May 19, 2024 – Pentecost Sunday
Rev. Gary Percesepe
As a preacher, I’ve always admired the opening frame of Peter’s sermon. “Hey, we’re not drunk!” Wow, I wish I’d thought of that!
One morning I was preaching in a university town and the liturgist read that part of the sermon where Peter says, “Hey, we’re not drunk, it’s only nine o’clock in the morning,” and a guy in the congregation who lived next door to a notorious frat house shook his skeptical head and blurted out, “Nice try, fella. You’ve never lived in my neighborhood!”
It may sound strange to some, but God’s people under the influence of the Holy Spirit appear to be God’s people under the influence. Right off the bat, Peter has to get up and clarify. One of the most significant sermons in all of Scripture begins with Jesus’ apostles testifying that they are not three sheets to the wind.
In the modern Protestant Mainline church folk are more likely to be upstanding saints of sobriety than Spirit-filled revelers, which may help explain why the pews seem so empty and the bars so full. My friend Tony Campolo is a notable exception, traveling all around the country preaching his signature sermon, “The Kingdom of God is a Party.” Perhaps Peter was remembering that his Lord Jesus was thought to be a drunkard because he hung out with disreputable people. Or maybe Peter, when he rose to his feet to preach recalled that when Hannah went to the Temple to ask God for a son, her prayer was so fervent that the priest thought she was drunk. Peter was intoxicated with the Holy Spirit when he emerged from the crowd and engaged in the act of proclamation which is called preaching. The event of Pentecost is a story about the Holy Spirit empowering ordinary folk—even roughhewn unlearned fishermen with a checkered past—to proclaim the very word of God. There are many interpretations about the event of Pentecost but one thing is clear: when the Holy Spirit showed up, the early Christian community began to preach! And they preached the “mighty works of God” in every language under heaven. Who is the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is God within us coaxing us to rise to our feet, to emerge from those gathered as a congregation, whether it be in a bar or a gym, a locker room or your neighbor’s kitchen, to speak a word from God that reveals God in that moment.
You don’t have to be ordained or have advanced degrees in theology. You don’t even need to know how to read or write. My first sermon was preached when I was barely four when my mother was wailing with grief at the loss of my older brother. Fifteen or twenty Italian-Americans were gathered in our living room for bible study when my mother’s keening began. And they tell me that I emerged from my bedroom and said to my mother and to the assembled congregation, “You’ll be OK, mommy, God still loves us mommy, you will be OK.” There was a moment of stunned silence, and then someone said, “Out of the mouth of babes!” And my mother was comforted and the wailing stopped and the acute grief of our family transitioned to mourning and then to sadness and then in time to a sense of a presence, an awareness of a presence that can never leave us or forsake us. Having proclaimed the word that was given to me to speak, and seeing that my mother was surrounded by loving relatives and folks from our little church, I returned to my room and sat down on my bed.
When Sue and Linda rose to their feet during that portion of worship that we have called “Voices & Visions,” what do you think they were doing? (Well, Sue stood on her feet at the lectern; Linda first stood up from her pew, then walked forward and sat down here on the steps!) But what were they doing, if not proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ, sharing how they experience the sense of the sacred, how they experience the mystery of a presence? Prompted by “that of God,” Sue spoke from a God-intoxicated heart about all the ways she and her ‘ohana have known aloha in this place, and Linda spoke a word about the mana, the power of voice, and she testified of her faith in our hearing, and in these joyful moments, as we all listened with awe, they were preaching, were they not? Did you not feel the Holy Spirit within you agree with them, and nod your heads with recognition or suppress a tear, or feel something inside? What was that? That was the Holy Spirit praying within you, prayers of gratitude, prayers of hope, prayers of love, aloha prayers filled with hope for our church and gratitude for each other and for the One who walks unseen beside us, carrying us, just like my mother, when we can walk no farther by ourselves.
And then Sue and Linda sat down. They emerged from the congregation as apostles, sent ones, sent by God to you and to me to deliver a word from God. I saw the same thing happen before I was on island in mid-February, as Resea and I watched at home from New York on Vimeo as Karen Rollins proclaimed the word she had been given. Each of these women, Sue and Linda and Karen emerged from the congregation, proclaimed the good news, and then sat down, which is the very same thing that I do each week as your pastor. The act of sitting is symbolic of returning to the congregation. After I deliver this word which I have heard from God I will sit down and return to the congregation as one of you.
Every person who calls Jesus lord and savior is called to preach. They may never preach from behind pulpits but communicate the gospel with great power and effectiveness, reaching people that I can never reach. Your sermons may be preached on the lanai, on the beach, on sea or land, over backyard fences, in texts and emails and on social media, in bars, in the produce section of the grocery store, at a concert or in line at the post office. If Pentecost teaches us anything it is that the Holy Spirit will speak through anyone at any time in any place. Peter went from denying three times that he ever knew Jesus to proclaiming a Pentecost sermon that converted three thousand people. Don’t tell me that church growth isn’t possible. Don’t tell me you don’t feel called to preach. As Saint Francis Assisi says, “preach the gospel every day; if necessary, use words.”
This week I heard a story about a man who became strong in the faith and a pillar of his church all because of a sermon he heard while playing golf. He was asked what led him to be a Christian and start going to church? The man said, “Oh, I was paired with a man and his son for a round one day. I didn’t know them, but I really enjoyed playing golf with them. I had already made another tee time for the next morning, which happened to be a Sunday. So, I asked my new friends, would you like to play tomorrow? Why don’t we do it again? I’ll never forget what that man said to me. Thank you, he said, but I think a man ought to be in church on Sunday. That was twenty-five years ago, and that one sentence turned my life around.” (1)
Voices & Visions. Powerfully intoxicating sermons come in all shapes and sizes, preached by people of all ages, and, thanks to Pentecost, the birthday of the church, they can be preached by anyone at any time. So: what’s your vision? Where do you sense the presence of God? Where do you sense God is asking us to go as a church? Tag. You’re It. Amene.
(1) This story was told by Rev. Charley Reeb in The Abingdon Preaching Annual, 2024, pp. 63-64.