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| Introduction to Pentecost | Pentecost Sunday May 11, 2008 |
Pentecost is traditionally one of the three major holy days (“feast days”) of the Christian Year – the other two being Christmas Day and Easter Sunday. It’s title, “Pentecost”, simply means “fifty days”, as it occurs fifty days after Easter Sunday. Therefore, like Easter, it is also a “moveable feast”, not set, as is Christmas on a specific date. Another name for Pentecost is “Whitsunday” or “White Sunday” because it is traditionally a day for the baptizing of converts to Christianity who wear white robes. In reality, the color for Pentecost/Whitsunday is red, to symbolize fire and blood – the fiery descent of the Holy Spirit and the blood of martyrs.
The Christian feast of Pentecost is actually built upon the Jewish festival of the Feast of First Fruits (Deut. 16:9), which was also called “Pentecost” because the Feast of First Fruit comes fifty days after Passover! As the Christian Pentecost is one of the Church’s three most important festivals, so the Feast of First Fruits was one of ancient Israel’s three festivals.
The Feast of First Fruits (Deut. 16:9-12; Lev. 23:15-21) was to occur at the harvest of the spring wheat, seven weeks after its planting close to Passover. All were to gather at the Temple to make their offerings out of the abundance of their harvest and to thank God. After the offering was given at the Temple, the family was to gather for a celebratory meal.
But this meal was not for them alone. They were to invite to the meal “your male and female slaves, the Levites resident in your towns, the strangers, the orphans and the widows” with whom the family has a relationship in order to share your abundance with them. And why should each family share its abundance with the poor? “Remember that you were a slave in Egypt” (Dt. 16:12a); you were poor and powerless once yourself, so remember those who are now poor or powerless in your midst. Thus, the Feast of First Fruits was not only a religious holiday of thanksgiving, of celebration and of feasting; it was also a vehicle to reverse poverty and powerlessness in the community.
As the Jewish feast of First Fruits celebrated the liberation and empowerment of the nation’s poor, so the Christian feast of Pentecost is designed to celebrate the liberation and empowerment of God’s people through the gift of the Holy Spirit. Pentecost is popularly called the “Birthday of the Church” (even though the church was birthed at the resurrection of Jesus, and even though its origins lay in the congregation of ancient Israel). It is so called because on this day, the Holy Spirit fell upon the gathered followers of Jesus with “tongues of fire”, and the church was launched into its mission of bringing the good news of liberation and salvation through Jesus to the world (Acts 2:1-21).
Thus, Pentecost occupies a very strategic place in the Christian Year, for it stands between that half of the year that celebrates the coming of Jesus Christ and the second half of the year celebrating the creation and mission of the church. It concludes the church’s celebration of the advent, birth, life, ministry, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. And it introduces the observance of the “church militant”, as we rehearse and encourage ourselves from June through November of a church deeply engaged in the world, bringing good news in sign, deed and word of God’s work to transform the world into the world as God intended it to be!
Numbers 11:24-30 is a story of the selection of leaders of Israel, such selection being verified by the presence of the Spirit of God upon them. In being so presented, it bears intriguing similarity to the story of God’s anointed of Jesus’ disciples with the Holy Spirit that designates them as Jesus’ successor and imbues them with Jesus’ power (Acts 2:1-13).
The story begins with Moses’ complaint to God. “Why . . . do you lay the burden of all this people on me? I am not able to carry all the people alone, for they are too heavy for me. If this is the way you are going to treat me, put me to death at once and do not let me see my misery” (11:11b, 14-15).
Moses is feeling overwhelmed with the task of the leadership of Israel. The ceaseless quarrelling, debate and need for adjudication is proving too much for him to tolerate. Therefore, he complains to the Lord. And God says to Moses, “Gather for me seventy of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them; bring them to the tent of meeting, and have them take their place with you. I will come down and talk with you there; and I will take some of the spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people along with you so that you will not bear it all by yourself” (vss. 16-17).
God leads Moses to distribute his workload among seventy elders, so that each bears a responsibility for the governance of Israel, and yet no one is faced with an overwhelming expectation of work. But God does more than divide labor. He also gives to these elders “some of the spirit that is on you” so that they assume and carry out their new responsibilities, understanding that they all belong to the “family of God”
“So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord; and he gathered seventy elders of the people, and placed them all around the tent (of meeting). Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do so again” (vss. 24-25).
In this sequence, Moses chooses the seventy elders who will share both his work and authority. But it is God who confirms that choice by filling them with “some of the spirit that was on Moses”. This is a reference to the divine “spirit” or “wind” (Hebrew ruakh that is later referred to in Judges 3:10, II Kings 2:9-10 and Isaiah 42:1). This is a transferrable spirit, moving from one person to another (cf. II Kings 2:9-10). The evidence that any of those “called out” by God have been truly “called forth” is that they speak words of prophecy or ecstatic utterance (cf. I Sam. 10:10; 19:24). But, whereas in Acts, the filling of Jesus’ followers with the Spirit is permanent, in the Old Testament it is only temporary, occurring only to authenticate their Godly election as elders.
