pop with explosions of miracles and grace, of words whispered into their ears and visions of the Spirit in the night until finally you want to crawl away as the spiritual slouch you feel as though you are. Just flip on one of those cable TV religious channels and listen to how those some of those folks talk--from the sounds of it they hear from God directly more often than someone like Isaiah or Jeremiah did. As Christians they have seen the promise of heaven dangled before them. But if they cannot be fully in heaven just yet, they will at the very least try to make their daily lives sound like heaven has already come down.
The thing that’s missing from this kind of talk is the element everyday life--the kind of life the disciples had led with Jesus all along, the kind of life in which the Father God himself had been hidden and active in their midst and yet somehow, they missed it. Sometimes we miss it. As C.S. Lewis once said, we too often substitute religion for God.
I realize that this kind of thinking could become an excuse not to pursue the spiritual things of God. But the goal here is not to foster or encourage spiritual laziness but that we may gain a greater awareness of how God in Christ is already at work in us by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit of Pentecost and how, by becoming more aware of that, we can become more intentional in following Jesus along the way which we are already traveling with him.
As followers of Christ, something like that is to be our goal: to perform our work, to lead our families and raise our kids and take our leisure--- and worship our God in ways so full of Christ that we won't care or worry whether our lives now look exactly like how we think our lives in heaven will look. Instead, let’s try and savor the journey, let’s highlight and celebrate what we see and experience along the way whether or not all of it seems life-changing or spiritually significant. When the Holy Spirit of Pentecost is within us, everything we see, say, and do—as well as everything we hear, receive, and perceive—is transformed.
I found a story that was written by a famous neurologist named Oliver Sacks telling the story of a surgeon with Tourette’s. As some of you know, Tourette's Syndrome is a bizarre mental disorder which causes victims to have any number of physical and verbal tics. Some Tourettic people have constant facial twitches, others find themselves uncontrollably uttering verbal whoops, beeps, and sometimes also raunchy swear words. One man with Tourette's whom Dr. Sacks knew was given to deep, lunging bows toward the ground, a few verbal shouts, and also an obsessive-compulsive type adjusting and readjusting of his glasses. The kicker is that the man is a skilled surgeon! Somehow and for some unknown reason, when he dons mask and gown and enters the operating room, all of his tics disappear for the duration of the surgery. He loses himself in that role and he does so totally. When the surgery is finished, he returns to his odd quirks of glasses adjustment, shouts, and bows.
Sacks did not make any spiritual comments on this, of course, but I think that the doctor’s story is a very interesting example of what it can mean to "lose yourself" in a role. There really can be a great transformation of our lives when we are focused on just one thing--focused to the point that all of our bad traits disappear even as the performing of normal tasks becomes all the more meaningful and perhaps, remarkable.
Something like that is our Christian goal as the Holy Spirit takes up residence within us. As we let the Spirit help us lose ourselves in Jesus and in being his disciples, we find even our ordinary day-to-day activities can be filled with deep meaning as the Spirit ends up being not just “with us” but, as Jesus says in John 14, also IN us.