Sermon from Pentecost 2026 "Birth Stories"

 

Sermon from 5/24/26 First UMC East Greenbush Acts 2:1-21

 

          I don’t always have the best memory, the past two years since we have moved have meant a lot of new people in our lives and a lot of new names and remembering them has been a struggle. But there are some things that stick clearly in my mind even as the years pass. One of those things is childbirth. My oldest is now 14 years old and yet I can picture that hospital room clearly- I remember Nurse Margory, I remember the way my husband looked at me with love and reassurance and I remember the way that experience of intensity and pain and stress brought out some interesting parts of my personality. Mostly humor, when I am nervous I tend to start making jokes and so in the delivery room I became a bit of a comedian. Whether or not I was funny I can’t say, but I thought I was.  But it also brought out another part of my personality, one that I usually try to hide better. That is, my discomfort with uncertainty.

           I remember thinking how ridiculous it was those days before labor, that I was supposed to just keep walking around and living my life with no idea of when this monumental change would come. I had to just put question marks next to everything on my calendar. So I did my best to be prepared, I planned out the worship services for the next 4 months. There would be a pastor coming to fill in, but I wanted to make sure everything was set up to run smoothly, so I remember calling families in early September when it was 70 and sunny out and asking if they would be willing to light the Advent Candle on a Sunday in December. They mostly chuckled and said yes, humoring me. My need to feel prepared and somehow manage uncertainty only got worse as I got closer to the event. I remember vividly in the delivery room the nurse saying “only a few more pushes” and I said “but exactly how many more?” and I remember the doctor saying “it won’t be much longer now” and I said “how many more minutes?” And I kept asking how many more contractions there would be and if they would get worse and how long would they last. At one point I remember the nurse saying “are you like a scientist or something?” as she explained that there were no answers to these questions.

 

          All these years later and the truth of that is still sinking in. There are no answers to many questions. There is a lot of uncertainty in life, a lot of unknown that we just can’t prepare for or plan, a lot of things on our calendars that we just have to put a question mark next to. And that can be hard and it can require faith.

 

          Today is Pentecost, this is a major holiday in the church. When our kids were young my husband and I wanted to establish some kind of tradition so that our kids would recognize the importance of Pentecost. Unlike Christmas and Easter, the secular world doesn’t make a big deal of it and so it can sometimes get overlooked or lost in the end of the school year/Memorial Day excitement. So we decided that we would always have a fire of some sort on Pentecost. Usually (if the fire precautions allowed it) we would make a fire in our little outdoor fire pit and roast marshmallows. Very controlled, very safe and very easy to extinguish. Nothing like the fire at Pentecost …

           Fire is often a symbol used to represent Pentecost … but wind is too. Pentecost is fire and wind, which we know is a wild, dangerous, unpredictable and potentially devastating combination. Having lived in Colorado for 8 years, I know well the fear and concern for wildfires that a dry windy day can bring. And fire and wind is what happened on that first Pentecost.

           It was the fiftieth day after Passover, an occasion when Jewish people would make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. And the scripture reading tells us that Jerusalem was a diverse place with “devout Jews from every people under heaven living in Jerusalem.” And it is here that a rush of “violent wind” comes and tongues “as of fire” rest on each of them and they start talking. They are all speaking in their native languages and it causes such a scene that onlookers assume they are drunk at 9am. Because how else can you explain such a wild scene? There has to be a way to explain it, make sense of it, understand it … fire from the sky, sudden wind and all these languages spoken and yet everyone can understand each other? Jesus said the Holy Spirit was coming, but did anyone predict it to look like this?

           Peter gets up and declares that these are the last days prophesized by the prophet Joel, the days before the coming of the Lord. He says that the Spirit will come upon “all flesh” not just kings and prophets. The Spirit is here so that everyone can speak to it … young, old, male, female, slave, free. It’s working and moving and speaking through all kinds of people. And that is exciting and beautiful and amazing and … dangerous. This movement is going to be tough to predict, to organize, to control. If everyone has access to the Spirit of God and everyone can prophesy … how do we keep that neat and tidy and safe and within the boundaries of what we want it to be? Sorry for all of you, like me, who like manageable and predictable … there is no controlling this. This is the Holy Spirit and like fire and like wind it can go places we do not expect and cannot control.

 
          In his commentary on this passage, Biblical scholar Gilberto Ruiz says: that many interpretations of the Pentecost event look at all these people of different languages coming together and point to the unity, that everyone can understand each other, but “this interpretation sees difference as a problem to be solved, an assumption that leads interpreters to overlook the fact that no restoration of a common language occurs in Acts 2. Instead, the Galilean disciples are heard in all the dialects represented by their audiences (verses 6, 8). What we witness, then, is the Holy Spirit validating difference and working through it, not erasing difference and working despite it. The oracle from Joel cited by Peter affirms this vision through its vivid language of “all flesh” to describe the Spirit’s permeation of persons of all genders, ages, and social status.” In other words, this is not a smoothing out of differences, but a revelation that the Holy Spirit is at work in those differences, it is an affirmation that we are all different and the Spirit works in and through and among us without having to erase those differences.

 

          This means that we cannot predict or control or make the work of the Spirit look how we want it to look. And that can be dangerous. Let’s be honest, it can be hard to claim the title Christian. There are people doing really horrible things and using that title to justify or even celebrate it. People using it to hurt and demean others, or to grab power or worship wealth, to claim superiority or to abuse. When a movement gets out of control, there are some who will grab it and use it for malicious reasons. That is the risk with opening up a movement to all, with letting the Spirit run wild, humans will find ways to corrupt.

          But if we use that to limit or ignore the true work of the Spirit then we allow that corruption to speak for what is beautiful and loving and just and good news. When people try to twist the movement for their own gain or to hurt others, they are trying to control it, manipulate it and destroy it. But when we embrace the Holy Spirit working in and through and around us we have to embrace faith, let go of our need to control and let it flow. Celebrate it, embrace it and let it flow like a rush of wind through everyone we meet. Pentecost calls us to accept the unpredictability, the wildness the uncertainty and let the fire take over our hearts.

          I remember that moment, way back when I was in that delivery room. I remember when I stopped making jokes, counting minutes, numbering breaths and asking questions. I remember when I stopped clenching my fists, fighting the pain and trying to control it. I remember letting go. It was wild and unexpected and life-changing but that was when this beautiful new life came forth. And that new life has been unexpected and uncertain and unpredictable but more beautiful than anything I could have ever planned or predicted. Pentecost is the day we call the birth of the church. It is the moment when we mark the birth of this wild movement that has spread like wildfire all across the globe and across the centuries. It came about by fire and wind and people letting the Spirit speak through them, that’s how we keep it going. That’s how we fan the flame. We dive in with faith, we let the Spirit speak through us and we celebrate and listen to what that Spirit is saying from each other. All the while trusting, trusting that it’s ok to let go, because what God is doing is so much more than what we have on our calendars.