Would We Be Mistaken For A Bar Or A Morgue? - Acts 2:1-13 (Pentecost - May 15 2016)

“Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got.  Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot./Wouldn’t you like to get away?/ Sometimes you want to go/Wherever everybody knows your name,/and they’re always glad you came.  You wanna be where you can see,/our troubles are all the same/You wanna be where everybody knows your name.”

How many of you remember those lyrics?  They were the theme song for the television show Cheers, a show about a group of regulars who hung out in a bar in Boston, sharing drinks, their stories, their very lives.

Picture, if you will, a different room where folks had gathered.  Rather than descending steps to find Norm, Cliff, Sam, Coach, Carla, and Diane, we climb the stairs to encounter Peter, James, John, Andrew, Matthias, Nathaniel, Levi, Judas the Zealot, Philip, Bartholomew, Thomas, James, and maybe even Mary Magdalene, Martha, and others.  They could still have the same song going in the background as they gathered.  They had come together trying to figure out how they were going to make their way in the world because their friend—Jesus—who had brought them hope, who had died and been placed in a tomb along with their hope, had returned, resurrected, for a short time, before leaving them again.  He had instructed them to return to Jerusalem and wait for the outpouring of power from God.  Then, he ascended, leaving them staring into the sky.  So they returned to Jerusalem, gathered in an upper room where everybody knew each other's name…their concerns and troubles all the same…

And then it hit…

A mighty blast of wind filled the room…

Flames filled the air…

And THEN communication chaos broke out…The disciples were still speaking Galilean, but everyone there—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopptamians, Judeans, Cappadocians, Pontusians, Asians, Phrygians, Pamphylians, Egyptians, Libyans, Romans, Jews, Cretans, and Arabs—each heard what the disciples were saying in their own native tongue.  Has anyone every bothered to count?  That’s seventeen different languages and/or dialects being heard at once.

Can you imagine watching a gathering where seventeen different languages are going on at once, and yet are all speaking the same thing?  Unless you are visiting the United Nations or a delegate to General Conference, it is something many of us will never witness…we would be like those who saw what was going with all these different nationalities speaking together and said, “What’s going on here?”

Some of you may have said that at the very beginning of the sermon.  Some, as I’ve shared the title of the sermon over the last couple of weeks, gave me a look that said, “What’s going on here?”  Some were concerned that I was going to suggest that we need to transform our worship service into a bar setting. (Have I really kept y’all off-guard that much over the last twelve years?) Others may have been wondering “What’s going on here?” as I compared the upper room in Jerusalem with the basement bar in Boston.  How would I ever dare make that comparison?  Consider the verse 13 response of the outsiders in Acts 2.  In response to those who asked “What’s going on here?”, some joked “They’re drunk on cheap wine.”

To those observing from the outside, that Holy Spirit-infused, spontaneous, interracial, multicultural worship could have easily been mistaken for a bar scene.  In fact, comparing the episodes of Cheers I have seen with how I picture this scene in Acts, the Cheers barroom would more resemble a strictly run library in how comparatively quiet it would be.

Many bars today are marked by loud conversation, most likely multiple loud conversations going on at once.  Many are filled with either exciting upbeat music that has the people moving and dancing, or large-screen televisions with sports fans excitingly cheering for their favorite teams.  There’s laughing and clapping…there’s crying and hugs…there are fellowship meals and high-fives.

“They must be drunk on cheap wine!”  This is the kind of atmosphere that marked the birth of the church!

So if an outsider looked at the church today, what would they think?  Would we be mistaken for a bar…or a morgue?

A morgue?  Yeah, a bar or a morgue.  What do we think of when we think of a morgue?

Death.

Silence.

Cold.

Unwelcoming.

Sadness.

Fear.

Too often entering mainstream churches in America is like entering into a morgue.  We enter in and it feels cold—not air conditioning cold, but emotionally cold.  It is either completely silent or there is subdued quiet music being played in the background.  Faces are filled with frowns and warnings of “don’t talk to me.”  Empty seats are “taken” by patrons yet to arrive.  It is a place of dread, only going because you have to.

So which would we look like to someone walking in?

It is my hope and prayer that we would be mistaken for a bar.

It is my hope and prayer that we would become so infused with the Holy Spirit—with God’s mighty wind and burning flames—that there is no containing the excitement and joy that we have in being gathered for worship.

It is my hope and prayer that we greet one another and new folks walking in with such joy and camaraderie that there is no doubt that they have entered a place where all are welcome.

It is my hope and prayer that we may sing our songs and pray our prayers with such fervor that there is no doubt that we have truly, unreservedly poured out our hearts.

It is my hope and prayer that someone walking in here and not knowing any better would say, “What’s going on?  Are all these people drunk?  Is this a bar?”  And I would get to say, “No, they are not filled with spirits of the vine or grain, but are filled with the Holy Spirit of God that cannot be contained.  Come and join us, for you have come to a place where the Spirit of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ reigns; where the God who created you knows your name; where we journey through the troubles of our life, not alone, but together bound to one another through the grace of God assured that He has given us the victory; where you don’t have to place your order, because the meal has already been prepared—a meal that is just an appetizer of the celebratory banquet to come.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.