Prophesying in the Camp:  Taking the Gospel to the People, Where They Live

Preached at Hanover Street Presbyterian Church

On Pentecost Sunday, May 15, 2005

By the Rev. Thomas C. Davis, Ph.D.

Texts:

Exodus 33: 7-11a

Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp; he called it the tent of meeting.  And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the tent of meeting, which was outside the camp.  Whenever Moses went out to the tend, all the people would rise and stand, each of them, at the entrance of their tents and watch Moses until he had gone into the tent.  When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance of the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses.  When all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance of the tent all the people would rise and bow down, all of them, at the entrance of their tents.  Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.  Then he would return to the camp; but his young assistant, Joshua son of Nun, would not leave the tent.

Numbers 11: 24-30

So 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.  Then 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.  Two 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.  And a young man ran and told Moses, 'Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.'  And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, 'My lord Moses, stop them!'  But 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!'  And Moses and the elders of Israel returned to the camp.

Acts 2: 1-18

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.  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.  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.  Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.  And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each.  Amazed and astonished, they asked, 'Are not all these who are speaking Galileans?  And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?  Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs-in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power.'  All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, 'What does this mean?'  But others sneered and said, 'They are filled with new wine.'  But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them:  'Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say.  Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning.  No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:  "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.  Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.

Sermon Text

Happy birthday church!  We celebrate today the fulfillment of Joel's prophesy that God would "pour out . . . Spirit upon all flesh," that is, not just upon remarkable liberators like Moses, or wise seers like Amos and Jeremiah and Isaiah, or rulers like king David and Queen Ester.  No, we celebrate today the extravagant Spirit of God, splashing her gifts upon rather unremarkable men and women and children at the bottom of the heap.  "Even upon my slaves, . . .in those days I will pour out my Spirit," says our text.

What we celebrate today is the end of the supposition that God minces Spirit, divies it out reservedly, gives it to just a few people and confines it to just certain spaces, as our Hebrew texts this morning suggest.  The young assistant to Moses was flabbergasted when two Elders, inspired by God's spirit, began to speak on God's behalf not in the special tent which Moses had set up for worship, but rather, where the people lived, in their camp.  To Moses' credit, he was not offended by their initiative.  He said, "Would that all people were prophets, and that God's spirit were poured upon them all."

We celebrate today the fulfillment of that wish.  We celebrate the end of spiritual aristocracy, the arrogant pretension that certain people have a divine right to lord it over others because they are holier than thou.  Pentecost has subverted all that. The miracle of hearing God's good news in one's own language was not in the philology.  The miracle was in the theology.  At last people had awakened.  They had come to realize that God's spiritual anointing was not limited to a people, a culture, a class, a race, a gender, a generation:  "On your men servants and your maid servants I will pour my spirit. . .Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. . .Your young. . .shall see visions.  Your old. . .shall dream dreams." 

Pentecost was not merely the birthday of the Christian church.  To understand it that way domesticates and limits it. The story of Pentecost laid a foundation for a whole new world order.  The preamble of our American Declaration of Independence, which says that all people are created equal, was inspired partly by Enlightenment reason, but also partly by the spirit of the Pentecost story.  A wind blew with a mighty noise, and tongues of flame rested on each and every person--not just on the people at the head of the table, not just on the men, not just on the well dressed, not just on the pious, not just on the learned, and not just on those who spoke Greek or Aramaic or Hebrew (the languages of the first disciples).  What a socially dangerous notion!  Look out!  God was doing something new!   "The first shall be last and the last first," Jesus had said!  "The poor shall be lifted from the dung heap and the rich shall be sent empty away," his mother had sung. 

So, let kings and queens who get excited about this birthday bash beware!  Let pompous priests and politicians reconsider!  Let oligarchs tremble.  For God's Spirit is splashing all over.  Some might like to control the flood, but they can't.  No one anywhere anymore can claim divine privilege.  The Spirit of the One who emptied himself is pouring herself out upon all flesh, and popping buffoons balloons filled with their own hot airs.

But, what do many Christians do with the insurrectional, delightfully democratic, deeply inspirational and--one would therefore think--irrepressible story of Pentecost?  We tame it and fence it in, that's what we do.  We label it "religious" and confine it to steepled houses.  For we want what Joshua, the son of Nun, wanted--that young, pious, earnest assistant to Moses--we want a security which we think must rest upon control.  For heaven's sake, don't go and preach that story in the camp!  Who knows what might happen if God's spirit gets out there, where people live?  Keep it inside the tent of meeting!  Everyone will be better off that way.  God's authority (read, "our authority") will be protected.

But Moses replied something like this:   "No.  Give it up, Joshua, son of Nun.  Why, I wish that God's Spirit were poured out on all God's children, that they all would begin to speak the truth about what's going down!" 

That's what prophesying is, you know.  It's not crystal ball gazing, magical soothsaying.  Prophesying is expressing the wisdom that you get when you dare to stand in God's light and let it shine on you and through you, a wisdom that is crucially important to God's people, a wisdom that will mean the difference between life and death.  Moses wishes that all people would have such wisdom, such ability to read the signs of the times, and to say boldly to their people: This is what's coming down, people!  This is who you are.  This is what you're doing.  And this is what's coming down, because of who you are and what you're doing.  That's prophesying!  Moses wanted all God's people to be prophets.  He wanted God's passionate, truth-telling spirit to be poured on everyone.

Alleluia!  That began to happen at Pentecost.  But, may God forgive us, for now we often try to shoo the spirit out of the camp (or we might say, off the streets) and back into our tents of meeting.  Our tents of meeting are collapsing partly because we have failed to honor the fire of the Spirit, and prophesy in the camp, that is, in the streets, where people live. 

Hanover has an Outreach Committee.  Lots of churches do.   Outreach committees tend to be preoccupied with recruiting members to maintain the tent of meeting.  But this should not be their primary concern.  Rather, their primary concern should be how to educate a people who are focused mainly on what goes on inside the tent to shift their focus and prepare themselves for prophesying outside the tent. Outreach should not be conceived as a hook to draw people into the tent of meeting.  It should be conceived rather as a method for forming prophets, in order to send them out into the streets, to be a leaven in that lump, to be salt for the soup out there.  That's what Jesus was about.  He didn't care much about the tent of meeting.  He spent most of his time out where people live.  We must learn to prophesy and minister out there where people live, as he did.  This is our Pentecostal mission.  May God give us the Spirit for it.