Meg Peery McLaughlin
June 8, 2025
Acts 2: 1-21
Today is the birthday of the Christian church.
About 4 months ago,
Pew Research published their third Religious Landscape study.
It reports that the vast majority of Americans–over 80%–
believe we are connected to something beyond us; we’re tethered spiritually.
And yet only a bit over a third of us – 37%– belong to a house of worship.
This isn’t news. Y’all know this.
You’ve heard what I have from your adult kids, your friends.
Maybe you’ve said it yourself: I’m just not that into organized religion.
When I hear that, I usually don’t press for more—because the last thing I want is
to come off like a pushy pastor who can’t take a NO. Still, I get curious:
Is it that the church has, historically, been complicit in patriarchy and racism?
Is it a deep mistrust of institutions? A rightful revulsion at hypocrisy and abuse?
Is it discomfort with how some religious bodies are tangled up in partisan agendas?
Is it feeling like an outsider—in the liturgy, the language, the structure of worship?
Or maybe just the plain old challenge of getting everyone out the door and to the same place at the same time?
I must confess that when I hear that line
I’m just not that into organized religion.
I think, Lord have mercy, if you only knew the church’s origin story!
I mean, what makes anyone think the church is organized at all??!
A reading from Acts, Chapter 2:
But first, a prayer:
Come, Holy Spirit, break open old words with new power.
Set us ablaze with your truth.
Amen.
When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place.2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
5 Now there were devout Jews from every people under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia (FRIDG-EEYA) and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”
14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Fellow Jews[a] and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15 Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. 16 No, 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.
19 And I will show portents in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
20 The sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
21 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
This is the Word of the Lord
Thanks be to God.
A bad reputation is hard to shake.
In the wake of this epic Holy Spirit disruption:
violent wind and dancing fire,
excited speech in all the languages of the world–
the crowds say, “these people must be drunk”
Peter doesn’t seem to be concerned about the reputation of these Jesus-followers.
He doesn’t say “We don’t do that sort of thing.”
He doesn’t say, “We followers of Jesus Christ practice all things in moderation.”
No, Peter says, “They can’t be drunk. It’s only 9 o’clock in the morning.”
I can’t help but wonder if a tee-totaling scribe edited out the rest of Peter’s remark: “we never serve cocktails until after 5 .”
This is curious coming from Peter—Peter who was so worried about his reputation
that he denied he even knew Jesus. He denied it not once, but three times.
It’s curious because Jesus was executed at the hands of state
on the basis of his reputation,
so you’d think his inner circle would be extra-concerned about their own.
These disciples have every reason to fear what other people say about them.
Just a few chapters later in the book of Acts,
one of their deacons, Stephens, will be stoned to death for his faith.
You would think that Peter would be more worried. . .
A bad reputation is hard to shake.
But there’s Peter, shouting to the crowd about the Holy Spirit—
about dreams and visions—
not hiding a thing, but amplifying it for the whole world to hear.
There he is, proclaiming loud and clear:
“Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
I wonder if we have a hard time relating to Peter.
I don’t know about you, but frankly,
I do think about how my faith comes across to other people.
It’s pride month,
but every month of the year,
UPC strives to make it clear: queer people are made in God’s good image.
And I want to be sure to say: We’re not those kinds of Christians.
We believe Scripture is God’s Word, not a weapon,
nor a way to wiggle out of complex conversations.
We don’t believe faith should be used to legislate bodies or erase science.
We don’t follow a God who demands uniformity,
and we definitely don’t follow a God who condones violence.
We’re not those kind of Christians.
Yea, Peter’s hard to relate to –he doesn’t try to qualify his conviction. Unembarrassed, he shouts to anyone who will listen that everyone, everyone, who calls on the name of the Lord is already saved.
What if one of you ran out to Franklin street hollering: Jesus Saves!
Think the crowds would come running?
We’d have to start a waitlist for our next new member lunch?
You know, the people who flocked to the house
where all those unorganized disciples were getting windblown and lit up –
those people didn’t come because they were shopping around for a church home.
They care because they were being fed a steady diet of fear—fear at every turn.
Those first-century Jews lived under the Pax Romana,
promised peace—but only if they submitted to the Empire’s version of it.
They were safe only as long as they fell in line.
They were told:
the military would save you from instability,
but only by threatening violence if you stepped out of place;
that taxes would keep your community from eroding,
though they mostly lined the pockets of the elite.
They were told: if you wanted to be okay as a person,
steer clear of the wrong kind of people—
they were told that exclusion was essential for survival.
But Peter had something different to say.
He stood up—not with a sword, but with a story.
He said: come, call on the name of Jesus– and
every wall that the Empire has erected will crumble,
every barrier that religion has built will fall,
every person from every nation under heaven
will no longer live in fear
but rather in the freedom to dream, the courage to act and the power to love.
You know, our day isn’t all that different.
We’re in the 21st century, no longer under imperial rule—
but fear still rules us.
We’re told to fear those who don’t look like us, vote like us, live like us.
We’ve been numbed by intimidation masquerading as security,
trained to see force as order—
so much so that we’re tempted to believe that peace is only possible through power.
We still think we have to stay in line just to survive.
We believe our worth must be earned.
Turn on that phone in your phone and it will sell you a way out—
of wrinkles, weight gain, not having enough money, time, or friends.
Everybody has a message of salvation.
Everybody but the mainline protestant church, it seems,
because we are too worried about our bad reputation.
But if I understand the text, Peter didn’t care.
As preacher Andrew Connors wrote,
He was too inebriated with the gospel to care.
Peter really believed that the truth is the only thing that ever sets people free.
He really believed that the way of Jesus is the way of life and life abundant.
Those early disciples didn’t care about their reputation
because the Spirit had knocked them off their feet with
a message that fearful people needed to hear.
You want to trust that you’ve already been saved? Call on the name of the Lord.
Do you fear death? The Lord has defeated it.
Fear pain? The Lord has tasted it.
Fear the Empire and all its arrogance?
No Empire built on fear will outlast the love of God.
Church, we have a credible message.
And if we are bold enough to proclaim that there is
a different way to peace, to hope, to love and justice
and that way is Jesus;
if a bunch of Presbyterians
who might actually not be all that organized—
but somehow manage to get it together enough
to go out to step out and share
humbly share why their salvation fills them with joy
and how it’s transformed their lives—
then it can’t be the wine. . .
It’s only 10:30 in the morning .
It must be the Spirit.
Thanks be to God. Amen.