— Introduction to today’s lessons —

5/11/08 — The Day of Pentecost

Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11 The 120 Jews who were disciples of Jesus (see Acts 1:15) gathered on the Jewish day of Pentecost, which was the Jewish celebration that marked God’s giving the Law to Moses, according to tradition with tongues of fire.¹

In the Old Testament fire is frequently used to signify or symbolize the presence of God.² “The gift of the Spirit is precisely to take the place of Christ on earth.”³

Jews who had been born and lived the entirety of their lives in cities throughout the Roman Empire often retired to live as foreigners in Jerusalem. There these Jews who had moved from foreign lands heard the Galileans, who knew no foreign languages, speaking in their own native languages.⁴

This lesson does not merely report “the commemoration of a single historical event. Indeed, while Acts locates the outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, John in today’s gospel places it on Easter Sunday evening, each for theological rather than historical reasons.

“The important point is that the giving of the Spirit is the outcome of the work of the risen Christ. Nor should we think of the outpouring of the Spirit as a single event. Even the Book of Acts speaks of successive outpourings. We must avoid historicizing the Lucan presentation in this reading.”⁵

The disciples’ experience on Pentecost was “a unifying experience which transcended all barriers of nationality and language.”⁶ “Historically, this appearance marks the foundation of the Church as a wider community than the original Twelve…”⁷ “The whole scene is a…summing-up in a symbolical picture of what is to be the theme of Acts: the Spirit-inspired proclamation to the whole world.”⁸

The final symbolism might be that not only were the disciples not drunk, they fulfilled the prophecy of Joel 2:28-29 that God’s spirit will be poured out on “all flesh” and in that process reversed the language confusion of Babel (Genesis 11:1 ff.), where God said (verse 7), ”Come, let us go down, and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

The lesson closes with Joel’s report of a guarantee of salvation for those who call on the name of he Lord.

Psalm 104:24-34, 35b The psalm begins with acknowledgment that God is the creator of all that exits. It is “a hymn to God the Creator.”⁹ A magnificent hymn celebrating the power and wisdom of Yahweh as displayed in the wonder and variety of his creation.”¹⁰ “Its central theme is the Lord’s glory and wisdom as manifested in the created world…Nothing is made for itself alone, but each is made for another, so that the needs of all are fully met.”¹¹

“Humans are to live in relationship to nature and to God. Humans are only one part of God’s creation. This psalm accentuates the equality of animals and humans; both look to God for their food (104:27-30).”¹²

“If Psalm 104 has some affinity with Genesis 1…then this psalmist can imagine in a playful

fashion God sporting with Leviathan…”¹³

Verse 29 reminds all that life (breath) comes from God. Verse 30 reminds all that God’s wind (breath, spirit) gives life and renewal. See Job 12:10: “In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind.” ‘Breath’ is “the animating principle in all life, and the gift of God; at death it returns to its Giver.”¹⁴ Verses 27-30 carry it forward: “Just as God brought every living thing into existence, so through him its life is preserved.”¹⁵

Verse 32, smoking mountains probably was inspired by volcanic activity.¹⁶

The lesson ends with the reminder that all who have breath and God’s spirit are to bless and praise the Lord.

First Corinthians 12:3b-13 “At Corinth there was a great emphasis on speaking in tongues. Paul…would have the Corinthians be aware of its dangers by applying the criterion of true confession. “It is the work of the Spirit of God to bear witness to the lordship of Jesus Christ. That which does not do this does not spring from him.¹⁶ The same would apply to all charisms (gifts of the Spirit). “Gifts are not occasions for boasting but opportunities of service to the community and through the community to the Lord..”¹⁷

Each Christian receives a manifestation of the Holy Sprit and they all come from the same source: the Spirit. Paul here lists some of the gifts—others are mentioned at I Cor. 12:28, Romans 12 and Ephesians 4:11. The lists are not intended to be exhaustive. The gifts are “a divinely given ability.”¹⁶

