Astonished and Amazed

 When I was in Walker, MN in my first church, I took a course of Clinical Pastoral Education, we call it CPE. One of the other students was an Assembly of God pastor. He shared a story of going down to Central America, can't remember which country and visiting a church. He said he felt the Spirit come upon him and he stood up and spoke in tongues. The church was all amazed and chided him for saying he can't speak Spanish. He replied, "I don't know how to speak Spanish, I was just speaking in tongues." They told him he just preached a whole sermon in perfect Espanol. He didn't know what he said, but it made sense to them. 

I have been with many churches that have proclaimed, "All are welcome!" and have even seen conservative churches advertise this as well. I have asked my former leaders if a person who spoke in tongues started attending this church and did so during worship, would they be welcomed back next Sunday? We proclaim "Whoever you are and wherever you are on life's journey. You are welcome here!" For the most part, we have people in our church who mostly have the same values and mostly look like us. I do imagine and trust that we would do our best and overcome our prejudices and love them if people who didn't look like us, sound like us, or had different values and culture would start coming, however, it isn't an easy thing to do because we are comfortable in our sameness. 

The writers of the gospels tried to tie Christianity into Judaism as much as possible. The forty years in the wilderness of Moses is reflected in the 40 days of Jesus after his baptism. The writer of the the Gospel of Luke and the book of the Acts of the Apostles, tied Moses going up to Sinai fifty days after the crossed the Red Sea to receive the Ten Commandments to our story today of fifty days after Jesus was crucified and rose again to receiving of the Holy Spirit. One speaker at our Festival of Homiletics was Dr. Amy Jill Levine who talked about how the Church struggles with anti-semitism. One thing she said stood out for me was that, "You, as Christians, don't have to make Judaism look bad to make yourselves look good." One common myth we like to think about Judaism in the time of Jesus was that they kept to themselves and didn't proselytize. However this scripture plainly shows that there were converts to Judaism from a wide range of countries and languages. So into this mix, the Apostles and other followers received the Holy Spirit with a bang, the mighty rush of the Wind, and start speaking to all who are in the city in their own language. It is important to note that those with the flame of tongues didn't speak only Hebrew and King James English and allowed those listening to understand them. Nope, they were gifted so they can share the gospel in many languages. Those around them and listening and seeing all this thought them to be drunk. I have never gotten drunk, but if I could speak another language if I got drunk enough, I might be really tempted. Eso seria estupendo. 

Last week, we talked about how the Apostles after Jesus ascended so he could work from home, they devoted themselves to prayer. This was about ten days after that, for Jesus stayed with them for forty days and this was on Pentecost, the Jewish holiday, fifty days after Passover. So it wasn't too long of praying that they were driven to share what they knew. And even afterwards, when they got three thousand converts, the Apostles still devoted themselves to pray and kept that as their focus, even as the other ministries like feeding the poor began. But, they weren't called to pray at the expense of the world, but they were called to pray so that world will be made a better place. To lay a foundation for the whole of ministry. 

If we reflect a little on Paul's letter to the Corinthians, he talks about the different types of gifts that are given, and this is not an exhaustive list. At the end of the chapter, he introduces the next chapter by saying,  through the Message, "But now I want to lay out a far better way." The gifts he lifts up:

wise counsel, clear understanding, simple trust, healing the sick, miraculous acts, proclamation, distinguishing between spirits, tongues, and interpretation of tongues.

are the tools of the church. But that better way is the grounding of ourselves in the love of God. Chapter 13 of 1st Corinthians is all above love, all else is incomplete and will fade away, except for hope, faith, and love, and the greatest of these is love. Though signs and wonders can get people's attention, and it doesn't forbid these, the long haul of our Christian faith is to love. Without love, any wonder, any amazement, any miracle, falls flat on its face. 

I doubt that I could convince you to strive to speak in tongues or to gather daily for prayer. We do have to balance ourselves though. We just can't spend all of our time out in the world, working for justice, community building, and healing the planet. We will quickly burn out. We can't just say our private prayers and stay in our privilege and hope that the world will somehow correct itself. To love God is to love our neighbor. To proclaim there can be and will be a better world filled with Peace and Justice in words, speech, and action is to love God and love our neighbor. Amen.