Ascension and Pentecost
The second half of May, between travel and conferencing at Kirkridge, were demanding and exhausting, so I wasn’t able to get a blog posted last week for Ascension Sunday. So I’ll include a few comments on that before I focus on Pentecost (a longer reflection on the Ascension will appear in this month’s Partner’s Circle Enews; subscribe here).
Luke begins his second volume with a review of the Risen Jesus’s last days, which overlaps with the close of his Gospel. The Acts account repeats, but in greater detail, three crucial plot points of the Ascension (which only appears in Luke-Acts). The Risen One:
- commissions the disciples as “witnesses” (martus, whence “martyr”; Lk 24:48 // Acts 1:8b);
- counsels them to wait in Jerusalem for divine power (Lk 24:49 // Acts 1:4, 8a); and
- ascends (Lk 24:50–51 // Acts 1:9).
A cloud surrounds him, echoing the Transfiguration (Lk 9:34–35). Immediately, the disciples are accosted by two angelic figures (Acts 1:10–11). We’ve seen such “beings” before: at the beginning of Luke’s story (Lk 1:34) and again at the empty tomb.
At that tomb the disciples again received a pointed rebuke from the mysterious messengers (Lk 24:4–6). Note the similarities in the two accounts:
While they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel; and as they were frightened and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?
–Lk 24:4-5
And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?”
–Acts 1:10-11
In both cases, disciples are exhorted to focus on the terrestrial—something with which our churches continue to struggle!
The followers, traumatized and perplexed by these visitations, return to Jerusalem—the scene of their leader’s lynching only weeks earlier (Acts 1:12). For the third time in this Lukan bridging sequence, they gather in an “upper room” (1:13), suggesting they are still underground. In the wake of the brutal suppression of their movement, they have reason to fear. After prayerfully debriefing with Jesus’s family (1:14), they deliberate about replacing Judas (1:15–26), as it seems important to “the 120 gathered” that the apostolic group should remain twelve. These numbers symbolize their ancestral Israelite tribal confederacy, a decentralized governing structure representing the political shape of Sabbath Economics.
The next scene commences with the unusual phrase “When the day of Pentecost was being fulfilled…” (2:1). The Feast of Weeks, or Shavuot, was originally a celebration of the first fruits of harvest (Ex 23:14–17; Lev 23:9–22; Deut 16:9–12). Note the rhetorical resonances between Shavuot and the Levitical Jubilee (right);
served to remind Israel that Sabbath Economics applies at each harvest. Luke’s Pentecost narrative now fulfills these Jubilee implications as the first fruits of a new messianic movement, which is about to come out of hiding, pushed onto the streets by an empowering Spirit to contest Jesus’s murder and proclaim his resurrection.
What sort of practices the Spirit animated at Pentecost, and continues to empower, has been a tragically divisive issue in the life of the modern church. The debate about what it means to be Spirit-filled has, over the last century and a half, typically focused on the expression of individual charismatic gifts. The historical context of Luke’s narrative, however, as well as the agricultural roots of the feast being celebrated, means that we should rather look at the political and economic character of Acts 2. The narrative consists of three parts, culminating in the third of Luke’s sacramental meals during this bridging sequence:
- the “tongues” (Acts 2:1–12)
- Peter’s speech (13–41)
- the breaking of bread and community of goods (42–47)
This sequence is framed by two “distributions” (the only appearances of diamerizō in Acts): tongues at the outset (2:3), possessions at the end (2:45). In between, Peter proclaims the “gift” of the Spirit and the unilateral cancellation of debts in Christ (2:38), echoing Jesus’s inaugural Jubilee pronouncement at Nazareth (Lk 4:20ff). So Pentecost has far more to do with redistributive Sabbath Economics than with the religious spectacle of glossolalia.
