(kai en to sumpleirousthai tein hemeran teis pentekostes hesan pantes homou epi to auto.)

The sentence is pretty idiomatic (much like the day we are celebrating itself) and doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when we translate it literally (that we will do tomorrow noon in our Learning Koiné Greek class, should you wish to come and enjoy the beauty of the language in which the Christian Scriptures were written) … but somewhat freely translated it goes like this:

And
on the day
the fiftieth day
the completion/fulfillment of the fiftieth day
(for the Greek Class, the word is aorist passive)
they (meaning the Apostles, whose ranks are now returned to 12, what with the replacement of the deceased Judas with Matthias ((remember last Sunday’s readings?)))
they were all
together
in one spot/place/setting …

Thus begins the story as it is told by the author of the Gospel of Luke who is also the author of the Acts of the Apostles, this written some 80 years after Jesus was born, and some 50 years after Jesus died.

The setting is Jerusalem and the faithful are gathering in Jerusalem for one of three pilgrimage festivals in Judaism (Pesach [Passover], Shavuot [Weeks], and Sukkot [Tabernacles or Booths or Shelters].

This pilgrimage festival is Shavuot and is called Weeks because it falls 50 days (seven weeks) after Passover.  The Greek word for that is Pentecost.  Yesterday (actually beginning Friday evening and lasting until last evening) was in Judaism, Shavuot (Pentecost).

So what was being celebrated in Jerusalem on Shavuot?  It was a time to celebrate the gathering in of the grain harvest.  In ancient times the grain harvest lasted seven weeks.

It also is connected to the “Counting of the Omer Offering” … again, in ancient times, the harvesting of barley grain during Passover and ending with the harvesting of wheat at Shavuot.

Counting the Omer means counting the 49 days from Passover until Shavuot.

(Does any of this sound familiar?  Yes, it’s true, we Christians took the tradition of the 49 days of the Omer from Passover until Shavuot (the 50^th day) and translated it into our 7 weeks, the 49 days of Easter,  that we count from Easter until Pentecost (the 50^th day).

But Shavuot, in ancient times, also became a time to celebrate the coming of the divine law (Torah) which God gave to Moses and the people from Mount Sinai.  Legend had it that on that occasion a flame came down from heaven and divided into 70 tongues of fire, one for each nation of the world.  All could understand, but only one nation promised to keep the Law, and that was Israel.

And therein lies the story that we read today as our story of Pentecost.

Oh yes … flamboyant.  That’s the other word I applied to our celebration today.

Flamboyant, not from a Greek word, but from the French (my other favourite language), and from Old French, if you will … flamboyer, meaning “to flame” or “to break into flame.”

It’s first and second meanings in English are:

-          to be characterized by waving curves suggesting flames.

-          marked by or given to strikingly elaborate or colorful display or behavior

It’s the whole “Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them (the Apostles), and a tongue rested on each of them.” 

Now the question is not: how did that happen?  Did it really take place?  Is this a verbatim narrative?  Wrong question …

The question is: do you see the connection between this Story that takes place among the earliest followers of Jesus and the tradition that the earliest followers of Jesus (being all Jews certainly) did indeed observe?

Tongues of fire … the flame from Sinai, in the giving of the Torah, now comes … in this flamboyant story by the great storyteller Luke … now comes to the Apostles.

And let’s not forget the wind … called in the language Luke used to write this story a pnoihs Biaias (pnoeis biaias) “a wind, a violent one” which two verses later becomes the pneumatos agiou (pneumatos hagiou) “Holy Spirit.”  The wind, breath, spirit that is so reminiscent of the ruach of Genesis … the breath of life that God breathes into humankind.

No 1^st Century person who was or who was becoming a follower of Jesus would miss the symbolism, the flamboyant symbolism of this tale … God’s fiery Spirit now fills the Apostolic Community and gives them the power of speaking the Good News … to all nations (that’s the whole business of Parthenians, Medes, and Elamites … it’s a list of most of the folks living in the area at that time).

No 1^st Century person who was or was becoming a follower of Jesus would miss the message so conveyed by the flamboyant symbolism … We who claim to follow Jesus are not just left with a nice memory, rather we have a promised presence. 

As the wonderful biblical scholar William Loader of Murdock University in Australia puts it, “That presence promises we stay in touch with the divine word, we learn to communicate in love, and we can celebrate being a community in true continuity with God’s people of all ages.”[1]

Pentecost = A Flamboyant Faith

Apostles … to all the nations, not just the ones they liked.

Audacity to get off their hands, get up from the pews and go into the world … the true place where God is to be worshiped … with deeds, acts … of love, mercy, justice, hope, compassion.   It’s the ACTS of the Apostles that we read, not the piety of the Apostles, the spirituality of the Apostles, the correct doctrine of the Apostles …

A flamboyant faith means to live the Gospel in every age, including this one!  We are flaming followers of Jesus …when we fill the food pantry, help out at St. E’s, knit or crochet prayer shawls, make food for the feast after services, welcome the stranger, invite others into the community (BTW not to convert them, but to love them), walk in the Pride Parade at the end of this month, open our hearts and minds to the possibilities of change for the repair of the world, and on and on and on … we have the audacity to gather together on a Sunday morning as if it means something, because in fact it does, and pray to God asking to become partners with God in Creation, in the healing of the nations, in the building up of the body, in the sharing of new life that is Easter, and Pentecost and every other day of the year.

I really wanted a spectacular finish to this Sermon today … but then I realized that to finish the Sermon would be to end it, put it into the computer file of things I’ve written and said, and be done with it.  That’s not the story of Pentecost … the Story of Pentecost is not the end, but the beginning, not the sitting back comfortable in our church pews or comfortable office chairs, but in the going forth on fire for the Gospel.  So, I think a prayer to get us going would be the appropriate finish (rather starting) of this Sermon.

Creator Spirit and Giver of life, make the dry, bleached bones of our lives live and breathe and grow again as you did of old. Pour out your Spirit upon the whole creation. Come in rushing wind and flashing fire to turn the sin and sorrow within us into faith, power and delight. Amen.