This sermon was preached without the following manuscript, and this was transcribed subsequently.

“Good morning! Hi, 11:00! I am Dan Nelson, I am the Intern Pastor here at Community Lutheran Church, and it is a blessing, and a privilege to get to speak with you and to get to worship with you all. I want us to take a moment to wave to the cameras, and to say ‘hi!’ to the people online. ‘Hi, people online! We are glad you are here, too. The church is more than just those of us in this room.’ ‘Let us pray… loving and gracious God, thank you so much for this day of Pentecost. Thank you for the time to come together in this space to worship you and receive your Holy Spirit. Be with us now, be with us always. We love you lots. Amen.’
‘Our story this morning comes from the book of Acts, the second chapter, beginning with the first verse. Let’s read this together, ‘when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.’ (Acts 2: 1). So, the celebration of Pentecost is actually an old, Jewish holiday called ‘Shavuot’, which is the Festival of Weeks. It takes place fifty days after Passover. It is a celebration of when Moses received the Ten Commandments from God on Mt. Sinai. And so, Jesus’ disciples were gathering together to celebrate this festival. They were upstairs, in the room, waiting, and celebrating when all of the sudden… This happened. ‘Suddenly from Heaven came the sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting (Acts 2: 2).’ So, as they were sitting there, minding their own business, maybe drinking a bit of wine or having a nice meal together… this violent wind overcomes their space. We can imagine the tumultuous wind and napkins going everywhere, the disciples hair in their faces… It is not unlike those of you who might have felt the earthquake on Friday. Right around midday? Do y’all remember that? Perfect. I was sitting in my office across the street, there, working on this sermon; Kelli, Bruce, and Phillip were all over here working on worship stuff. Kelli came back across the street and she looked like she had seen a ghost. Apparently the sanctuary was moving so much.. and Phillip was sitting over here on this organ, which is not secure and it was moving back and forth, and back and forth. I imagine that is not unlike when God sends the Spirit. I want to draw your attention to the second and third word [here]. They say, ‘From Heaven’. This theological claim that the writer of the book of Acts is saying is that every time that God is in action in the world, and this is a promise that God is in action in the world is that the direction is from God – to us. Every time. There is nothing we can do to draw ourselves closer to God… rather, we become in tune through he power of the Holy Spirit, that God is present and at work among us. Like a violent, rushing wind… The writer here is echoing back; if we remember from Genesis 1 at creation this Spirit of God moved over the waters… like a rushing wind.. And then, the reason many of us are wearing red. Let’s read this together, ‘Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them ability’ (Acts 2: 3). Fire descended upon the disciples! Now, the disciples are some of my favorite characters in the Bible because they followed Jesus around for a solid three years, and saw him do miraculous things. They saw him raise Lazarus from the dead. They saw him feed thousands of people all at once. Not only that, they saw him crucified; resurrected, which is impressive in and of itself. Not only that, but a week before they saw him ascend into heaven! You would think they would not be surprised by very much of this. Lo and behold, as they are gathered together celebrating this festival… God shows up in tongues of fire that rest among them. Tongues of fire.’
‘I also want to draw our attention to the fact that then they began to speak in other languages: every language that is known across the land. In seminary, we had to learn ancient Greek and ancient Hebrew so we could work on translating the Bible together, and then in High School I also learned German and French. I am imagining all of these languages and the difficulty it took me to learn that. I am not too bright of a guy, let me level with you here. (laughter) But! The Spirit then allowed every person to converse and to testify to what God has been doing. And people from all across the known world at the time understood and heard about the resurrected Christ. This is the fulfillment of what Jesus said moments before he left the disciples, as we talked about last week. Let’s read this together from the first chapter of Acts. Jesus says, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses…” (Acts 1: 8). What Jesus is calling us to do; both the disciples 2,000 years ago, and every one of us here today, is to bear witness to what God has done, what God is doing, and what God will do. The call of the Gospel is to testify on God’s behalf. We are called to be witnesses.
