Pentecost (Acts 2.1-21; John 20:19-23)
This is the script of a sermon delivered on the Feast of Pentecost with notes inserted to indicate how the preacher designed what was said, and what some of the reasoning was behind those designing choices.
How do you receive the Holy Spirit? [This is the question that will be returned to again and again. It will serve as a kind of refrain ] Is it a dramatic and sensational happening? [A WOW factor way beyond Britain’s Got Talent] [The reference to a spectacular show recently in the headlines gives an instant picture to the listener] Is it a reasoned account of things you’ve known about but have never connected before? [The good teacher who lets you in on something: ‘I’d never realised before’] [The thought here is that Peter in the Acts passage is indeed such a teacher, but the connection isn't yet made explicit] Or is it deeply felt experience that comes on you quietly: so hard to share yet you feel you must? [‘I knew peace I’d never known before. It had been all tears and anguish, but now things are different ....’ [This is summing up of what seems to be occurring in the John passage, and again the connection isn't yet made explicit. These lose connections are meant to create some anticipation. These are themes to which the sermon will return] How do you receive the Holy Spirit? [The refrain repeated]
[The language and sentence structure throughout is not in 'good' written English. The conversational and informal tone is deliberate. These sentences are written to be heard not to be read] The Galileans are making a commotion. I imagine they’ve left the house because the commotion draws a crowd. [verse 2.6] It’s as if they’ve become barkers [Although the experience of barkers is common enough the term itself may not be so it is explained, and this gives the opportunity for a little humour] – you know those fellahs who shout out their sales pitches at a fair. ‘You’ll be amazed. I’m going to show you that this little gadget won’t only do twelve jobs in your kitchen; it’ll do twenty-four. What’s this? It’s just a carrot, you say, but keep watching; with the Acme miracle multipurpose cutting and shaping tool it will become an orange Chrysanthemum, the perfect and oh so impressive garnish to any salad. And not only that ...’
And so the barker goes on into his pitch. This fellah’s got talent. [Reference back to the show mentioned in the opening] The crowd increasing all the time–though some slope off. The Barker works hard to win people to his product, but not everyone is convinced. Some are amazed, and some sneer, just as they did on that first Pentecost when the Galileans barked out their insistent witness to God’s deeds of power. [This is to make the point that the disciples aren't actually selling anything - the analogy only works so far] How do you receive the Holy Spirit? [Refrain again, to make sure everyone is clear what this sermon is about] Some are swept along by it. They know it; they experience it; they are engulfed by it. [Again a reference back to different ways of receiving the Spirit detailed in the opening]
At Pentecost amazement and astonishment was there alright, but so was bewilderment and perplexity. The gift of the Spirit doesn’t carry all before it.[A serious theological point] The significance of the event, the goodness of the message, isn’t apparent to everyone in the crowd. The power of the Spirit doesn’t overturn human motivation and human scepticism. There’s spectacle here, there’s power that carries some with it, but not all. A human voice is still needed and Peter provides the words [Again a reference back to the different ways indicated at the beginning] – but that’s to get ahead of ourselves. [The possibility of a transition is signalled but it's made plain that it doesn't come just yet] Let’s stay with the crowd.