”Jesus’ work is seen in action as each Christian uses his or her gift. The church “is his continued incarnation in the world.” Unity in this lesson is described as ‘the common good’ (vs. 7); ‘the body is one’ (vs. 12); and ‘we were all baptized into one body’ and ‘were all made to drink of one Spirit’(vs. 13).¹⁸ Christ “remains always the prototype of the relationship.”¹⁸ No one possesses any gift or grace that he or she has not been given by God; “what we possess is not ours, it is his.” ²⁰

Some church members in Corinth thought their gift, speaking in tongues, made them superior to others. Paul writes to combat this “schismatic individualism.” ²¹ The various gifts are of equal importance because all are needed and each is given by the Spirit. “All are to bear witness to the lordship of Jesus Christ.” ²²

In verse 12, the body Paul refers to is the church.²³

The emphasis in verses 11-13 is that each member of the church has certain God-given abilities that are to be used for the body of Christ, the church. “the gifts of the Spirit must not produce individualism but must be placed at the service of the whole body.”²⁴ In God’s eyes all are equal and equally needed to form the whole. The baptism each shares with all other baptized persons creates them equal as does their membership in the one body drinking of the same Spirit.

John 20:19-23 At the time this gospel was written Christian Jews were no longer regarded as members of the Jewish faith but as belonging to a faith of which Judaism disapproves.²⁵

This story takes place on the evening of the Day of the Resurrection. The reason for the locked doors, in spite of the statement they were locked ‘for fear of the Jews, is that “John wants us to think that Jesus’ body could pass through closed doors.”²⁶

“Jesus has brought peace”²⁷to his disciples. “With the word of peace went the actual bestowal of peace.”²⁸

Jesus showed the disciples his hands and his side as proof that it was he. “The risen

Jesus who stands before his disciples is the Jesus who died on the cross…”²⁹

Jesus tells them, ‘As the Father has sent me so I send you.’ They are to become him for the world.³⁰He then breathed on them to create them as new men with a new mission: acting in his place to represent his Father among people.³¹

“Through the gift of the Spirit, Jesus makes possible his permanent presence among his followers…The Spirit’s task is to take the place of Jesus, to carry on his work, and to constitute his presence in the world…Through the gift of the spirit, Jesus makes possible his permanent presence among his followers.”³²John’s account of the giving of the Holy Spirit differs from that of Acts.³³

“The gospel reading associates the gift of the Spirit with the apostolic mission, here defined not as the proclamation of the kerygma [proclamation of the Christian message] but as the forgiving and retaining of sins.³⁴

The Jews understood that the power to forgive sins was God’s alone. Jesus makes it clear that God’s power has been delegated: “When you forgive men’s sins, at that moment God forgives those sins and they remain forgiven.”³⁵ “The disciples can forgive and hold men’s sins because now the risen Jesus has sent them as the Father sent him.”³⁶ They declare what God already has brought about.³⁷

The second ‘Peace be with you’ “is probably the result of editorial additions.”³⁸

Jesus makes it clear that God’s power to forgive sins has been delegated. “When you forgive men’s sins, at that moment God forgives those sins and they remain forgiven.”³⁹ “The disciples can forgive and hold men’s sins because now the risen Jesus has sent them as the Father sent him.”⁴⁰

“Jesus…transfers to his disciples—to the Church—his own mission. It is because he has been sent from the Father that the work of Jesus has its significance; it is because they have been sent by Jesus that the subsequent work of the disciples has meaning and effect.”⁴¹

Footnotes

Acts

1. Ernst Haenchen, Acts of the Apostles [Westminster, Tr. from 14^th German ed. 1965, 1971],

172, 174;

Peake’s Commentary, Nelson, [1962, reprint 1964], G.W.H. Lampe, Acts, 888; “This fact has considerably influenced Luke’s description of the event…The sound recalls Sinai as also does the appearance of fire. ‘Wind’ and “Spirit’ are closely related in Hebrew and Greek speech and thought, and wind and fire appear in the story of the Lord ‘passing by’ when Elijah visited the mountain of the Law (2 Kings 19:11ff).”

