Pentecostal Power
June 8, 2025 Pentecost
“The well-known author and preacher Fred Craddock tells a rather funny story about a lecture he was giving: A few years ago, when he was on the west coast speaking at a seminary, just before the first lecture, one of the students stood up and said, “Before you speak, I need to know if you are Pentecostal.” The room grew silent. Craddock said he looked around for the Dean of the seminary! He was nowhere to be found. The student continued with his quiz right in front of everybody. Craddock was taken aback, and so he said, “Do you mean do I belong to the Pentecostal Church?” He said, “No, I mean are you Pentecostal?” Craddock said, “Are you asking me if I am charismatic?” the student said, “I am asking you if you are Pentecostal.” Craddock said, “Do you want to know if I speak in tongues?” He said, “I want to know if you are Pentecostal.” Craddock said, “I don’t know what your question is.” The student said, “Obviously, you are not Pentecostal.” And he left. What are we talking about this morning? Is the church supposed to use the word Pentecost only as a noun or can it be used as an adjective? And so I ask you: Are you Pentecostal?
If the church is alive in the world, it is Pentecostal. And you thought we were Presbyterian!” (Sermons.com, Brett Blair). Let us hear the power of Pentecost as we read how God, just as Jesus promised, sent the Holy Spirit, shortly after Jesus ascended into heaven. READ Acts 2:1-12.
Most of you know we have a Hispanic church worshiping in our sanctuary, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. This ten-year plus relationship has been mutually beneficial. We get income from rent and the people of Iglesia de Dios have a beautiful place to worship. Yet one challenge is communicating with their pastor, whose first language is Spanish. An interpreter helps when we have face-to-face meetings, but day-to-day emails are difficult. Then I discovered the translation function in Gmail, where you push a button and the message sent in Spanish is instantly converted into English! And vice versa. What a great invention! The language barrier just disappears.
Both of our passages focus on language as a sign of God working in the world through the Holy Spirit. At first it might seem like the Tower of Babel is creating a problem that Pentecost is solving, but that would be over-simplified. What begins at Babel with the whole earth having “one language and the same words” and being “one people” ends in multiple languages, confusion, and scattering. Yet, to some it appears that Pentecost is the antidote to Babel. In truth, “at Pentecost there is no return to an original, single language; rather, everyone hears the gospel “in their own native language” (Acts 2:6, 8). That is the real miracle of Pentecost: how ‘for one brief moment, we were shown how it is possible to hear one another, regardless of our different languages, cultures, ethnicities, and races.’ (Pentecost empowers diversity.) The (simplified) interpretation turns diversity into a divinely created punishment. It makes diversity in all its forms something that must be corrected, overcome, undone. It is not difficult to see potential connections with current events in the United States, where diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives are being reversed, called ‘radical and wasteful,’ ‘illegal and immoral.’ (You see) Uniformity, homogeneity, sameness, is what humanity desires, but it is not an accurate expression of how God wants humanity to inhabit the world God imagines. The scattering of people and confusion of language is not a curse or a punishment. It is God course-correcting the world to be in alignment with what has always been the divine intention and purpose. Toward that end, at Babel God not only blesses and sanctions diversity—God creates it” (Working Preacher, John E. Anderson).
Let’s be clear, Pentecost also celebrates diversity. The Holy Spirit empowers everyone to hear in their own native languages. And what are they talking about? “God’s deeds of power” (11)! This moment when devout Jews from all over the region are gathered to celebrate Pentecost, the giving of the law, giving of Torah, which happens 50 days after Passover, hence the name. “They are celebrating God’s gifts (the gift of the Law), unawares that another gift is coming. This gift of the Holy Spirit that marks the birth of the church is a gift expressly for those outside the Jesus movement, those who had lived displaced in a language-world not their own. We cannot miss this! It is a spiritual gift given not for the disciples themselves, but for the outsiders listening. God’s gift reaches outward to those outside of this immediate circle of Jesus followers. It seems that one mark of the Holy Spirit’s gifting is that it empowers us to connect to others” (Working Preacher, Amy G. Oden).
So when you hear the names, Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, etc. think of all the people and ways that God calls humanity together. The richness and diversity of God’s people each with their own culture, identity and language. That when God came down at Pentecost it was a celebration of differences, not a condemnation of diversity. Remember God came down at Babel too. People were trying to make a name for themselves by building a tower to heaven. In response, God confused their language and scattered them. Unfortunately, “this story of Babel was used by South African theologians to justify apartheid, by arguing that God desired to keep separate languages and races apart from one another” (Working Preacher, Sara Koenig). That was not God’s purpose. Rather this simply acknowledges that people were diversifying, nations were forming and soon God will call Abram who will be a blessing to all the nations (12:1).
Pentecost is about God’s powerful deed, the power of the Holy Spirit, the birth of the church when the Spirit bridges the language divide so that we can be united in God. The rush of a violent wind and the fire of tongues proclaim the amazing and astonishing moment when all diversity is overcome by the power of the Spirit, the power of God.
Unfortunately, today we often forget this. The church forgets that its purpose is to be outward focused, other focused. Because “when God’s people, the Church, stay in one place, don’t welcome or embrace diversity, try to define who is in and who is out, who God can love and who God can’t, then we are doing little more than trying to “make a name for ourselves,” rather than extolling and sharing all the beauty that comes with God’s name. We risk making it about ourselves instead of about God and what God has done” (Working Preacher, John E. Anderson).
The people wanted to know what this Pentecostal power meant. How all this diversity became united. Of course, the answer is the power of the Holy Spirit. Diversity is one of the Pentecostal powers. God coming down in that moment to unite all people. God has come down before as well.
“At Babel, God came down to see the tower. In Christ, God came down in human flesh all the way to the point of death on a cross. At Jesus’ baptism, the Holy Spirit came down and rests upon Jesus, marking him as God’s beloved Son (Matthew 3:16). And at Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes down so that all hear the gospel in their own languages” (Working Preacher, John E. Anderson). Yes, diversity is a Pentecostal power, an activity of the Spirit, but let us be clear, hearing in their own language was so that each person could hear the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Peter proclaims Jesus, crucified and raised up, ancestor of David, the resurrected Messiah, ascended as the one who sits at the right hand of God (Acts 2:14-42). From the witness of Pentecost, three thousand people repented and were baptized, creating the foundation of Christ’s Church.
So are we Pentecostal? Do we live in the reality of the Holy Spirit moving in our midst? Do we know that there is nothing we could do to make our way “up” to God, so God came down to us. At Babel. At Pentecost. And still God comes down in baptism, in the Spirit, in the bread and the wine, and in countless other places. God is a God who comes down—and in doing so, lifts us up from trouble and despair, and ultimately, heavenward” (Working Preacher, John E. Anderson). Amen.