And what a crowd it is! This is a mixture of people as diverse as any resort Thomson holidays might take you to: [Meant to suggest the image of a host of different nationalities around a hotel pool] Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, folks from Crete and from Arabia. Can’t you hear whatever the first-century equivalents were of: [Back to the hotel pool image and a chance for a little more humour] ‘Who’s grabbed all the sunbeds?’ ‘Listen to them, you always know who’s going to be noisiest in the pool.’ ‘How do they have the courage to strip off like that?’ It looks like a holiday, a festival crowd. But it isn’t! [This needs strong verbal emphasis. The listeners have been led up the garden path, as it were, now that misconception must be corrected. This technique aims to aid the remembrance of the point about to made which is the fundamental idea of the whole sermon]
Judeans, Egyptians, Cyrenians, Libyans, Romans – Meads? [Notice again the colloquial nature of the language structure] There haven’t been any Meads for hundreds of years. And as for Elamites; they’re as rare as hen’s teeth. [There follows a a restating of verses 7-9 in contemporary terms to emphasise the point] It’s as if the passage said French, English, Americans, Aztecs, Russians, Iceni, Eburones and other ancient Celts, Auzzies, Kenyans and visitors from Atlantis! It’s a list that represents all people of all time, and not just those who are literally there to hear the apostles. It’s not just those who are caught up in the moment. How do you receive the Holy Spirit? [Refrain again, to keep the subject in mind]
[The theological point reinforced] The events of Pentecost are for and to the whole inhabitants of this world in all time. This Spirit is the outworking, the gifting, of God in all times and places. The Spirit’s resting isn’t constrained by any human limitation. Remember the word from Jesus at the Ascension: ‘You will be my witnesses … to the ends of the earth.’ We are included in that. The Spirit rest on us now.
[This appears a startling, unsignalled transition. The explanation that follows will make it plain that it isn't. But for now the sudden change keeps people listening] Do you remember the anxiety that could go with?
[Childrens' playground rhyme needs actions with it. Facial reactions will indicate whether people are with the preacher or not.] One potato
Two potatoes
Three potatoes
Four!
Five potatoes
Six potatoes
Seven potatoes
More!
Will I be chosen or will I not? The only thing worse was the simple picking of sides when the leader just pointed at the ones he wanted. Oh, the dread of being left there, unchosen. [Again facial reactions will be obvious]
But that’s not God’s way. [What had seemed an unheralded transition is explained as an illustration using something that all will have experienced] The praise of God and the declaration of his deeds are heard by all in their own native language. It’s not that some hear it as authentically their own and others don’t. The Spirit speaks to the heart and soul of everyone with equal grace and equal vigour. [Another strong theological point] His choice is of a different order altogether from our choosing. He chooses that each and all shall hear the Spirit’s promptings. Diversity, difference, particularity, and specificity are all affirmed. Cultural difference is part of our very humanity and God rejoices in it. His Spirit is not confined within our cultural categories, our culturally determined understandings, but these things are part of what it is to be human, and God wants us to be human. The question ‘How do you receive the Holy Spirit?’ becomes ‘Why don’t you receive the Spirit God offers you?’ [Refrain repeated and rephrased so as to reinforce what God gives and our part in choosing to receive it]
So when Peter gets to his interpretation, [Transition signalled earlier now made plain] his explanation of what’s going on in this amazing spectacle, it’s not the apostles or the crowd that is his focus, but the majesty of God. The unifying factor isn’t what people are doing, what people are saying, what they are achieving, no, this is ‘the Lord’s great and glorious day.’ He it is who pours out his Spirit on all flesh. This is God’s doing; that’s the unifying factor. [Third theological point] Peter sees it and Peter declares it, so that those who can’t understand what’s going might come to know it for themselves.
Those who sneered accused the apostles of being filled with new wine. New wine, now that’s a thought! [What new wine is actually like. A chance to add 'colour' to the scene and make it more memorable] I’ve only once drunk Neuer Wein or Federweisser, [Risky use of own experience. Essential that the focus be kept on the Acts passage] and it very yeasty, uncommonly fizzy, or perhaps lively is a better word. It’s refreshingly easy drinking so the temptation is to drink it like soda pop. And that’s its problem, the effects are instant and multiple – drunk and full of wind! [Humour again] Not necessarily pleasant, especially to those looking on. So the sneer has with it more than scepticism, and it isn’t the wind of the Spirit that appals them!
The coming Reign of God is breaking in to the here and now, but some people mistake it for disreputable behaviour. [Fourth theological point] This can’t be holy they think, even if they don’t actually say it. Peter tries to convince them otherwise. [Again referring back to the opening] Why don’t you receive the Spirit God offers you? [The reworked refrain] Look up, listen up, you see the day of God’s completion of all things glimpsed in this amazing happening.
