Acts 2:1-21

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.

Now there were devout Jews from every people under
heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the
crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each
one heard them speaking in the native language of
each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all
these who are speaking Galileans. And how is it that
we hear, each of us, in our own native
language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents
of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and
Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of
Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome,
both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our
own languages we hear them speaking about God’s
deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed,
saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But
others sneered and said, “They are filled with new
wine.”

But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice
and addressed them, “Fellow Jews and all who live in
Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I
say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for
it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what
was spoken through the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days
it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit
upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and
your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my
slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour
out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show
portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth
below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall
be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before
the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. Then
everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be
saved.’

John 14:15-17

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And
I will ask the Father, and he will give you another
Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of
truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither
sees him nor knows him. You know him because he
abides with you, and he will be in you.

John 14:25-27

“I have said these things to you while I am still with
you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the
Father will send in my name, will teach you everything
and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I
leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to
you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be
troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

Pentecost: Communicating from the Heart Center

Our Human Nature
We human beings are herd animals. We are like cows or sheep, you know? We form groups, and our groups exhibit herd behavior. Like a flock of sheep, we huddle together, looking around for any possible threats on the horizon. And that’s not a bad thing. This is just an observation, just stating the obvious. It’s the way we are.
And maybe a wolf appears at the edge of the woods, you know, and one sheep sees the wolf, and he jumps. He gets triggered. All his alarm bells go off, and he goes into fight or flight response. And this causes a chain reaction that ripples through the entire flock. Suddenly all the sheep are on alert and panicking. There could even be a stampede! They all start to run!
And so, we human beings are just like this. But I just want to reassure us all that everything is ok here at our church. This church is doing well. Things are going better than ever here. So we can enjoy this day, enjoy being together, worshipping together, knowing that as a church community, all is well.

Communicating from the Heart
And things will continue to go well for us, as long as we remember to stay in our hearts, to communicate with each other from the heart space, the place of lovingkindness and compassion, to see each other from the heart, remembering that we are all in this together, we are all in the same boat together. And we all have essentially the same worries and concerns, the same emotions, the same ups and downs, and when we can see our humanness, and recognize our beauty as human beings, 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, then we relate to each other in love as human beings, having so much more in common, much more than our differing concepts and opinions would have us believe, then this is our strength: to remain in the heart, to communicate from a heart-centered spirituality. And here, we have the lesson of Pentecost.

The Lesson of Pentecost
This morning we read from Acts, and 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, with it beginning in Jerusalem, and its growth into the surrounding Mediterranean region. And it all begins on Pentecost as described in Chapter Two with the arrival of the Holy Spirit. 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) 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.

Wind, Fire, and the Holy Spirit
So 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.

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 20th century with the Pentecostal movement, that is, the new “American Pentecostalism.” If you would like to read more about the history of the Pentecostal movement, here is a link to an article in Encyclopedia Britannica:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pentecostalism

Some History of the Pentecostal Movement
The American Pentecostal movement emerged from the 19th 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 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. And we do this through the heart, with a heart-centered 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.
So in this spirit of Pentecost, let us go forward. Amen? Amen.