And this might be sending up some red flags.. I found this online. “Oh no! Not Evangelism!” Is that what I am asking you to do? Absolutely. I thought it was a cute cartoon. We get so hung up on that ‘big E word’; which is ironic that we are a part of the E.L.C.A… The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. What we are called to do is to testify to God’s action in the world. We are each given different languages with different people who we interact with; and the places we dwell, do work, do ministry, and do life. Many of you might not know this, but every intern who gets assigned to different places has a specific project that they are working on. Something that interns get to discuss with their supervising pastor. They meet with them every week and check in, having progress reports and write up evaluations, and paperwork, and all that good stuff. Well, my project, which Dr. Mark and I discussed before I even got here was to work on starting a church outside of Community Lutheran Church. So, I have spent a good portion of every week for the last six months or so out in the world trying to discern, understand, and testify to what God is doing in out of the way places. I was out one night supporting our sound man, Sam, as his band in this venue. And in this venue, God spoke to me, saying, ‘this would be a good place to do ministry.’ It is this tiny, hole-in-the-wall dive bar called the Double Down Saloon. Many of you have heard of it; it is somewhat… notorious. It is in not the nicest part of town. So, I was sitting there; I went there one evening, and I sat down and a woman down at the end of the bar starts complaining the band that was there the night before, and how the lead singer started to go on and on about politics, about the democratic process, and just complaining. So the bartender says, “Alright. Two things you don’t talk about here are politics, and religion.” So, I am sitting there, Intern Pastor Dan, minding my own business, listening to what is going on around me and I think, “Okay”. So, I get my business card out of my pocket, and on my way out I hand it to Butters, the bartender, and I say, “Hey! Nice to meet you. If you need anything, give me a call.” And I left. Well, the next day I went back. I wasn’t sure, because of this standing rule that if you are going to talk about politics or religion then they tell you to ‘Shut up and drink.’ So, I come back. I sit down and said, “Hey Butters, did you look at my card?” He says, “Yeah.” and then he starts introducing me to all of his friends. All of the locals: the regulars, the burlesque dancers, the prostitutes, the drug dealers, the homeless people. He says, pointing to me, “This guy, the Reverend… he is good people. Treat him well.” So I became one of them. To talk, and do life in ministry together. One evening I was sitting there down at the corner, and there was only one open seat and a woman comes in. She is about 30 or 35, right in there, and she has a seat next to me. She orders the house special,  which I cannot tell you the name of what it is; if you’re curious you can go look it up… Anyway, she sits down and we exchange pleasantries, “Hello”, and I get back to my business.
Well, she says, “This is my last day in Las Vegas.” This is an invitation to conversation.
So I say, “Okay. Tell me more.”
She says, “Well, I am moving to Texas.”
(aside) I am from the great state of Texas, so this raises a flag of interest on my end. I say, “Oh, tell me more.” Well, back in February, Texas was hit with a variety of snow and ice storms, and she said, “My father was driving, and his car went off the road… and he died. So I am moving back to take care of my mother and my sisters.”
I said, “Okay.” And we began to talk more and more about what her life would look like now that her father had passed away. She told me stories, laughed, and cried… After about thirty minutes she said, “Well, what do you do?”
“Well, I minister to people inside of a bar.”
So we began to talk, and talk about her father’s salvation, and how he is now united with the resurrected Christ, in death.

This is not the only story I have like this. Every day it seems that I am there I meet someone else that God reveals Gods-self in their lives and I get to speak to their beloved-ness. To their chosen-ness.
I was sitting in there a few weeks ago and this woman came in and she had just moved from New York. She had a thick accent, which many of you can picture right now. She was having a hard time finding a job. And so, we exchanged pleasantries, and she began to tell me.. This was on Maundy Thursday. She began to tell me about how she hates the holiday of Easter. So I wondered, “Okay, what is going on with Easter? I mean, candy, eggs, Jesus… What’s not to love?”  She said, “Thirteen years ago… I was getting married, it was my wedding day. As I waited there at the church, my husband, who I was going to marry that day… was killed by a drunk driver on his way to the ceremony. And I haven’t been to church since.”

My heart was breaking for this woman… For the closed off-ness for this woman, how she felt that anger and that energy against God. It took me having to learn the language of the Double Down Saloon, through the power of the Holy Spirit to then speak to God’s love for her. That it wasn’t God’s will to take her husband. That we are products of a broken society with broken people who make bad decisions that have consequences. Since that conversation, every time she sees me she says, “Hello!” and we sit down and begin to talk more and more about what her life will look like. About what role in her life faith will begin to play. But I had to tune in to what God was doing… Out of the way places with broken people.