But read on, even though Peter speaks out now we come to learn that it took even him a good while to realise the full significance of Pentecost. He has yet to appreciate that all flesh really means all flesh and not just the people of scattered Jewish communities. All flesh means all the inhabitants of the world. [Important to point out that the one who speaks up in this missionary address doesn't 'know it all.'] Why don’t you receive the Spirit God offers you? [Refrain again]
[Here's a transition to the John passage so that has to be signalled to the hearers] Peter had been there on that evening behind locked doors. The resurrected body of Jesus still bore the scars of torture and death but the peace of a new; a death-refusing reality breathed new life into them. Jesus’ peace shall be their peace. He binds them together in this. No dramatic spectacle, [Yet another reference back to the opening issues] but the assurance of a peace that can’t be destroyed. ‘You be my body,’ he says. ‘You’ll bear the scars too, but I am the one who sends you, just as the Father sent me. So be certain that nothing that scars you will destroy the peace you know in me. Go and love as I love. Don’t let the fear of scars and death ever stop you. Receive the Holy Spirit.’ [What it is to be a Spirit-gifted disciple is explained using the terminology of the biblical passage. A reinforcement of the idea that the Spirit rest on us now.]
‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ How do you receive the Holy Spirit? [Refrain] Repent and believe: as simple and as hard as that. Why don’t you receive the Spirit God offers you? [Reworked refrain]
[Another transition; this time to straightforward narrative. Perhaps it should have been signalled more clearly, it all depends how attentive people are] Miss Ev left her island home for many months each year. A ferry to Florida and then the long rail journey to New York – though she was never able to book a comfort compartment like the others. Blacks didn’t travel in comfort in those days. And once in New York she had to keep in her place – black casual domestic workers the lowest of the low. How many seasons of labour did it take her to accumulate enough money to buy her little tin bungalow back home. I don’t know, but it was many, and how she missed her family and home during those months of exile and toil. In her Caribbean retirement years she liked to sit on the stoop of her bungalow, amongst the blossoms and the humming birds and watch the children sing their way to school.
Visitors came to her church from Britain. They were strangers, she didn’t know them. They were robbed at gun point. Shaken up missing all their cash they felt unsafe. So Miss Ev took them in, and had herself to sleep in the tool shed, and she made of her tiny bungalow a haven of care better than any five star Hilton Hotel. Her blacks hands laboured until their whites hands lost the shakes produced by fear and threat. [The idea is that Miss Ev in her care and lack of resentment about of her earlier treatment demonstrates the Spirit's presence and power. The story is not explained. It has to stand in its own right]
[A summing up that returns to the refrain and the issues raised at the beginning. The promise implicit in the beginning has been realised in the content. This doesn't need to be stated, but it does need to be felt by the hearers] How do you receive the Holy Spirit? [refrain] You receive the Spirit by living the life of Jesus. In ways quiet or loud, in spectacle or in ordinary things that go unnoticed, by thinking it through or by simply doing what comes to a conscience formed by Christ. [reference back to the beginning] Live the peace of Jesus and never let the scars of sin and hurt stop you. [reference back to the John passage] Resentment, hate, prejudice and harm shall never have the last say. You’ll see it, as I saw it in the care and love Miss Ev gave to me. [Climactic disclosure, Miss Ev's story turns out to be the preacher's personal experience. This will aid memory but mustn't be too heavily dwelt on or it will eclipse the theological issues] You’ll see it in a million and one ways. Receive the Holy Spirit. [The assurance this applies to us] Peace be with you.
