UPPER ROOM

(1 Kg 19, 9b-13a The word of the Lord came to him, saying, “What are you doing here Elijah?” He
answered, “I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.”
He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave.

Following Jesus’ ascension, this group of 120 persons returned to the upper room. Jesus had just given them their marching orders; their first mission would be to Jerusalem. The group quickly realized that in a very short time, the city would be filled with pilgrims, arriving from all over the known world, both Jews and God-fearers. How were they to carry out the commission entrusted to them?

We have generally believed that the 10 days preceding Pentecost were spent passively, sharing memories, reminding each other of the events of the past three and ½ years and encouraging one another with the hope of seeing Jesus again. While the men may have studied and the women continued to care for their physical needs, they all just mainly prayed and waited.

May I suggest that this pivotal time was spent actively, organizing an evangelistic effort, coordinating plans and resources, and utilizing the skills and abilities of all persons present. I believe the upper room became a conference room where vital and important preparatory work took place. The previous forty days spent with Jesus had opened their minds to the Scriptures and had solidified their understanding of the Messianic event. They knew their message and now they needed a plan of action.

One hundred and twenty apostles had 10 days to get it together, to get it right.

I believe that “certain women” were an integral part of those deliberations. These women were actively involved in the organization and the implementation of the Pentecost event at a leadership level. After selecting Peter to preach, the group now turned to the question as to what was to be done when people responded to his baptismal call; how were new converts to be instructed in The Way. Perhaps it was a woman who suggested, “Pilgrims need food and lodging. We should provide places to gather, provide for food, and then in table fellowship give them instruction.”

And so the Scripture records, “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together.” When the day arrived the group had coalesced; they had come together; they were ready.

We are in the upper room today for another reason Like the first–followers of Jesus, immediately after his departure, we also don't know any more what we should be doing. So much of what used to work no longer does. We are finding it ever–harder to pass on our faith to our own children, to fire the religious and romantic imagination of our culture, and to make a religious and moral dent of any kind in the ever–hardening secularity of ordinary consciousness. What should we be doing in the face of declining church attendance, the emptying and greying of our seminaries and convents, the growing agnosticism of our world, and the ecclesial indifference of so many of our own children?

The answer to this is to Return to the city and remain in the upper room! What is meant by that? In Luke's writings, “the city” refers to Jerusalem which, itself, is an image for the church, the faith, the dream that Jesus had instilled. To walk away from Jerusalem, as the disciples were doing in walking towards Emmaus, was to walk away from the church, the faith, and the dream. So now, like then, Jesus tells us: “Return to the city, to the dream!” And what is the upper room? The fundamentals. Our faith has some basics, some elementals, a rock–bottom foundation that we need always to fall back on. Too often, for every kind of noble reason, we forget that (irrespective of the importance of the moral or religious struggle we are engaged in) what God ultimately wants of us is charity, patience, understanding, hospitality, humility, prayer, community with each other, forgiveness, and a non–judgemental attitude. To enter the upper room is to re–root ourselves in these and then trust that God will save all those people that we can't.

Then “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.” God recognized the labor and work of these Galilean women and men and gifted them with ability to speak intelligibly with power and conviction to the educated Jews and God-fearers gathered for the feast.

It was not by accident that Peter chose as his opening “key text” a passage from the book of Joel. To the gathered crowds he proclaimed, “THIS (the witness of these men and women) is what was spoken though 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.’ ” It was essential that those gathered in Jerusalem believe the witness of the women as well as the men.