Raymond E. Brown, S.S., The Churches the Apostles Left Behind [Paulist Press, 1984], 67-68: “The crucial Pentecost scene is shaped by the imagery of the wind as the Spirit of God moving over the face of the waters at the creation (Gene. 1:2), and by the imagery of the God of the storm coming down on Mount Sinai to make a covenant with Israel as His people (Exodus 19:16ff.).”

Reginald Fuller, Preaching the Lectionary [The Liturgical Press, Rev. ed., 1984], 98: “Pentecost originated as a final celebration of the ingathering of the grain harvest, which had begun at Passover. Later Judaism transformed it into a feast of salvation history celebrating the giving of the Law at Sinai and the establishment of Israel as God’s people.

“All these associations were carried over into the Christian feast that marked the conclusion of the great fifty days. The grain harvest and the Law are replaced by the gift of the Spirit, and the constitution of the old Israel is replaced by the constitution of the new. The feast of the Law becomes the feast of the Spirit.”

Fuller, 95:The Exodus theophany is probably alluded to in the symbolism of the tongues of fire and the rushing wind.”

2. The fire pot and flaming torch marked God’s first covenant with Abraham (Genesis 15:17); God was the burning bush that was not consumed by fire that first attracted Moses (Exodus 3:2); God descended upon Mount Sinai in fire (Exodus 19:18); as the Jews fled from Egypt God led them by night with a pillar of fire (Exodus 13:21, 22); at Sinai, when God appeared as devouring fire (Exod.24:17); and again at Sinai when Moses came down from the fiery mountain (Deut. 5:23, 9:15).

3. Brown, Churches/Apostles, 67; In The Community of the Beloved Disciple [Paulist Press, 1979], Brown notes about I John: The author “emphasizes what is only hinted at in the Gospel, namely, that Jesus is the Paraclete (see Jon 14:16: ‘another Paraclete’).”

4. Johannes Munck, The Acts of the Apostles, [Rev. by William F. Albright and C.S. Mann, The Anchor Bible, [1967], 14: “The miracle cannot be explained.”

Haenchen 170, 171: “The Parthians were known particularly through their raids on the eastern boundaries of the Roman Empire. Luke may have taken the Medes and Elamites from the Bible (Isaiah 21:2), for the name ‘Medes’ had long been past history, as had also the country of ‘Elam’, north of the Persian Gulf….

“Judea has long been acknowledged a late insertion, as is a priori obvious from the fact that its vernacular is not foreign to Jerusalem…Pontus was the homeland of Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18:2), as was Egypt that of Apollos (Acts 18:24), likewise Cyrene was that of Lucius (Acts 13:1)…Romans, i.e. Rome-born Jews now living as foreigners in Jerusalem… form the last group…Cretans and Arabians are a later addition.”

See Munck 14; also, The Interpreters’ Bible [Exegesis of Acts by G.H.C. Macgregor, 1954], 38; This event seems to fulfill the prediction of John the Baptist that Jesus would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire (see Luke 3:16).

5. Reginald Fuller, Preaching the Lectionary, Liturgical Press, [Rev. Ed. 1984, 279;

The Interpreters’ Bible [Exposition of Acts, by Theodore P. Ferris, 1954], 37: “Modern biblical scholarship has proved beyond a doubt that the record as we have it is not always an accurate description of what actually happened, but is a compilation of what happened plus the presumptions, reflection, and judgment of the next generation.”

6. TIB, Ferris 38; 7. Fuller, 99;

8. Peake’s Commentary, Nelson, [1962, reprint 1964], G.W.H. Lampe, Acts, page 888;

Brown, Churches/Apostles, 62: Acts 1:8 “constitutes the table of contents of the book: ‘You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’”

Brown, Churches/Apostles, 65: “The Spirit of God that moved the prophets of Israel is conspicuously active in a prophetic way at the…beginning of the church (Acts…2:4, 17)… The distinguishing feature of Lucan ecclesiology is the overshadowing presence of the Spirit…Some have suggested that the…book could have been named more appropriately the Acts of the Spirit rather than the Acts of the Apostles.”

