Acts 2:14a, 22-32 Commentary

Commentary:

Note: although this Lectionary text takes only a portion of Peter’s sermon, this commentary reaches to both sides a bit to make some general comments on the content of the sermon as well as the kind of people/the nature of the church it intends to birth.

Qualities of a Spirit-Filled Sermon

What does a Spirit-filled sermon look like? Based on this opening sermonic salvo of the church. What are the raw ingredients of a Spirit-filled sermon?

• A Spirit-Filled Sermon Belongs to the Community

Peter is not up there by himself. “Peter stood up with the Eleven.” Peter is not alone in proclamation. He stands in unity with others who can and who will — in their own voices, times and ways — testify that they have also seen what Peter has seen. A Spirit-filled sermon does not belong to just one person.  It belongs to the community.

• A Spirit-Filled Sermon may Ruffle Feathers

The first thing Peter does is refute the claim that he and his associates are drunk first thing in the morning. A Spirit-filled sermon may have folks looking at you a little funny.

• A Spirit-Filled Sermon Has Specificity and Begins with Shared Language

Three times in this sermon, Peter relies on lengthy quotations from the Hebrew Scripture — 1 from Joel, 2 from the Psalms. Contrary to the simplistic understanding some may have of the Holy Spirit trafficking in the unheard and previously unknown, a Spirit-filled sermon comes to new, fresh insight by way of respect for context, shared language, shared experience as a way of understanding the present moment.

This pattern continues through the nearly 30 speeches that are presented in the book of Acts. One commentator adds: “The Spirit of God empowers persuasive speeches for specific audiences and not ecstatic events that convince no one in particular.” There is a specificity to a Spirit-Filled Sermon.

• A Spirit-Filled Sermon Tells the Story of Jesus

A Spirit-filled sermon always tells the story of Jesus, which needn’t be boring because the story is so many things: it is Incarnation, it is Kingdom-ethics, it is Healing, it is Atonement, Liberation, Redemption, Reconciliation. It is Resurrection and Ascension. It is Spirit and Church. It is Christ coming again and making all things new. A Spirit-filled sermon tells some piece of the story of Jesus.

• A Spirit-Filled Sermon Leads to Action, Change or Response

Until, finally, the people are so overwhelmed by what they’ve heard that they respond, “What shall we do?” A Spirit-filled sermon leads to action, leads to response, leads to change. And Peter lays out some possible responses:

• Repentance — turning around, changing, confessing, Asking God’s help to try again in a new way.
• Identification — letting God’s claim on us be the most important true thing about us. Attach other labels if you have to. But this is the most important one. In baptism, we are named and claimed: beloved of God.
• Receiving the Spirit or claiming the Spirit’s power and waiting on what God is going to do in us, through us, around us.

Qualities of a Spirit-Filled Church

So then, what we say of Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 is also true for the unfolding of the rest of the book of Acts. What we say about preaching is also true of communities shaped by such preaching.

1) A Spirit-Filled Church Depends on the Community.

Justo Gonzalez, in his commentary on Acts, writes exactly this, that the work of the Spirit is leveling “because the Spirit will be poured out upon ‘all flesh’ (that is to say) it will not be the exclusive prerogative of prophets or priests: This includes sons and daughters, young and old, slaves, both male and female. The Spirit isn’t just for sermons. It isn’t just for preachers. It’s for the lives, the vocations, the words and witness of all God’s people. The Spirit is for everyone. You get the Spirit. And you get the Spirit. Everybody gets the Spirit!!”

2) A Spirit-Filled Church May Ruffle Feathers

Throughout the rest of the book of Acts, the church does outrageous stuff like miracles, like calling out religious and political leaders, like getting themselves thrown into prison for calling out religious and political leaders. And then having themselves rescued from prison by ground-shaking miracles. We see echoes of this around the world, particularly in places where the church is persecuted but continues to meet. Perhaps there are ways in which we — in North America — need to raise our voices to add to the echo. Perhaps we need to get a little more okay with ruffling feathers.

3) A Spirit-Filled Church Has Specificity and Depends on Common Language

Consider the case study of your church. No doubt diversities abound. Most of our work as pastors is trying to get the balance right by frustrating strong opinions on all sides while also ensuring the quiet voices are amplified. On the Sunday I preached this very sermon, I had two funerals the week before. Two VERY different funerals. Two VERY different church members. A Gospel Choir and a talk-back kind of crowd on Wednesday morning. A literary crowd, jazz trumpet and poetry on Thursday night. As a congregation, we stretched one way, we stretched another to honor the specificity of their lives but, even with all that stretching, we are still at home because we’ve learned to appreciate the distinctions while maintaining a common language is Jesus.

4) A Spirit-Filled Church Tells the Story of Jesus

We tell the story of Jesus in the sanctuary, in the Fellowship Hall, in children’s choir, and Children’s Worship classrooms, in the youth room. But we don’t just tell the story of Jesus in the church building.

Rather, consider the ways that Spirit-filled church members bring the story of Jesus into their workplace, bring the story of Jesus around their kitchen table. How they bring that story as they visit one another in hospitals, in homes, nursing facilities and over a cup of coffee.

5) A Spirit-Filled Church Leads to Action, Change or Response.

The book of Acts is filled with big stories, fantastical stories — like jailbreaks. And sometimes these are the changes, responses, actions the Spirit leads the church to take. But I wonder if we give undue honor to the flashy stories at the expense of a lot of the real, day-to-day work of the church, then and now. Things like: sharing meals, keeping a common purse, giving with honest and generous hearts, praying for one another, reading Scripture alone and together, sending cards and texts, calling and showing up, flowers and/or casseroles in hand. Each Spirit-Filled member being changed and challenging us to respond in new and faithful ways.