The sermon aimed to be expository and it deals with some difficult issues in the text (the nationalities named, Peter's witness before he appreciated the Gospel was for Gentiles as well as Jews) yet is stays conversational/colloquial in style and structure. Key theological points are made but they are not labelled as such. They might have been reinforced by further repetition or illustration. The sermons aims to be a memorable event and deliberate repetition and redundancy of expression is built in to aid that. You are welcome to return your own assessment of how successful you consider this design to be:
How do you receive the Holy Spirit? [This is the question that will be returned to again and again. It will serve as a kind of refrain ] Is it a dramatic and sensational happening? [A WOW factor way beyond Britain’s Got Talent] [The reference to a spectacular show recently in the headlines gives an instant picture to the listener] Is it a reasoned account of things you’ve known about but have never connected before? [The good teacher who lets you in on something: ‘I’d never realised before’] [The thought here is that Peter in the Acts passage is indeed such a teacher, but the connection isn't yet made explicit] Or is it deeply felt experience that comes on you quietly: so hard to share yet you feel you must? [‘I knew peace I’d never known before. It had been all tears and anguish, but now things are different ....’ [This is summing up of what seems to be occurring in the John passage, and again the connection isn't yet made explicit. These lose connections are meant to create some anticipation. These are themes to which the sermon will return] How do you receive the Holy Spirit? [The refrain repeated]
[The language and sentence structure throughout is not in 'good' written English. The conversational and informal tone is deliberate. These sentences are written to be heard not to be read] The Galileans are making a commotion. I imagine they’ve left the house because the commotion draws a crowd. [verse 2.6] It’s as if they’ve become barkers [Although the experience of barkers is common enough the term itself may not be so it is explained, and this gives the opportunity for a little humour] – you know those fellahs who shout out their sales pitches at a fair. ‘You’ll be amazed. I’m going to show you that this little gadget won’t only do twelve jobs in your kitchen; it’ll do twenty-four. What’s this? It’s just a carrot, you say, but keep watching; with the Acme miracle multipurpose cutting and shaping tool it will become an orange Chrysanthemum, the perfect and oh so impressive garnish to any salad. And not only that ...’
And so the barker goes on into his pitch. This fellah’s got talent. [Reference back to the show mentioned in the opening] The crowd increasing all the time–though some slope off. The Barker works hard to win people to his product, but not everyone is convinced. Some are amazed, and some sneer, just as they did on that first Pentecost when the Galileans barked out their insistent witness to God’s deeds of power. [This is to make the point that the disciples aren't actually selling anything - the analogy only works so far] How do you receive the Holy Spirit? [Refrain again, to make sure everyone is clear what this sermon is about] Some are swept along by it. They know it; they experience it; they are engulfed by it. [Again a reference back to different ways of receiving the Spirit detailed in the opening]
At Pentecost amazement and astonishment was there alright, but so was bewilderment and perplexity. The gift of the Spirit doesn’t carry all before it.[A serious theological point] The significance of the event, the goodness of the message, isn’t apparent to everyone in the crowd. The power of the Spirit doesn’t overturn human motivation and human scepticism. There’s spectacle here, there’s power that carries some with it, but not all. A human voice is still needed and Peter provides the words [Again a reference back to the different ways indicated at the beginning] – but that’s to get ahead of ourselves. [The possibility of a transition is signalled but it's made plain that it doesn't come just yet] Let’s stay with the crowd.