The story ends with the noting of two additional elders – Eldad and Medad – who later are called forth by God and are filled with the spirit, so that they, too, “are prophesying in the camp” (vs. 27). Joshua calls on Moses to stop them from such frightening action. But Moses responds, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them (all)” (vs. 29)! In other words, Joshua fears that such a display of ecstatic speech would undermine the authority of Moses. But instead, Moses wishes that all the former Hebrew slaves spoke in such ecstatic language because that would be an indication of their chosenness by God and their willingness to follow God, no matter how ridiculous such an action might seem. Moses, in other words, was open to the unpredictability of God, willing to move into any direction to which he felt called or which was indicated to him through God.
John 7:37-39 is the concluding statement by Jesus at the Festival of Booths (or Tabernacles). In John 7, Jesus is urged by “his brothers” not to go up to Jerusalem to participate in the Festival of Booths. But Jesus decides to go later in the festival, and to go incognito. However, he is recognized there, and consequently he ends up teaching in the Temple. His message is one about who he is, using the metaphor of water. He concludes his teaching by saying, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water’” (7:37-38). Then John concludes, “Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit because Jesus was not yet glorified” (vs. 39).
Israel celebrated three festivals each year: Passover, First-Fruits and Booths (or Tabernacles). Booths was a harvest festival, held at the close of the autumn of each year. It was normally called “the Feast of Ingathering” or “the Feast of the Lord” by early Israel (e.g., Exod. 23:16; 34:22; Lev. 23:39; Judg. 21:19; I Kings 8:2, 65; II Chr. 7:8; Neh. 8:14; Isa. 30:29; Ezek. 45:23, 25). But it became known as the festival of “Booths” or “Tabernacles” in order to commemorate the booths built by Israelite farmers in their fields at harvest time where they slept in order to protect their still-unharvested crops. In postexilic Israel, it also became associated with Israel’s liberation from Babylonian captivity. So the Festival of Booths was primarily a thanksgiving celebration for the bounty Israel had experienced from their harvest.
The requirement of the Mosaic Law was that each Jewish adult male was required to “appear before the Lord” (or, in other word, at the Temple in Jerusalem) at each of these festivals to make sacrifice to God and to leave an offering at the temple (Deut. 16:16). Therefore, it was appropriate that Jesus attend the Festival of Booths at its celebration. But therein lay the rub! The conflict between Jesus and the Judean political, economic and religious leaders was steadily accelerating. Therefore, it was imperative that Jesus select carefully his moments of confrontation with Israel’s leaders. Because of his earlier intervention during the feast of Passover (John 6), Jesus was considering not making an appearance at Booths. But, on the other hand, he was required by the Mosaic Law to be there. Consequently, Jesus decided to go near the close of the festival and incognito. But he was recognized, entered into an inevitable confrontation with the Judean leaders, and thus began teaching openly in the Temple!
As in his earlier appearance at the Feast of Passover where Jesus claimed himself as the bread of life (John 6:35-59) as distinct from the liturgically unleavened bread that symbolized Passover, so Jesus in the Feast of Booths claims himself as the living water of that festival (7:37-38). “Living water” – that is running or splashing water – was the element that symbolized Booths, as unleavened bread symbolized Passover. As an integral part of the celebration of Booths, the priest would pour “living water” onto the altar. Thus, by claiming himself as “living water”, Jesus is substituting himself for the efficacy of Booths just as he earlier substituted himself as the manna of Passover (cf. 4:10-14; 6:35).
Jesus is the means for Israel’s liberation from oppression and from sin, John is stating in this passage. He is the “living water”, from which those who believe in him may drink and be continuously refreshed. This suggestion on John’s part is outrageous enough. But then John takes a second outrageous step. He states as a quotation a compilation of a number of Hebrew Bible statements that connect God’s gift of water with the gift of the Holy Spirit (e.g., Isa. 12:3; 44:3; 58:11; Ezek. 36:25-27). “Out of the believers’ heart shall flow rivers of living water”, John summarizes scripture as saying (vs. 38).
To then drive home his point, John then comments, “Now Jesus said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit because Jesus was not yet glorified” (vs. 39). In other words, John is saying that although the Spirit made occasional appearance in the Hebrew Bible to ecstatically fill and speak through prophets, in the era after the “glorification” (or death and resurrection) of Jesus, God would make the Spirit manifest in all those who named Jesus as Lord, and that same Spirit would empower their actions and inspire their words in the more intimate relationship that God would have with believers through Jesus (Jn. 14:17; I Cor. 6:19). Thus, in Jesus, the Feast of Booths would reach its zenith and be completed through the baptism of Jesus’ followers by the Spirit and by water (Matt. 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 16:7; Eph. 4:8) that would empower them to become the champions of the poor, the powerless and the rejected throughout the world.
