Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

Acts 2: 1-21

Pentecost Day begins our season of Pentecost here in the church world. The longest season in the church calendar. It begins with big drama!  The wind blew so hard people thought it might just blow everything and everyone apart. And then everyone was lit on fire but not consumed. Can you imagine being at this gathering  and looking around and seeing flames all over the crowd?  It’s Johnny Cash’s song Ring of Fire come to life. And then! It was a mass communication miracle because no matter what language you spoke, you understood what was being said. No matter where people were on their journey of faith, the Holy Spirit met them where they were at.

What does this story tell us about God? Well, a couple things just out of the gate. 1. God is super creative. The wind! The tongues of fire! The languages! If we were the creative directors or on the worship planning committee for the original Pentecost, we would have considered one of those ideas. But not God. God said we are going to use them all. It’s going to be garish and over the top and you will love it.

And the 2nd thing to note is:

Everyone’s in. Everyone made the list.

Even the Parthians.
Even the Cretens.

Even the residents of Mesopotamia.

Medes? In.

Visitors from Rome? Made it.

Lutherans? By the skin of our teeth but we made it.

Practicing Catholics? non practicing Catholics? Yes.

Half Buddhist marginally UCC? In.

Gloria Dei? Yes.

The folks who just happened to be strolling by and got caught up in it? Yes.

Those family members who you debated all week with about gun control or ERA? Yes.

You who don’t want to commit to any system of belief but needed to be around other gentle humans today? In.

You who have doggedly pursued Jesus for years? Yes.

You who were born onto the lap of God? In.

This is where the church began. The Holy Spirit did not read the room before blowing in. She had no regard for already well established group dynamics which included:  division and silos and separateness and status. She breathed life over the people and gathered them up into one.

Of course people were astonished.

In fact it was so amazing that they couldn’t explain it. This shared experience was wild enough that the best they could come up with is—ahhh, they must be drunk.

When was the last time God amazed you? Blew your mind, your paradigm, your plans so ridiculously apart that for a moment you had to remind yourself that this is real.

I can assure you, that the coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost was real. We are still talking about it 2000 years later.

This story in the Book of Acts is the beginning of the church. It’s our roots. Our origin story. You think it was the year Gloria Dei was started about 100 years ago but the seeds of this church go back to Pentecost.

There was so much generosity in this moment that it changed people. It changed relationships.

Acts being with this miraculous story of everyone’s in—an obscene outpouring of generosity by the Holy Spirit. But by the end of the book of Acts, the disciples of Jesus had suffered people a great deal. James was killed, Peter was put in prison, Paul and Silas landed in prison. Paul was arrested again and beaten. It was tough going.

It seems like a strange reaction to the Gospel message of freedom and inclusion. I mean, who on earth doesn’t want to be told everyone’s in! I guess if you build your idea of the world around power and hierarchy then freedom would require you to  radically shift relationships and systems. And that is scary for us. Because we have to give up some ideas on how the world works. Like, if everyone is in then who is out? Where is the border? The line between them and us? If this is available to all then what do we do with our appetites for division? Giving up our ideas of any separation between people is hard. It can feel like death. It can seem like, as heard in the Acts story, so hard that the sun is going out.

The Gospel tells us that the rules have changed. Easter tells us death no longer has power over us. The grave no longer holds us. And Pentecost shows us that the Holy Spirit is available for all.

I feel ready. I want that good news of freedom even if it means going through death to get there. We know about all the other news. Honestly, I limit my intake of news down to the absolute minimum. Yes, staying informed about what is happening in the world is important to me. But I’m rather desperate for some other sorts of news, too. I want stories that change my life because they are good. And despite all its terrible flaws, it’s often the church that delivers this good news to me.

Gathered together, we remember that the church doesn’t belong to me. Or you. Or a denomination. The church belongs to God. We can only see a bit. A bit of God’s dream. God can see the whole thing.

The bit I can see is glorious.

We come together every single week and remember who we are and whose we are. We allow that Gospel to take hold. We remember that it all belongs to Jesus. All of it. It all belongs to Jesus.

In fact, if every single church closed tomorrow—it would all still belong to Jesus. The Holy Spirit would still be ripping through the world with generosity and love.

But guess what? We are here. Today. We are not dead. By some miracle we still have places where people gather to hear the Gospel. God is being revealed in the world through all of us. Horrific things happen in the world—and we still gather to remember our ultimate trust is in the God of the Universe who is making all things new. The Spirit that blew into the church 2000 years ago on Pentecost—that brought fire to every single person—-is still blowing, bringing fire, gathering us up and reminding us we are in.

Last Sunday, we gathered around the baptismal font to baptize a baby named Rosemary Adele. This was my first Gloria Dei baptism and what a sweet, sweet beginning. I held Rosemary over the font and scooped up a handful of water and said, “Rosemary, I baptize you in the name of the Father…” what you probably couldn’t see is what happened when the water touched her head. Rosemary burst into a full body smile the way babies do. I’ve walked around thinking about that moment all week. Rosemary embodied baptism from the first drop of water.  I’m pretty sure this is what it looks like to fully trust that you are held by love—and that whatever comes your way, love will continue to hold you, carry you and cover you. Maybe picture yourself as Rosemary, being held by love.

At each baptism, we light a candle and give it to the newly baptized person. Now we don’t hand a burning candle to babies. We aren’t monsters. We hand that candle over to the parents or sponsor, who keep it for her until she’s ready. But the light of Christ still burns within Rosemary.

What does it look like when the church embodies its origin story of wild inclusion, freedom and generosity?

At the end of last week’s service, we all held lit candles and sang This Little Light of Mine. What a sweet moment together. In the first service, when the Cross led the processional to the doorway, the congregation followed, unprompted. It was a delight—the Spirit moving everyone right to the doorway to the neighborhood. Ready to shine, ready to bring that Holy Spirit fire into every nook and cranny of the world.

And ready to remind everyone around us: you are in and you are loved.