May 23, Pentecost B (Acts 2:1–21)

On the page and in our theology, Pentecost is charged with surpassing drama and significance. While the moment in the manger is delicately hushed and the morning of the empty tomb is marked with confusion and disbelief, Pentecost comes in with a bang. With a rushing noise and a mighty wind, tongues as of flame, an outpouring of the languages of the whole Roman world spoken by unlearned Galilean laborers mistaken for colorful inebriates, and a devastating impromptu sermon by their head fisherman, the age of the Spirit is off and running.

It is the vivid self-disclosure of the eternally proceeding third person of the Trinity who graces the faithful with sevenfold gifts, not even counting the matter of the foreign tongues and the interpretation of Joel’s prophecy. It is the “birthday of the church” in some tellings, or at least the public and miraculous proof of the church’s universal mission witnessed in the very languages of all those nations. It marks the beginning of that progress to the ends of the earth promised and commanded by the risen Christ as the church, like a hermit crab, takes on the shell of an ancient harvest festival for its own exalted mission.

And yet, 2,000 years on, the festival commemorating the event can feel very different. I have usually celebrated this day by asking around for church members who can read the Acts passage in German, Mandarin, or Spanish to create a proper cacophony, in places where I barely knew our next-door neighbors, let alone communities on the other side of town. I am accustomed to thinking of 120 people together in one place as a modest goal to reach or a constituency to hold onto rather than the bursting seeds of a new creation.