What Does It Mean
What Does It Mean
a sermon by Rev. J. Christy Ramsey
Audio from worship at the 11 AM Worship Service May 8,2022
at Valley Presbyterian Church, Bishop,CA
edited from a flawless transcription made by edigitaltranscriptions all errors are mine.
Sermons also available free on iTunes
Right about below the middle there, you see that, all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” That’s Acts 2:12. For many years I had that as my license plate, ACTS212. And people, you know, what does this mean, amazed and perplexed. And people would come up to me, and they would point at my license plate, and they would say, “What does this mean?” And I said, “Exactly.” Yeah, they didn’t laugh either. But I enjoyed it. It was fun for me. It was self-referential. They’d look at that, were confused and perplexed, and they said, “What does this mean?” And I said, “You’re absolutely right. You got it. What does this mean?”
What a great attitude to go through life. I mean we have here a wonderful, amazing occurrence where everything is turned upside down. Have any of you had anything like this in the last two years? You know, where you thought you knew what was going on, but now things are closed, things are changed, you can wear a mask, you can’t wear a mask, you’d better wear a mask, get a vaccine, not a vaccine, oh, my gosh, spinning all around. You’ve got to bleach down everything. Oh, no, it’s breathing.
Oh, my gosh, everything’s messed up. The government’s going to give you money to not go to work. Well, that used to be bad. I heard that was bad earlier. That was a bad thing. No, everybody’s going to – oh, okay. I don’t understand. We’re going to give you loans, but you don’t have to pay them back. Well, that’s not really a loan, is it? I don’t think. Everything’s turned upside down. Everything’s crazy. Just like here.
And you know, you look at all these residents of Mesopotamia and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, and you just say, oh, my gosh, I’m glad I didn’t have to read scripture today. That’s one of the worst scriptures to – you don’t like someone in your church, and you’re a pastor, you say, “Hey, would you like to do the scripture for Pentecost?” “Oh, why, thank you, that’s quite the honor.” Oh, yeah, quite the honor. Then they get to the Acts, and they go, “Oh.”
The strange thing besides the strange words here, if we were in the crowd, if we were reading the scripture when it originally was written, we would say, hold on there. Those people have been gone for centuries, for generations. In here, they said there are people here where nations haven’t existed for generations, for hundreds of years. How could there be people from nations that aren’t around anymore? Peoples that have been exterminated, that have been extinct, wiped out. They’re in the list. Amazing things. And it’s not just because of that, but because everybody hears in their own language.
Now, you may think, well, you know, the Pentecostal church, I know what that is, that’s where everybody gets up, and they start speaking the heavenly language no one can understand but angels. Well, sure. But that’s not this. This is the opposite of that. It’s not about the teaching. The only tongues that we talk about are tongues of fire, not tongues in your mouth. The miracle here is the miracle of listening, of understanding, that everybody, no matter where they’re from, no matter what time they’re from, no matter what country they’re from, whether they’re Jews or not Jews, everybody hears in their own native language the almighty powers of God.
It’s a reversal of Babel. Remember Babel back in Genesis, a great story back there, in that when people got together and said we’re going to make a name for ourselves, we’re going to build up this great big tower all the way to heaven. And then when we get up to heaven we’re going to knock the gods off the throne, and then we’ll be gods up there. You know, it was kind of like a coup. And God looked down and said, “No, we’re not. You guys have gotten too big. We’re going to divide your language so you can’t speak to one another, can’t understand one another.” And so all the nations of the world were divided.
And here at Pentecost, all the nations of the world are united, all hearing about God’s deeds of power. What do you do when things are crazy? What do you do when things don’t make sense? You can be like people in the scriptures. The first one says they’re amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, what does this mean? You can be amazed. Have you heard about “Amazing Grace”? Anybody heard about “Amazing Grace”? I’m checking to see if you’re still awake. No one’s awake. A couple. All right. Pretty good for the Bishop crowd. I often have to calm these people down. They’re like crazy up in the aisle shouting. I don’t know, did your sister tell you? They’re wild. They’re wild here.
All right. So anyhow, so are you amazed by grace? You see the grace, and you’re just, oh, thank you, Lord, that’s amazing. I’m just taken aback and taken along. I’m so glad to be here among you. That’s one way to go. You can look back and say, you know, I didn’t know that every pastor in every church could become a televangelist in a week. I would never have bet that. If you had told me in March of 2020 by next month every church, every pastor is either going to be on TV, on the computer screen, or there’s not going to be a service, I would say “That’s amazing. You’re crazy.” But it happened. Even little Bishop got a little Zoom, zooming around. Who would have thought?
