Acts 2:1-21; May 28, 2023; Pentecost Sunday
We are not alone.
These past several weeks, I’ve been quoting musicians and movies with such regularity, that you are probably right to assume that I will do so again. Maybe then someone should start a pool, seeing who can rightly guess the pop-culture reference each week. Who knows? Might be an easy way to make up the slight gap in our capital campaign fundraising. I’m just joking. Or maybe not… But thanks again to all who contributed – we really are off to a great, great start!
But let’s just say for a moment that pool did exist… I wonder if perhaps the best odds this week would be given to say, Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” — which used the phrase “we are not alone” as it’s tagline, referring to the likelihood of co-existing with aliens in our universe.
Or maybe the leading candidate would be Karla Devito’s hit song “We Are Not Alone” from the 1985 movie classic, The Breakfast Club. After all, I did mention another 80’s classic last week in Ferris Buehler. Funny sidebar, if you YouTube Devito’s song, the top-rated comment you’ll read is from five years ago saying: “Don’t worry guys, 62 years until the 80’s happen again.”
But you see, I love underdogs and longshots. So, the “we are not alone” quote that I actually had in mind for today is from — drumroll please — the great and profound television show called, “LOST.” Oh yes, I love LOST. I’ve seen it like four times from start to finish. It changed the game and did so while on network TV, what with like 24-episode seasons. A huge feat for Hollywood writers, may their strike be blessed.
But anyway, there’s this scene in LOST when one of the main characters, Sayid, comes limping out of the jungle and grabs a hold of Jack, exclaiming “we are not alone.” That “others” – in this case, a crazy, unintelligible French woman — do in fact exist on the island they crash-landed on.
Now, you might be thinking, pause, where are we going with this? Is Brian filled with new wine, drunk prematurely on this holiday weekend? No, no, my friends, it’s only 9, I mean 11 in the morning, of course not!
Speaking of which…
It’s interesting that our scripture doesn’t just say “wine” but wonders aloud if these folks were drunk on “new wine.” Now, perhaps that’s because newer wine was/is thought to be more potent, but I also think Luke, the author of Acts, is 1) referencing Jesus and his gospel parable on new wine and old wine skins; and 2) making a literary point, signaling that something new and more potent and exciting is taking place with the Spirit’s help. So don’t be stuck in your old ways.
Verse 1 begins, “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.” All together in one place. But, why were they together, in this place, in the first place??
See, by the time that Luke was writing Acts, the “Feast of Weeks” (as referenced in Leviticus 23:15-21) was still well and widely celebrated. Jews, who had been dispersed, would count 50-days (hence, “Pentecost”) from the day of Passover, and would gather in Jerusalem to present grain offerings to the Lord; for it was written: “On that day you shall make proclamation; you shall hold a holy convocation, and not work at your occupation (Leviticus 23:21).” … The Bible the first-known-work of Hip-hop.
So, anyway at this Feast, not only were offerings made, but a quiet rest was to be observed, and a commemoration of the Torah celebrated. Quiet rest; commemoration of Torah… Just imagine the scene then, during this memorialization of law and sabbath, when both were disrupted by a sudden cacophony of loud chanting and what sounded like a communal hymn sung in a foreign tongue.
Imagine your phone’s alarm clock for instance — instead of a subtle vibration just slowly pulsing next to you, it would be like your spouse secretly putting headphones on your ears, and then playing a screaming, out-of-tune, multi-lingual rendition of “We are the World.” Like waking up feeling hungover on new wine, right?
“And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language (Acts 2:6-8)?”
After these verses, Luke rattles off a list of all the peoples who were borrowing and sharing these languages. Romans, Cretans, Egyptians, Arabs. And the list of the nations he gives geographically flows from east to west; as if to say the Spirit’s movement was and is cast as WIDE as the whole known world! The Spirit then is not just here, locally centered, in their own little bubbles or our own privatized HOA’s, but everywhere! Everywhere where the Spirit can blow, and play a new song, it will!
So, hear the good news, we are not alone. We alone don’t receive the Spirit. We alone don’t own and proclaim the Spirit. But, in this place, in this world, we together, with others, intelligibly and unintelligibly, equally receive the Spirit. Across faiths. Across traditions. Across genders, ages, and nations. Across everything, in all wonderful strangeness, newness, and diversity, we together, in this God-given place receive the same Spirit. And thanks be to God for that, for it is way more exciting and potent that way. Isn’t it?
I have a friend, a black, queer, preacher friend who recently posted on their Facebook wall, that churches who say that they are about love and diversity, but only speak in terms of “in spite of” or “regardless of” (like, we love you regardless of you being that way, or in spite of you being way…), might*be well-intentioned, but are yet wrongly emphasized. For if we are to actually love and celebrate people in their differences and diversity, then we should love and celebrate them because of their differences instead of in spite of them.
And I think they make a great point. For remember what we read last week in scripture: in each of us, the Spirit abides, and in those differences, the Spirit has been at work, and has painted in color.
And I think that’s in large part what Pentecost today is about. Painting in color and being joyfully inspired by the multiplicity of our attributes. For in them, and because of them, and not in spite of them, is it possible to find a greater human connection, and a more eloquent and educated tongue, speaking in a more nuanced language than any we alone could learn and master on our own.
The French Woman in the show LOST, who was originally considered crazy and unintelligible, turns out, in her differences, to be just like everyone else: stranded, confronted by grief and sickness, natively human through and through. But the only way the group learns that is by Sayid first listening to her, talking to her, asking her questions, and finding that out. And in doing so, his own life and perspective is put into focus, and he is able to learn something new.
We are not alone. So, let’s not pretend to be. Instead, let us listen to each other. Let us talk to each other. Let us learn about each other and then be amazed by the ways the Spirit has individually and distinctively inspired each other, both in and out of this place.
Let us not make the fatal mistake of plugging our ears and closing our eyes to what the Spirit is creatively up to. Saying sorry, I don’t like that song, for the only tune I enjoy is the one I already know.
No, no, no, no, no…. let us instead be open to the Spirit’s exciting work happening here and around us; “in the young who see visions, and, in the old who dream dreams (Acts 2:17).” Let us think outside the box, for out of this box the Spirit both flows and moves.
So, my friends, don’t be afraid of some change. Don’t be afraid of some growth and learning a strange song. And by God, don’t cast others as drunk or naïve merely because they are thinking in new ways with fresh ideas in a different tongue.
But share yourself with others, co-existing and experiencing them in their universe, getting to know how the Spirit is dwelling, and moving, well within their beings.
Amen.
