Acts 2:1-17; June 8, 2025; Day of Pentecost
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Cassie read for us the first the eleven verses of Acts 2, the next several go like this: “All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.” But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning…” (Acts 2:12-15).
Which is kind of funny as a defense, but even more so, enlightening. Rather than creating confusion, slurred speech, and disorientation, this “new wine” brought clarity! For remember, even though these people were speaking in languages completely foreign to them, they yet understood each other (Acts 2:4,6).
Well, I don’t know about you, but I want some of this new wine today. No more chardonnay, cabernet, or God forbid, merlot. No, I want this new one. This spiritual blend. This new wine that brings all people, all nations, and all flesh together, under one common understanding.
But before we go any further on that good and important message today, let me take a minute to address how this “new wine” comment was lobbed from others in the crowd — the peanut gallery, as it were.
For instead of meaning it to be funny, these others meant it to be cruel.
“All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.” (Acts 2:12-13).
Yeah, they sneered, and they were being cruel all right. For they were ready to dismiss and indict these new would-be believers as drunkards, as morally and socially irresponsible.
More, they were ready to mock and deride them not because they spoke in their own tongues, but because they began to understand each other in a new language. A new vocabulary, that was not rooted in ignorance, nor mere tolerance, but rather, marked by recognition and acceptance.
And instead of joining in the celebration of that Spiritual gift – of recognition and acceptance – these others in the crowd attempted to make fun of them and bully them for it.
And bullying, my friends, is one of the worst sins (if you ask me) and is rarely ever a victimless crime. For it dehumanizes and makes people feel small. Alone. As if their spirit-filled gifts are somehow wrong or questionable.
Just the other day I was reading this horrible story about Charlotte Fosgate, a teenager, who recently committed suicide because of the ridicule they faced for coming out as queer. As trans. Charlotte, a 17-year-old, went missing, and tragically, was found dead. And yet, some of the first comments I read from the crowd online said, “good” / “one less liberal” …and perhaps the grossest of all comments… “one more for the Bible.” As if, Jesus’ Gospel would ever celebrate the death of a child.
Like Peter, who raised his voice and reproached the crowd for their sneering, their bullying, so should we. And more, we should stand behind what the Spirit is doing, in our own midst, with this new wine, in its creative and affirming ways.
Our Scripture lesson, which continues in verses 16 and 17, says the following… “This is what was spoken through the prophet Joel: ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”
Notice how all genders, ages, and classes are included in this divine declaration. Not only the nations…Egyptians and Cretans, Parthians and Cappadocians… but all identities as well, for God declares “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.”
All flesh.
In God’s prophetic vision, all persons will come together and dream dreams. And more than that, all of our roles will be transmuted, such that even the inexperienced young will gain the wisdom of the old, and even the old will experience the wide-eyed wonder of the young.
And what a wonderful depiction that is especially for us older people… and yes, I am counting myself as old today, for I keep counting new grays! But truly, what a wonderful reminder it is that we can and should dream dreams! Remembering what it was like to be youthful and open-minded, engaging in a world that felt huge and full of wild and exciting possibilities.
Man, wouldn’t it be great to feel like that again? To taste and drink some new wine today? To be filled with awe and wonder and the desire to learn a new way and language.
Indeed, the best language of all…God’s language! Which sounds like a rushing wind abounding in love, and whose dynamic range is far greater than any of us peons could ever contain.
I mentioned this last week, that our dear friend Chip Rupert, God rest his soul, left me a book by the great Franciscan Priest, Richard Rohr. It’s called “Falling Upwards.” And in it, Rohr writes this: “If you accept a punitive notion of God, who punishes or even eternally tortures, then you have an absurd universe where most people on this earth end being more loving than God Himself!”
Read and hear that again.
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And the truth is, my friends, half a life ago I used to be in the camp that worshipped that version of a punitive God, and I quoted such verses like Leviticus 18:22, amongst other texts, while conveniently ignoring all of the surrounding verses and chapters. Yes, I used to be anti-gay simply because that’s what others told me to be, and how they said God was because of these select verses.
