(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on June 9, 2019, Pentecost)
“New” Wine
Today’s scripture offers an
excellent example of what it means to read the Bible as literature. As you may know, I had the opportunity
to teach a course this past semester called “The Bible as Literature.” Naturally some folks have the concern
that to read the Bible as literature means to disregard its religious
value. But I would vigorously
argue the contrary. To read the
Bible as literature means to believe that every word, every letter, every jot
and tittle means something. Great
literature does not result from someone sitting down and just writing whatever
passes across the surface of his mind.
Dostoevsky didn’t just open a notebook and scribble down his thoughts to
give us Crime and Punishment. Great literature is an inexpressible
mixture of heartfelt experience and patient reflection and deliberate design
and getting the words just right. Every
word means something.
The hinge on which rests my
interpretation of today’s scripture, is a single word: “new.” When the Holy Spirit fills the gathered
followers of Jesus and they began to speak in the languages of other peoples,
some of the passers-by sneer and say, “They are filled with new wine” (Acts
2:13). “New wine.” In a casual
reading, we might pass over this word without a second thought. But if we take a closer look, the word
“new” becomes rather puzzling.
It’s an unnecessary addition. It would have made more sense for the cynical onlookers to
say simply, “They are filled with wine.”
After all, they’re only attributing the spectacle to alcohol—not to a
particular vintage.
But if we’re reading the Bible as
literature, then this word “new” is significant. It’s a clue to a deeper meaning. It’s evidence that there’s more going on here. If we flip back through the pages of
this story, all the way back into the prequel to Acts, which is the gospel of
Luke, we discover that the words “new wine” have already appeared once
before. When the religious
authorities become upset with Jesus’ apparent disregard for some of their traditions
and practices, he tells them a short parable: “No one,” he says, “puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise
the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled” (Luke 5:37).
In other words, your old way of
doing things is bursting at the seams. Because what God is doing now is new. It cannot be contained by the old way.
Of Wind and Fire
So in today’s scripture when the
cynical onlookers sneer and say, “They are filled with new wine,” we as readers
know that the joke is on them.
These followers of Christ are
filled with new wine—which is to say, they are filled with the Holy Spirit,
which is continuing the wineskin-bursting work of Christ, a work that is
bursting the seams of the old world.
According to Luke, the event of
Pentecost begins with “wind,” a word which harkens back to the very beginning
of the Bible, when “a wind from God [sweeps] over the face of the waters” (Gen
1:2). It’s almost as if Luke is
saying that the Holy Spirit is kicking off a new creation, a new world.
Luke talks not only about “wind”
but also about “fire.” The
Christ-followers’ conversation, their confabulation, is in fact a conflagration. According to Luke, their words—spoken
in every language under the sun—are like a fire. It is a suggestive comparison. In English, we might say of the Christ-followers who
received the Holy Spirit that they were given a fire in their bellies.
They couldn’t not proclaim the
good news about God. We might say
that their words spread like wildfire,
that nothing could douse the Spirit, that nothing could contain it.
As Jesus said, it’s like new wine
in old wineskins.
Change by the Language of the People
What I take away from this
passage are three simple points.
(This is the first time in four years I’ve preached a three-point
sermon, so if that’s your kind of thing—savor this moment!) First, the Holy Spirit is a spirit of
change. It is like new wine in an
old wineskin, like the world being recreated, like a fire that cannot be
contained. Whatever else it is,
the Holy Spirit is a spirit of change.
Second, the power of the Holy Spirit is the power of the spoken
word. Speech is its currency. Stories are its business. Third, the Holy Spirit speaks the
language of the people. Everyone
who has traveled to Jerusalem hears stories of God spoken in their own
language.
The Holy Spirit is a spirit of
change. Conversation is its
currency. And it speaks the
language of the people.
Today’s passage is little bit
like a microcosm of the rest of the book.
