Pentecost Sermon

I want you to take a look at your hand. 

Right or left, it doesn't matter.

Every day our hands do impressive amounts of work.

They influence our experience of the world.

Look at your fingers.

You probably don't think about them often.

They are very similar in nature to each other,

yet each is different. 

Each is unique from the others.

Even our fingers have diversity!

Each of our fingers have different purposes and gifts. 

The fact that our thumbs are at an angle and move slightly differently than the other fingers... opposable thumbs! 

What a gift our thumbs are in our daily lives!

(Especially when you consider animals without opposable thumbs,

we have all seen those internet memes.)

We may look at our hands and think they are all the same. 

In fact, we have diversity right in our hands.

The word diversity really means a range of different things.

Not that it has a range of different meanings,

it quite literally means, "a range of different things."

Having a collection be diverse means that there are different things in the collection.

So speaking about diversity in the context of people 

requires two things: community and different gifts.

This is where we go to the passage from Acts,

the bedrock of Pentecost.

The passage starts with the community.

"The disciples were all together in one place." 

Here we have a collection of people, already diverse in nature.

Tax collectors, fisherman, carpenters,

all gathered together in a room because of the same glue.

Its quite obvious that the only reason the disciples ever managed to stay together

was because of Jesus. 

Together, this little community of men,

has an amazing experience.

A rush of wind and tongues of fire,

a change of heart and feeling of presence,

and a sudden new knowledge filling each of them. 

Diversity is one of the first gifts the Holy Spirit ever gives to the church, 

simply by giving the disciples the ability to speak different languages.

When the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples that day of Pentecost,

it didn't tell the disciples to go only 

to the Aramaic speaking good Jews to spread the good news of Jesus.

No, the Holy Spirit gave the disciples new languages,

the gift of speaking to people wholly different from them.

With the gifts of the Holy Spirit there were going to be

Egyptian followers of Jesus

and Parthian followers of Jesus

and Mesopotamian followers of Jesus.

People from all over the known world

who didn't all have the same background or the same ideas.

The Holy Spirit came and made the disciples more diverse,

even than they had been before.

I love the fact that someone thinks this rush of speaking in languages from Jews

is because of wine.

As if having some wine could give us the ability to speak a new language.

The work of the Holy Spirit in this way 

was so new, 

so amazing, 

so profound,

no good excuses could be made to justify the event away.

Someone in the crowd tried to blame it on wine,

but we all know that was simply out of fear.

You can see the bystanders trying to push the idea away,

out of fear, out of wanting to stay away from the unknown.

Unfortunately, for many the gift of diversity looks like a threat. 

The unknown quality of people being different from one another leads to fear. 

Thankfully, this fear can be overcome.

Recognizing and accepting diversity does put us outside of our comfort zones. 

It is the work of the Holy Spirit,

and God doesn't call us to be comfortable.

In a world increasing separating into groups of like minded people who do not play well with people or groups who are differently minded, 

the world lacks the grace of living into our gifts as diverse people.

However, everyone is different in this world. 

Everyone deserves the dignity and respect which we each crave for ourselves. 

Everyone is different and has different gifts. 

One of the greatest gifts we can give another person

is acknowledging them for as uniquely themselves. 

It is only by working together, 

using all the gifts which we bring to the table, 

can we really ever accomplish anything. 

The world is worth working with other people who are extremely different than us. 

Not everyone can speak Spanish or German or Hindi or Swahili, 

but the Holy Spirit has given us the gifts that we need in order to work together.

Many people feel that the church is, and has always been,

a place for people who all think, feel, believe, and look the same.

You have to be and act and speak in a particular way in order to be a part of the church.

Unfortunately, there are many parts of the church in which this is true.

There are rules governing what you can wear, what you can eat or drink,

who you can talk to, and so forth.

By no means am I advocating a standard of lawlessness or anarchy,

there are standards for being a follower of Jesus

however none of them are based on what clothing you wear

or what you can eat or drink.

In fact, Jesus would probably have broken any and all rules

given to him by the religious authorities of his own church

in order to be involved and part of the lives of the people who needed him.

Diversity is a strength, not one of the church's greatest strengths,

though thankfully one that we are more and more recognizing the need for.

Here in this community, we have a range of diversity

Episcopalians, Lutherans, a few Catholics,

we have people who speak languages other than English,

we have people who are differently abled,

we have people who can program electronic devices,

and people who stay as far away from such devices as they can,

and all these diversities make for a better community.

We come together today to join our diverse hands

to be together as a community with different gifts

experiencing the Holy Spirit in this time and in this place,

so that when we go out into the world 

we can meet God at work through the Holy Spirit

in all the diverse places and people we experience.

God sends us out to find ourselves and Him

in all the beautiful diversities of His creation.

Amen.