One of the keys to understanding the story of Pentecost, and the whole book of Acts, actually, is to understand the context in which it was written down. While the story of Pentecost takes place fairly soon after Easter, it wasn’t actually written down for another fifty or sixty years, possibly even later. We know this because the Gospel of Luke, which was written before the book of Acts, but by the same person, makes reference to the Temple in Jerusalem being destroyed, and that happened in the year 70, so we know that the book of Acts, and the story of Pentecost, were written down after the year 70.
Which is critical for us to understand Pentecost. You see, when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans it was a big deal. In the year 70 CE, the Romans burnt the Temple to the ground and sacked the city of Jerusalem. The fire in the Temple was so intense that it melted all the gold inside, and everything around the Temple walls––the houses and shops that had been built up against the outside wall––was incinerated. It was like the Ft. McMurray fire. Only imagine that, instead of the orderly evacuation we saw in Ft. Mac, the people of Jerusalem, as they were fleeing, were being hacked to bits by the swords of the Roman soldiers. It must have seemed like the end of the world to the people of Jerusalem. The last days, as the prophet Joel wrote, with “blood, and fire, and smoky mist,” the sun “turned to darkness and the moon to blood.”
And when it was over, Jews all over the Mediterranean had to come to grips with what it meant for Judaism that the Temple in Jerusalem was gone and the Holy City devastated. The Temple was where the Spirit of God resided. It was the holiest place on all the earth, it was where every Jew could go and know they would be in the presence of God. The Temple was the life of Judaism and of the Jewish community. Just like we go to church on Christmas and Easter, faithful Jews, like Jesus and his disciples, would travel to the Temple for every major holiday and participate in the same rituals and worship that their parents had, and their grandparents, and that they thought one day their children and grandchildren would do. When they came together to worship at the Temple, they felt what it was to come together as the people of God, knowing that God was in their midst.
And then it was gone. Destroyed, with no hope of it being rebuilt because the Romans still had control of Jerusalem. This is the context in which the book of Acts was written down, and the Gospel of Luke, and likely all of the Gospels. Most of the Christian Scriptures were written by Jews who were struggling to understand: if God’s Spirit is in the Temple, and the Temple has been destroyed, where is God’s Spirit now? Is God still even with us? Has God abandoned us? How are we, as God’s children, going to continue?
These are questions that Christians in North America are now beginning to ask, particularly those in what we call the mainline denominations - Lutheran, Anglican, United. We, too, feel like the centre of our worship, where we have so deeply experienced God––the church, instead of the Temple––is being destroyed. It’s not happening in the same radical fashion––ours is a slow destruction rather than a quick one, but the effects are the same. People don’t go to church anymore, congregations are closing, you can’t assume that the person you’re talking to is a church-goer, fewer and fewer people celebrate Christmas and Easter in a religious way. The places where we worshipped, and our parents, and our grandparents; we can no longer assume that our children will worship in the same places, or that our grandchildren will, or our great-grandchildren. And so we ask the same questions as the Jews of the first century: If God’s Spirit is with us in the church, and the church is being destroyed, where is God’s Spirit now? Is God still even with us? Has God abandoned us? How are we going to continue?
