Tasting the Gruel of Love

A Gentle Pentecost

Dr. Larry Thorson*
May 31, 2009

Acts 2:1-11

1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked: "Aren't all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!"

In southern California the mixing of violent winds and fire is never a good thing. Last fall our daughter came out to see us from Long Beach during the Yorba Linda fire that closed the 91. When she took the 91 home on Sunday after the freeway opened it backed up in Yorba Linda and her car overheated. We went out there to get her and try to get the car out of the path of the fire. When we got to her and got out of the car, I was amazed at the strength of the wind. It was no wonder that a fire could spread so quickly. We put cooler water in the radiator and got out of there.

If you think about it fire and wind are just about the quickest ingredients for bringing change that we have. When God wanted to quickly change the religious landscape of the land wind and fire were the two quickest things to use. It was a way to spread the good news that forgiveness was available to everyone regardless of their language or cultural background. It was the perfect timing. There were hundreds of Jews visiting Jerusalem from lots of different countries for the Jewish Pentecost feast. They spoke a lot of different languages. By hearing the gospel in their language that weekend they could take it back home with them. This was the launch of the greatest church planting effort ever. What an incredible story.

What’s interesting is that ever since this Pentecost happened, certain Christians have longed to reproduce it and certain other Christians, namely Presbyterians have tried to down play it. It’s called the Pentecost experience. People who take the story literally and think it ought to keep happening are usually called Pentecostals. They believe that that first Pentecost experience is what we’re all to experience if we’re true followers of Jesus. But I don’t know a single Pentecostal who had this exact experience of speaking in a known foreign tongue. Not one.

For a long time the church ignored this story or taught that it was a one time only experience designed by God to launch the new Christian church. In 1906 first in a home and then in a church on tiny Azusa Street in downtown Los Angeles a group of people huddled together like the early disciples praying for a revival. Night after night they prayed until suddenly a sound like a rushing wind entered the room and people started speaking in an unknown language they didn’t understand. That was the launch of the modern day Pentecostal movement. A century later, Pentecostal Christianity is perhaps the fastest growing segment of Christianity in the world, especially in the Third World.

If you’ve ever been to a modern Pentecostal worship service it’s loosely based on what happened in this story. It’s spontaneous, noisy and physical -- maybe no flames or wind, but often there's lots of strange verbiage offered up in words nobody knows but God. That’s called speaking in tongues and it’s a very valid and desirable spiritual experience to have. Speaking in tongues helps your prayer life.

But not everyone has this Pentecost experience. What if you’re a quiet Presbyterian, faithfully praying everyday, reading your Bible and worshipping in church and yet don’t have this Pentecostal experience? One of the most famous children of the modern Pentecostal movement is Phil Jackson, coach of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team. Before the Lakers, Jackson coached the Chicago Bulls for nine years, winning the NBA championship six of those nine years. Jackson told his faith story in a book that came out a few years ago called Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior.

Jackson grew up in Montana and North Dakota, the son of not one, but two, Pentecostal ministers. He describes his mother as being "as passionate about spirituality as anyone I've ever met. . . For her, the Bible was a prophetic book, the Word of God, and it predicted that time was running out..." He describes his father as a gentle man, a stern disciplinarian, a literalist of the King James variety, but a caring man nonetheless.

Jackson talks about being raised with a sense of fear at

the heart of his experience of faith, a fear that the end of the world would come before he himself was saved. According to many in the Pentecostal tradition, proof of your salvation is having an experience like that first Pentecost -- literally just like it.

But when Jackson reached the appropriate age when he was supposed to have his literal Pentecostal experience, nothing happened. He writes: "It was agonizing. I worked hard for the next two or three years, praying long hours, asking forgiveness

for my sins and 'tarrying in the Spirit' after services. Still nothing.

It began to make me skeptical. Why were some people able to do it so easily while others who were far more diligent -- namely me -- were left speechless? Were all those people making it up? Was it a manufactured experience . . . ? I felt like a failure, and yet I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. Was it my sinful nature? If so, I didn't feel like a sinner. Was it my lack of faith? Perhaps, but I was no less committed than my brothers. So, rather than reject the faith outright, I avoided the

issue. I dodged services and started working on my jump shot."

