Series: May 2026
Speaker: Rob McClellan
Today's Sermon
“Shared – Spirit Series”
Shared – Spirit Series, Pentecost Sunday
Acts 2:1-18
1When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
5Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes 11Cretans and Arabs — in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” 12All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”
14But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 16No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
17 ‘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,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
18 Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy.
Pentecost is a pivotal moment in the Christian story; it is the passage for a series on the Spirit. But, before we get there, I want to share an encounter with a verse that comes a little later in the chapter. Last Sunday, I was doing a visit at the hospital and afterward I came across a truck in the parking lot that had spraypainted on its side, “Acts 2:30.” I know in Marin we’re used to seeing people spray paint their favorite Bible verses on their cars, but for whatever reason this one caught my attention: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
I took the message as a threat: You better repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus or else! While “Repent” merely means to rethink or to turn, turn around, for many this term carries a lot of baggage. “Turn or burn” some of my southern colleagues grew up hearing. Go to church or go to hell.
This verse comes right after the Pentecost story which is sometimes described as the birthday of the church. In the wake of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, through the Holy Spirit gathered people from all over are given the ability to understand each other across different languages. It is a launch of a newly expansive movement, and we rightly celebrate it for its democratizing flavor. Everyone gets access to God. No tradition and no authority hold the keys. It’s available and present for all.
There is so much right about this, and inspiring. The church is not meant to be a gatekeeper so much as a pathway, a guide, and a meeting place. If we’re faithful, what we do is not only look for God’s movement so we can join in with it, living out the way of Christ in the world. We’ve explored some of how that Spirit works in the scriptures. This divine wind or breath gives life. It’s connective, binding us together. It’s encouraging. It advocates for truth, for justice. It supports the disadvantaged. The Spirit compels us to love, propels us toward compassionate action. The Spirit burns with passion but does scald.
The scriptures reminds us that the Holy Spirit is one of many spirits in the world, not all of which have such pure intentions. The ancestors called them unclean; we might call them unhealthy, distorted, destructive, deceptive. Part of our task is to distinguish among the spirits active around us and, at times, within us.
It’s not enough, however, only to celebrate access to Spirit. Pentecost reminds us we have a responsibility to partner with it. When something is democratized, it becomes vulnerable and must be tended. Otherwise, those other spirits will rise to power. Partnership means you’re valued; it also means you’re needed. Maybe God’s loving outcome is inevitable, but it sure seems to require our participation.
There’s a reading in the Older Testament that warns us of the temptation to relish in the access but pass on the work the partnership entails. It comes from the eleventh chapter of the Book of Numbers. It describes a challenging moment in the people of Israel’s journey from captivity to freedom. In this point in the journey, the joys of initial freedom are no longer novel. The people have already started to tire of God’s daily provision, manna from heaven, so much so that they long for their slavery diet. I kid you not, “If only we had meat! We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt [the narrow place] for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic…” (11:4-5). They have begun to romanticize the three square they got in slavery over the bounty they are given in freewill. It is fair to recognize that the freedom we so badly want requires our diligence.
Moses, who has led the people to freedom, has grown weary from their complaining, their entitlement, their ungratefulness, and their constant nitpicking. Heavy is the mantle of leadership and some of you know it well. Exhausted, Moses laments to God, and God gives Moses instruction:
24 So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord, and he gathered seventy of the elders of the people and placed them all around the tent. 25 Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders, and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do so again.
26 Two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad and the other named Medad, and the spirit rested on them; they were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, so they prophesied in the camp. 27 And a young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.” 28 And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, “My lord Moses, stop them!” 29 But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!” (Numbers 11:24-30)
At first, it sounds as though God is just sharing the access—great, now the elders have the Spirit—but, if you read closely, you see that God is also distributing some of the responsibility as well, some of the burden. And God, “took some of the spirit that was on Moses and put it on the seventy elders.” (v. 25). Share this load. Do this work. Be a prophet, which is to let the Spirit speak through you. What does a prophet do, not predict the future, except in a cautionary way. A prophet speaks the truth, which often means pointing out when and how the people and their leaders have fallen out of sync with the way of love, with justice which is love systematized.
One of our elders told me a haunting story a former pastor of theirs had once shared. It was about a German church during the holocaust that when a train heading to the camps would travel by during services instructed its people to sing louder, that they might drown out the sound. World War II Germany is such low hanging fruit, but how many of our churches are singing too loudly? We don’t have Auschwitz to be sure, but we have our own detention centers, for-profit, operating well beyond the bounds of reasonable law enforcement. There was a powerful letter from the Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) just this week. It’s footnoted in my sermon text.[1]
The people at Pentecost are told they shall see visions, dream dreams. They are to open themselves to a greater image of how it could be, what it could look like, one that stretches beyond one’s own selfish pursuits, and more closely mirrors God’s dream for the world. The work is to draw on a higher level of consciousness than many people choose. Many are content to pursue only their own dreams, oh but what they miss by partnering for something greater. I sat with a member, Kirk Boyd, last week whose life mission is the adoption of an enforceable International Bill of Rights, which he calls an agreement for how humans will live together. It’s about guaranteeing, though internationally recognized legal protection, unassailable rights for every person, enforceable through mutual agreement. That’s seeing visions, dreaming dreams, allowing the Spirit to draw you to a greater perspective. I would say that’s taking the mandate to collaborate with God and one another seriously, and in the document Boyd describes collaboration as “humanity’s superpower.”[2] In the Pentecost story, the Spirit’s arrival comes “like the rush of a violent wind,” (Acts 2:2) because it is shaking up how we think authority works. Collaboration not domination is our superpower given by a God who likewise seems to have selected collaboration as the chosen mode of operation.
Pentecost may be our birthday, but maybe it’s our graduation day, not graduation from our learning, but graduation into the world to exercise our superpower, to better our agreement to live together. A birthday yields an infant; graduation yields adults, not fully formed but fully capable of getting out there and contributing. When we charged our high school graduates last week, part of what we did was recognize the world was now more theirs, but so now is the mantle of responsibility for it.
It takes me back to the hospital, this place that symbolizes healing, becoming well. There sat this truck with what looked like a warning: Repent or else! But, that’s not what the verse actually says. The verse reads, “Repent and be baptized…and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Let’s translate that: Transform your way of thinking, adjust your course to the way of love, be washed of what needs to be removed, find a new beginning, a second chance, and you will be granted one, and a Spirit to help you. The point is not that you’ll be spared from a lake of fire but rather you will receive the gift of the Spirit which will set your heart on fire. Truly understood, it’s not a threat; it’s an invitation with a prize, a purpose, and a promise: Join God and one another and together we will do something beautiful.
Shared access, universal access maybe, shared resource, yes, and shared responsibility. Today, at the end of our study of the Spirit, let our final lesson be not only that the Spirit is for all of us, but her work is also for all of us.
Amen.
[1] https://pcusa.org/news-storytelling/news/2026/5/13/reformed-witness-mourning-deaths-immigration-detention?utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--niw-w-0ZmeFkCVd0Tlii1Hp1HQg3_4g0iJxWQQrRcuUmnTxAvqg4L7obHtFBhMDJd6Rjrr9tjo4l3A29f7_kd6y6lwg&_hsmi=418956232&utm_content=418956232&utm_source=hs_email
[2] John Kirk Boyd, International Bill of Rights: Humanity’s Agreement to Live Together (Tampa: Gatekeeper Press, 2026), 7.