But then one day, a Minister asked me if I had actually read and studied the chapters and verses from which I was quoting, or any of the Gospels for that matter from which I was supposedly professing my faith. And the truth is, I really hadn’t. I was just bandying about controversial verses for my own sneering sense of self-righteousness, my bullying ego, in short, my sin.
For if I had actually read scripture, and took all those select verses and those around them equally seriously, I also wouldn’t have allowed myself to wear a shirt made from intertwined fabric, nor would I have had long sideburns, nor would I have been on a date eating pork with my then girlfriend who had just wore earrings to church while on her period. Because all those things are listed as being affronts to God as well.
So, if I had cared about those select verses as much as I did that from Leviticus 18, I would have looked in the mirror and saw a hypocrite. But I didn’t. Because I didn’t want to. Because I didn’t want Peter raising his voice at me or anyone else questioning my sneering ways. No, I wanted to remain self-righteous and think myself better than the rest; than them, for being straight.
But good news, my friends, that Minister got to me, and through God, worked on me, and soon after I began to see myself as the hypocrite, and I was so appalled that I began reading the Word for myself, word for word, in Greek and Hebrew, instead of just parroting the Word, verse by selected verse from the King James Version.
And, wouldn’t you know it, I began to quickly notice that there are far more verses emphasizing God’s love, and the wideness of Christ’s embrace, as opposed to the close-mindedness that so often runs unchecked in our supposed faith-based communities.
Just take this book in Acts for example. Especially with its testimony today to the surprising work of the Spirit… I began to see that even back then the Spirit was pushing God’s people, Jesus’ own chosen Apostles, far outside of their comfort box, so to be amazed at what God was doing beyond tradition. Beyond the law. Beyond anything previously considered normal or acceptable.
In women like Lydia, in gentiles like Cornellius, in Galileans and Mesopotamians, and all these wonderful people in our text today who spoke in different tongues and heard the harmony of God’s inclusive vocabulary, I saw a God who was large and radically accepting, rather than a God who was small, petty, and awfully limiting.
And aren’t we so thankful that God is the former, and that in our text, Peter condemned the crowd for thinking the latter?
Just imagine if this world today had more Peters in it! And a more common and understood language where all of God’s children were defined as divine offspring.
I dare say, we’d be living in greater proximity to how Jesus would have wanted. How Jesus was expecting. And how Jesus is still commanding us to live as his followers today.
For lest we ever forget, lest someone ever try to convince you otherwise, Jesus was the man who went out to the outcast, who encouraged the marginalized, who showed love and hospitality to those deemed less than and unworthy of acceptance.
Jesus was the man who didn’t just tolerate others, but who listened to them. Who broke laws to help them on the Sabbath, and who told us not to judge the speck in another’s eye. But to examine the log lodged in our own soul.
And Jesus was and is the man who said here are two commandments, and on them rest the entirety of the law. Love God and love your neighbor.
Love your neighbor as yourself… which I might add, also comes from Leviticus. The chapter after, in 19 verse 18.
It’s love, my friends. It really is, and it is that simple and it’s the hallmark of what makes us Christians.
Though perhaps the problem is that those who don’t want to believe that, nor that it’s that easy, just don’t love themselves to begin with, rendering it impossible to love their neighbors anymore than they already don’t like themselves.
And Lord knows I didn’t like myself either when I was so hateful and judgmental, ridiculing others as being drunk on some new wine.
But Pentecost, my friends, is a day, the day, today, when we all have a chance to be restored. To be rejuvenated. To be corrected and reanimated by the wind and the fire and the breath of the Spirit.
Such that whoever we might be… young or old, he or she, they or them… all of us are invited to dream.
To dream dreams. To see visions. To prophesy. So that with the Spirit’s help, we can create a better world and a more loving society. Indeed, a Kingdom where, as Paul writes in his letter to the Galatians, “there is no longer any Jew or Greek; slave or free; male or female, for all of us are made one in Christ Jesus” our Lord (Gal 3:28).
Pray, so let it be.
Amen!
