Numbers 11:24-30

So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord, and he gathered seventy of the elders of the people and placed them all around the tent. Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders, and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do so again.

Two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad and the other named Medad, and the spirit rested on them; they were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, so they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.” And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, “My lord Moses, stop them!” But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!” And Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp.

Sermon Text

Pentecost! The day we celebrate as the “Birth of the Church,” when the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples and blessed them with a multitude of languages, allowing them to communicate the gospel to any and all people who came near to them. Folks looked at them like they were drunk, some accused them of general indecency, but the truth was all the more fantastic. Christ, who had ascended some days earlier, had kept his promise and sent the Spirit down to rest on the disciples. The men and women in the upper room were out in the streets telling the story of Christ’s death and resurrection and the whole of Jerusalem was amazed.

The Spirit is something that we in the mainline churches are often accused of lacking. We do not often engage in ecstatic worship – we aren’t dancing in the aisles or speaking in tongues. We do not do much extemporaneously, “in the present moment,” instead leaning on our liturgies and hymnals. To many in the modern milieu of American Religion, we are placed at odds with our Denominational Descendants in the Holiness and Nondenominational churches and a line is drawn between us. In one corner there are the staunch and boring traditional folk and in the other the ecstatic and lively contemporary worshippers.

These are not new distinction, every period of history has shown worship taking these forms. One the formalized and measured, the other the spontaneous and free. The difficult thing that we must assess as Christians, people practicing our faith now, is how we need to apply these broad categories to our life. Is it better to be free completely? Or is it better to do what we know works and guarantee our presence before God through ordinary means of grace? Today I want to offer a far more true to life option, one that is complicated as only truth can be. The Spirit of God is not constrained to one method of worship or the other, it is above, beyond, and through them all.

We have already addressed that people responded to God’s Spirit being poured out on Pentecost with skepticism. “What are these drunk fishermen yelling about? And why are they yelling it in Latin, Gallic, and Persian?” The people were gathered in Jerusalem that day to celebrate “The Feast of Weeks,” which commemorates God’s gift of the Torah to the people of God and the yearly harvest. This dual celebration ended the festive season that followed Passover, much like how Pentecost ends our celebration of Easter today. They were worshipping God as God had commanded, and in so doing received God’s goodness, yet God was also at work through those who were receiving the Spirit in a new and different way, the Church.

This mirrors the story told in our scripture for the day. The Sanhedrin, the seventy elders of Israel, had gone to meet with God and received the Holy Spirit. They prophesied before God, speaking deep spiritual truths in a way they never would again. They did so at God’s command, in the God sanctioned way of approaching the Tent of Meeting which housed God’s throne – the Ark of the Covenant. Yet, as they proclaimed truth by gathering around the Tent, God was not limited by the “sanctioned,” way of doing things. While the Elders gathered there, the Spirit rested on two men, Eldad and Medad, who spoke God’s truth without the metrics and means the Elders had used. Yet, Moses assures us both means are valid, true, and fully under God’s control.

As is obvious to most anyone who sees me, I am a huge proponent for the “ordinary,” means of God’s grace. Gathering in churches, receiving the sacraments, and praying as we read the scriptures are sure ways to come close to God. I go further in my personal application of them, trying to steep what we do here in the traditions and methods of the Church which stretch back, in some cases, to Christ’s disciples themselves. In this ancient ways, and in my gift of them to the congregations I serve, I seek to give us a sure path to God’s grace. I consider it one of my duties as an elder to relate, preserve, and innovate upon the ancient work of the Church.

Yet, God is never limited by the ordinary. I knew a godly woman (and mucked out her horse stalls once a year,) who could pray like nobody else I knew. More than that, she also prayed in a way I had never seen, speaking in a language only she and God knew. In this conference I know someone who, though he has now begun the process of ordination, did more work as a lay person and a licensed minister than most any ordained elder I have ever seen. Truth is spoken, miracles performed, and good work down outside of the hierarchy and usual means of the Church every day.

The problem comes, inevitably, that we prioritize one thing over the other. We look at people doing things in fresh and new ways, and so neglect the foundation that makes those new things possible. Likewise, we get so caught up in the way things are, we fail to see what God is]’ doing beyond our walls and outside the usual way things are done. Pentecost is the day God tore down the separation between old and new forever, creating a kingdom that is eternal and that simply “is.” In this new world, we are constantly bringing out treasures “old and new,” to God’s glory.[1]

We are blessed this Pentecost to baptize young people into this world. We are likewise blessed to welcome a family into our Church. As they grow, they will challenge us to do new and different and better things. As we welcome them into our family of faith we will offer a foundation that makes these new works possible. The Spirit, alive and moving, seeks to make prophets of us all – people who speak the word of God as if it were our own. Let us follow that Spirit, to the font which was poured out centuries ago, and to the springs that appear without warning. Old and new, planned and unplanned, God is at work. Let us be at work too. – Amen

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[1] Matthew 13:52