Numbers 11:23-30; Acts 2:1-21; Psalm 104:27-30; 1 Corinthians 12:4-11.

Last week when I was at Pomonal I spoke with them about Ascension as a forgotten festival. Did Julie take you to Ascension last week? I told Pomonal that it’s the more Evangelical churches, which are more often low-church in style, who overlook the ascension event in the life of Jesus and the Church. Today, however is Pentecost; Evangelicals love this one. As with Ascension, Pentecost is not known in the wider world, and like Ascension we Christians can go about our business today safe in the knowledge that the Secular Humanists are not insisting upon equal rights for bunnies, bilbies, or fat men in red suits. (Mind you, this being Pentecost there’s nothing wrong with being a fat man in a red shirt at all!) Yet today is also a forgotten festival, or so it seems, in some parts of the Church; and those parts of the church, somewhat surprisingly, are the Pentecostal movements.

I used to belong to a church which was Pentecostal in orientation; and even though our senior pastor didn’t like that title for its negative connotations we were a congregation where the Spirit was welcomed and allowed sovereignty. But while we certainly celebrated Christmas on its nearest Sunday, and Easter Day on Sunday (but not Friday), I don’t remember us ever celebrating Pentecost despite it always falling on a Sunday. I guess when you belong to a fellowship where the arrival of the Holy Sprit in the worship time is a weekly occurrence, and the gifts of the Spirit Godself released through the people is expected and desired, you don’t need to set aside one particular Sunday to celebrate the Spirit. After all, if you don’t expect the Spirit on the other 51 Sundays in the year, what are you doing?  In other words, if you are always Pentecostal, who cares really what happens on the seventh Sunday after Easter?

That is actually a good question, but I don’t think it has just one answer. Of course, we want Holy Spirit to be here each week, and in our town each day of the week, including today. But that’s not enough of a reason for me to not celebrate the anniversary of this momentous occasion in the history of the world.

When I lived in Darwin, the pastor of the local Assemblies of God church drove the sort of car that many men would drool over. It was a black XR8 ute, so a V8 Falcon with big wheels, narrow tyres, a rorty exhaust, and everything that screamed “boy racer”. The local Uniting Church minister at the time drove a platinum VRX Limited Edition (brackets Series One end brackets).  So, a Magna V6 with bigger wheels, narrower tyres, and a far rortier note than a standard Magna, or even the standard VRX. It even had red leather seats. It wasn’t as cool as the XR8, but the VRX was still pretty cool. Both ministers had personalised rego plates on these cars, the Uniting Church bloke had his name “REV.ROB”, which was pretty self-explanatory. This went with his other job as track chaplain at Hidden Valley Motorsports Park, home of Darwin’s round of the V8 Supercars, plus weekly dirt squirts, motorcycles, and jetboat races in the Wet Season when the dirt bowl was flooded. The AoG pastor’s rego read “WHOOSH”. I was present when Rev Rob asked his colleague in ministry about the rego plate. “Whoosh?” says Rob, “is that the sound of an XR8 flying past you on the speed derestricted Stuart Highway?” “Nah mate,” replied the pastor, “Acts 2:2, mate, whoosh!”  So, there you go, Pentecostal people do know about the sound of the Spirit first descending upon the Church in might and power.

But, as with many stories of God acting powerfully in the life of Jesus or the first three generations of Church as recorded in the scriptures, these are not the first times this happened: whoosh! is also a sound familiar to the Hebrews, and rightly so. In our reading from Numbers 11 this morning Kay told us of how when Ruach ha-Qodesh rested upon the seventy they prophesied loudly; even those not in the gathering, but who had been chosen, prophesied while the spirit was present above the tent of meeting. We are not told of fire or wind; perhaps the evidence of the cloud’s descent was enough, but certainly there was noise as seventy men shouted aloud the news of God’s sovereign glory and God’s desire for the world as it was to be related through the Abrahamic people. Moses’ prayer for the people was that everyone would carry the authority of God in this way; not only those seventy men, and not only while the cloud was descended upon the group. Moses saw that the Spirit had been given without limit, Moses certainly didn’t lose power by God taking from off him to share with the seventy. Moses understood, and we understand now, that when God blesses a people with power and authority for the work of proclamation there is more than enough empowering spirit for everyone to be filled to overflowing.

