A good image, whether a metaphor or an analogy, can be helpful in making a point. Images are helpful because they capture our attention and engage our imagination. Images give us concrete footholds for invisible and otherwise ethereal concepts. Carefully chosen images, if rightly used, draw our imagination and sight to some deeper point. They direct our gaze.
But there is also a risk in using images to make a point. The image that employed can, in and of itself, become a distraction. I was warned of this in a preaching class. If you are not careful, then your audience turns its head to the finger that is pointing to the object, and the object is overlooked. The finger becomes the focus, when the object was the intention of the focus.
Something like this can happen with the description of the day of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles. The scene described by Luke is engaging and is good drama. It’s one of the reasons that reading Acts is a thrilling experience. Here the disciples are all gathered together in one place. There is suddenly a sound from heaven, “like the rush of a violent wind.” This wind fills the entire house where the disciples are gathered. Then tongues of fire rest on the heads of the disciples, and the disciples begin to speak in other languages.
The story continues as a diverse group of Jews who are living in Jerusalem gather together because they are drawn to the sound, whether of the violent wind or of the babble of multiple languages spoken or of both. It’s as if the Pentecostal event has sent up a flare in the midst of Jerusalem, signaling that something astonishing is happening. The flare draws a motley crowd into an unexpected form of community. Before too long, those who have descended upon the scene of this Pentecostal spectacle realize that they are hearing the words of the disciples in their own native languages. Are they only hearing in their own languages, or have foreign languages suddenly become intelligible to them? It’s not clear. Nothing is very clear. It’s holy pandemonium.
This is reflected in the witnesses’ speech. They are filled with questions and speculations. “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?” “What does this mean?” Some are more cynical and see the speaking in tongues as evidence of inebriation. The presence of the Holy Spirit in that place has provoked amazement, confusion, and bewilderment, not clarity.
As we hear the story, we, too, might be sorely tempted to become distracted by the marvelous signs happening. The flare that has been sent up to point out the Holy Spirit’s presence in the gathered assembly could itself quickly become the center of attention. In our mind’s eye, we might linger for a bit and analyze the tongues of fire, trying to figure out what they are. I imagine that the witnesses to the day of Pentecost were fascinated by the wide variety of languages being spoken. As Scripture tells us, the flare sent up on that day provoked a whole host of questions.
But there’s one detail that’s easily hidden in the flurry of questions posed by the witnesses to the Pentecostal event. Did you catch that one line, masked in all the mayhem of this spectacular scene? Did you notice the reason the flare was sent up in the first place? It’s a collective statement made by the bystanders on the day of Pentecost. And they say, almost as an afterthought, “in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” There it is, a seemingly innocuous line in this action-packed story. And suddenly, like a whisper in the wind rather than a violent sound, we see what this story is all about. It’s about God’s deeds of power.
If we’re honest with ourselves, we have probably, at one time or another, been distracted by other interpretations of this passage. Perhaps we have relished the theatrical elements of how God made the Holy Spirit known in that particular time and place. And I dare say that on this great feast, the church often goes a little wild, too, silly, if you will. I won’t enumerate the various antics I have seen in Pentecost liturgies.
But I fear all of these distractions miss the real focus to which we should be drawn. The flares being sent up should be directing our attention to something else, the reality that we worship a God whose very nature is to perform great deeds of power. God’s dynamic presence, alive and filling every corner of this earth, is capable of working astonishing wonders among us. And yet we frequently doubt whether God has done anything other than wind a clock up and watch it tick. No wonder we end up focusing on the flares.
At Pentecost, God gave an extraordinary gift to the disciples and witnesses in Jerusalem, a gift available to all until the end of the age. The visible signs of that gift were flares that drew the witnesses’ gaze to the presence of God living and active among them as the Holy Spirit. Those early citizens of Jerusalem needed a visible sign to wake them up. The tongues of fire, the speaking in different languages, the hearing in different languages, and the sound of a violent, rushing wind, all made concrete in some way a deeper reality of what God was doing in the world. You might think of the tongues of fire or the speaking of languages or the sound of the rushing wind as sacramental signs of God’s deeds of power.
God’s deeds of power are possible, yes, even today, especially today, because God knows no bounds, and God’s presence is no longer confined to the earthly human presence of Jesus. The post-Ascension reality is the availability of God’s intimacy and might to all people, in all times and places, in every corner of the world. And what we see epitomized, indeed sacramentalized, on the day of Pentecost, is the very synopsis of God’s upending of the world. The presence of the Holy Spirit is proof that God has broken down the dividing walls among human beings and has left no crevice of the earth bereft of his presence. The languages spoken, the races gathered in one place, and all the fuss are a sign of God’s healing and reconciling power. And this power is available to all. And all are united in their access to the miracle of this gift.