There’s a church, I’m not going to say, well, Virginia City. There’s a church. They are very old up there. Anybody been to Virginia City? Oh, yeah, yeah. Everything’s old up there; isn’t it. Yeah. Now, the church is really old, and they’re very proud of being old. Okay, fine. They’ve got some beautiful stained glass windows. You want to see some colorful stained glass windows, you go to Virginia City. Pastels, they’re like 10 feet high, and they’re beautiful, and they love them.
So I go up there, and I say, okay, there’s a big old screen up here that they use in worship. That wasn’t there before. Putting things up on the screen in Virginia City. They’re still thinking, they’ve still got the gaslights in the wall in case it turns out this electricity thing was a fad. You know, they’re thinking it may stay here, it may not. But they have a big screen up, and they’re using PowerPoint. And I said, wow, well, at least we got the stained – and the stained glass window’s about – it’s got to be 20 feet in the back of the balcony, has this huge black curtain over it, and it’s shut. They put a curtain over the stained glass windows.
How many people have seen curtains over stained glass windows at church? I had not. I have been to many churches. I said, “Oh, I see you put a curtain over the stained glass.” And they said “Yeah, it was making a glare on the screen.” I was amazed and perplexed. Obviously, this was God’s working because nobody voted for that when I was there, and I was there for like 18 months when they were between pastors. What do you do when you see amazing things happen? You can be amazed and perplexed, and come in and ask, like I did, “What’s going on with the stained glass? What’s going on with you? What are you doing here?” You could be like that. Or you can be like, has anyone read YouTube comments? Anybody look in the comments section of any video? You have? Don’t do that. Where’s your parents? What is going on in YouTube comments? You’ve been – we’re talking later.
That reminds me when the teenagers would come up and talk to me after church was out. They would tell me about this movie. And, you know, and the movie was hmm, you know. So I would say,
“Do you think that movie would be appropriate for me to see?” And they would think, and they would say, “Well, I don’t know, Pastor, it’s a little sexy and has some violence.” Not at all getting the irony of it, but that’s all right.
So you can be like those YouTube commenters, and any commenters, and people that – and you know these people – always got something negative to say. And they were right there at Pentecost, weren’t they. “Oh, they’re just drunk. They’re just drunk. God’s not doing anything. There’s nothing special going on here other than they’re drunk.” And what would that be today? Well, maybe drunk. But you know what I think it would be today? “Oh, that’s just fake news. That’s fake news. That didn’t happen. I got it from QAnon there was no Pentecost. All those people with the tongues of flame, paid actors. Those tongues of flame, papier-mâché. I’m telling you, I heard it on the news channel.” Yeah. It’s absolutely true, not true. People can do that about what God is doing in the world. Their reactions can go beyond amazed and perplexed into confusion, into denial, into saying, oh, it’s all drunk, it’s all made up, it’s all fake news.
What did we go through this time? During the pandemic we had Black Lives Matter. That was amazing, to see that come up and to see the people witness to what they are putting up with and the death that they were suffering. And you heard people that were amazed and perplexed saying, “That went on with black people? I can’t believe that happened.” But there’s a video. And then you had people say, “Oh, my gosh, that’s fake news, that’s made up. They’re all drunk.” We had that, too, didn’t we.
And what about the MeToo movement? Something about not working all day and not going out all day got these things going somehow. The MeToo movement where women actually tried to tell men what they put up with every day. All the comments they get. All the little aggressions they get. All the things they’ve got to put up with. All the little lists they’ve got to do to stay safe that men don’t even think about. The MeToo movement. And what happened? Some were amazed and perplexed, saying, “What does this mean?” And others say, “Nah, they’re making too much out of all this, it’s politically correct.” You know what’s another word for politically correct? Compassionate. Compassion. Oh, you’re just being politically correct. They can just switch that around, say you’re just being compassionate to people that aren’t like you.
So what’s the solution? Well, Peter has it. Peter doesn’t come off too well in Luke. I don’t know if you know this. But I’ll tell you now, Luke was buddies with Paul. Paul and Peter, not the best of friends. Peter was more let’s everybody be Jews, plus Paul was we’re not doing any more of that Jew stuff. And they kind of got into this. And Luke was writing Acts, and he was on Paul’s camp. But in this one time Peter seems to get it, according to Luke Acts. And he says, “They’re not drunk. It’s only 9:00 o’clock in the morning.” I know some people that that wouldn’t stop. But you do? Anybody? That seemed to be persuasive back then. It’s only 9:00 o’clock in the morning. They’re not drunk.