But this might not be everyone’s cup of tea. God calls and equips every single one of us in other ways. I’m going to tell you another story. This lovely building behind me is Redeemer Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. For those of you who aren’t that familiar with Minneapolis/Saint Paul, this church exists in the part of the neighborhood called North Minneapolis, and it is… not too dissimilar to North Las Vegas. There is a lot of poverty, a lot of homelessness, a lot of crime, a lot of drugs. The church leadership: Pr. Kelly Chapman and others began to see that the language that the Spirit was calling them to speak to was the language of opportunity. So, working with churches and other businesses, they began to brainstorm. Now, many of you know that Brian, Mark, and I have all lived in Minneapolis/Saint Paul in different areas of our lives, and it is a very green, eco-friendly, commuter friendly city which has a lot of bike trails. I imagine it was probably Pr. Brian’s favorite part of living there: riding his bike every chance he could get… Well, what the leadership at the church decided that they needed was a chance to provide an opportunity for people who needed job training. So, they worked with the local communities and they started what would be called Venture North. It is a bike shop that sells bicycle parts; that repairs bicycles, and gives people from the community who otherwise wouldn’t have a shot to get a job chances to work, to earn money, to learn skills. Not only this… A good friend of mine named Tyler, who was living in Saint Paul with his brothers and his mother… He had. Well, his mother was working two jobs; she was never quite around to be with the family, and so one night he went out with his knife because he couldn’t afford food for his brothers. And he robbed somebody. He took the money, went to the grocery store because it was that bad. That is what it took for him to feed his family. But, he was given a job through this place, through Venture North, which then he could learn these skills; to sell bikes, and repair them. And have more money to feed his family. And put this on his resume. I forget the name of the company he is at now, but no longer works at Venture North, and he has a much better job, and his family is in a much better place. It took the church discerning the Holy Spirit’s language to provide opportunities for those in their community, because the community was indeed suffering.
Another story like this: there was a woman named Margaret Kelly, who felt God’s call to be a pastor. The problem is, well, it isn’t a problem, is that she is a lesbian woman, engaged in a long term, monogamous, same-gendered relationship; but she felt the call before the church and said that was okay. She knew she was okay; but it took the church until 2009 to catch up with her. Well, after she went through seminary, she went through a discernment process; she knew that the language that God was speaking to her was one of radical hospitality. And so, she brainstormed with other churches. Actually, the church that gave the most generous gift to her was that of Saint Andrews in Mahtomedi, Minnesota, which is where Dr. Mark hails from.. so, yay, St. Andrews!
Well, she decided to take the money and start a food truck ministry. She goes to different kitchens, different church kitchens throughout the Metro preparing hand pies, which is like a calzone. She has a meat option and a veggie option. The thing is, when you show up, there is no charge. Every person who comes to the food truck gets a free meal. They have worship services available as well, if those, once they’ve eaten want to commune with the rest of the believers in God. And so, Shobi’s Table was started, and people know that on a certain day of the week at 12:15, she’ll be right there, ready to serve a warm meal, and pray, and listen to people, and to speak the language of radical hospitality, which was revealed to her through the power of the Holy Spirit. Her first worship service was actually Maundy Thursday, April 17th, 2014. It has been a thriving ministry ever since.
As we reflect on the message of Pentecost, it is one of the Holy Spirit working in the world 2,000 years ago arriving in fire and wind to the disciples in the room. But it is also the same Spirit that is working here today that calls and claims each and every one of us as beloved, children of God. And Jesus says, “I want you to witness to what I am doing in the world.” As we think in our lives of what God is calling us to do, and we think about the spheres of influence that we have in our lives, the tribes of people with which we engage.. Maybe you’re a computer programmer, and that is the language that God has taught you to speak. You can begin to minister and do life with other computer programers. Or maybe, God has called you to be a stay-at-home mom, and that is a blessed calling; but there are other people who might not have heard the Good News: the Gospel message, that God has created you, Jesus redeems you, and the Spirit empowers you. God is working in the world, and God is working at Community Lutheran Church, and as we prayerfully discern the directions that God is calling us to… May it ever be grounded in the message of Pentecost that we are called to be witnesses to the ends of the earth. Thanks be to God. Let us pray…
“Loving and merciful God, we thank you for this day. Thank you for sending your Spirit to be with us. For calling us, and claiming us in baptism. May we, with the rest of your church throughout the world continue to testify to what you have done, are doing, and will do. In your holy name we pray, Amen.”