PENTECOST — AFFIRMATION OF BAPTISM
Acts 2:1-21; Romans 8:14-17; John 14:8-17
Pentecost, Sunday June 5, 2022
Pastor Ritva H Williams
On a sunny Pentecost Sunday in 1976, my brother and I were confirmed at St. Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ottawa, Canada. As you can see from this faded photo taken before the service, we were expected to wear white robes. There were 10 boys and 2 girls in our class. We were lined up at the front of the church and quizzed by the pastor. Can you imagine how nervous we were? Mercifully, we had all been assigned parts of Luther’s Small Catechism to memorize and recite. When the quiz was done, the pastor turned to me unexpectedly and asked me what faith meant to me personally. I don’t remember my answer, but it must have been on point because the pastor said something like, “Wanna be a pastor?”
I laughed, the service continued with the 12 of us publicly promising to
live among God’s faithful people;
hear the word of God and share in the Lord’s supper;
proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed;
serve all people following the example of Jesus;
and strive for justice and peace in all the earth.
The first two promises were the easiest — just show up for church. The promise to serve all people following the example of Jesus also seemed easy — in very situation be as kind and helpful to the people around you as you can be. The last promise — strive for justice and peace — was big and burned deep. I wondered what that might look like in my life, while studiously avoiding the promise to proclaim the good news of God in Christ through word and deed, filing it away with the pastor’s quip becoming a pastor — as in not to be taken seriously. Yet that question would haunt me for the next 30 years of my life.
What triggered these memories for me is that this morning two young people — Sonja Ostmo and Matthew Buckaloo — will be making those same promises here in this space. I won’t quiz them on Luther’s Small Catechism. They will/have share/d their faith stories during our adult learning hour. Here’s the thing — when I first met Sonja and Matthew they were preschoolers as you can see from these pics. On one occasion Matthew called me “the God person.” I still have one of Sonja’s drawings of the altar. They received Bibles in 3rd grade as they prepared to leave for EWALU. Now they are being confirmed. This is not a graduation for them, but the beginning of their adult journey of faith — a journey that is rooted in and will be nourished by the Holy Spirit. So, it is appropriate that they begin this journey on Pentecost Sunday.
In the world of Jesus, this day marked the culmination of Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks that lasted 7 weeks after Passover. Hence in Greek it was Pentecost which literally means the 50th day. Pilgrims came to Jerusalem with first-fruit offerings from their winter wheat harvest and to celebrate God’s giving of the Commandments to Moses at Mt Sinai.
In our gospel lesson, we listen in at the last supper just before Passover as Jesus prepares the disciples for what will happen after his crucifixion and resurrection. Professor Osvaldo Vena summarizes Jesus’ point:
When Jesus is gone, and the Spirit comes, the community will replace Jesus as instruments of God. God will be incarnated again, this time not in a [single] person, Jesus … but in a group of people who will continue Jesus’ work to an even greater degree. The same kind of … relationship that existed between Jesus and the Father will now exist between the community and Holy Spirit (2019, workingpreacher.org)
Our reading from Acts tells us reports how the Spirit arrived in a surprising way at Pentecost, 50 days after Jesus’ resurrection. In the middle of all the celebrations going on in Jerusalem, Jesus’ disciples hear a sound like a mighty rushing wind, see divided tongues of fire, are filled with the Holy Spirit, and begin to speak in different languages. For these Jewish disciples of Jesus this experience seems a lot like a popular Aramaic version of the story about God giving Moses the ten commandments:
When a word had issued from the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be His Name, in the form of sparks or thunderbolts or flames like torches of fire … then a flame on the right and a tongue of fire on the left would fly through the air and return and hover over the heads of the Israelites, and then return and incise itself into the tablets.
Wow! it was as if God was giving the Torah again but this time translating it into all human languages so it could be shared with all people. Peter later explains to the crowds this is how God is fulfilling the promises given to the prophet Joel.
Basically what happened at that long ago Pentecost was a huge aha! moment. God’s Spirit had always been present even before the creation of the world (Genesis 1:1). The ancient Hebrew sages wrote poetry celebrating the work of God’s Spirit in Woman Wisdom, but somewhere along the line some people decided the Holy Spirit had stopped talking to God’s people. People stopped looking for her. At Pentecost the disciples were reminded that God’s Spirit was still at work in heaven and on earth, and most importantly in “all flesh” — in persons from all parts of the world, in persons of all ages and all gender identities. The Spirit’s mission was to ensure that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
In his letter to the Christ-followers of Rome, Paul explains that the Holy Spirit reminds us who we truly are, especially when we are afraid, or suffering, or when we think we’re not good enough. God’s Spirit reminds us that we are beloved children of God, created in God’s very own image, and there’s nothing we or anyone else can say or do to change that fact.
The Holy Spirit helps us see all the things. See how we are connected to creation, to one another, to God, and to love. See how much we need one another to survive and thrive. See our neighbor suffering and do something about it. See a stranger laboring under a heavy load and help out. See lies spoken and shared in social media and call foul. See a friend soaring, and say, “I see you, beautiful creature!”
On this Pentecost Sunday let us celebrate the work of the Holy Spirit in the world, in this community of faith, and especially in the lives of Sonja and Matthew as they affirm their baptismal covenant with Christ today.
Let us pray,
Lord, life is a mystery –
far too deep for us to fathom, too large for for us to grasp.
We are just ordinary people,
trying to make each day something special,
hoping our lives will count for something.
What a surprise it is to discover that you are with us and within us!
In Jesus, you stepped into our world.
By Your Spirit, you step into our hearts.
Help us see all the things,
especially the hidden treasure inside each one.
In Jesus’ Name.
Amen.
