Acts 2:1–21 & John 7:37–39
I will admit this is an odd title for a sermon, especially in a church that was destroyed by fire in December of 1903. I understand the fire broke out shortly after the service ended on Sunday morning. I would be interested in knowing which sermon the pastor preached!
Fire can be devastating, but it can also produce life. The forest management folx will say that a forest fire should be allowed to burn, as the forest becomes healthier after the fire burns off dead material, making room for new growth. A lesson the church should learn as well.
There are moments in history when something old finally realizes it cannot survive by pretending everything is fine.
A company that refuses to innovate eventually collapses. A government that stops listening to the people eventually fractures. A family that refuses to talk honestly eventually grows distant.
And yes, even the Church, when it becomes more concerned with preservation than with proclamation, risks becoming a museum rather than a movement.
Pentecost arrives as a holy disruption—challenging complacency and calling us to renewal.
Disruption is not always a bad thing. 250 years ago, a bunch of farmers gathered and decided they had had enough and wanted a different life for themselves and their children. Through disruption of the status quo and a war, they changed the course of history and brought forth a new nation that aspired to the holy notion that everyone, man, woman, white, black, English, French, was created equal and had certain rights not given to them by a government, but given to them by their creator.
The disciples were about to learn about holy disruption. They are gathered behind closed doors. They are fearful, uncertain, unsure of what comes next. Jesus has ascended. The world around them is unstable. Rome still rules. Violence still exists. Poverty still exists. Corruption still exists. Fear still exists.
And then the Spirit comes. Not politely. Not quietly. Not cautiously. The Spirit arrives like wind and fire, disrupting complacency and igniting change. Jesus came to change how people interacted with each other on an individual level, not on a corporate level. Jesus came to reform worship and the way religion was being practiced. I don’t believe Jesus came to create an institution but rather to initiate a movement of holy disruption. The Spirit empowers this movement by transforming fear into boldness and sparking new beginnings within the Church.
Pentecost is not just the Church’s “birthday.” It is when God moves the Church beyond stagnation.
And perhaps that is the word we need to hear today.
Because if we are honest, many parts of the modern Church are exhausted. We are watching denominations shrink. We are watching sanctuaries empty. Left, right, and center, religious leaders are falling prey to a bad spirit. We are watching Christians become more known for outrage than compassion, more committed to ideology than the Gospel, more interested in winning arguments than healing wounds. More interested in keeping people out than welcoming them in.
Meanwhile, outside the walls of the Church, the world is aching. People are lonely. People are anxious. People are drowning in division and misinformation. Young people, especially, are searching for meaning in a world of endless scrolling and very little hope.
Pentecost enters not as nostalgia or mere tradition, but as an invitation to real renewal and transformation.
In our reading from Acts, the Spirit descends, and suddenly people from every nation hear the Gospel in their own language. That detail matters deeply.
The miracle of Pentecost is not that everyone suddenly spoke the same language. The miracle is that God spoke in ways people could actually understand. The message of the Gospel is simple: just love everyone. We have made it difficult.
The Spirit does not erase difference; the Spirit bridges it. The Spirit welcomes everyone, regardless of origin, skin color, or who they love. The Spirit assures that all are loved and invites everyone—not only those deemed worthy—to come and find rest.
And perhaps that is one of the great failures of the Church in our own time. Too often, we expect people to learn our language and act a certain way rather than asking whether we are speaking the language of love, justice, mercy, and hope that the world desperately needs.
One of the clearest examples of what true repentance and renewal can look like came last week when the Church of Scotland formally apologized for its historic involvement in and benefit from slavery. By the way, we are not immune to this.
The Church confessed that some of its leaders used theology to justify the unjustifiable and acknowledged that the legacy of slavery still shapes systems of inequality today. In the words of the apology, the Church said it was “grieved beyond telling” and committed itself to “changing course and bearing fruit worthy of repentance.” That is not weakness. That is what the Gospel looks like when a church is brave enough to tell the truth about itself.
Because renewal in the Church, renewal in anything, does not begin with pretending we have always been right. Renewal begins with honesty. With confession and repentance, with the courage to say, “We got this wrong, and by the grace of God, we want to do better.”
We have become fluent in institutional survival, but sometimes forget how to speak human.
Pentecost reminds us that the Gospel must always be translated, not changed, but translated, into the realities people are actually living. If we are preaching a message that’s not relevant to the people we are trying to reach, no one will listen. The Church, as an institution, has become irrelevant in people’s lives, and we need to change that.
The early Church did not survive because it clung to comfort. It survived because it adapted while remaining rooted in Christ.
That is reformation. And reformation is not a dirty word in the Church. The Church has always needed renewal. Always.
The Protestant Reformation happened because the Church had become too entangled with power and wealth. The Civil Rights Movement forced many churches to confront the sin of racism embedded in their theology and practice. Even now, we are being called to reckon with nationalism masquerading as Christianity, with fear being preached as faith, with political tribalism replacing the radical inclusiveness of Jesus.
And before anyone becomes uncomfortable, let me say this clearly: the Gospel should make us uncomfortable. When I first arrived, I told you that my calling is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. That is what the Gospel does.
Because Jesus consistently crossed boundaries that everyone else wanted to preserve. He spoke with Samaritans. He touched lepers. He welcomed outsiders. He challenged religious leaders. He confronted the empire. He proclaimed good news to the poor and liberty to the oppressed.
The Spirit did not descend at Pentecost so the Church could become safe and respectable. The Spirit descended to energize, renew, and motivate the Church to become bold again. The Spirit’s purpose was to transform the Church into a Holy Disruption, empowering believers to act courageously and break through barriers.
