The Acts of God

Reverend Philip Stringer

Acts 2:1-21

LET US PRAY: We ask, O Lord, that the words which we hear this morning, and the worship we offer, may bear fruit in our hearts, and be acceptable in your service, our strength and our redeemer. AMEN

With our texts today, it’s hard to know where to start — there is so much for us to take in. In our gospel reading, we hear the disciples are gathered in fear, walled off from the world — but Jesus meets them and says, “peace be with you.” And then he shows them his hands and his side. Jesus — after all that has happened — after all of the hatred hurled at him — still proclaims peace.

What happened to him was no accident. Jesus was born for this — Jesus was sent to a world divided by sin to die on the cross. After declaring peace to them and showing them the wounds he endured, he says to them, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” Jesus sends his followers into a world divided by sin, to follow in his footsteps of sacrificial love.

And then there are these words of authority that he speaks to them — words that have so often been used as a weapon: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” They reflect the “yes” of God and the “no” of God. Yes to what heals and gives life; No to what tears down and divides. These are words intended to bring healing. But they have often been used to beat down and humiliate — It is similar to the practice of excommunication. Originally, excommunication was intended as the beginning of reconciliation. It was a way to hold accountable those who deny their sin. It was intended to bring about reconciliation — to create an opportunity for forgiveness and a new beginning, but one cannot receive forgiveness if there is no confession, and that is what it was intended to bring about.

In our first reading today, we read about the coming of the Holy Spirit to the disciples and how they spoke in various languages. One thing I find interesting is that even the chosen people speak different languages. Even the chosen people are divided. I cannot hear this story without thinking of another story from the book of Genesis that teaches a lesson about what happens when the authority of people is placed above the authority of God. It is the story of the tower at Babel. The peoples of the earth came together determined to overthrow God's authority and set about building a tower with which they could storm the gates of heaven.

It is a ridiculous, arrogant plan which they never get to carry out. For God confounds their speech in the wink of an eye, and the story concludes: Therefore, it was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

So it is that the story teaches us that human division is the result of human sin that fails to comprehend the scope of the power and authority of God.

Many people see the Pentecost story in Acts as the real ending of the story, however. For in this story, it is once again the Holy Spirit of God that compounds the languages of the people — but this time it is not for the taking apart, but for the coming together of the people. As the sound of the Spirit brought forth the gift of languages, "the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. They said, "in our own language we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power." Unlike in the Tower of Babel story, the compounding of languages did not confuse the people, but brought them together — because the topic was not the mighty acts of humankind, but the mighty acts of God.

Ironically, the book from which we take this account is called the "Acts of the Apostles." But in truth it should be titled, "The Acts of God Through the Apostles." Mighty acts that are continuing today. That's the good news I want to share with you today. The mighty acts of God through the apostles continues – unbroken — through the disciples of Jesus today.

From Jerusalem the word about Jesus spread throughout the region and was then carried by the apostles throughout the world as it was known at that time.

The scriptures tell us — or at least suggest — that the good news about Jesus spread into Asia Minor, Europe and Africa during the time of the apostles. Traditions about them tell us that the apostles actually traveled as far as the British Isles and India. In one way or another it did happen, so that the gospel continued to spread throughout the whole world until today, when there has been almost no place on the planet in which the good news has not been spoken.

Today, the good news about Jesus is proclaimed in all the languages of the world, in countless locations.

But some sneered when the apostles spoke in languages — and they continue to sneer today. Some look at the church and see only the imperfections of the people. We as the Church ARE truly human and we have always given the world plenty to sneer at. It is our great shame that even today we profess a faith and devotion to Christ while standing silently behind injustice, prejudice and greed. These have been the scars of the church throughout history.

Truly all of creation has been groaning and we ourselves in our own bodies groan under the burden of our own sins, under the sneers and persecutions of the world, and under the cruel circumstance of life.

Years ago, I visited a village in Shandong province, China, where as many as 80% of the children had been stricken with polio in the previous decade. Where I visited some of the children had received surgeries that allowed them to stand with braces and crutches, and that gave them at least a glimmer of a future beyond dependence. But around this village and the surrounding countryside were hundreds more where the cases had not even been counted. Those children still drag their withered bodies across the ground without dreams of tomorrow. One boy told me that when he grows up, he wants to find a cure for polio so others won't have to suffer as he has. No one has told him the reason for his suffering. There were vaccines and they were even brought to the village — but there was a story going around — a rumor that the government was going to sterilize the children — and the parents, knowing the evils that had already happened in their land, believed the stories, and didn't give the vaccines to their children — because they love their children — and they groan in their bodies under the burden of that decision.

