“Claim the Voice, Share Your Gift”
Numbers 11:24-30 and Acts 2:1-13
Allen Huff
Jonesborough Presbyterian Church
5/19/24
Pentocost
24So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord; and he gathered seventy elders of the people, and placed them all around the tent. 25Then 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.
26Two 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, and so they prophesied in the camp. 27And a young man ran and told Moses, “Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.”
28And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, “My lord Moses, stop them!”
29But 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.(NRSV)
When the day of Pentecost had come, they 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.
5Now 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.
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?9 Parthians, 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.” (NRSV)
The stories we just read from Numbers and Acts are stories of God’s people in crisis. They show us the Hebrews wandering in the Sinai wilderness and the very first Christians in Jerusalem hiding in fear of Roman soldiers. Displaced and struggling, both groups are trying to discern new purpose and new identity.
As the respective leaders, Moses and the Apostles are facing emptiness and vulnerability. As faithful, diligent, and creative as they may be, they know that they cannot overcome their predicaments on their own. They need help.
Leadership in any human community can be an intensely demanding responsibility. It requires gifts of discernment, courage, and decisiveness. And because leadership is fundamentally an act of service, it also requires mature sensibilities of empathy, humility, patience, and justice. Perhaps most challenging for individualistic and competitive cultures like ours, effective leadership requires a commitment to putting the well-being of others before one’s own well-being.
Without these attributes, leaders may become like Pharaoh, for whom slavery and genocide are simply the cost of doing business. Or maybe they become like Eli’s sons—spoiled, selfish, and deaf to holiness and wisdom. Or like King Saul who, lacking any real gifts for leadership, goes insane before everyone’s eyes.
All of these would-be leaders face crises, and all of them, ignoring the higher virtues, seek the guidance of flatterers and the illusion of security-through-violence. And their stories live on in scripture as cautionary tales.
Back to Moses and the Apostles.
In Numbers, the Israelites are newly-freed slaves. They’re on their own, on the run, and complaining about how tired and hungry they are. Their escape from Egypt has become a desert pilgrimage that seems crueler than Pharaoh’s slave drivers. Israel’s story illustrates that when something gets the best of us, only the worst remains. And when it becomes too much, the Hebrews project all their fear and anxiety onto Moses.
Did you bring us out here to kill us? they cry. We were better off in Egypt!
That same despair and craving for control would lead them to try to replace Yahweh with a golden calf.
In Acts, the disciples feel all alone in the world. They had expected Jesus to do to Rome what Rome and others had done to the Hebrews for generations. After the crucifixion, though, the disciples had to have wondered if Jesus had been the kind of person Hosea warned about: “They shall be like the morning mist, or the dew that goes away early.” (Hosea 13:3a) Was Jesus nothing more than visible humidity? So, after both the resurrection and the ascension, the disciples still find themselves mired in wandering and indecision.
While Moses and the Apostles often appear flawed and fumbling, they’re still servants of God. During their crises, for all their frustration and helplessness, they begin to find themselves opened by and opening to something mysterious and moving—a dynamic Holiness, a Spirit who comes not to bring an end to crises, but to help guide God’s people through the uncertainties and complexities of crisis and change. In the process, the Spirit reveals herself as a gift being offered not simply to chosen leaders. The Spirit proves to be a gift made available to all people through leaders like Moses, Joshua, Peter, and Paul. True leaders—in the household of faith and elsewhere—are those who humbly embrace their own giftedness and who seek to recognize, nurture, and give voice to the giftedness of others.
Remember Moses’ story: God takes some of the Spirit God has given to Moses and shares it with newly-appointed elders. And some of that Spirit leaks out beyond the designated seventy to a couple of nobodies named Eldad and Medad. And when word gets to Joshua, he says, Moses, stop them!
Then, Moses, learning more by the moment, scolds his reactionary assistant, saying, “Are you jealous for my sake?” Look, I wish God’s Spirit would fall on everyone! The Spirit makes prophets of us all!
Remember what happens in Jerusalem, too. While describing a fiery-tongued prophetic ecstasy, Luke names sixteen different Gentile groups who hear the gospel being proclaimed in their own languages. Those who watch all of this happen are bewildered. And who wouldn’t be? To see that God really does inhabit all people (Genesis 1:26a), that God’s Word is written on human hearts (Jeremiah 31:33), and that no one and no thing lies beyond the redeeming reach of God (Acts 9:1-19a)—such revelations affirm the all-embracing love of God.
In both Sinai and Jerusalem, God’s Holy Spirit initiates and is present through the outpouring of prophetic speech and action, through signs of grace demonstrated by folks who are ordinary, fallible, hesitant human beings.
Many voices in today’s world claim holy authority. And yet many seem diametrically opposed to each other. While we’re not called to judge individuals, we are called, individually and communally, to discern.
When I hear a voice claiming prophetic status, I listen for accents of Jesus—accents of fierce love, of fearless peacemaking, of forgiveness, compassion, and grateful openness to all of God’s Creation. Those things declare the presence of the Holy Spirit.
By contrast, when voices claiming prophetic authority provoke suspicion, fear, division, and vengeance, when they create barriers to relationship and wholeness, I trust those voices, but I trust them only to ravage the wounded, fragile body of Creation.
When certain voices within the Church declare that the God revealed in Jesus can be bought and satisfied with violence and bloodshed, the Holy Spirit calls and empowers us to bear prophetic witness to something entirely new and different and, at the same time, entirely ancient and eternal. She calls us to proclaim the God of Spirit and Truth, the God of deliverance, restorative justice, and hope.
In my observation, this congregation’s current session consists of women and men who are deeply gifted. As Holy-Spirited individuals, they are equipped to lead you into a period of discernment, discovery, and new beginning. That was evident to me at the officer retreat last February. And it remains the case as they lead ministry teams and as they handle deliberations as a body.
One very important thing this faith community will do in the next few weeks is to elect members of a nominating committee. And that committee will not only assemble a slate of officers for the class of 2027, they will assemble a committee to pick an interim pastor—someone who will help you perceive anew the Holy Spirit’s presence with you and her call to you for the coming years, and then prepare you to look for the one whom God is, even now, preparing to lead you into the future God has in store.
This is Pentecostal work—living as ones who trust that the way through wandering and uncertainty is to open ourselves to the Holy Spirit who is being poured out in generous measure upon each of us, and all of us, for the sake of the entire Creation.
Let’s also recall that Pentecost was a harvest festival. Through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, we become laborers for God’s most gracious harvest in which all are welcome, and all are transformed.
May you recognize your gifts, claim your Holy-Spirited voice. And may you, now and always, follow the path of Jesus who leads you to do justice, love kindness, and to walk humbly with God.
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