Today is the birthday of the church by most people's reckoning. Fifty days after Easter the Holy Spirit was poured out on the disciples and other believers who gathered in Jerusalem. The account of this event recorded by Luke creates a lot of images. Tongues of fire and wind are but a few of the symbols used to convey the power of God seen poured out on the day of Pentecost. Another important part of this picture would have to be the people who received this gift. Acts uses the word "all" without a lot of explanation. We would assume the pouring out took place among the disciples and close followers of Jesus. But close at hand was a large crowd of people from many different nations. They were in Jerusalem and when the Holy Spirit was poured out they not only saw how strangely the disciples were acting, but they heard and understood the message of Peter in their own tongue. We are told the day ended with nearly three thousand people being added to the ranks of believers.

            Pentecost Sunday, if it reflects that great day when the Holy Spirit was given to believer, will be marked by large crowds of people coming together to celebrate and open themselves again to the presence of the living God. But in the midst of all these people and all these events, we cannot lose sight of the Power of One. A reading of the Acts account of Pentecost, and a look at Paul's writing about the work of the Holy Spirit reminds us not so much of multitudes and crowds as it reminds us of the power of One.

            Paul reminds Christians the spirit is present in each of us, there to help empower the gifts we have been given. "To each is given the manifestation of the sprit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit." The Holy Spirit comes to each one of us, reminding us of our gifts, showing us how they can be used in ways that bless and help other people.  

            Too many times we forget about the power of one person, what the gifts of one person can accomplish if empowered by God's spirit. A couple of weeks ago the students at WKU were honored by The One Campaign for engaging the most people in this cause. The One Campaign is an international movement to heighten awareness for poverty and AIDS and to encourage gifts and involvement in meeting the needs of the world. WKU beat out much larger schools, IVY league schools to win this honor. 

            The Holy Spirit started a One Campaign two thousand years ago as people were released from their apathy and discouragement to begin to believe they could make a difference. The Holy Spirit, the awareness of God's presence in the lives of slaves and free persons, in the lives of young and old, in the lives of Jews and Gentiles, instilled a belief that one, just one, makes a difference. One faithful person, one caring person, one hopeful person, one committed person could change the world. The spirit would provide the power and the person just needed to provide the willingness.

            In 1938 Nicholas Winton was a young, unmarried stockbroker from London. The government of England under prime minister Chamberlain was trying to do everything it could to appease the Germans to avoid war. But Winton believed war was coming. One of his friends invited him to come to Prague in the Spring of 1938. There he heard the stories of what was happening to the Jews under Hitler. He met many Jewish families who wanted to send their children to a safer place for the duration of the war. What could he do, a 29 year old bachelor. It cost $3500 a child to get them processed. Where would they all go? He was just one person. But the spirit would not let him rest. He knew that someone needed to do something, and so he began writing letters and got a few supporters, and before Germany cut off the flow of children he had helped 669 children find homes in Great Britain. There was one more train load of children who were stopped before leaving Prague. There were 250 children on board and not a one of them survived the war. Those who did make it lost their parents in the concentration camps.

Winton didn't think anything about what he had done, and no one even knew until 1989 when an old album was found by his wife. Why did he do this? It was hard to get an answer from the Winton, now in his late nineties. But finally he did say to one of the children who was saved,  "I knew I could not save the world and I knew I could not stop war from coming, but I knew I could save one human soul."

            The Power of One body, the church is a power that draws people together. We are never more closely aligned to the ancient church than when we make sure there is a place for everyone to worship God in our midst, than when we make sure there is a seat at the table for all people. Herbert Loche said in a sermon "This matter we label diversity, therefore, has stood since the earliest days of the church as a kind of litmus test of Christian seriousness about the Christian message. It is almost as if down through the ages the key question with which the church has been confronted is not the correctness of its stances on the doctrines of atonement, or redemption, or salvation but rather the simple, difficult, exasperating, but absolutely fundamental issue of whether the church will be strong enough and faithful enough to transcend the artificial boundaries that we humans create and erect in every other realm of our existence - boundaries of nation, and blood, and race, and ethnicity, and gender, and geography, and history, and class, and sexual orientation and if I omit something it is only by accident, not by design - whether the church can soar above these social artifacts and become God's children living lives of love and service in God's family as one, joyous people."

            Paul wrote, "For in the One Spirit we were all baptized into one body--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free--and we were all made to drink of one Spirit."

            When individuals gifted by the Holy Spirit come together in one place, when they form the body of Christ in the world, all kinds of things are possible. The Power of one can feed the hungry and help people get shelter. It can provide food and blankets to people half a world away. Although the government of the Myanmar has turned away offers of help from governments, Church World Service has a representative there who is setting up ways for our Week of Compassion dollars to provide help and Aid. The Power of One passes along the stories of faith, teachers and preaches, baptizes and blesses. The Power of One puts people of all kinds of different backgrounds together on their pew and on their knees and around the table and out in the world. Each person, doing their part, brought together as One Body to bear witness to Jesus Christ, enabling him to be present in our world today. 

            Maybe you remember this story that I've told before. I heard Fred Craddock tell the story many years ago. He said he was the minister of a little church near Oak Ridge, TN when he was in college. The little town was booming with the building of the nuclear facility there. People were living in the backs of wagons and the streets were full of cars and people. He asked his church to start a mission to those new people who had moved into town, to reach out to them and their children and try to help them get adjusted. Craddock believed the Spirit had given them a mission to do together.

            But the church had other ideas. They passed a resolution that said no one could be a member of that little church unless they owned land in the county. They wanted to be One body, but they forgot about the Pentecostal use of the word "all." The one body brought all people together in common worship and mission. Fred's church thought the Spirit had done its thing 2000 years ago. No need for new songs, or new ideas or new people. 

            We can make that choice as a people gathered in one place. We can decide to closed the doors and put up our doctrine or creed as a test of faith, and shut everyone out.

But when we do that, what happens to our power to be the body of Christ?

            Fred was back in the Oak Ridge area years later. By this time he had become a seminary professor and noted preacher. He and his wife decided to drive up to the little church they'd spent time at during college. He was surprised when he turned the last curve and saw the church and saw that the parking lot was full of cars and trucks and even a few motorbikes. It looked like the church was active and alive with people. So they got out of their car and started to go up to the church, but then his eye caught the new sign on front of the church building. "Barbecue-All you can Eat-$5.00". He said he and his wife went inside, and sure enough there were children running around, and families eating at tables. There were a few bikers dressed in black, gulping down the barbecue with soda pop. And he turned to his wife and said, "Good thing this isn't still a church. None of these people would be welcome."

            We celebrate the power of One today on Pentecost Sunday. The spirit gives each of us a gift and power to use it. And the spirit calls us together as One people to have a powerful witness of unity and service in a broken world. May we open our hearts as a people to that same spirit today. May we be open to the new work Christ wants to do among us today. May we release the power of this body of Christ to be a healing, reconciling force in this community and this world. May the spirit of the living Christ never have to move out of this building because there's no room in our hearts for the Spirit power and might.