The Holy Spirit spreads like wildfire and changes the world because old
folks who dream dreams and young men who see visions and daughters who have a
holy intuition of things do not keep quiet but speak. The book of Acts is basically one conversation after
another. Peter has a vision and
then shares his story. Paul sees a
blinding light and hears the voice of Jesus and cannot stop talking about it in
synagogues and marketplaces. To
the Jews, he speaks with reference to their scripture. To the Greeks, he speaks with reference
to their philosophy and their poets.
Which is all to say, he speaks the language of the people. (We see this, of course, in Jesus too,
who spoke fish to fishermen, sheep to shepherds, and bookish theology to bookish
theologians.[1])
Pentecost Today
After worship today, you are
invited to stay at church a little bit longer and to join us in the fellowship
hall for a congregational gathering where we will begin a conversation of
planning for Gayton Road’s future.
There is no better day for us to begin this conversation than
Pentecost.
We will be talking about
change. Pentecost reminds us that
change is in our religious DNA. To
be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be part of change. The early church, which was originally
Jewish, changed dramatically: it relinquished certain ritual practices, like
dietary laws and circumcision; it opened its doors to newcomers who did not
share its heritage; and it gathered not at established meeting houses but inside
individual homes and in open spaces, like beside a river.
Any change that happens here will
only happen through conversation.
Pentecost reminds us that it has always been the spoken word through
which the Holy Spirit moves. The
church began with a bold group of followers who shared their stories. And their mode of conversation is
instructive: they proposed instead of
imposed, which is to say, they left
room for the Spirit and waited for the unity of the Spirit. The church has never had an exhaustive
blueprint from God. Rather its
life is like a journey, never seeing more than a step ahead where the Spirit is
leading. And the Spirit leads
through honest, heartfelt conversation.
And the third point, for those of
you keeping score, is that the Holy Spirit speaks the language of the
people. Which is perhaps another
of way of saying that God meets people where they are. The truth today is that people are
leaving church—whether for reasons of disenchantment, or scheduling conflicts
with sports and employment, or simply indifference. It’s tempting for the church to bristle defensively at the
droves who are departing. But I
wonder if this isn’t part of a larger movement, part of a greater change, part
of the Spirit working in our world in a grand way that we cannot yet see. Maybe the church has spent so much time
trying to preserve its institution, that it no longer is meeting people where
they are. I wonder if this moment
in history isn’t an invitation for the church to reflect on its calling. After all, the church is not called to
preserve the church, but to serve the world and to spread the Spirit that’s
like a fire in our bellies.
To clarify, serving the world
does not necessarily mean giving people just what they want, whether that’s a
grand show on Sunday or the promise of instant happiness or a network of
connections that will oil their personal advancement in society. There are plenty of churches out there
whose “outreach” has little to do with the spread of the Spirit but a lot to do
with attracting new members and securing its coffers and growing as an
institution. If the book of Acts
is any indication, serving the world means going into places of need and
sharing the hope we have. When I
look at the church in the book of Acts, it looks less like a worship service on
Sunday and more like what we do when we visit the hospital with teddy bears and
furry friends, when we break bread with the memory care residents across the
street, when we gather around a table ourselves to share and marvel at sacred
stories from scripture and from our own lives. I wonder if practices as simple as these are how the Holy
Spirit is meeting people where they are today.
I hope you’ll join us after
worship today. I hope we will all be
open to the Spirit of change in our midst, to the conversation through which it
moves, and to new ways of following a timeless calling.
Prayer
Holy Spirit,
Rush upon us
With the energy
Of a new creation;
Inspire us
With contagious and uncontainable
Dreams and visions;
Put a fire in our bellies
To share our honest stories
And your good news;
Change us
According to your will.
In the name of Christ,
Whose new wine fills us: Amen.
[1] Christena
Cleveland, Disunity in Christ: Uncovering
the Hidden Forces That Keep Us Apart (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2013),
20-22.
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