Since the reading for Pentecost Sunday covers only 2:1-21, here I’ll reflect only on the first of the three parts (tongues of fire). I refer you to HARP (Epilogue iii) for the rest, especially concerning the community of goods in 2:42-46 (and 4:32-35). Tragically, if perhaps predictably, these texts appear nowhere in the lectionary cycle!
The “storm” of wind and fire (Acts 2:2) correlates to the baptism “with the Holy Spirit and with fire” promised by the wilderness prophet John (Lk 3:16, reiterated in Acts 1:5). The “tongues” have caused much consternation, despite the fact that their purpose is immediately revealed: cross-cultural communication (2:3–4)! “Jews from every nation” now hear about the “powerful works of God” in their own language (2:5–11). Unaccountably, the cosmopolitan crowd is being instructed by rural and uneducated (yet suddenly polyglot!) Galilean peasants (see also 4:13). Moreover, women are clearly identified as part of the core discipleship group (1:14), which Peter will shortly justify from the prophet Joel (2:17–18). This scene thus portrays the disciples as following Jesus in transgressing boundaries of ethnicity, class, and gender—the very structures that hold empire together. The Spirit has animated a community insurrection to challenge the personal and political status quo.
The crowd debates what the reader is wondering: “What does this mean?” (2:12). This “sign of tongues” is not primarily foreshadowing the international missionary reach of the Gospel in Acts, as traditionally argued. Luke is alluding to something much more profound: the ancient Hebrew argument with the imperial Tower of Babel (Gen 11:1–9).
That primal tale—a nomad’s polemic against the powerful city-states of Mesopotamia—fiercely condemned the Tower (a cipher for the ziggurat, the architectural representation of centralized, hierarchical domination and idolatry; Gen 11:2). The centripetal power of empire draws resources and people into itself, inevitably imposing cultural and linguistic conformity on its subjects (Gen 11:1, 6). The divine counterstrategy calls for centrifugal dispersion and diversification (Gen 11:7–8). Heterogeneity is a restraint upon monoculture—an ecological and political insight that several millennia have only confirmed! Luke recontextualizes Babel’s lesson, portraying Jerusalemites as “confused” by hearing the Gospel in their own language rather than Greek, the lingua franca of the eastern empire (Acts 2:6). This multicultural insurgency is the cultural shape of Sabbath Economics.
The scene’s skeptics dismiss the disciples’ “babble” as drunken behavior (2:13)—a typical dismissal of upstart poor people by the well-heeled. To be sure, as Bill Wylie-Kellermann points out, “After what’s been done to Jesus, you’d have to be either crazy or drunk to be shouting his name in the streets and pointing accusing fingers at the executioners.”
Their disdain seems to kick Peter into gear (2:14–15), and the camera now zooms in on his impromptu sermon from Joel (2:17–21 = Joel 3:28–32a; right, Orthodox icon). The Shavuot context resonates with the prophet’s rich harvest imagery and promise of abundance after pestilence (Jl 2:19, 21–25a). For Joel, renewal comes first to the land, then the spirit “pours out” on the people (Jl 2:28a). This judgment motif informs the rest of Peter’s speech (Acts 2:22–35).
As we begin Ordinary Time, with its unbroken string of Sunday Lukan gospel readings, it’s a good time for a summer and/or fall study group or preaching series! So I’m pleased to announce that I will convene a twice-monthly zoom forum. It will begin on Wed July 2, and run through Wed, Oct 29, from 4:30-6 pm PDT. This will be for those using HARP and preaching or teaching Luke in Year C. It will focus on upcoming lectionary texts during each 2-3 week span, and we will discuss issues and strategies for pedagogy and proclamation. Thanks to those of you who let me know your interest; I will post on this blog details about cost, schedule, and how to sign up in the next couple of weeks, so you can check your calendars. Numbers will be limited, and there will be one price for the series no matter how many you can attend.
Remember, you only have until the end of July to order HARP at 20% off using discount code SOJO20 at my page on Bookshop.org.
-Ched