The real miracle of the Day of Pentecost is not the tongues of fire or the speaking of tongues or the violent wind that suddenly comes upon the disciples. Those are just the flares sent up. The miracle is that the Gospel, which testifies to God’s deeds of power, cannot be undone or destroyed by difference. The Gospel is the proto-language of the universe, even if some have forgotten how to speak it. And no matter what people look like or what language they speak or where they come from or what the color of their skin is, this language of the Gospel is held in common and is capable of being understood by all. Human estrangement is never God’s work. It is the result of human sin. The proclamation of God’s deeds of power cuts through every barrier and division human sin erects and speaks the truth that, in Christ, God has reconciled the world to himself and each person to one another.
But flares don’t always signal something good happening. Flares can signal the corners of our world that are mired in sin and evil. Flares can tell us where God is calling us to repentance. Here in Center City the landscape is marred. We have heard the drone of helicopters in the past 24 hours. We have seen looting. Glass windows are shattered. We have watched the smoke from fires drift above the skyline. There has been pandemonium in the streets. These are flares. They are flares that are directing our gaze to the brokenness in our society, a deep and abiding brokenness like tectonic plates moving apart. They are flares pointing to places where God can do something holy, and where God will do something holy. They are pointing to places where we, too, are intended to be ambassadors of Christ’s message of repentance, healing, and peace.
These flares, whether from burning vehicles or looted stores, signal where something is amiss. But they also signal where God is poised to do great deeds of power but where we have resisted it. The unrest that has been unleashed is a visible sign of the complicity of a complacent society that has persistently rejected the message of the Gospel. All over this nation, as we speak, flares are being sent up. Sadly, these are flares of destruction and violence. People are saying that they have had enough. Things need to change. There’s been enough systemic injustice, enough of the evil of racism, woven into the very fabric of this nation. And now, we can no longer quietly turn an eye and pretend like it has no bearing on us.
These flares, when read in the light of the Gospel, are visible signs for us as Christians to look towards something else, to see where God is directing our hearts and minds. The flares should not be the real focus of our attention. The flares are revealing where the bonds of human fellowship have been destroyed. As Christians, how can we do anything other than see these flares as a call to renounce evil and injustice and to pursue healing, reconciliation, repentance, and renewal? How can we see the pain, anger, and frustration now made visible as anything other than a call to raise our voices in solidarity with the downtrodden?
We could easily get distracted by the flares. Government officials, vicious tweets, and social media posts are all trying to get us to focus on the fires or the visible signs of unrest. Because if we focus on the flares, then we neglect the real issues at stake. Keeping our eyes only on the flares would distract us from the difficult, painful work of repentance, an embodied repentance, not simply words. A common language of reconciliation needs to be relearned. And that is so much harder than staring at the flares on a TV screen or posting on Facebook.
All these flares should remind us that God is able to work deeds of power among us, if only we choose not to resist those deeds. In every corner of the world and every neighborhood of this nation that is our hope, and it is the hope we are so obviously resisting. But there is a miracle ready to be manifested among us in our own age. This miracle is God’s power that cuts through all divisions created by human sin. This is what the signs around us are pointing towards. We should be praying for a miracle of Pentecost where those flares are drawing our attention.
And like Peter in the midst of that fray on the day of Pentecost, God is calling each and every one of us to stand up in the midst of the chaos and to raise our voices. It’s imperative that we, who know the Gospel, who believe the Gospel, and who trust the Gospel announce what God is doing among us and what God will do among us where those flares are being sent up. This is the Christian duty, the fruit of our anointing by the Holy Spirit: to stand up in the midst of the fray and to testify to God’s truth in a world of lies and to God’s constancy in a world of chaos. God’s deeds of power are waiting to be manifested among us. The real miracle that is present among us even now is that God’s reconciling deeds of power are greater than our differences. And no division can cancel out the power of the Gospel.
If it’s a message that seeks to divide rather than unite, it’s not the Gospel. And there are many such messages today, especially today. There are many theatrical displays around us right now. There are screeds that are fanning the flames. There are voices even in the church that seek to distract us from the real concerns of Christ’s healing work. Don’t let them capture your heart, but don’t ignore them either. They are flares, too, so let them direct you, your whole heart, mind, soul, and body to the invisible but very real essence of the Holy Spirit’s purifying fire among us. Let us submit ourselves to be tried in the fire of the Holy Spirit, so that God can wash away all our sins and give us new life. It’s time for all of us to pay attention. Let the flares call us to repentance, so that no person is ever deprived of the breath of life. The miracle of this day is that God’s saving deeds of power are waiting to be realized, and they are available to all. Every single person. No exceptions.
Notes for a Sermon Preached by Father Kyle Babin
The Day of Pentecost, 31 May 2020
Saint Mark’s Church, Philadelphia