The Day of Pentecost – B

May 31^st, AD 2009

Meadowvale Lutheran Church, Mississauga     

Pastor Peter Lisinski

“GOD’S FAMILY REUNION”

(Text:  Acts 2:1-13)

The opening words of today’s reading from the book of Acts is every pastor’s dream come true: “When the day of Pentecost had come,” Luke writes, “They were all together in one place…” Every single member of the First Christian Church in Jerusalem was gathered for worship under one roof on that Sunday morning fifty days after Jesus’ resurrection.

Of course, there were only 120 Christians in the whole wide world when the day began (Acts 1:15).  Still, if you’ve ever been to a family reunion, you know how rare it is for every single member of a family even half that size to be there.  And, just like a family reunion of people related by blood or by marriage, you never know what might happen when the family of people related by God’s grace and Holy Baptism gets together.

But one thing we do know for sure about God’s family reunion on that long ago day of Pentecost.  The world was never the same again!  By the end of the that day the church’s message had inspired some three thousand people in that confused and curious crowd to follow Jesus (Acts 2:41)!  And we’ve been doing so ever since, although the rate of Christian conversions has slowed considerably in recent years, especially here in western civilization.  Still, Christianity has grown to become the largest of all the world’s religions – and the world needs the church’s mission and ministry just as much today as it did in the year 30 A.D.

Our modern world has much in common with the ancient world in which God’s Holy Spirit called the Christian church into being.  Ours, too, is a rapidly and radically changing world in which everything once tried, trusted and true now seems tired, suspect and false  -- a world in which any hope that people might live together in peace, justice, and compassion seems lost in humankind’s infinite wisdom and ability to produce suspicion, conflict and division between people.

Into such a fearful, hateful, violent world as ours, God sent the Holy Spirit who – in spite of humankind’s many differences of clan, creed and colour; political persuasion, social status, and DNA – inspires people to welcome each other, listen to each other, love each other, serve and support each other as sisters and brother within one human family where all people are recognized as children of God.

The good news of the first Christian day of Pentecost – the good news of the church’s ancient-yet-modern message – is the good news of God’s all-inclusive love; a love eternally conceived, historically revealed, and ultimately fulfilled in the divine humanity of Jesus Christ.  The love of God in Jesus Christ is love that brings and binds people together; a love that embraces all and excludes not one!  God’s love cannot be earned; it cannot be bought, and it need not be deserved.  God’s love is free and forever – a gift of divine grace.  And God’s love cannot be denied, defeated or destroyed – though, God knows, we’ve tried!

The message of God’s unconditional, unlimited, universal love is the very thing that got Jesus into trouble.  Like us, Jesus was born into a world in which love is limited to those who meet our conditions.  There were “in” groups and “out” groups all around him, inviting him to join their side against the other side.  But Jesus resisted them all.  He loved everybody – Jews and Gentiles, believers and infidels, winners and losers.  And on the cross, he opened his arms to embrace the whole wide world!  But the good news that nobody is excluded from God’s unconditional love remains divisive and contentious, even among his followers!

A picket sign I saw in the news coverage of demonstrations in support of last week’s California Supreme Court decision to uphold the recent ban on same-gender marriages proclaimed the message:  “God does not love you just as you are!”  WRONG!! God does love you just as you are!

One thousand nine hundred and seventy-nine years ago today, the Christian Church ventured forth from the safety of its enclosed sanctuary, and the security of its own privileged understanding of God, into the streets of our fearful, hateful, vengeful world united in the truth of God’s all inclusive love.  Today the day of Pentecost has come again. Again we are all together in one place, united in the one truth of God’s all-inclusive love.  And, once again, God’s Holy Spirit sends us forth into our still fearful, hateful, vengeful world, to proclaim the Gospel truth to each and every human being:  You are God’s beloved child.  God has conceived you, God loves you with an everlasting love, and God welcomes you to the ultimate family reunion of all God’s children gathered together in the universal place of God’s infinite love and eternal life.