And what a crowd it is! This is a mixture of people as diverse as any resort Thomson holidays might take you to: [Meant to suggest the image of a host of different nationalities around a hotel pool] Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, folks from Crete and from Arabia. Can’t you hear whatever the first-century equivalents were of: [Back to the hotel pool image and a chance for a little more humour] ‘Who’s grabbed all the sunbeds?’ ‘Listen to them, you always know who’s going to be noisiest in the pool.’ ‘How do they have the courage to strip off like that?’ It looks like a holiday, a festival crowd. But it isn’t! [This needs strong verbal emphasis. The listeners have been led up the garden path, as it were, now that misconception must be corrected. This technique aims to aid the remembrance of the point about to made which is the fundamental idea of the whole sermon]
Judeans, Egyptians, Cyrenians, Libyans, Romans – Meads? [Notice again the colloquial nature of the language structure] There haven’t been any Meads for hundreds of years. And as for Elamites; they’re as rare as hen’s teeth. [There follows a a restating of verses 7-9 in contemporary terms to emphasise the point] It’s as if the passage said French, English, Americans, Aztecs, Russians, Iceni, Eburones and other ancient Celts, Auzzies, Kenyans and visitors from Atlantis! It’s a list that represents all people of all time, and not just those who are literally there to hear the apostles. It’s not just those who are caught up in the moment. How do you receive the Holy Spirit? [Refrain again, to keep the subject in mind]
[The theological point reinforced] The events of Pentecost are for and to the whole inhabitants of this world in all time. This Spirit is the outworking, the gifting, of God in all times and places. The Spirit’s resting isn’t constrained by any human limitation. Remember the word from Jesus at the Ascension: ‘You will be my witnesses … to the ends of the earth.’ We are included in that. The Spirit rest on us now.
[This appears a startling, unsignalled transition. The explanation that follows will make it plain that it isn't. But for now the sudden change keeps people listening] Do you remember the anxiety that could go with?
[Childrens' playground rhyme needs actions with it. Facial reactions will indicate whether people are with the preacher or not.] One potato
Two potatoes
Three potatoes
Four!
Five potatoes
Six potatoes
Seven potatoes
More!
Will I be chosen or will I not? The only thing worse was the simple picking of sides when the leader just pointed at the ones he wanted. Oh, the dread of being left there, unchosen. [Again facial reactions will be obvious]
But that’s not God’s way. [What had seemed an unheralded transition is explained as an illustration using something that all will have experienced] The praise of God and the declaration of his deeds are heard by all in their own native language. It’s not that some hear it as authentically their own and others don’t. The Spirit speaks to the heart and soul of everyone with equal grace and equal vigour. [Another strong theological point] His choice is of a different order altogether from our choosing. He chooses that each and all shall hear the Spirit’s promptings. Diversity, difference, particularity, and specificity are all affirmed. Cultural difference is part of our very humanity and God rejoices in it. His Spirit is not confined within our cultural categories, our culturally determined understandings, but these things are part of what it is to be human, and God wants us to be human. The question ‘How do you receive the Holy Spirit?’ becomes ‘Why don’t you receive the Spirit God offers you?’ [Refrain repeated and rephrased so as to reinforce what God gives and our part in choosing to receive it]
So when Peter gets to his interpretation, [Transition signalled earlier now made plain] his explanation of what’s going on in this amazing spectacle, it’s not the apostles or the crowd that is his focus, but the majesty of God. The unifying factor isn’t what people are doing, what people are saying, what they are achieving, no, this is ‘the Lord’s great and glorious day.’ He it is who pours out his Spirit on all flesh. This is God’s doing; that’s the unifying factor. [Third theological point] Peter sees it and Peter declares it, so that those who can’t understand what’s going might come to know it for themselves.
Those who sneered accused the apostles of being filled with new wine. New wine, now that’s a thought! [What new wine is actually like. A chance to add 'colour' to the scene and make it more memorable] I’ve only once drunk Neuer Wein or Federweisser, [Risky use of own experience. Essential that the focus be kept on the Acts passage] and it very yeasty, uncommonly fizzy, or perhaps lively is a better word. It’s refreshingly easy drinking so the temptation is to drink it like soda pop. And that’s its problem, the effects are instant and multiple – drunk and full of wind! [Humour again] Not necessarily pleasant, especially to those looking on. So the sneer has with it more than scepticism, and it isn’t the wind of the Spirit that appals them!
The coming Reign of God is breaking in to the here and now, but some people mistake it for disreputable behaviour. [Fourth theological point] This can’t be holy they think, even if they don’t actually say it. Peter tries to convince them otherwise. [Again referring back to the opening] Why don’t you receive the Spirit God offers you? [The reworked refrain] Look up, listen up, you see the day of God’s completion of all things glimpsed in this amazing happening.