Psalm

9. Mitchell Dahood, S.J., Psalms III, The Anchor Bible [1070], 33;

10. Peake’s Commentary, Nelson, [1962, reprint 1964], Psalms, by G. W. Anderson, page 436;

The Psalms [Jack C. Knight and Lawrence A. Sinclair, eds., article, Ecology, Nature, Psalms by Benedict Janecko; Nashotah House Seminary, 1990 Forward Movement Publications], 102: It “has been called ‘the pearl of the psalter,’ and ‘ecological doxology’…and ‘the Lord of Seven Wonders…The psalm celebrates the interrelatedness of all being, human and nonhuman…

“In many ways similar to Genesis 1 with its division of 7 wondes/7days, it is also dependent upon an Egyptian hymn, that of Akhenaten demonstrating the universal outreach of ‘creation theology’ as well as an ecological viewpoint. Cross-culturing borrowing seems to be a common ingredient of many creation/nature oriented psalms such as this one and Ps 29, borrowed from the Canaanites…”

Fuller, 277: “It speaks of the wisdom of God as the power that creates, sustains, and renews the earth.”

Artur Weiser, The Psalms, The Old Testament Library, [tr. Herbert Hartwell, 5^th Rev. Ed., 1959, 1965], page 666; “The relation of this nature-hymn to the story of creation in the first chapters of Genesis is like that of a colored picture to the clear lines of a woodcut…Both have their origin in a common cultic tradition…[The psalmist] sees beauty and purpose in the world extolling the glory and wisdom of its Creator…[ The most striking of these features is the affinity of the psalm to the well-known hymn to the Sun composed by the Egyptian king Akhenaten [Amen-hotep IV] at the beginning of the fourteenth century BC.”

Dahood, 33: The psalm was not directly influenced by the Egyptian hymn to the Sun; “it would be more

prudent to envisage an indirect Egyptian influence through Canaanite mediation, more

specifically through Phoenician intervention.”

J.H. Eaton, Psalms [Torch Bible Commentaries, SCM Press, London, 1967], 249, 252: “Such influences will have been absorbed by the Canaanites of that period and eventually mediated by them to the guilds of Israelite psalmists. As a whole, however, the theology of the psalm is distinctively Israelite…There was a converging upon Israel of divine knowledge from many nations, as there was later to be a greater giving back.”

Weiser, 666: “The picture of the world which is in his mind bears the imprint of the spirit of his age and, in composing it, the psalmist has made use of the most varied features of the contemporary world-view to which we can find numerous parallels in Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek and Nordic mythology.”

Dahood, 44; “Biblical poets appropriated terms and images depicting Canaanite goddesses and used them to describe attributes of Yahweh.”

11. The Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. 4 [exegesis of Psalms by W. Stewart McCullough, 1955], 550;

12. The Psalms, Benedict Janecko, 102; 13. The Psalms, Benedict Janecko 104;

Dahood 45: ‘Leviathan’ is a “Canaanite monster, well known from Psalm 74 and Ugaritic texts…[it] further points up the Canaanite-Phoenician background of this psalm, which in recent decades has been widely interpreted in terms of Egyptian mythology.”

14. TIB, McCullough, 556; 15. Weiser 670;16. Dahood, 47;

I Corinthians

16. C.K. Barrett, I Cor., [Black’s NT Commentaries, 1968, 2^nd ed. 1971], 283;

Fuller, 279: If the person speaking by the Spirit acknowledges Jesus, then the charism is genuine.”

William F. Orr & James Arthur Walther, I Cor. Anchor Bible [1976], 280: “It is more likely…that the tongues are unintelligible unless someone receives the additional spiritual gift to interpret them.”

