God Would Like to Buy the World a Coke

The Rev. Joshua Rodriguez
Acts 2:1-21

I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but there’s a new Coca-Cola commercial. It’s advertising Coke’s new “Friendly Twist” bottle. Coke debuted this bottle at a college in Colombia, and the commercial begins by showing freshmen on the first day of college. They’re sitting by themselves, not talking to each other. You remember how the first day of college was, don’t you? How you’re excited to be there, possibly away from home for the first time, and yet you’re also scared, because you’re so far away from all the people you know. That’s where this new Coke bottle comes in. It’s designed so that it can’t be opened on its own. Each bottle cap has two prongs that fit into another bottle cap. When you put two bottles together, you can twist off both caps. Once the college students figure it out, they are laughing, smiling, talking to one another, and drinking Coke. The commercial ends with the words, “Open a Coke, open a new friendship.” It is genius marketing. I also think it’s a pretty good analogy for Pentecost.

The typical metaphor for Pentecost that get used these days is the “Church’s Birthday.” And that’s not untrue, but our reading from the Acts of the Apostles doesn’t really sound like a birthday party to me. Does it to you? At the very least, it doesn’t sound like a good birthday party. It starts off well enough, with a small group of friends gathered in someone’s home. But then there’s this violent wind, and the next thing you know, all of the apostles and their companions are somehow out in the street in front of a huge crowd. This crowd is so big that we’re told later in chapter two of Acts, after our reading this morning ends, that three thousand people believed Peter’s preaching and were baptized. So there’s no way that it could have fit in someone’s house. But there’s no explanation of how the apostles got out into the street. There’s just the mention of the wind, with the implication that it was so powerful that it literally forced everyone out of the house.

That violent wind, which forced the apostles out of their comfortable home is, I think, the key to understanding Pentecost. There’s this understandable tendency to focus on the tongues of fire. They’re captivating and odd, and, even though it can at times be destructive, there is something comfortable about fire. Fire brings memories of summer camp bonfires, of chestnuts roasting on Christmas Eve, of birthday cakes. But wind, well, wind can’t be contained. Wind is a force beyond our control. “The wind,” Jesus says in John’s Gospel, speaking of the Holy Spirit, “blows where it chooses.” (John 3:8) And that’s certainly true in West Texas, where I’m from. Every once in a while, we’ll get a wind advisory here in Maryland, and I’ll laugh a little to myself, because where I grew up, thirty or forty mile an hour gusts are normal. In West Texas, where there are no trees or hills to stop it, the wind routinely gets up to sixty or seventy miles an hour. I can remember a day where I was driving down a country road with my steering wheel turned almost all the way to the left, because if I didn’t, the wind was blowing so strong from the right that I would have ended up being blown off the road. Wind, when it is powerful, like a West Texas wind or the Wind of Pentecost, is really uncomfortable. It picks up dust and grit that pepper your skin. It can literally force you to go where it is blowing, rather than where you want to go, just like it blew the apostles out of their home.

And that discomfort brings us back to the first day of college, that uncomfortable time before we knew anyone. The genius of the new Coke bottle, the reason why the new commercial is so appealing, is because it forces us to get over the discomfort of meeting new people. It draws us into community. “Open a Coke, open a new friendship.” That is so appealing, isn’t it? And that’s what the Spirit did on Pentecost. It blew the apostles out of their comfort zone, ushering in a new thing in the history of the relationship between God and God’s people. That long list of hard to pronounce nationalities represents that new thing. Before Pentecost, the way to join God’s people was to become an Israelite. It involved a transition of nationality. You had to immigrate. But on Pentecost, as Peter proclaims, God pours the Holy Spirit out upon all people, all nations. The 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 all hear the Gospel, the story of God’s love for them, preached in their own language. They respond, and are baptized, becoming part of God’s family while still retaining their own nationality.

This is a world-changing thing. This is an uncomfortable thing. This is the Spirit ushering in new relationships, new ways of being with each other. And it is really hard for the apostles. The rest of the book of Acts is the story of these first disciples wrestling with the fact that God’s love is for everyone. God’s love is larger than any of our human divisions. God’s love transcends the four walls of this building, this beautiful space in which we gather to worship each week. And, let’s face it, that can be really uncomfortable. It would be so much easier if God’s love stopped at the door sometimes. But it doesn’t.

Pentecost can and should and must make us uncomfortable. God, through the Holy Spirit, is still calling us into new relationships, new ways of being the people of God. It is messy, and hard, and sometimes I need to be pushed out of the door by a violent wind. But thank God, each time the Spirit gives me that push that I need, God welcomes me into a greater, more inclusive way of experiencing God through the people around me. Pentecost, to borrow a phrase from another Coca-Cola ad, is a story that reminds us that God would like to buy the world a Coke. The whole world. And we’re invited to join God in this task, creating new relationships, extending the reach of our love, until the whole world is filled with the knowledge and love of God. Amen.