Stretch: Pentecost

Acts 2:1-21

“Pentecost”

During Pentecost, the Holy Spirit falls on the disciples. But the breath of the Spirit was given to the disciples even as they hid in fear in the upper room. Sometimes the Spirit helps us to survive tragedy. If we continue in our faith, we will find that Spirit also calls us out into the world.

If we are serious about walking the path of Christ, we will be stretched.

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SPEAKER_00 0:02

Trinity.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Sunday, May 24th, 2026, Pentecost. Our primary scripture today is Acts 2, 1 through 21. At 16, I stood awestruck on the edge of a cornfield, glittering with fireflies so thick in the air, I could not tell where they ended, and the stars began. And in that moment, I realized God loved the cornfield and God loved the fireflies. And God loved the stars, and God loved me. The moment was wholly unexpected. I wasn't looking for anything. I wasn't on anything. And so what if I was? I was a naive 16-year-old girl minding my own business. Yet the moment was so powerful and so utterly beyond words that it shifted something inside of me. God is love. Powerful, pervasive, and present in every moment. And that moment with the fireflies invited me to think again. It reframed my ordinary life into something jewel-like, something as glittering and expansive in the eyes of God as any galaxy. And anyone driving by that cornfield would have just seen a kid looking at fireflies. And anyone asking what that moment meant would have just been told, God loves us, like I was taught in Sunday school. And here I was having my world reconfigured in ways it would take decades to unpack. If we choose to be open to the divine, to the numinous and transcendent, it will stretch us. No joke. Last week on Ascension Sunday, we recalled the risen Christ ascending from earth, transforming the disciples' fear into joy. Next week on Trinity Sunday, we recall that God is not only a noun, but also a verb, not only a person who lived and died, but a pervasive and conscious presence, a movement of the soul. Today is Pentecost Sunday. It's 50 days after Easter, in the middle of three big Sundays. Three stories that stretch us. On Pentecost, we remember Acts 2, 1 through 21, where the disciples of Jesus became apostles. A disciple is a student. Discipulus is the Latin word for student. An apostle is a messenger. Apostolis is the Latin word for messenger. And you can hear post right in the center of that. An apostle is a messenger. An apostle is a messenger. On Pentecost we wear red to remind us of the Holy Spirit's tongues of fire that taught them to speak in ways that they could be understood, to learn new ways to share the good news. And the good news of Jesus is so very good. Think again and wrap your mind around this. The kingdom of heaven is right here. Everyone, even you, is a child of God, loved beyond measure and without regret. Live in these truths, loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself, and your entire life will be made new. What has been discarded will be salvaged. What has been lost will be found. It is an incredible promise.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

And it's true.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Again, our primary reading is from Acts. Acts or Acts of the Apostles is the story of the early church. It's written by the same person who wrote the Gospel of Luke. Some scholars call it Luke 2. It's a sequel. Acts is chalked full of the Holy Spirit. It's everywhere in Acts, transforming hearts, empowering, equipping, dispersing, and directing people. For Luke, a Greek-speaking Gentile, Jesus is the savior of the entire world, not just the Jewish world. Luke presents Jesus in the mode of a classic Greek hero. And in Acts, the adventure continues for the apostles. So it makes sense that Luke shares this detail of all the apostles being equipped by the Holy Spirit for this work of sharing the good news with everybody. The setting of Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost is theologically significant. At the time of Jesus, Jewish people from around the world would be in town for Shavat or the Feast of Weeks, seven weeks after Passover. And Pentecost is just a Greek word meaning 50th. It comes 50 days after Easter. Passover, when Jesus was executed, celebrates the Jewish freedom from slavery. Shavat, or Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descends on the students of Jesus, follows seven weeks after Easter. Shavat celebrates receiving of the Torah, the law, which gave structure and purpose to the freedom that followed slavery. Jesus' execution and resurrection on Easter are linked to Passover and the promise of freedom from slavery under the law. The Holy Spirit and tongues of fire of Pentecost are linked to Shavat, which promises purpose and structure to live well outside of that enslavement. So the timing of this story in Acts is theologically significant. This story is also scripturally significant. The day of Pentecost described in today's reading is a potent fulfillment of prophecy. Explicitly it fulfills Joel, but it is also the promises of Ezekiel made real. Here's Ezekiel 36, 26. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you, and I will remove from your body the heart of stone, and give you a heart of flesh. We also have the explicit reference to Joel. The book of Joel begins with a description of an ecological disaster, and then afterward, the day of the Lord. Joel 2, 28 and 29 says, Then afterward, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophecy. Your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions, even on the male and female slaves. In those days I will pour out my spirit. Luke, the writer of Acts, has bound the hero's tale of Jesus of Nazareth to the story of the Jewish people and done so in a place and time of theological significance with details of scriptural fulfillment. That's some heavy lifting he's doing here in Acts 2. And if we look at the bigger picture and just step back, Luke has created this compelling trilogy. He's taken Genesis with tales of a beginning of a creator, and then created the other two pieces of that trilogy. The Gospel of Luke, which tells of the Christ, and Acts of the Apostles, which tells of the commissioning Holy Spirit. When I think about this scene in Acts, I am reminded of my fireflies. Acts 2, 1 through 20 tells us there was a violent wind and divided tongues as of fire. And suddenly the disciples could be understood by others. Or at least they could be understood by some of the people around them. This scripture also tells us that some people wondered if the disciples were drunk. And Peter's like, oh no, no, man, it's only nine in the morning. As if time is some sort of impediment to drunkenness. And I wonder if maybe this incredible moment was not fully visible to people just walking by because it was largely an internal transformation. Perhaps the disciples experienced a transformation of their hearts that took a lifetime to unpack. Other people just thought there was a gust of wind. And then some people started acting like weirdos. Maybe they were drunk. Last week, recalling the disciples' movement from fear to gratitude and joy, I invited you to stretch out bravely, in some small way, reaching after joy. Today I invite you to open yourself to the movement of the Holy Spirit, to allow your heart of stone to be turned into a heart of flesh. Maybe just a little bit. To call a friend, to share a meal, to stop and immerse yourself in the beauty of a field under the stars. This week I encourage you to look for small invitations and to know God is near.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

Amen.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

Trinity. This has been a production of Trinity United Methodist Church, located at 511 Oak Street in Calusa, California. Visit us online at Calusaumc.org. Rights retained by original copyright holders, all other rights reserved.