G.B. Caird, Luke [The Pelican NT Commentary,1963], 261: “It was typical of the earliest Christianity that the Spirit was not regarded as a doctrine to be believed but as an access of power to be received.”

TIB, Vol. 10 [exegesis of I Cor. by Clarence Tucker Craig, 1953], 149, 150, 151: “Spirituality is not one uniform experience which is separate from all other areas of life… The gifts have not been bestowed for private enjoyment; they are to serve the common good…Hence, there can be no ground for pride in respect to what is entirely a matter of grace.” 17. Barrett, 284;

18. Barrett, 284: Unity lies ultimately in the Spirit who gives, the Lord who is served, the God who is at work.”

O&W, Anchor, 282: “The Spirit unites what is diversely done.” 19. Barrett 288;

20. The Interpreters’ Bible, Vol. 10 [exposition of I Cor. by John Short, 1953], 150;

21. O&W, Anchor, 281; 22. Barrett 283;

O&W, Anchor, 284; “The unity of the body does not eliminate the differences among the parts.”

23. TIB, Short, 158: “The church…is Jesus’ continued incarnation in the world. Its supreme function is to perpetuate and to spread his spirit everywhere…”

TIB, Short, 159; “The ‘body’ is animated through and through by his indwelling Spirit.”

John Ruef, Paul’s First Letter to Corinth [Westminster Pelican Commentaries, 1971, 1977], 130; “Paul’s formulation of the working of the Spirit was deeply influenced by the particular situation to which he wrote. He is not forging a doctrine of the church when he speaks here of the one Body and Body of Christ. He is rather using these terms to elucidate the situation of the Corinthian Christians. The Body-image is therefore a means to an end. The end in view is the description of a proper view of the gifts of the Spirit.”24. Fuller 279;

John

25. Raymond E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple [Paulist Press, N.Y.1979], 50: “Johannine Christianity has become a new religion separate from Judaism, a religion that self-defensively affirms that it is richer rather than poorer—what it has gained is greater than what it has left behind. On the other side of the street, the spurning of cult and feasts by the Johannine Christians after their expulsion from the synagogues served to make ‘the Jews’ certain that they had done the right thing rooting out such people.”

Robert Kysar, The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 3 [Article, John, The Gospels of 1992], 919, 920: This gospel reflects a developed church from the perspective of the Johannine Community, a Christian group whose roots may go back to 40-60 A.D. It is thought to have been written between 90-95, although some scholars date it ten years earlier.

Brown, Community, 29: It is suggested that “when the Gospel was written the Johannine community was engaged in a dispute with followers of John the Baptist who rejected Jesus and claimed that their master was the Messiah or at least the envoy of God.”

26 Brown, Anchor, 1020;

Marsh, 643: “The entry of Jesus was abnormal and miraculous.”

Brown, Community, 41: “Those who have expelled the Johannine Christians…are putting them to death (John 16:2).”

This kind of treatment led them to refer to their former colleagues as ‘the Jews’, even though most of them had themselves been Jews and then Jewish-Christians (see Brown, Community, 27),’ Christians also were subjected to persecution from ‘the Jews’ and some may have “been executed by the authorities of the local synagogues” as a service to God. (Brown, Community, 42, 66).

Brown, Community, 41: “The vocabulary of the evangelist’s time [i.e., ‘the Jews’] has been read back into the ministry of Jesus”

Brown, Community, 39: Several factors combined to make “the Johannine believers in Jesus particularly obnoxious to more traditional Jews, i.e., the combination of…opposition to the Temple cult, and Samaritan elements [who had become part of the Christian group].”

Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, Vol. 2, [The Anchor Bible, 1970], adds, at 1021: “The popular view that this took place in ‘the upper room’ arises from the identification of this unspecified place with the upper room of Acts 1:13, where the eleven were staying after Jesus’ departure for heaven forty days later, and the further identification of this composite with the large upper room where the Last Supper was eaten (Luke 22:12).

St. Stephen's Episcopal Church

I Corinthians