Breaking Down the Walls in the Name of Christ
based on Acts 2:1-21
Rev. Frank Schaefer

Pentecost is one of those Christian holidays few people can explain off the top of their heads. Unless you're a Pentecostal believer, people usually scratch their heads and come up with all kinds of answers.

Christmas is about the birth of the Christ. Good Friday is about Christ's Crucifixion. Easter is about Christ's resurrection. Easy enough. But what exactly is Pentecost?

Answers vary. Some say: it's the birthday of the Church (but Church didn't really form until much later). Other say: it's the arrival of the Holy Spirit (but wasn't the Holy Spirit present before Pentecost?) Still others say: Pentecost is Christ's second coming (well, at least in terms of the arrival of the Spirit of Christ).

All of these answers along with a host of others have something theologically important to say about Pentecost. But they are also quite different and so it is easy to see why Pentecost is one of those complicated holidays that people can't really explain with one simple word.
Well, this morning, I want to highlight one of the most important aspects of Pentecost. I don't intent to to complicate things even more, but would rather like to point to a central truth of the Pentecost message:

Pentecost is about Breaking Down the Walls in the Name of Christ.

The Book of Acts gives us an account of the history of the early Church. It starts with an account of the Ascension of Christ, a promise about the return of Christ's Spirit. Christ is reported to say to his disciples:

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8

In chapter 2 the narrative quickly moves into the realization of this promise of Christ's gift—the outpouring of the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ. On the day of Pentecost the disciples were having a gathering and suddenly they had a bizarre collective experience. I'm calling it a bizarre experience because apparently it was such an unusual and extraordinary experience that metaphoric language had to be borrowed to describe it.

It was like tongues of fire were coming out of the disciples' heads, surely described a new spirit of joy, enthusiasm, and fire within the disciples. Whatever they experienced empowered them, gave them courage to step out of the confines of their gathering place into the streets of Jerusalem. And it gave them new and powerful communication skills. The metaphor of speaking in other tongues, certainly expresses that they found new and powerful ways in which to communicate the good news of Christ. So much so that suddenly people in the streets got it. So much so that many of them became instant followers of Christ.

And what was so attractive about the disciples' enthusiastic message?

The extraordinary and unexpected momentum of the young Christian movement prompted the early disciples to recognize a connection between what they saw happening and the words of the prophet Joel...

“In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all people, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. (Joel 2:28-32, Acts 2:17 )

The phrase "in the last days" was clearly understood by the disciples to be a new and final era in which God's spiritual graces were available to all people. They were no longer limited to the priests or religious leaders. They were available to all people, men, women, young and old. This new move of the Spirit re-defined God's community. The religious system of first-century Judea was a top-down hierarchical and patriarchal system. Men were viewed as lords over women, children were considered property of their fathers, ethnic Jews had little opportunities. Mostly men residing in Judea were able to become rabbis, leaders and priests.

Pentecost turned the understanding of this political and patriarchal organized system on it's head and gave us a grassroots movement in which people of all colors, ethnicities, genders and ages have equal access to God's grace and power and where all are included in the community of Christ. All are equal in the eyes of God regarding standing and opportunities.

The Pentecost message stands for the breaking down of conventional walls. It was a message that empowered the people. It fleshes out the concept of the priesthood of all believers. It fleshed out the meaning of the temple veil that separated the sanctuary from the holy of holies. The Pentecost message was a continuing realization of Christ's work toward breaking down the walls among us-- the walls of all the isms, racism, ethnicism, sexism, ageism and hetero-sexism.

And the story in Acts chapter 2 is just the beginning of the Pentecost spirit. The narrative that follows in chapters 3 and following shows how more and more walls were broken down by the young church in the name of Christ. The young church learned to draw the circle of God's grace ever wider to include more and more of God's beloved children.

Here are some prominent examples:

Acts 6: Following the stoning of Stephen, the gospel started to spread to many nations as the persecution of the Jesus followers caused people to leave Jerusalem and the middle East. Those early missionaries went to Egypt, Asia, Minor, Europe, and even the Far East. Another wall was broken down in the name of Christ as the Gospel spread well beyond the borders of Judea.
In Acts 8:26-40, we read about the baptism of the Eunuch. Eunuchs were banned from entering the temple proper, they were only allowed to worship in the outer temple courts (according to Deut 23:1)

“No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the Lord.” Deuteronomy 23:1

The evangelist Philip met this Jewish Eunuch who had worshiped at the temple in Jerusalem and was on his way back to Ethiopia. He was reading Isaiah 53, the Suffering Servant passage, and asked Philip to explain it to him. And Philip, I'm sure, shared with the Eunuch that this man of public humiliation, this suffering servant, is a prophetic word about Jesus, who lived and taught that all people are of sacred worth, that nobody is rejected by God, that God loves all God's children. He surely explained how Jesus healed the lepers, invited the outcasts and embraced the “unloved.” He must have shared about his death and resurrection and this new movement Jesus started that was ushering in the reality of that hope for all who are excluded, forsaken, forgotten, and marginalized.

Philip told him that through the waters of baptism, that he would be accepted and included for the person he was. He was going to become a full member of the body of Christ. No more exclusion, no more ridicule, no more discrimination. And Philip baptized the Eunuch and, it says in Verse 40, “ he [the Eunuch] went on his way rejoicing,” The young Church had broken down another wall in the name of Christ.

In Acts 10:9-23 we read about Peter's Vision and subsequent experience of Gentile Christians. There were two very distinctive cultural and spiritual features about Judaism: circumcision and the kosher food laws. It set Jewish believers apart. God spoke to Peter in a vision challenging this very concept in Peter's thinking—a premise which must have gone against his understanding of holy and unholy. But the vision is not ultimately what changed Peter.
It was seeing how the holy spirit had filled the Gentile Cornelius and his family is what did it.

The result: Peter goes back to Jerusalem, convenes a counsel and after much deliberation, the Gentile believers are accepted as fellow Christians and children of God—without circumcision and kosher food laws. Peter experienced a transformation and was able, along with Paul, to report to the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15) and to share their experiences among the Gentile Christians. Their witness was that God's spirit was manifest in Gentiles as much as it was in any Jewish-Christian community. And the Council decided to include Gentile believers in the Church without expecting them to convert to Judaism. Another wall broken down in the name of Christ.

And that gives hope to all of us. For we are all called to break down the walls in the name of Christ In our modern struggle in the church to accept our LGBT brothers and sisters as God's beloved children. God not only gives us visions, but also provides us with the testimony of our LGBT brothers and sisters. So, here you have it...

Pentecost is about Breaking Down the Walls in the Name of Christ.

The spirit of Pentecost wants us to...

• tear down the walls that society has built.

• Tear down the political, social, economic, religious, racial, ethnic and sexist walls

For Christ has broken down the walls to include all God's beloved children. All are welcome, all are accepted, all are included. Happy Pentecost, church!