And so we come to the story of Pentecost. In Jesus’ time, Pentecost was one of the major Jewish holidays, when all the Jews went to the Temple bearing the first fruits of the harvest. Remember, they’re in the Mediterranean, where harvest starts in spring, not in fall, like it does in Canada, where it snows in May. So on Pentecost, Jews from all over the known world would come to the Temple to worship God and be in the presence of God’s Spirit, asking for God to bless the rest of the harvest. And so, the writer of the book of Acts, who’s living in a time when there is no more Temple, must try to make sense of its destruction and still proclaim that God is blessing God’s people. He couldn’t accept that God had abandoned them, and so he was trying to find where God might be now. And he found it, in Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit wherever they were, and in the words of the prophet Joel. God was not restricted to the Temple, because God was amongst the people. God’s Spirit would now be found wherever the Jewish people gathered, whether they were inside Jerusalem or outside of it––especially if they were outside of it. In the story of Pentecost, the writer of Acts was proclaiming that God was still with the Jews, and more than that, God was doing wonderful new things out of the ashes of the old. God was sending God’s Spirit not to a building, but to people. To “all flesh.” The people of Israel, the children of God, no longer needed to mourn that the Temple was destroyed and that they could no longer worship in Jerusalem. They no longer needed to mourn the devastation of the centre of their faith because God was now among them. God had moved the centre of God’s presence from a building and an institution to people and to communities. God’s Spirit would now be present wherever God’s children were, which is to say, everywhere.
The story of Pentecost is a story for us, too. As we face the loss of the church and as denominations wither and die, as the places that we have come to associate with the presence of God disappear, we, too, are offered the story of Pentecost, and the reminder that God is not found in places, in buildings, or in denominations. God is found in people. God’s Spirit is found in individuals who bring new life to others. Peter proclaimed, “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.” God’s Spirit is poured out on our sons and our daughters, on our grandchildren and our grandchildren, no matter where they are. God’s Spirit is poured out on the young and the old. The church is dying, but God’s Spirit is flourishing in new and different ways.
If you want to see what this flourishing looks like, there’s no better place to look than in those areas the church calls chaplaincy. Hospital chaplains, campus chaplains, prison chaplains, nursing home chaplains, military chaplains. Chaplaincy operates on what we consider to be the margins of the church. Chaplains do all their work on the ground––they have no church buildings, they have no official congregations, they have no membership, no committees or church councils, they have no Sunday morning worship. But God’s Spirit is poured out on them and on those they minister to. In prisons, chaplains work with inmates using models of restorative justice. They help inmates work through restoring their relationships with those they’ve hurt, focusing on the love and restoration that God gives to us every day. There are no churches in prison, but the need to hear that God’s life is for all is so desperate there, and God’s Spirit is at work in a powerful and life-giving way on these margins. In hospitals and nursing homes, chaplains sit by the side of those who are ill or ailing. They help patients find God in the midst of the tubes and tests, and they proclaim that God’s Spirit is with the patient and their family, as they make difficult decisions about treatment. There are no churches in hospitals, but God’s Spirit is at work there. On the fields of war, military chaplains work with soldiers to help them reclaim their souls and believe that they are still children of God after all they’ve done. There are no churches on the battlefield, but God’s Spirit is burning brightly among people whom we would not recognize as God’s children, but whom God claims nevertheless.
The Christian church today is in a Pentecost moment. The centre of our worship experience is disappearing, but God is working hard on the margins of what we would consider religion. If you want to see and feel the fire of the Holy Spirit burning most brightly, look to the edges. Look to the edges, and past, of what the church considers “church.” Go to prisoners, to students, go to soldiers, go to the groups of people gathered together whom we would consider the least Christian. Go to the homeless, to addicts, to prostitutes, to atheists. Go to people who stay home on Sunday morning, to people who take their kids to soccer instead of church. We can sneer, and accuse these people of being “filled with new wine,” but there is where the Holy Spirit is working. There is where God is pouring out God’s Spirit. Not in the centre anymore. Not in the Temple. Not in the Church. If we pay attention to the story of Babel, it may even be that God tears down our very centres before they become our idols. We can hover over the ruins, and lament that the Temple has been destroyed. We can lament that the Church is dying. Or, we can move on to the places where we least expect God to be, where God is actually sending us, and look, and find that the Holy Spirit is most active and most alive there, and that outside of the Temple walls, and outside of the church walls, God is building a new community of children and prophets. New life is springing up out there, Christ’s resurrection is taking root out there, and there the Holy Spirit is burning brightly. Let us go and see! Thanks be to God. Amen.
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