Courage (Acts 2:1-21)

Sermon by Rev. Deborah Hannay Sunoo

I’ve long loved this story in Acts 2 – the birth of the Church on Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit with all these memorable dynamics of wind and fire and multilingual preaching.  But given what we’ve been experiencing this spring, and this week, I have to say I find the special effects less compelling today than one simple but unmistakable truth.  God’s Spirit was breathed into the Church on Pentecost, the very same Spirit that’s with us right now.

 The Brief Statement of Faith, one of our Presbyterian creeds, puts it this way: “The same Spirit who inspired … prophets and apostles… rules… engages… claims… feeds… and calls” us too.  “In a broken and fearful world,” it continues, “the Spirit gives us courage - to pray without ceasing, to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask idolatries in Church and culture, to hear the voices of people long silenced, and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.”

In a broken and fearful world, the Spirit gives us courage.

Even just on a personal level, think about the kinds of courage that are required of us. It takes courage to be your own person and stand up for what’s right.  Courage to know yourself, and act like yourself, when the world sometimes asks you to be someone else.

It takes courage to start something new – whether moving to a new home, a new school, a new relationship, a new job.

It takes courage to get up in the morning and face another day of work at a job that might drain you, or another day of looking for work in an economy that isn’t helping that effort, or another day of isolation or boredom when life may be feeling a bit too empty.

It takes courage sometimes to keep hope alive, to simply keep on keeping on, if your body is failing you, if you’re battling a serious illness or injury. It takes courage to watch someone you love suffer, or to live with the weight of grief once they’re gone. And these are just examples on a personal level.

It’s all too clear there are larger scale situations in which we need to lean on the Spirit’s courage too.  To weather this current pandemic, for instance, requires courage on all our parts, to keep putting one foot in front of the other and walking into each new day not knowing what the future holds.  It’s easy enough to call to mind other problems this pandemic has magnified, too – issues like food insecurity, and homelessness, and millions of refugees around the world fleeing their homes out of fear for their lives, and racial disparities in access to education, jobs, healthcare.

In a broken and fearful world, the Spirit gives us courage.

We don’t, as individuals, have to take on every fight in the world.  But surely we can each find at least one.  One particular evil, one awful situation that makes our hearts cry out, “NO! It shouldn’t be like this!” And then to pour our lives passionately into saying so, and trying to make things right.  Whether it’s speaking out against unjust immigration policies, or standing up to a bully, or doing our best to be an anti-racist.  Every one of us can try to make something right.  But it’ll take courage. 

The need for such courage, and the ability to demonstrate it, knows no age limit.  I’ve known 5 year olds and 95 year olds who are passionate about social justice, who are passionate about articulating their faith in Jesus and sharing God’s love, who have such courage in speaking and acting on what they believe.

I suspect it’s the Spirit’s fault they do.

Want to join them?  The prophet Joel saw it coming, in that beautiful passage quoted in today’s text from Acts: “In the last days I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh.”  As it turns out, we in the Church have all the Holy Spirit we require.  So be one of the young ones seeing visions, one of the old ones dreaming dreams.  Be one of the sons and daughters speaking the truth.

I wonder if the greatest miracle of Acts 2 wasn’t so much the rushing wind or the tongues of fire or even the sudden ability to speak different languages.  An exhausted band of Jesus followers, who'd had the wind knocked out of them just a few weeks earlier, suddenly found it knocked back into them again, and then some, by the power of God’s Holy Spirit.  Those hiding fearfully behind locked doors suddenly found themselves thrust into the most important mission of their lives.  And the Spirit gave them courage.

This is no ordinary Pentecost Sunday for us.  But it is so important that Pentecost finds us here – gathered with our brothers and sisters in faith, the wind of God’s Holy Spirit blowing through our midst.

If you find yourself wondering if you have what it takes – to enter the fray, to take a stand, to speak the truth, to make a difference… If you find yourself wondering if you have what it takes, take heart. That colorful sign some of us held up earlier, that says “filled with the Holy Spirit?”  You don’t need to wonder whether it applies to you.  It does. For when the early church gathered on Pentecost, just as the prophet Joel foretold, God’s Spirit was poured out on all flesh. 

The same Spirit that inspired prophets and apostles now gives us courage.  Claim it!  You might just be amazed at what it enables you to do.  Amen.