Psalm 104:24-28

O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.
There is the sea, great and wide; creeping things innumerable are there, living things both small and great. There go the ships and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it. These all look to you to give them their food in due season; when you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.

Acts 2:1-4

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.  And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability

Pentecost: Communicating from the Heart Center

Our Human Nature

Human beings are herd animals. We form groups, and human groups exhibit herd behavior. Like a flock of sheep, we are connected. Our nervous systems are connected. We take cues from each other. When something happens, there is a ripple effect. If a wolf appears at the edge of the woods and one sheep sees the wolf, he jumps. And this causes a chain reaction that ripples through the entire flock. Suddenly all the sheep are on alert.

And so, we human beings are exactly like this. When the tragic accident, the fire and explosion in Searsmont happened last week, the news travelled very fast. Even in Alaska, Shari and I heard about it immediately. We are all connected. The seven billion human beings on the planet are like a giant herd of sheep. The best thing we can do for ourselves and for our groups is to learn how to communicate clearly and from the heart. This is really the best thing we can do for the world right now. And for each other.

Communicating from the Heart

It seems to me, at least, that this world needs people who can communicate from the heart. If we can remember to stay in our hearts, to communicate with each other from the heart, the place of lovingkindness and compassion, to see each other from the heart, remembering that we are all in this life together, we are all in the same boat together, we could really do some good. We could really help people. We all have essentially the same worries and concerns, the same emotions, the same ups and downs, and when we can recognize our humanness, and recognize our shared humanity, that we are all human beings, and at the same time, to recognize our unique individuality, you know, recognize that each one of us is so unique, such a miracle, you know, each one of us eats our spaghetti in our own unique way, and this is the miracle that is life, expressed through each of us individually. When we can do this, when we realize that we are all in this life together, that we all share the same ups and downs, then we relate to each other in love and compassion as human beings, having so much more in common, much more than our differing opinions would have us believe. This is our strength: to remain in the heart and to communicate with each other from a heart-centered spirituality. And here, we have the lesson of Pentecost.

The Lesson of Pentecost

The message of Pentecost is that the Holy Spirit enables people to communicate from the heart. This morning we read from Acts. The Acts of the Apostles is the Early Christian Adventure Book. The first eight chapters of Acts tell the story of the first Christians in Jerusalem, followed by the stories of Paul’s missionary journeys. So Acts records the activities of the early church: its beginning in Jerusalem, and its growth into the surrounding Mediterranean region.

The church begins with Pentecost as described in Chapter Two with the arrival of the Holy Spirit. So Pentecost is the event that marks the beginning of the church, that is, the birth of the church. So let’s take a look at this.

 Notice the very first line of our reading: “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all gathered together in one place.” Pentecost is the fiftieth day after Passover. “Pente” means “five,” so think of “pentagon,” the five-sided shape. Pentecost was a day already named on the Jewish calendar. Again, we see the close connection between Judaism and Christianity. The first Christians were all Jews observing the Jewish calendar, steeped in Jewish tradition, and reading the Hebrew scriptures.

The Old and the New

For me, at least, it is so interesting to think about this time period, and the rich mixture of the soup, so to speak, as new ingredients were added to the old, and the flavors began to meld, as a completely new religion and spirituality began to form. I sometimes wonder, is Christianity an extension of Judaism, a revitalized and reformed extension of Judaism, or is Christianity something entirely new, a complete break from ancient tradition. And the answer is, yes. Yes, it’s both.

So the fiftieth day after Passover was celebrated in Judaism, (and still is celebrated in the Jewish tradition) as Shvues. Shvues commemorates the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai. It’s an interesting coincidence that the disciples were all together on this day, Pentecost. Perhaps they were observing Shvues. Probably, they were eating delicious food together. I mean, this is what people do, in every religious tradition. When you want to observe a religious holiday, what do you do? Get together and eat good food.

(Incidentally, Shari and I had a wonderful time on our trip to Alaska. You know, it’s so interesting to meet people from all over the world. We took a taxi to the Seattle airport Friday, and our taxi driver was named Tegegne. I was in the front seat, and I noticed a big silver cross on the dashboard. So I asked Tegegne, was he Catholic? He said, “No, I am orthodox.” He was also driving very fast in heavy traffic, so I didn’t want to distract him too much. But I was curious, so I asked him, “Is that Russian or Greek Orthodox?” I was feeling pretty smug about that question, when he threw me a curve ball. “Ethiopian,” he said. I am Ethiopian Orthodox.”

