Today is Pentecost. Today we celebrate the Holy Ghost descending on the first of the church and haunting us all ever since. This is the day of tongues of fire, of mass migration into the kingdom of God, of the birth of the church.
The Spirit in her midwifery saw fit to interrupt a fearful time of uncertainty and wonder with blazing winds and a reversal of the confusion of language that happened at Babel. Suddenly, instead of everyone misinterpreting each other and hearing the unpronounceable verbs of their neighbor, people from every nation heard the good news in their native tongue. The proclamation that Jesus is the God vindicated king and his kingdom is here, now, in front of your eyes; the proclamation that he has gone to the far country but is returning to see righteousness and justice kiss in blessed union; the proclamation that now is the time of the reconciliation and refreshing of all things. And all will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well.
These accused of being drunkards—funny how Jesus got accused of this as well; must run in the family—were, in fact, the most sober in Jerusalem. They saw what others couldn’t; they knew the burning in their heart, in the mouth, wasn’t because of some new wine they were chugging, but because of the Spirit of the god of Gods now brooding over their hearts, creating something new, a new world for all to inhabit.
This is the glorious, chaotic, blessed scene that the holy breath of God caused on the day of the church’s birth. With a cry and a shout, the newborn saints of God announced their presence in the world as the proud Mother Spirit resided over, in, and through them all.
Time went on, and the church grew, their numbers growing daily. Jews were being converted to Jesus’ reformed Judaism, where they actively fed widows, where orphans found a home, where people gave private property and treasure for the good of the community. Here they waited with anticipation for the return of the Messiah: Jesus of Nazareth, crucified and risen. Here the converted Jews gave heed to the teaching of the Apostles, the breaking of bread, and to prayer, the tripod of holy living.
These rogue, traveling preachers proclaimed this season of restoration to all they encountered, and whispers of this Jesus miracle crept out among the Samaritans. Now the question was, would this Holy Ghost haunt and burn the Samaritans the same as she had the Jews? With the laying on of hands by the apostles, they found the answer was yes. This gift of the Spirit of Life had been intrusted to them to carry and to give.
Let’s pause here and discuss. Come, let us reason together. What happens when one people group becomes the arbitrators of power? The short and sweet answer is they become gatekeepers, determined to only let people in if they jump through the right hoops.
See, the problem the Early church had was they were all a sect of Judaism. They all were Jews, and as such came to believe that you had to be a Jew to follow the Jewish carpenter-Messiah. There was an unspoken—or maybe it was said out loud—expectation that Jesus was for the Jews. Now the door was open into the law and life of Judaism, nevertheless, this was the narrow gate that the apostles guarded and ushered people through.
But God isn’t the god of a small table. God isn’t a respecter of persons. God doesn’t have our ideas of boundaries and lines, drawing who’s in and who’s out. The Spirit is the servant of the king that goes out into the streets and alleyways, gathering up the lame, the brokenhearted, the sick, the gutter drunks and brings them into the feast of the Lamb. Every outcast you can imagine, every outsider, every outlaw has a seat at the table, and if we refuse to acknowledge that God has called them all clean and therefor they are clean, The Spirit has a way of blowing our expectations out of the water with cannonballs of love.
Enter Cornelius.
Cornelius is God fearing, respecting, and worshiping the Jewish God the best he can. However, he is not a Jew. He hasn’t been circumcised. Cornelius understands the righteousness of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but isn’t yet under the Abrahamic covenant.
Peter gets the call from the Spirit. Three times she comes knocking, commanding Peter to come to the table and eat. But Peter sees the food as defiled, rotten, wrong. He can’t eat these unclean things and make himself unclean.
The Voice of the Spirit thunders down like only a mother’s can, “Don’t you dare call unclean what I have called clean.”
Peter’s puzzlement soon becomes wonder when he gets to Cornelius’ home and discovers Cornelius has had a vision that Peter would come to him and tell him about the Messiah. Peter starts to get it: God isn’t a respecter of persons. God doesn’t have favorites. He’s not the God of the Jews; God is god of the cosmos and all who abide therein. Peter just begins to say this revelation when the Spirit does her thing again.
Tongues of Fire fell on the day of Pentecost and new languages spoke the good news for the first time. Now, in a second act of Pentecost the gentiles—Gentiles! —began to speak in those tongues. The holy fire of the Holy Ghost now haunted their bones, just as it had the Jews.
But here’s the thing: Peter never gave the gift to the gentiles.
God did.
There was no laying on of hands. There was no prayer. There was no blessing. There was a revelation of all things being washed clean in the Lamb's blood and a falling of the holy breath of God on the Gentiles. Peter had nothing to do with it.
So, tell me, why is it we are determined to keep people away from Jesus unless they become like us?
From socio-economic status to baptism, we demand that people become like us before they can come to the Eucharistic table before they can receive the body and blood of Christ next to us. Didn’t God show us at that second Pentecost that truly God doesn’t give a rat’s ass about who you are? The Spirit pours herself out on any and all she will. We have absolutely zero control over who’s in the kingdom and who’s out.
Baptism is a holy sacrament. These are the waters of death and life, and in them we tell the Church, “Yes you are the people of God” and the church tells us, “Yes, you are part of the people of God.” It is an acceptance, and embrace, a salvation for the lost and isolated who now find a community and a place, a purpose, and a communion. However, it isn’t some sort of ID card to prove you can now come to the great thanksgiving. We are all, all, welcome to the table simply because God has already poured the Spirit out on us regardless of slave or free, Greek or Jew, male and female. We are all one in Christ. All who will come are invited. There’s room at the table, free room.
If you want a piece of the Jesus I know, come to the table.
If you want to know what it is to be washed under the bloody flow, come to the table.
If you want heavenly bread, come to the table.
If you want the cup of salvation drank down to the dregs, come to the table.
Isaiah said it best in Chapter 51 of his scroll:
“Ho, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.”
Come. All who are thirsty, all who are weak, all who are broken, all who are dying on their feet. Come.
See, here is the marvelous truth: The gentiles are already on fire. Those people whom you think of as unclean already have the Spirit moving in their lungs. The breath of God is already bringing them all back to aliveness, just like she is doing with you.
The Holy Ghost is no respecter of persons. Money, status, bloodline, people groups, all of it is as horse shit to the Jesus who broke every social norm and barrier to announce the Kingdom of God is here. So why do we fight to put up walls and keep the wind of God in some upper room? She’s going to burst out the windows with her drunken children, reversing babble and undoing death itself.
Don’t you dare call unclean, unworthy, unacceptable what God has called clean, worthy, and accepted.
The gentiles are on fire!