Pentecost- Rev. Wendy McCormick
Pentecost Rev Wendy McCormick
May 19, 2024
Acts 2:1-21
Numbers 11:24-30
Many years ago, while I was still a student, I was invited to preach for the first time. It was on Pentecost Sunday in my home church, and I preached about Pentecost. My grandmother came to town for the occasion. Perhaps I should not have been surprised that my sweet church-going grandmother, a life-long congregationalist, had never heard of Pentecost. Churches like hers, churches like this one, had only recently been celebrating these events of the church year. My grandmother asked me if what I had been preaching about was like the Pentecostals who used to have wild camp meetings on the edge of town when she was a girl. I said no, but I don’t really know.
The church festival of Pentecost, 50 days after Easter, is more familiar now as we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit and the inauguration of the church. We call this holiday the birthday of the church because it is the day the promised Holy Spirit arrived, inaugurating a community like the world had never seen. A community that continues to this day, a community of which you and I are a part. Happy Birthday, Church!
The story we read each year from Acts tells of a wild and chaotic day in Jerusalem day – a mighty wind, tongues of fire, people from all over the world all speaking at once in their own languages, telling the greatness of God. Bystanders and passers-by shook their heads and said, ‘look at those drunken fools.’ Not surprising, really. It was wild. My grandmother was right. It’s not the way you and I do church.
The story from Numbers is less familiar and a little different. It’s a story of transition -- God’s people are moving from their familiar old life in Egypt through the wilderness to a promised new life in Israel. Their journey is sometimes called a march. It is organized and purposeful. Even if the direction is unclear, the leadership is very clear. Moses is in charge.
This little story comes at a moment when people are not just discouraged. They’re fed up. And they are complaining a lot. Moses has tried his best, but he’s pretty much done. He has just told God that he can’t do it anymore. In fact, he has begged God to take his life rather than continue to burden him with leadership.
As one commentator put it, Moses is experiencing extreme leadership burnout. No kidding.
We’ve probably all seen leaders get burned out. Some of us have perhaps been burned out leaders at one time or another. The combination of too much responsibility, too little control, not enough help and way too much criticism.
Moses is in such bad shape he doesn’t just want to quit. He wants to die.
Church sociologist Josh Packard wrote a book about church leaders he calls the “dones” – these are the folks who did everything in their local church -- the ones who got called on for everything and volunteered tirelessly. Until they didn’t. Until they walked away. Not just from leadership but from church. Packard found a whole category of people once very active but now no longer in church. They did not give up their faith, but they gave up church. I hear about them from time to time in this church --- I run across a name of someone I haven’t met, and I ask about them and I hear, “oh, yes, they used to be really, really involved, but they don’t come anymore.” The dones. Maybe they didn’t know how to do less. Maybe they didn’t know how to replenish themselves. Maybe they didn’t know how to reconnect with God. They’re done.
Moses was done with all of it. He told God he would rather be dead than continue in leadership. God hears and God responds. God directs Moses to gather 70 elders, 70 leaders from among the people. And then God will take the some of the spirit – that is, the authority and the leadership burden – from Moses’ shoulders and divide it 70 ways.
For every leader who has ever said, “I’ll just have to do it myself,” for everyone who has ever said, “what can you do -- 20% of the people have to do 80% of the work – that’s just the way it is.”
For all of you, for all of us, this is our story. It’s not supposed to be like that. God empowers 70 new leaders, and they begin to prophesy – they begin to lead. It’s a really good thing. Moses asks for help and gets it. And it’s all organized, the spirit divides 70 ways, the elders are empowered, and the work is delegated.
But then something else happens. Joshua hurries to let Moses know about an extreme irregularity. Joshua would have made a good Presbyterian. He is paying attention to order and procedures. And he has learned that there are two people – Eldad and Medad by name – who did not come to the gathering to receive the spirit and get their assignments. Somehow the spirit got out and got on them anyway, and they are prophesying and leading back in the camp. Talk about chaos and disorder. They aren’t sanctioned or official. They didn’t come to the orientation let alone the ordination. They did not pick up their copy of the bylaws or listen to HOW the work is supposed to be done. But there they are back at the camp, prophesying and leading. Joshua is in a panic – we can’t have that – we can’t have people just taking it upon themselves to lead – we can’t have people who don’t even know how we do things around here – we have procedures – maybe they’re not written down but everyone knows how things are supposed to be done around here -- who do they think they are?
