We don’t know each other very well. It’s a tremendous downside of being a fill in preacher. There are a couple of things to know about me that help my preaching style make a little more sense though. One is that I’m a lawyer. I practiced criminal defense before heading off to seminary. My sermons will almost always comply to what I learned as the “Wizard of Oz Rule.” Meaning I will always address the because, because, because, because, beeecauuussseeee. Rather than leaving anything hanging.
The other thing to help my preaching style make sense is that I’m a recovering Evangelical.
It was actually a conservative, literalist, nondenominational church that sent me to seminary. Doing so, to their credit, even though they considered me a sinner who was unable to be in leadership, nor even a member of the church, because I’m gay.
Being a recovering Evangelical means that I really do love Jesus, and tend to talk about him like he’s my friend. It also means I have spent a lot of time studying scripture. And, every now and then, something in a reading triggers something from those old evangelical days.
It usually really surprises me when something gets triggered. Because I’ve spent a lot of time in therapy and spiritual direction unpacking all things evangelical.
So imagine my surprise when this week, I found myself triggered and really ruminating on wine. This is a bit ironic because I no longer drink. Not because of the former Evangelical thing, I just reached a point about 6 years ago when it was time to stop.
But here I was, ruminating on wine fermentation this week!
I’m often struck by the reaction of some folks in the Pentecost story dismissing the Apostles as being drunk, and the response of “but it’s only 9 in the morning!” Last year I actually preached that Peter has clearly never been to a NASCAR race, because people definitely get incredibly drunk by 9 in the morning.
But this year, what I kept being struck by was the mental gymnastics that some conservative literalists will go to in order to contort Scripture to mean what they want it to say. Over and beyond what the literal words mean in English. Specifically, I thought a fair amount about how in order to promote not drinking, some conservative literalists have attempted to make “wine” mean grape juice. Or, they have said that “new wine” means unfermented fruit juice, and “old wine” is fermented wine.
Now, the second seems a lot more plausible, but is still wrong.
And we know this, because there is archaeology has revealed and other actual proof of what is meant by wine and “new wine.” Wine means wine, not grape juice. And new wine is actually the stronger, while old wine has become a bit more like vinegar.
Once I started down this path of unpacking conservative mental gymnastics, I started unpacking several. And there is one I think it’s important to look at today, because it isn’t looked at very often.
And that is that this text from Acts has been used to promote the anti-semetic fiction that Judaism was very small and limited to a very few people, while Christianity was universal and open to everyone. When in fact, the opposite was true.
Even according to a literal reading of the text! There were devout Jews living in Jerusalem, and in “every nation under heaven”. It was Christians who were debating, or were soon to start debating, if Christianity would be widely available, or available to only a few Jewish people.
There is an aspect of first century CE Judaism that’s important to understand in order to really grasp the depth of the meaning of Pentecost for modern Christians.
Moses, they believed, received a written version of the Torah and an oral teaching from God. Moses then taught the oral portion to the other leaders of Israel while the Torah lived in the Arc and was brought out for written study. The Torah still lives in the Arc in most synagogues and is brought out for study. And the oral tradition of teaching continues. Learning from both the written and oral teachings was hugely important in Judaism, and still is.
So let’s set the scene for this reading from Acts. This huge group of Jewish people living all over the world had converged in Jerusalem for the festival of weeks, which began 7 weeks after Passover, on the 50th day, leading to the name of this day in our tradition, Pentecost, the Greek word for 50.
And they have converged, in part, expecting to receive the oral tradition of the Jewish law from teachers in Jerusalem.
The scene was well set for the tongues of fire to bless each Apostle with the ability to speak, and be understood, in different languages. So they could go out and teach, passing on this new law, to people who could understand them, and take those lessons back to their home lands. People from far and wide who were there to learn.
And just to unpack one other related conservative teaching, the spirit poured out this ability to speak and to understand, upon all. Regardless of age, of gender, of nation, of orientation, of wealth, of race. All. Everyone.
This text is also used to say that only men received the Spirit and therefore only men should be pastors. But that is also mental gymnastics that are actually only possible by reading the text literally in English rather than Hebrew or Greek. And limiting an understanding of the words, “all” and “them” to mean men. And ignoring completely when Jesus quotes God by saying “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy”.
In short: God is available to everyone, and will find really creative ways of to reach us. All of us. Each of us! All we have to do is listen. That’s what we celebrate on Pentecost!
So, today, I say have a glass of wine, or a cup of coffee, and take a moment to listen to what the Spirit might be whispering to you.
Because she’s waiting to talk to you, and Pentecost is a great day to have a listen.
Amen
Cara Rockhill - Christianity in the 21st Century is Complicated 