But read on, even though Peter speaks out now we come to learn that it took even him a good while to realise the full significance of Pentecost. He has yet to appreciate that all flesh really means all flesh and not just the people of scattered Jewish communities. All flesh means all the inhabitants of the world. [Important to point out that the one who speaks up in this missionary address doesn't 'know it all.'] Why don’t you receive the Spirit God offers you? [Refrain again]
[Here's a transition to the John passage so that has to be signalled to the hearers] Peter had been there on that evening behind locked doors. The resurrected body of Jesus still bore the scars of torture and death but the peace of a new; a death-refusing reality breathed new life into them. Jesus’ peace shall be their peace. He binds them together in this. No dramatic spectacle, [Yet another reference back to the opening issues] but the assurance of a peace that can’t be destroyed. ‘You be my body,’ he says. ‘You’ll bear the scars too, but I am the one who sends you, just as the Father sent me. So be certain that nothing that scars you will destroy the peace you know in me. Go and love as I love. Don’t let the fear of scars and death ever stop you. Receive the Holy Spirit.’ [What it is to be a Spirit-gifted disciple is explained using the terminology of the biblical passage. A reinforcement of the idea that the Spirit rest on us now.]
‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ How do you receive the Holy Spirit? [Refrain] Repent and believe: as simple and as hard as that. Why don’t you receive the Spirit God offers you? [Reworked refrain]
[Another transition; this time to straightforward narrative. Perhaps it should have been signalled more clearly, it all depends how attentive people are] Miss Ev left her island home for many months each year. A ferry to Florida and then the long rail journey to New York – though she was never able to book a comfort compartment like the others. Blacks didn’t travel in comfort in those days. And once in New York she had to keep in her place – black casual domestic workers the lowest of the low. How many seasons of labour did it take her to accumulate enough money to buy her little tin bungalow back home. I don’t know, but it was many, and how she missed her family and home during those months of exile and toil. In her Caribbean retirement years she liked to sit on the stoop of her bungalow, amongst the blossoms and the humming birds and watch the children sing their way to school.
Visitors came to her church from Britain. They were strangers, she didn’t know them. They were robbed at gun point. Shaken up missing all their cash they felt unsafe. So Miss Ev took them in, and had herself to sleep in the tool shed, and she made of her tiny bungalow a haven of care better than any five star Hilton Hotel. Her blacks hands laboured until their whites hands lost the shakes produced by fear and threat. [The idea is that Miss Ev in her care and lack of resentment about of her earlier treatment demonstrates the Spirit's presence and power. The story is not explained. It has to stand in its own right]
[A summing up that returns to the refrain and the issues raised at the beginning. The promise implicit in the beginning has been realised in the content. This doesn't need to be stated, but it does need to be felt by the hearers] How do you receive the Holy Spirit? [refrain] You receive the Spirit by living the life of Jesus. In ways quiet or loud, in spectacle or in ordinary things that go unnoticed, by thinking it through or by simply doing what comes to a conscience formed by Christ. [reference back to the beginning] Live the peace of Jesus and never let the scars of sin and hurt stop you. [reference back to the John passage] Resentment, hate, prejudice and harm shall never have the last say. You’ll see it, as I saw it in the care and love Miss Ev gave to me. [Climactic disclosure, Miss Ev's story turns out to be the preacher's personal experience. This will aid memory but mustn't be too heavily dwelt on or it will eclipse the theological issues] You’ll see it in a million and one ways. Receive the Holy Spirit. [The assurance this applies to us] Peace be with you.
The sermon aimed to be expository and it deals with some difficult issues in the text (the nationalities named, Peter's witness before he appreciated the Gospel was for Gentiles as well as Jews) yet is stays conversational/colloquial in style and structure. Key theological points are made but they are not labelled as such. They might have been reinforced by further repetition or illustration. The sermons aims to be a memorable event and deliberate repetition and redundancy of expression is built in to aid that. You are welcome to return your own assessment of how successful you consider this design to be:
