Something Greater at Stake

PROPERS:         PENTECOST, YEAR C         

TEXT:                 ACTS 2:1-21, JOHN 14:8-27

PREACHED AT HOLY TRINITY, PENSACOLA, ON SUNDAY, JUNE 9, 2019.

ONE SENTENCE:        The Holy Spirit infused the hearts of the fearful disciples                                      on the first Christian Pentecost; it continues to move                                         through the Church in the Church’s finest moments.         

                                    

            Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the nation’s 32^ndpresident.  He filled that post during some of the most trying days in our history – the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, and, of course, the Second World War.

            His deep, rich voice calmed an anxious nation, with his Fireside Chats and his addresses to Congress.  He called people to go beyond themselves – to let go of overwhelming fear and take on great causes.

      He is one of the most quotable of presidents.  But at this moment, one stands out.  It is this: “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.”

            When FDR was president 75 years ago, 156,000 troops from the Allied Countries landed on French soil.  On the beaches and from the air, taking enormous casualties in the process, the troops knew the truth of that statement: “Courage is not the absence of fear…”

            They were aware that something was more important than fear.  It was the defeat of the overarching evil of Nazism and the rebirth of freedom in those conquered lands.

            It was a pivot point in history.  And it came to be by 18 to 20-year-old soldiers being graspedby something which was much greater than their fear.

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            It was the same for the 38-year-old Martin Luther.  He had challenged the authority of both the empire and the church. In his writings and teachings, he had launched what we now call the Reformation. 

            In January, 1521, he was called before an imperial council – the Diet of Worms (my favorite name of any event in history). Confronted by the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, he was ordered to recant his words.  Facing the power of the Roman Empire, Martin Luther said, “Here I stand.  I can do no other.  God help me.”

            The result was the council’s determination that Luther was a criminal and subject to arrest and execution.  He was hidden in a castle in Wartburg, Germany under the watchful eye of Frederick the Wise.

            Martin Luther certainly knew fear in that moment.  But he also knew that he was graspedby something much greater.

            We have benefited richly from his courage.

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            The followers of Jesus were fearful, too.  The women who had discovered the empty tomb were afraid.  The disciples, gathered in the upper room, were fearful. They had seen their rabbi executed like a common criminal on a rocky hillside outside the city walls of Jerusalem.

            They were afraid of the Roman authorities, who wielded the power to execute. They trembled at the thought of the religious leaders, especially the wealthy Sadducees, who were in cahoots with the Romans.

            So, they kept to themselves.  Until the moment depicted in the Book of Acts today:

“When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples 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.”

            The Gospel according to John’s account of Pentecost makes it very clear that the disciples were afraid and were in a locked room.  But something overcame that fear.

            It was the movement, in a powerful way, of God’s spirit – the Holy Spirit – transforming their trembling hearts and timid souls into the bud of the greatest evangelical movement in history.

            We are told by the Book of Acts that they left the room and ventured into the crowded streets of Jerusalem – packed by the crowds in the city for the Jewish Feast of Weeks, also known as Shavuot.  The crowds were celebrating the wheat harvest and God’s gift of the Law at Mt. Sinai 1,200 years earlier.

            So, this was not a small crowd.  For the disciples to venture into that crowd on a new mission might be like a teen-age actress, in her first performance, appearing in a popular Broadway show.

            But venture into the streets they did.  In a variety of tongues, they began to proclaim the gospel – unhindered by their fear, and aware that there was something much greater at stake.

            That Holy Spirit moving through them even prompted Peter, who had denied his best friend only a short time before, to preach the first Christian sermon:

"Men of Judea 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.' "

            Hearts were turned. People found a new way of seeing and experiencing their relationship to God. Like on the beaches of Normandy, the world began to change.

            The Church still can speak the truth when inspired by the Spirit.  We can do so by overcoming fear with a deep and profound awareness that there is something much greater at stake.

            After all, it is not we who give voice to those words – when we speak the truth.  It is the Spirit which moves us.

            We, too, can know the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.  I stand here today as one who has been touched by its ability to make life new.  You can, too. Your life can be changed.  But you must open yourself to that divine possibility – releasing the fear, and recognizing that something greater is at stake.