But this is what God is doing. God has done this. God has given voice to the people that have been silent. God has given voice that we can hear the people that we exterminated. God has given voice to the people that are no longer part of this community or even of the world. God has given voice to them. And it’s what God has said all along, that the daughters and sons will prophesize, the old and young would do it. It’s all about God. You know you’ve heard about both-and-ism, bothism. You know, it goes, well, we do both sides. Well, there’s the other side. Well, you know, some say this and some say that. What’s the answer to all that both-and? Even if the other side is just crazy, divorced from any kind of reality, we’ve got to have both sides.
And what does that leave? Well, that’s he said/she said. Well, that’s two things going together, and you don’t know which one to go. I’ll tell you how to fix it. You fix it like Peter did. You don’t do both sides, you do God’s side. That’s what Peter said. Peter didn’t pick a side. He says, “I’m on the side of God.” This is what God is doing in the work. So you look at Black Lives Matter. You look at the MeToo movement. You look at any kind of movement or thing. You don’t say, well, some people say this, some people say that. You go and say, “What does God say? What does God want us to do? What is God speaking to us?”
You don’t have to pick a side. You already did by coming here. You picked God’s side. Do you think God wants people to be treated differently based upon the color of their skin? Based upon their heritage or their race? You think God wants that? No. You think God wants women to be harassed, to be afraid, to have to watch out for themselves all the time, to be taking choice between harassment and career advancement, or harassment and their own lives? Is that something God would want? No.
Pentecost is about the gift of the spirit, the gift of the spirit that allows us to listen to voices that have long been silenced, by society, by the world, by culture, by the church. And we can either be amazed and perplexed and saying, “What does this mean? What is God saying to us here?” Or we could say, “Fake news, they’re all drunk, continue on as normal.”
Some of the wonderful things in the church have opened up. People have got the experience of being homebound. Every church member in America got a little taste of what it’s like, of not being able to go to church on Sunday, of what it’s like to be homebound. I hope that we’re amazed and confused by that, and we say, what does this mean going forward? What can we do to help all the people that can’t come to church because of physical limitations, by distance, by employment.
Or maybe they just don’t like to be hugged. Oh, my gosh, I don’t like to be hugged. I endure being hugged. I’ve got issues. I pay someone to listen to it twice a month so you don’t have to. But what a wonderful thing it was to go to church and know I’m not being hugged. I don’t like to be hugged by people I don’t feel trust and safe and know for, I don’t know, 20, 30 years. We all got a taste of that. I hope we don’t forget. I hope we’re able to say, what does it mean to be a person that can’t be touched or can’t get a hug from a stranger, but still wants to come to church? What is it like to be a person that can’t leave their home? What is it like to be a person that through no fault of their own loses their job?
And I hope we don’t go back to saying, oh, that’s just fake news. They’re all drunk. We can just go on with what we’re doing. I hope we don’t waste these two years where we had a tremendous spiritual opportunity to be with people that we don’t see, that we ignore, that we’ve exterminated, that we have sidelined. We all had that experience during the pandemic. We had most of our, well, we had some of our privileges taken away.
That’s what it’s like, to be in a Pentecost moment, when everything is turned around, and of all the choices you have, I beg you, choose to say, what does this mean? What is God telling us here? What does this mean for the Church and for our lives? How can we listen to the people we’ve ignored, that we’ve thrown out, that we’ve taken out, not just from countries and racial groups in the Bible, but from the MeToo movement, from women, from people of color, from the unemployed, from homebound. From mothers. Do you know how difficult, most of you may know how difficult it is to be a mother and have a job? And how it’s not an issue at all to be a father and have a job?
One of the things that came out from that is that jobs are a lot more flexible now. People aren’t doing what they used to be doing. You’ve got to be here from this hour to this hour. You’ve got to move here. You’ve got to take this job here. You can only work here. Now everybody has a little higher expectations. Why do I have to be in the office every day? Why can’t I have flexible hours? I’ve got parents. I’ve got kids I’ve got to take care of. And we can do that. We’ve proved it. I hope we don’t waste that.
I think God was telling us many things during the pandemic. Well, maybe one of the things was, hey, take a look at the way you’re living. And people got away from the rat race, from working every day, from grinding out a living. And they looked around, and they said, you know, it’s not right that we’re treated this way. And we need to tell other people that. I hope we listen because listening is what Pentecost is about. Amen.
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Here is a video of the version of this sermon given at St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Reno, Nevada in May 2022.