In the centuries after the arrival of the Hebrews in the land given to them by God as a base from which to tell of God’s glory to the world, the settled people continued to hear from the wind of wisdom and holiness, Ruach ha-Qodesh. We read in Psalm 104:27-30 that the world is entirely dependent upon God’s sustaining presence; You shall send forth your spirit and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth reads Psalm 104:30 in the wording of the New King James Version. God’s creative act by the Wise and Sacred Spirit is an act of renewal, not only an act of creation. The Spirit does more than the activity of brooding in Genesis 1:2, the Spirit is active in renewing and refreshing the creation; therefore, the activity must take place more than once. Like Pentecost, which the Church believes was not a once-and-only event, so Jewish tradition in the Torah and the Ketuvim, the Law and the Writings of scripture, attests that God continues to send the Spirit when the Spirit is required. We are to expect the Spirit and welcome the Spirit when the Spirit comes, because the Spirit is sent by God to meet our need for God.

The gifts which are given by God through the Spirit are as diverse as the needs of the Church in the world. Paul instructs the Church at Corinth in this, saying that prophecy and prayer language are not enough: many human needs would be left unmet if God sent only prophets and interpreters into the world. Each need has its corresponding ministry, God’s response to that need. Each ministry has its corresponding gift, God’s empowering for the work of that ministry. Paul addresses the matter from the other side, saying that every gift has its corresponding ministry in part because the Corinthians were so fascinated by the extravagant work of God amongst them that they had forgotten to utilise the enabling of God to conduct and complete the work of God. Each gift has its corresponding minister who brings the gift to remedy the need with the presence of God.  It follows then that different gifts are given to different people for them to use in different situations in the world. No two Christians are identical in their make-up, nor should they be: we are each unique and all complimentary, designed to work together, to fit together. Since no Christian is exempt from the call to ministry, (it is baptism which makes you a minister, not ordination), every  Christian is provided with the gifts required. Women and men have gifts, not just men; girls and boys have gifts, not just boys; and of course, children and adults have gifts, not just adults. New converts and life-long disciples have gifts, not just the decades old believers; ordained and lay have gifts, not just the ordained; and the same can be said for diversity in race, nationality, material wealth, health, marital status, and so on. If you are a Christian you have gifts, because if you are a Christian you have ministries.

But of course, we know that not all gifts are prevalent in all people. My understanding is that every Christian has every gift, you were not given a portion of the Spirit at your baptism but all of God; but I also believe that God only uses some of the gifts in each person to ensure that all of the gifts are expressed in the local church. For example, not everyone in this room can preach, but in the very next breath I say that I am not the only person in this room who can. You each have the fullness of the Spirit that I do, but only a few of us, me included, are called to use the gift of preaching. Of course the inverse is also true, where even as your minister, there are things which God has not called me to do, and I cannot do as well as those of you whom God has called. I have no idea what those things are, because I am incredibly gifted, but I’m sure there something someone here can do better than I could.  😊

Paul provides a list of gifts.  This list is not exhaustive, there are other gifts which Paul does not mention here. I don’t think the unmentioned gifts are less important, it’s just that Paul is making a point, and his point has been made. “It’s not all about the prophets and tongues talkers”, he is saying, “just look at all the other examples”. There are gifts of Wisdom (application of information) and Knowledge (insight to partner wisdom); gifts of Faith (confident assurance for encouragement), gifts of Healings (note that this is plural), and gifts of Miracles. Consider how Faith might work in a team with Healings and Miracles; that’s how it’s supposed to work. There are gifts of Prophecy (telling the truth with boldness), and gifs of Discerning of Spirits (naming names for the purposes of directed response, perhaps by the prophet). There are gifts of Prayer Language (for worship and intercession), and gifts of Interpretation of prayer language (to partner with the pray-ers and the prophets); and there are many more. In the Past I have been used by God in ministries of Intercession, which draws from the list just read but also needs further detailing, some of which is found in Ephesians 4:11-13.

The evidence is clear from the history of the people of God, from the time of Moses, the time of David, and the time of Paul that God is pouring out the Spirit on all humankind. In his Pentecost Day sermon Peter declares the evidence of God’s action, and that it is God who is acting, is seen in the present day amongst those who are prophesying and speaking of visionary dreaming. In other words, God’s people are speaking the truth clearly and with a deep and trustful hope for the future; even as Joel said they would in his day, Peter’s day, and on every day leading into the last days. No one shall be made exempt, not by age nor by social status, not by anything other than his or her unwillingness to act for God. There will be no doubt what is happening, this will all clearly be the work of God, and those who see this and call out to God will be rescued by God from whatever and wherever they are lost in. When Spirit falls the truth is told and people are saved, healed, and restored. Moses saw it in the desert, the 120 saw it in Jerusalem, and Paul writes of it to a church in a pagan city in Europe, so that they know what to expect and how to operate when it happens. So Stawell, are you ready? Are you willing? Let’s have at it. Amen.