A friend of mine at the Lutheran Seminary in Hong Kong — a Cambodian, told me the story of his birth — how his mother went into labor because of the trauma caused by American bombs falling on his village. He tells me about how his brother died and how his father lived the rest of his life with tubes and hoses where his throat used to be. And he says to me, "I think they must have made a mistake. They would not have bombed my village if they knew who we were."

Truly all of creation groans and we know that we live as Luther described: each of us as saints and sinners both. We are the already-not-yet people in a time of fullness that is not complete and pierced through with sin and suffering.

In these days of groaning, the Apostle Paul gives us assurance that we have the Holy Spirit of God as a companion — and we have a promise which we cannot see or touch, but in which we hope for patiently. We have a promise.

Our first reading tells us that the Holy Spirit came as a tongue of fire — a flame above each of the disciples. This same Holy spirit — this same advocate of Jesus Christ — this same Holy Spirit is the one who has come to you through your baptism into Christ and is among us today — at work in the world today.

Each of us has had times in our lives — maybe long periods — when we have felt empty inside, as if the flame has gone out. Times when the presence of the Holy Spirit has seemed more of a glowing ember than a tongue of fire. But the promise of God is to hold you firmly and to never leave you. The promise of your baptism is the promise of a God who is faithful to you.

A promise you share with all the baptized, that we may be for one another the body of Christ — God's advocates that we may "fan the flames" of each other toward a passion for the work of the Church. The same work that the Church received on its first day — its ONLY work — to glorify God through our words and actions.

As I stood in the sanctuary of St. Paul's church, Nanjing, China, I was surrounded by more than a thousand Chinese Christians joining their voices in prayer and song. They stood in the aisles because they couldn't fit enough seats in for them — they crowded doors and gathered around the open windows to hear the Word of God proclaimed to them by Chinese pastors in their native tongue. They wept as they received Communion, they fell on their faces in prayer — and this people, who still face uncertain consequences for following Christ, prayed together, "Our Father, give us our daily bread, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us, deliver us from evil." A few hours ago they met again by the millions across China to worship again.

Christians around the world are excitedly and hungrily throwing their lives into the work of spreading the gospel, in the confident hope of that which they cannot see but is assured to them through their baptism into Christ.

Yes, there is almost no place where the gospel hasn't been spoken. But you know full well that this doesn't mean the world is Christian. The Christians in China know this. The Christians in Israel, Lebanon, Gaza and Iran know this. The Christians in Ukraine and Russia know this — for heaven's sake our own NATION isn't Christian! That is not the story many nationalist propagandists what you to hear, but Jesus himself said that not everyone who calls out his name is Christian — all we have to do is look at the hatred and filth that is proclaimed in his name to see that it is true.

The truth is that the gospel must be continually proclaimed and more so it must be lived among a people constantly, and even there it will be ferociously opposed. For the gospel is not just a story; It is not dead literature. The good news is a living story — an unfolding story of God's love in Jesus Christ that WE are a part of.

The good news continues to be written around the world today and we must ask ourselves continually if we will be a part of it, or if we will rely on our authority as "old", established Christians, as rich Christians, as historical Christians — to convince us that we may stand alone as the Church. We CANNOT stand alone as the church, and if we believe we can, then we are living the story of Babel rather than of Pentecost.

As westerners we have a mind set to struggle against — that we are the original Christians, and the inventors of "church." We think of Christianity as our export to the world. What we fail to recognize is that we only proclaim what we ourselves have received, and we continue to rely upon the Holy Spirit to feed us. We fail to recognize that discipleship is not about having been part of a tradition and having learned the facts about Jesus, but it is a way of living in harmony with all of God's creation. Christianity is never a finished product, but always a journey of challenge and change.

We rob ourselves of the ongoing fruits of the Holy Spirit if we do not hear the voices of the Church from around the world speaking to us — perhaps in a foreign tongue, but most certainly in the human language of actions performed in love.

It was greed and human authority that divided the people at Babel. It is the work of the Holy Spirit and the authority of God that will bring us together.

The mighty acts of God continue today all over the world. The Holy Spirit calls to us from these many voices and stories with an invitation: come, be fed and be a part of the unfolding story of God's mighty deeds in the world.

AMEN