Acts 2 : 1-21 Sermon We are told that when Peter and the others started to preach on the day of Pentecost - the crowd gathered and was bewildered. They listened to the disciples preaching and they were perplexed. Well I suspect that many a sermon has had similar effects ever since! On that occasion however the people were not bewildered because they couldn t understand what the preacher was taking about. Quite the opposite. They were bewildered because they could understand! That might sound like a rather odd statement, except of course that they did not expect to understand. There was no reason why they should. This crowd came from different places. The writer of this story seems very keen to make sure that we understand that. They came from many different places with enough different names to give those who read the passage in church a serious challenge of pronunciation! The obvious implication is that they spoke different languages, with different accents. But it also implies that they came from different cultures, with different ways of thinking, different things that they were anxious about, different hopes and expectations. They were all Jewish, or at least sympathetic to the faith, but this was about as international and multicultural a crowd as it would have been possible to gather at that time. That fact is central to the story, which is why we are told that they were from every nation under heaven. Once we know that, will understand why it was so noteworthy that each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.. They heard, not as some of us still hear French, catching most of the words as long as they are said slowly and clearly. They heard naturally and easily, as if they were at home chatting to old friends. That is why they were bewildered and perplexed. So what was it that they heard? We are told what Peter said in that sermon. When he raised his voice and addressed them, he spoke about the promise of the prophet Joel that one day God would pour out his spirit on all his people and how that was now being fulfilled among them. He went
on to summarise the life of Jesus, quoting from the psalms as proof that he was the Son of God. He condemned their society as corrupt and called on them to repent and be baptised.
That is what the preacher said. The point of the story is not that the message was unusually powerful or articulate. That claim is never made. The point is that each one heard the message in a way that made sense to them. Each person heard a message as in their mother tongue. Each person in that diverse group heard something which spoke to them directly and personally in words which seemed to go straight to their hearts. What sort of strange miracle was this? The preacher speaks in one language and each person in the crowd hears something different! You know those of us who practice the art of preaching may not find that as surprising as you think. I ve often had people telling me about the message they have heard me preach and what it meant to them, and I've gone away wondering if it was really my church that they were in. Sometimes that is because I can t believe I really said anything as profound and wise as they claim that I said. But more often it is because I don t agree with what they claim I said and can t believe that I would come out with such nonsense. Sometimes it does seem to the preacher as though he or she is speaking one language and the congregation are hearing something completely different. That may sound like a frivolous thing to say in the context of so great a story, but I don t mean it that way. On a purely human level people hear what they are prepared to hear, and not necessarily what they are told. I'm sure that school teachers will bear witness to that! So there is another part of this story which I would love to read. I would love to read the result of a survey of the crowd that day, where they were asked what they thought of the sermon. Usually when questions like that are asked it is in terms of how do we judge the sermon: was it too long or too short, enough humour or not enough humour, biblical or not sufficiently biblical, too academic or too simplistic... Those questions may be useful in some ways, but if we listen to any preaching with a sense of judging how good it is, it is never likely to speak to our hearts. Can you imagine what would have happened if those who heard Martin Luther King Jr pouring out his heart describing his great
dream of a unified nation, had left saying it was not bad but I think he could have used more illustrations! If we speak about the preaching rather than letting the preaching speak to us, it is not going to carry much power. The questions I would like to see the answers to from those Pentecost surveys are questions like: what was the message that you heard this morning? What did it mean to you? What has changed for you as a result of hearing it? I suspect that the answers would have been rich and diverse. For what people hear does not always bear much connection with what was said. Seriously, I'm not too concerned if people hear things which I didn't think I said. Preaching is not the same as lecturing. If it is going to be effective it requires that members of the congregation hear something which speaks to their hearts, something which is meaningful to them in their situation at that moment, something which changes them as a result of hearing it. I'm afraid I am not capable of doing all the calculations which would be required to find a message and a form of words to make that happen, especially in a diverse congregation like this one. I'm afraid that is just not humanly possible. That's the point. It is not humanly possible yet I know that it does happen. I know that at least some times, at least for some people, what is heard is a message which speaks to the heart and is understood, and brings about change. When that happens, I can only believe that there is something of the holy spirit about it. This is what our church tradition has always taught. Our man John Calvin talked of the bible as the word of God, but he was clear that it becomes the word of God to us when the Holy Spirit brings it to life for us: until our minds become intent upon the Spirit, Christ, so to speak, lies idle because we coldly contemplate him as outside ourselves indeed, far from us. It doesn't matter, at least not as much as we often think, how well the message is put together. It matters more than we often understand, that we come ready to listen, come with a sense of holy expectancy, not to hear the words of the preacher, but to hear what God may be saying to us through
the words of the preacher, what the spirit may be whispering to us in the language of our hearts. That I believe is what we see happening in the story of Pentecost. That is what is so significant and important that it gets told in so much detail right at the start of the story. That in a crowd from every nation under heaven with all its diversity of language and diversity of need, each person heard a message which spoke to their situation, their culture, their needs. I believe that the gospel always has the power to do that. Whether we are in the heart of Geneva, or a hospital in Nepal, or a village in Malawi, some things are always true. People are searching for an identity and a purpose. People are longing to know that they are loved. People are seeking some hope for the future. People are looking for a better way to live together. And all of us, all of us, need to find ways to deal with our hurt and our regret, with our shame and our guilt. So whenever we tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love, of his death and his resurrection and his promise, there is something which can speak to the deepest parts of our society, of our culture, of our personal lives. And sometimes, just sometimes, something holy spirit seems to present, and we hear it as if it were spoken only to us, in words that we understand clearly, in the language of our hearts. Sometimes, just sometimes, the human ability to proclaim a message and the human ability to hear a message, will be superseded by something greater, and the world starts to change. That is what the bible claims can happen, and that is what we see happening still. When God sends his Spirit chaos is changed into creation the Red Sea opens up to a highway of freedom. When God sends the Spirit: A young woman says "Yes". Jesus is born and life is never the same. When God sends his Spirit barriers are broken, communities are formed, disease is cured, addiction is broken, races are reconciled, hope is established, people are blessed, and church happens.
It is not humanly possible, but still we believe that with God, all things are possible. May it be so among us.