When Jackson left college, he first played with the Knicks for a while and found that the pressures of life increased. His first marriage ended and the search for God deepened.

Jackson describes the turning point when it finally came this way: "On one of the Knick's road trips, I picked up a copy of William James' The Variety of Religious Experience…. I couldn't put it down. Reading (these) stories, it was clear that mystical experience didn't have to be a big production. It didn't require

hallucinogenic drugs or a major Pentecostal-style catharsis. It could be as uneventful as a moment of reflection. When I finished the book," Jackson writes, "I put it down, said a prayer and, all of a sudden, experienced a quiet feeling of inner peace. Nothing special -- and yet there it was. This was the experience I had longed for as a teenager."

There is, as I said, a second way to read the second chapter of Acts. This second way is not so absolutely literal. The text doesn’t say it was actually wind blowing but “a sound like the blowing of a violent wind”. It doesn’t say actual tongues of fire fell on the people but “tongues as of fire”. These are signs for the Spirit, for which we have no descriptive language. Describing God’s Spirit is like describing what the color red looks like. We can only use words from our own past experiences. This second way to read the story trusts that Holy Spirit is real and powerful and present, but it allows that the Spirit could and does often work in subtler and quieter ways than on that Pentecost Sunday.

That’s not to say you don’t want a full blown Pentecost experience of speaking in tongues but you have to remember why they had that experience. It wasn’t to entertain a boring prayer meeting. It wasn’t designed like the new Terminator movie or Fast and Furious to keep you on the edge of your seat.

God gave us the Pentecost experience to spread the good news of Jesus Christ faster than humanly possible. What Phil Jackson missed in his search for the Pentecost experience is that it wasn’t meant to validate his Christian experience. God loved him and saved him through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ whether he had the Pentecost experience or not.

I’ve known Presbyterians who have had a Pentecostal experience of being miraculously filled with the Holy Spirit and what’s called being baptized in the Spirit. It happened to me in 1996. Unfortunately I discovered that what happens to many people who have the Pentecostal experience is that the first thing they want to do is go out and help every other Christian have the same experience. It’s treated as a validation that God has accepted you.

But that’s not why the Holy Spirit fell on the early church huddled together for prayer in that upper room 50 days after Jesus’ resurrection. (Yes, Pentecost is always 50 days after Easter). The Holy Spirit fell on those early believers for a specific task, to spread the good news of Jesus Christ to as many people as possible in their lifetime.

It’s the same way today. If you’re in love with God and so grateful that he made himself known to you in Jesus Christ then you’re going to want to tell other people about him. If you’re in love with God you’re going to huddle in prayer and ask God to give you an opportunity to tell others about him.

If you’re a church that’s in love with God then you’re going to go into the struggling neighborhood elementary school and offer to help in any way you can to win the right to share that love. That’s what we do with Hemet Elementary School by providing an after school recreation program for their tutoring program.

If you’re a church in love with God then you’re going to offer a program that welcomes people who don’t speak church language. That’s what we do with Upward and with our tutoring program. If you’re a church in love with God then you’re going to huddle every week in prayer for the unchurched people of our community. That’s what we do on Wednesday mornings at 10:00.

It’s all very simple. When you have a desire to share the good news of Jesus Christ with those who don’t know him, the Holy Spirit falls upon you to do that task. When you turn away from doing that task you put out the fire of the Holy Spirit. The Pentecost experience doesn’t validate you as a Christian. What it does is give you the power to do the task of sharing Christ’s love.

I want to give you an invitation today to have a Pentecost experience. It’s a simple prayer if you’ve already invited Jesus Christ into your heart. “Lord Jesus, fill this person with your Spirit to be a powerful witness for you. Amen.”

The questions you need to answer today are “do I want to be filled more with God’s Spirit” and “why or why not?” Come and be filled…