And it was so wonderful to learn about this. Of course I knew the church has a long history in Ethiopia, but I did not know that it was part of the Eastern Orthodox tradition. I asked him if they would be celebrating Pentecost this Sunday in his Ethiopian community in Seattle, and he said yes, they would be. Pentecost continues to be an international event.

Wind, Fire, and the Holy Spirit

So, at the first Pentecost, they are all together, and then suddenly there is a rushing wind, and tongues of fire, and the people are filled with the Holy Spirit. What does this remind you of? It’s very similar to what happened at Mt. Sinai, as described in Exodus 19, when God appears to Moses as smoke and fire and the sound of trumpets. So here is something new, and yet, it is connected to the ancient tradition, when the ten commandments were given.

The wind rushes in, and suddenly, the people can communicate with each other. In Jerusalem at that time, there were Jews from every nation in the Mediterranean living in Jerusalem as residents, but all speaking different languages. And so, we get this long list of countries, a kind of geography lesson on the Mediterranean countries. This section of the text is one that readers always dread, that is, someone always draws the short straw and has to stand up in church and pronounce the names of all these countries on Pentecost Sunday.

Understanding Each Other

So these residents of Jerusalem, all speaking different languages, suddenly have the gift of understanding each other. It’s as if they all suddenly become polyglots, speaking multiple languages.

And, as a sidebar, a little church history, what happened in the first Pentecost was not “speaking in tongues.” Speaking in tongues came much later, at the beginning of the 20^th century with the Pentecostal movement, that is, the new “American Pentecostalism.”

Some History of the Pentecostal Movement

The American Pentecostal movement emerged from the 19^th century Weslyan Holiness movement as a revivalist movement beginning in Topeka, Kansas, and then later supercharged in 1906 in Los Angeles with something called the Azusa Street Revival. The Azusa Street Revival was a three-year revival led by African American preacher and son of emancipated slaves, William Seymour. This revival saw people of various races and cultures praying together, worshipping together, in a charismatic expression.

Pentecostalism continues to be an influential branch of Christianity, with emphasis on direct spiritual experience, charismatic expression, speaking in tongues, and a personal experience of the Holy Spirit in one’s own life.

And so here we see again, the wide range of diversity, the many flavors of Christian expression. And yet, we are all unified as Christians through Jesus Christ. And I think the challenge, really, and the lesson of Pentecost, is to learn how to speak other languages. To become spiritual polyglots, to find ways to connect with other traditions, other expressions, other varieties of the faith life, realizing that ours is not the only one. There is one Lord, but there are many styles of spirituality, many languages. And we access these languages through the heart, with a heart-centered and open-minded approach to spiritual life.

Finding Ways to Connect with Others

In the heart-centered approach, we look for ways to connect with others based on finding common ground as human beings. There are 7 Billion human beings on the planet. And we all have some basic things in common: we are all born from a mother, we all get sick, we all get old, that is, if we live long enough, there are things we want, and things we don’t want, we all get hungry, we all need to sleep, and then, eventually, we will all die. These are simply truths about life that we all share, I don’t care what religion you are talking about, I don’t care what kind of politics or socio-economic status you are talking about. So there is plenty of common ground when we see through the eyes of the heart, plenty of ways we can connect with others when we communicate from the heart.

How does this work? I mean, what does this look like in practical terms. Well, if you want to connect with another person, you have to put yourself in his or her shoes. And when you try to step into someone else’s shoes, you might make a mistake at first. You know, I thought Tegegne was either Russian Orthodox or Greek Orthodox. And I was completely wrong. But I stepped out, and tried to make a connection, as a fellow human being. And he wasn’t offended at all. He recognized my sincerity, that I wasn’t condescending, and we had an interesting exchange. This is an example of looking for common ground. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.

So in this spirit of Pentecost, let us go forward. Let us continue to connect with each other, communicating from the heart, connect with new people who visit our church, and open our arms and our hearts so that we can be a blessing to others. Amen? Amen.