Even if you aren’t super involved in church, you’ve surely seen organizations like this, resistant to new people or new ideas – and long on procedures.
Can’t you just hear Joshua? What if things get out of control? We don’t even have liability insurance for those who have not been properly sanctioned. What if they offend one of our long-time members because they say or do the wrong thing? And how will we keep track of all this? If just anybody can be called by the spirit to lead in the church – or out there in the community – how will we keep it all under control? We need more people, but we need them to do it our way. Joshua alerts Moses to do something.
Maybe it’s because only a couple paragraphs ago Moses wanted to die. Or maybe he just sees a bigger picture than Joshua does. But Moses responds, “would that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!” In other words, we’ll take all the help we can get. Or as Jesus would say, those who aren’t against us are for us.
It’s an ancient story, but it’s still a familiar one. Believe me, I understand. My middle name is Joshua.
And that Jerusalem Pentecost story of every language of the known world being spoken at the same time, people dancing and telling of God’s greatness, that wild demonstration of the power of the spirit – well, I might like to watch it on TV, but I think it would make me very nervous to be there.
Some of us may enjoy being among the 20% of the people who do 80% of the work and we may even enjoy complaining about it. We don’t have anything against the spirit, it’s just not our main thing. We wouldn’t want it to get out of control. If you want something done right, do it yourself and all that.
I once had a friend who was really out of shape. She had never really played a sport or had an activity she did regularly. On the recommendation of her doctor she planned to start a daily walking routine. But she couldn’t seem to start. She took one or two walks, but she just couldn’t seem to get it going. We had a conversation about why it was so hard for her. In the end, it wasn’t about finding the time or about the challenge of establishing a new habit or routine. It wasn’t about figuring out where to walk or how to dress for the weather. In the end it was about her sense of herself, her identity: She said, “I just don’t want to be a person whose whole life is shaped around training for marathons,” she said. It was hard not to laugh, but she was serious.
She feared the old slippery slope.
I think Joshua was like that. Of course we need help, we need more people to step up and help with the work not to mention the financing of this church enterprise. But if we open ourselves to the spirit being out there, not just on those who with particular tasks but on everyone, who knows what might happen? Would we be one of those churches? The kind my grandmother was worried about?
The story from Acts said the Spirit was pretty much on everyone and suddenly each one in their own way, in their own words, was telling the mighty acts of God.
That does sound chaotic. If I listen to the moving of the spirit, if I step forward to be part of telling the mighty acts of God in how I live my life, will I lose control of my life? If I offer to do something for the church, will I get sucked in and never have a way out except to be done with the church? Or out there in my daily life, graduating high school and setting off on the next adventure, if I really listen to the spirit, will it take me where I don’t want to go? If I follow God’s nudge, will I become one of those people? If I take a walk, will I become obsessed with running marathons?
And for those of us on the leadership side, if we have everyone involved – everyone – won’t it be crazy and chaotic? It’s so, so much easier to just do things yourself.
Are we like my afraid-to-take-a-walk friend, throwing the baby out with the bathwater? So worried about spiritual chaos, about things getting out of control, about turning into “those” people, that we aren’t listening to the spirit? Not listening to that inner voice of God’s spirit calling each of us for fear of getting too involved or losing control of our own agendas. And not being open to the spirit moving among people we did not expect – or sanction – for fear of losing control of ourchurch.
On this Pentecost day, I wonder where you find yourself in this story? More connected to church tasks than to the spirit? A little nervous about change because of where it might lead? Maybe outside the camp looking in, feeling led by the spirit but shut out by Joshua and the way things have always been?
The big takeaway is that the spirit rests on everyone – and if we’re not each of us paying attention to that spirit’s nudge, we are missing out on what God means for us, how the spirit is calling us to live lives that tell the mighty acts of God. And if we aren’t open to everyone’s contribution, we are not really the church, the body of Christ. Happy Birthday, Church! May it be a year of joy and growth and just maybe spirit-filled surprise.