I Corinthians 12:3b-13 seeks to put spiritual gifts within a larger context of the work of the Holy Spirit. The basic principle is stated at the beginning of the passage: “No one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit” (vs. 3b). It is the Spirit who prompts our response to the gospel, our commitment to Jesus and our work to carry out the mission of the church. The initiative and the continuing power to live out the gospel come from God, not from our self-initiation. That is the underlying principle of this epistle lesson for this Pentecost day.
Paul focuses his examination of the work of the Spirit on the exercise of our spiritual gifts. He begins by stating, “There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone” (vss. 4-6). The word “varieties” is obviously key, repeated in all three statements. The Greek word means “dispersals” or “apportionments”. The idea Paul is stressing is that the spiritual gifts we claim and exercise have all been apportioned by God. God has looked at the church and what it needs in this specific place and at this specific time. Out of that discernment, therefore, God determines the gifts that a congregation needs to more effectively implement its ministry. He then elects those in that church body to exercise these strategic gifts, apportioning out those gifts. That means that no one gift is “better” or more “spiritual” than any other. Rather, God has simply arbitrarily decided which people should exercise designated gifts, with all the gifts needed for this moment in the life of that church being distributed so that those gifts might contribute to the building up of the life and witness of that church.
The varieties of spiritual apportionments fall into three categories: “gifts”, “services” and “activities”. The gifts are charismata (i.e., gifts bestowed by God; cf. 7:7; Rom. 12:6-8). The “services” are ministries that support and strengthen Christians (16:15). It is unclear what “activities” mean (it could be that Paul was simply seeking to continue his parallel construction, and therefore chose a synonym for “services”).
Everyone in the Church, Paul suggests, has been given a spiritual gift. No one gift is superior to another. But all gifts have been given for one reason, and one reason alone: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (vs. 7). The Greek translated “the common good” actually means “that which is helpful or advantageous” (cf. 6:12b; 7:35; 10:23b, 33). This statement was written by Paul, as was this entire passage, in order to confront certain attitudes within the Corinthian Church that were creating great grief and were tearing the church apart. Paul’s words are suggesting, first, that no one gift is superior to any other gift, but all are distributed and assigned by God to strengthen the church and enable it to more effectively carry out its mission. It is clear from both of Paul’s letters to the Corinthian Church that there were opposition parties in that church, each claiming to be the superior. As well, certain gifts were being extolled as superior, particularly the gift of tongues; Paul intends to dispel this notion.
Second, Paul’s statement of all gifts being assigned for the common good is designed to indicate that the spiritual gifts invested in us by God are not meant to enhance either our status within the Christian community nor our relationship with or even our service of God. All gifts are to contribute to the common good of the church. To use any gift for selfish purpose would be to destroy the whole intent of that gift, and invalidates it. Because there are different needs and situations in the church, God has given different gifts to address those needs.
Having presented the principles, Paul then moves on to list some of the gifts. The list is not meant to be exhaustive (see Rom. 12:6-8, where Paul’s list of gifts is quite different to what he lists here), but illustrative. The gifts he names as being of particular service to the Corinthian church at that moment are “utterance of wisdom” (that is, truth-telling), “utterance of knowledge” (that is, teaching truth), “faith”, “gifts of healing”, “working of miracles”, “prophecy” (that is both discerning the future and instructional speech; see 6:12; 7:35; 10:23, 33), “discernment of spirits” (that is, the gift of reflecting and weighing what others say, and then speaking to it; cf. 14:29), “tongues”, and finally, “interpretations of tongues”. It is significant that, if one of the problems the Church in Corinth faced was “spiritual one-upmanship” around the issue of whether one spoke in tongues or not, Paul places tongues and the interpretation of tongues at the end of the list; it is as if he is suggesting that speaking in tongues is not most important but is least important. That possibility is strengthened by his assertion that tongues should never be spoken in public or in worship unless there is someone there to interpret that tongue (14:9-11).
Paul then concludes his entire polemic regarding spiritual gifts with a definitive word. “All these (gifts that I have just listed and those I have not listed) are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and we were all made to drink of the one Spirit” (vss. 11-13).
It is not about you. It is about Christ. It is not about whom you are or the gifts you might have or the strategic place you hold in the church. That is all as nothing! It is about God, God’s formation of the church, God’s election of us, God’s call to us, God’s gifting of us, and God’s using of us. It is about a sovereign God, the unity we have been given through Christ, and the power invested in us by the Spirit. It is all about God! So step away from the center you never did occupy and accept your rightful place at the foot of the throne, there to worship and to be used by God as God determines, so that the Cross might be lifted high and all the world drawn to the One who is making all things new!
(Copyright by PIUT, 2008)