Wind, fire, speaking . . . listening to Pentecost, I’m reminded of Elijah in the cave.  Elijah fled from Jezebel and the northern kingdom afraid for his life.  The apostles were afraid for their lives: all marked men.  Elijah sought shelter in a cave.  The apostles were holed up where they had been staying in Jerusalem.  There is fire, there is wind; as Elijah, so the apostles knew that God wasn’t in the fire or in the wind: these were signs of the presence and power of God, signs of His glory.  Like Elijah, the apostles knew God Himself was in their presence when there was speech.  Our God speaks.  He doesn’t shout.  He doesn’t mumble.  When God called Elijah, Elijah goes out from the cave: God’s call draws people out of where they had taken shelter; God sends out, in the sheltering power of the Holy Spirit.

God sends with a message, meant for many, meant to be shared and received.  At Pentecost, people from every corner of the Roman Empire who had gathered in Jerusalem for this special festival heard their own languages.  What foreigners were saying to them was intelligible; they understood, in their own language, the language they spoke where they came from.  God sends his Church out, saying, let them hear the true message truly.

We are all far, in one way and another, from proclaiming the true message truly.  Our hope is and has always been the Holy Spirit, still and always with us, clearing the way for us to hear, guiding us to opportunities and occasions to speak the truth in love.

There is risk.  We’ve all spoken only to be misunderstood.  We’ve all spoken and suffered for what we have said, whether we said it for good or for ill.  We are still growing in the way of using speech for upbuilding, the gift of the Spirit.  We still, too often, use the blessing of speech to tear down.  Tearing down is easy.  Building up is hard.

Elijah was in that cave because he was afraid: he was in danger.  The cave was his shelter, as he thought, yet God drew Elijah out from his supposed shelter, not by fire, not by wind, but by God’s voice, His call, His Word.  The apostles gathered in fear and apprehension.  They were in danger.  It was dangerous to be together.  They sought the shelter of hiding, away from others, locked up.  Now, at Pentecost, God gives them ability, and sends them out.  What we see in Scripture, over and over, is that the only shelter of the faithful is God.  Their only safety is God.  Their only security is God.  There is danger, risk, suffering, and there is God, who sustains, who raises, who triumphs, who calls and sends.  God doesn’t call us into earthly safety but to be safe in the arms of Jesus.

Those strangers in Jerusalem, foreigners, are staggered by what they hear.  I am not a confident Spanish speaker, but I know some phrases, and I’m not afraid to take risks and make mistakes—I do believe that learning happens better by mistakes than by never making a mistake: provided we learn from our mistakes.  By the grace of God, I hope that I have learned and am learning.  It’s going to take a lifetime, though, I know that.  I see and hear news just about weekly that still leaves me wondering why it is so hard for people to learn: we just seem to go on doing the very things that led to sorrow and disaster before [. . . .]  It’s as though suffering, sorrow, and stupidity were our native language.  So long as we remain chained in sin, we are all too fluent in suffering, sorrow, and stupidity.

Then the Spirit speaks, and gives our eyes, hearts, and wills the ability to perceive that our chains have been broken, that Jesus Christ pulled them apart and lifted them from us.  It’s as if, for the first time, we hear our true native language, the language of Eden, before the fall, the language of Adam and Eve, rejoicing in God, celebrating creation with God in peace and joy, innocence and love.  When the Spirit calls us, gives us ability to respond to the call, it is as if we hear the language of our birth, of our native place: Gospel, grace, Spirit, God—our true birth, our true home.  We hear this native language in the most unlikely place: here, this foreign land of our wandering and exile, this world of fallen flesh, idols, error, sorrow, suffering, and stupidity.

Some of you may have had the experience of hearing your birth-language in a foreign place [. . . .]  How unexpected!  How delightful!  What a relief, a blessing!  Finally, you know you will be understood, and you will understand.  No matter how fluent we become in a second language, there is always the gap, the accent.  Christians become especially aware of the accent—the accent of the world, and our accent as Christians in this world.

