Nine O'Clock in the Morning

Tenth Tuesday after Pentecost

First, many thanks to Joe for his very gracious comment today.

Luke had quite a sense of humor. It comes out more in Acts than in the Gospel. Of course it's first century humor and doesn't quite resonate with us as quite so humorous today. A few months ago, when I was lector for the 11:00 service at University, I was assigned 1 Corinthians 12:12-26, one of the funniest passages in the Bible, although modern readers don't read it that way. I did read it that way, read it with different humorous voices for talking hands and feet and graphic descriptions of whole body eyes and ears. I have never heard a congregation laugh so hard at a scripture reading. At the end, as I went back to my pew, I got a round of applause--another thing I had never experienced after a scripture reading. I hope and think that my efforts to bring out the humor in the text made the text more meaningful for the congregation.

All this is to say that you need to laugh at the beginning of our scripture from Acts 2:12-15. Some of the skeptical bystanders witnessing the Apostles speaking in other tongues, sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine," i.e. they're drunk.  Peter begins his speech by saying--they're not drunk. They can't be drunk. It's only nine o'clock in the morning. [audience laughter]. Then as now, drunken revelry tends to occur in the late night, not mid-morning. Sorry for that last sentence. I have often been told that if you have to explain a joke, it's not funny

Peter then launches into a speech that explains the Pentecost event that they have all just witnessed to be a fulfillment of OT prophecy. He quotes from the prophet Joel, "In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy...Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit." (Joel 2:27-28, Acts 2:17-18). 

Two things to notice about this text immediately: first, the Holy Spirit pours out upon men and women equally. Second, the Holy Spirit pours out upon slaves and free equally. The Day of Pentecost is not just the birth of the church, it is the birth of human equality. No one in the first century and before saw the equality of human beings until the day of Pentecost. Joel foresaw it. But no one saw it--until then. 

Acts 2 is the most important chapter in the Bible for Pentecostals and Charismatics. They see it as the original example of speaking in tongues, a prayer practice that was widespread in the Apostolic age but fell out of favor by the end of the second century. At the very beginning of the 20th century, in Topeka, Kansas on December 31, 1900, the practice began again with a woman named Agnes Ozman. Though it was New Year's Eve, she, like the Apostles, was not filled with new wine. In 1960 the Charismatic Movement began with an Episcopal priest named Dennis Bennett. The Charismatic movement sought to bring the experience of speaking in tongues into mainline Protestant and Catholic churches. Dennis Bennett wrote a book about his experiences in those heady beginning years of the Charismatic movement. The title of the book--Nine O'Clock in the Morning. 

Although the Charismatic Movement has faded over the last few decades, the Holy Spirit hasn't. When I was growing up, the Holy Spirit was sometimes called "the forgotten person of the Trinity." Not any longer. Books and conferences focusing on the Holy Spirit are abounding. Marianne and I went to one at Lake Junaluska last summer. Some folks (not I, I don't think) of a more dispensationalist bent see the first thousand years as the age of God the Father, the second millennium as the age of God the Son, and this still new third millennium age the age of God the Spirit. 

The Book of Acts is filled with the Holy Spirit, both in terms of its being deeply Spirit inspired, and in terms of its having more activity of the Holy Spirit than any other book. While we usually think of Peter and Paul as the being the main characters in Acts, in a truly tangible sense, the Holy Spirit is the main character. As we move through Acts, I pray that both our understanding and our experience of the Spirit will immeasurably deepen. 

Faithfully,

Christian