And boldness is not cruelty. Boldness is not arrogance. Boldness is not culture war.
Biblical boldness is telling the truth in love. Biblical boldness is defending the dignity of every human being because each bears the image of God. Biblical boldness is feeding the hungry while others debate whether they deserve food. Biblical boldness is standing beside the marginalized even when it costs us something. Biblical boldness is proclaiming hope in a cynical age.
That is the fire and purpose of Pentecost: bold renewal that keeps the Church alive.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus stands up during the festival and cries out: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and let the one who believes in me drink.” And then John tells us Jesus is speaking about the Spirit.
Thirst.
What a perfect image for our moment. We are spiritually dehydrated. We live in the wealthiest society in human history, and yet people are starving for meaning. We have more technology than ever before, yet many people have never felt more isolated. We are constantly connected and rarely commune. We binge entertainment but hunger for joy. We consume outrage but thirst for peace.
And the Church has too often responded by offering performance instead of transformation, skirting the truth to avoid upsetting anyone. We reach out rather than draw in, replace traditional worship with rock concert-like services, dismiss anything traditional as “old-fashioned,” and transform sanctuaries into multipurpose auditoriums where we preach comfortable messages.
But Jesus does not offer spectacle. Jesus offers living water. Living water flows. Living water moves. Living water refreshes, cleanses, and nourishes. And all that costs. Not in dollars and cents but in dying to self and living in the spirit.
And stagnant water? It dies.
Look around and see how many churches are closing their doors. All the mainline protestant denominations have recorded losses over the last 20 years. Churches that were once thriving have diminished, consolidated with other congregations, or disappeared altogether.
But I can honestly say that our future looks bright. Sure, we could just add a few more people in the pews. But even with less, you are doing more. You are feeding your neighbors. You welcome all to the table. We may not always agree, but we get the job done.
Perhaps one of the questions Pentecost asks us is this: Where have we become stagnant? And we all get stagnant, personally, congregationally, and nationally. Where have we mistaken routine for faithfulness? Where have we confused maintaining the institution with participating in God’s mission?
Because the Spirit has never been particularly interested in preserving the status quo. Just ask Peter—he was transformed by the Spirit’s prompting to move beyond tradition and embrace new ways of embodying God’s mission.
Before Pentecost, Peter is frightened and denies Jesus around a charcoal fire. After Pentecost, Peter stands in the streets proclaiming resurrection with courage. The same Peter. The same flaws. The same humanity. But now filled with the Spirit.
And that matters because Pentecost is not about perfect people becoming holy superheroes. It is about ordinary people becoming open to God’s transforming presence.
The Spirit still does that. The Spirit still takes fearful people and makes them courageous. The Spirit still takes divided communities and creates reconciliation. The Spirit still breaks open hardened hearts.
I think about some of the movements we have witnessed in recent years. Communities organizing after tragedy. Young people are demanding action on climate change because they understand they will inherit the consequences of our inaction. Churches are opening their doors as shelters and food pantries, while others insist faith should remain “private.”
That, too, is Spirit work. Because the Spirit is never just emotional. The Spirit is transformational. And transformation always produces movement.
Notice that at Pentecost the disciples do not stay inside the room. The Spirit pushes them outward. Out into the streets. Out into the public square. Out into the messiness of real life. Out of comfort and into uncomfortableness.
The Church cannot fulfill its mission by hiding from the world. We are called into the world, not to dominate it, not to condemn it, but to love it as Christ loves it. And most importantly, to offer hope.
And that may mean the Church itself must change in some important ways.
We may need to spend less energy on getting people into church and more on bringing the love of Christ to where people already are. We may need fewer celebrity pastors and more authentic communities. We may need less obsession with numbers and more concern for neighbors. We may need less fear of difficult conversations and more trust that truth and grace can coexist.
Because renewal is rarely comfortable. Ask anyone who has gone through recovery. Ask anyone who has rebuilt their life after loss. Ask any congregation that has truly reinvented itself. Renewal requires honesty.
The Spirit first disrupts before the Spirit rebuilds. Wind before fire. Fire before proclamation. Proclamation before transformation.
And maybe that is why Pentecost can feel unsettling. Because if we truly pray, “Come, Holy Spirit,” we are not praying for business as usual. We are asking God to change us. To burn away our complacency. To loosen our grip on fear. To open our eyes to our neighbors. To renew the Church not as a fortress of certainty but as a community of hope.
The prophet Joel’s words, quoted by Peter, still echo today: “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.”
All flesh. Not just the powerful. Not just the wealthy. Not just the people who look like us or vote like us or worship like us.
All flesh. Pentecost is radically inclusive because God’s Spirit is radically generous.
And maybe the greatest sign of renewal in the Church will not be larger buildings or bigger budgets. Maybe the true sign of renewal will be whether people encounter Christ in us.
Will they find compassion? Will they find welcome? Will they find justice? Will they find hope? Will they find living water? Will they be transformed?
Because the world is thirsty. And the Spirit is still being poured out. The question is whether we are willing to be renewed by it.
Whether we are willing to let the wind blow through the dusty rooms of our hearts and our institutions. Whether we are willing to stop clinging to what is familiar long enough for God to create something new.
Pentecost is not about preserving ashes. It is about carrying fire.
So Church, perhaps it is time to stop asking how we survive and start asking how we burn brightly again. Not with anger. Not with fear. But with love so alive, so courageous, so Spirit-filled that the world cannot help but notice.
O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, Who art everywhere and fillest all things; Treasury of Blessings, and Giver of Life – come and abide in us, and cleanse us from every impurity, and save our souls, O Good One.
Amen.