Speaking without hearing is nothing but wind, wasted breath, vanity of vanities.  The delight of conversation, of communication, is not that I speak and others listen—though we know people like that.  The delight of communication is that I am understood, and I understand.  Others speak, and I listen, I hear, and I speak, and others listen, and hear.  There is connection.

When God sends the faithful out in the Spirit, out to shelter in Him alone, out to share His message in this world, this life of idols and errors, He gives us not only the ability to speak but also ability to be heard.  The wonder, praise, and glory is not that the apostles are speaking in foreign languages, let alone speaking in tongues.  The wonder, praise, and glory is that the apostles are speaking in ways that are intelligible to those listening: the message is getting through; there is understanding, connection, and response.

This, also, is the work of the Spirit.  The Spirit enables us to speak the message.  The Spirit enables hearing.  Many listened to Jesus.  Some believed.  Many did not.  Many saw what Jesus did.  Some believed.  Many did not.  We continue to proclaim the message, to share the Gospel, for, although many will not listen, not believe, some will.  We are not speaking for the sake of the many.  We speak for the sake of those who will hear.

A crowd gathered that day, as they beheld what was happening.  There were those who saw and heard and believed.  There were those who saw, heard, and scoffed—“Raving drunkards, at 9:00 a.m.!”  The Spirit was not speaking to such as those.  This is part of what we do not understand and will not, in this life: God chooses some and not others.  There are some we wish God would choose, and it seems He never does.  There are some whom we wonder why God has chosen, yet chosen them He has: they believe, they have faith.

We each have a crowd.  The crowd is larger or smaller.  That is not important.  What is important is that we each have a crowd.  God has arranged it so.  Facebook provides a case in point: some of you have hundreds in your crowd—how do you know so many people?!  Others, me, for example, may have less than fifty—how do I know so few people?!  Size is not the point.  Each of us has a crowd.

Some are closer in.  Others are at the edge.  Who is at the edge of your crowd, hovering, uncertain, uncommitted?  How might you declare the wonders of God to them so that they might hear?  God gives us a crowd, a message; He gives the ability to speak, and to be heard. 

The crowd that Pentecost day was hearing the wonders of God.  I think that means not only the wonderful things God has done for His people, but also the wonder that God is.  Scripture glories in what God has done.  Just as often, Scripture glories in God.  We rejoice in what God has done for us—Amen!!—and what God has done for us is an expression of who God is.  If we’re going to rejoice in anything, beloved, let us rejoice, glory, in God!

When we glory in God first and foremost, when we’re all excited about God, people take note.  It’s a huge repulsion for some—they want nothing to do with those horrid, hateful, ignorant “Jesus people,” and if you’re one of them, then, ugh, eeeeww.  For others, knowing that you believe in God, that you’re all excited about God, may cause them to wonder if there’s something to it, after all, something real at the heart of it.  They may even finally work up the courage to ask—the Spirit at work in them for their salvation.  Jesus saves, and we receive this truth, this Gospel this reality, by the Spirit.

By word, by deed, by our living, we proclaim what we have heard.  What do our lives declare?  Does your living proclaim Christ?  Yes!  And no.  Lord our God, clear away the clutter, the obstructions.  Clear the way, that we may more clearly proclaim the way, and the truth, and the life.  We only have so much time, beloved.  We always knew it, in a more or less abstract sort of way.  Now, we are in times that remind us of this truth much more directly, viscerally: whether your health is robust or compromised, we only have so much time.

Sheltering in place won’t alter that, as though we could find shelter from mortality.  God gives wisdom and prudence: we don’t rashly risk ourselves and life is a risk.  When we felt safe (remember those times?), we felt that way not because we were but because thinking that way enabled us to live with some peace of mind, some semblance of calm, with purpose and focus.  Now, we are being shown that the things that used to make us feel safe were just tissue: how quickly this world has wiped it away!

Our safety and our shelter, beloved, is and always has only been God, who called us into being, who in Jesus Christ broke the chains of sin that kept our hearts and lives locked away from Him, who by the Holy Spirit addressed us in our native language, gave us a name and a hope, and who gives us ability, today, now, and each day, to risk everything for Him who is our love, our life, our glory, our God.  Be signs of God’s glory.

Now to the One who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all we can ask or imagine, to God be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.