Readings: Acts
2:1- 8, 12-18 John 14:8-17, 25-27
We pray: May the
words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight
O God, our rock and our sustainer. Amen.
I just love
Pentecost – I love the energy, the momentousness (if there is such a word) of
the occasion, the idea of tongues of gentle fire resting on each person, almost
a caress, the wind that entered every possible space, and above all the
euphoria that shocked everyone out of their skin – not drunk with wine but
drunk with God’s Spirit present with them.
Baptized with the fire of the Holy Spirit. It is an amazing image of celebration and
mayhem and I love it.
What I struggle
with is how easy it is to confine all this elation and exhilaration to one
day. Now I am not saying we could live
with this level of excitement 24/7 but I am flagging that it needs to be a
bigger part of our ordinary daily faith lives.
It is this Holy
Spirit thing – troublesome to those of us who have been brought up in, say, a
Jesus only church. Or a God only
church. And I think that there are Holy
Spirit only churches too.
When I was a child
and teenager going to church, I remember a constant puzzle was the relationship
between God, Jesus, Spirit. I couldn’t
figure it out (lets see if we can do that next Sunday – Trinity Sunday) but
what I did discern, even then, was that most churches seemed to have an
imbalance if you like. I think that I
belonged to a Jesus church – Gospel focus, concentrating on how to live,
teaching right and wrong, our relationship with Jesus. I don’t recall much of what today I would
call Holy Mystery, transcendent God, divine presence and I definitely recall that
we skimmed over the Holy Spirit with some trepidation and discomfort.
Interestingly I
read an article this week (rather aptly titled ‘The Elusive Presence’) that
suggested the evangelical church as we know it had lost touch with the yearning
to know God; that personal relationship with God was a distant second ‘to the
authority of scripture, Christ’s death on the cross, the need for conversion
and a life of service in both word and deed’. [1]
The author argued that not just evangelicals but also other mainstream churches
were, as he put it, ‘cold to mystery.’
And I guess the question is for us too – and especially today – are we
cold to the Holy Spirit?
For if we look at
the Gospel reading from John for today we see how Jesus was trying to draw his
disciples into that understanding of God being more than him, more than the
Father, more than the Spirit. ‘Show us
the Father,’ they asked. ‘If you have
seen me you have seen the Father’. And
the Father will be glorified in the Son,’ Jesus goes on to say. And the other advocate, the Spirit of truth,
they will be with you forever, will teach you and remind you of all that has
been said through Jesus.’ In this
gathering of the Father and the Son and the Spirit, we will know a peace that
transcends all other – let us not be afraid!
So we can say that
it is good that we have a Pentecost Sunday so that those of us who shuffle
along uncomfortably with the Holy Spirit might be dunked in the euphoria of
Pentecost despite ourselves.
But seriously – it
reminds us that the foundations of our faith are firmly standing on a tripod of
God-with-us – Father, Son…. and Spirit.
And today
especially the Spirit of God and that event of that day long ago.
Last week,
Ascension Sunday, we commented on the fact that the disciples were excited as
Jesus left them, confident that they would not be left alone, awed by this God
in whom all things were possible. And so
the reality of Pentecost was for them both expected and exceeded expectations.
They expected that
they would not be left alone, they were looking forward to this day when the
church would be born, when they would truly set out on the journey they were
commissioned to by Jesus, they were anticipating a new beginning in the power
of the Advocate that was to be sent.
But perhaps the
unexpected was found in the breadth of God’s vision for the church that day –
as the Frederick Faber hymn says; ‘the love of God is broader than the measures of
our mind.’
This broadening of
the church to include people of all languages – from east and west, north and
south. It included women and men, slaves
and free, young and old. It involved
dreams and visions, prophesy and portents.
This truly was an
empowering of the church beyond and across boundaries through which would come
the transformation of the world.
Yet throughout
time our grasp on this truth waxes and wanes.
We become limited, timid in our visions, cynical of our dreams, divided
in our prophetic witness, blind to the signs of hope and accepting of the signs
of despair.
How to recover
that amazement, that liveliness of faith in which the church was birthed? How to be awed and excited by the breadth of
the vision for the church instead of hunkering down in fear of difference?
For those of us of
my age – the world has changed.
Dramatically. As it did for my
parents as well. For them it was war and
travel and technology. For us it is
globalisation, the web, the planet, cultural and ethnic intermingling. Do we see God working in the broadening of
our experiences or do we feel threatened?
At this point I would suggest that you might look to the excellent
editorial John Roxborogh has written for the latest Signal – I read it last
night having pretty much written this sermon and his thoughts about (to quote): ‘denominational identity being a
dynamic and ongoing story which grows not shrinks as it crosses cultures and
epochs in history.’ And he too talks
about welcoming our increasing diversity through which we grow and are changed
noting that Pentecost ‘is about something which both transcends and affirms our
diversities.’[2]
Pentecost, it
seems to me, really challenges us on that level of expectations and exceeding
expectations. As a church, a
denomination, a faith we need to be grounded in the faithfulness of a God who
never leaves us alone, yet ready to be intoxicated by the breadth of God’s
vision for us and the world. Our
anchoring is this community, our heritage of faith, our belief in a loving and
faithful God-with-us who is holy mystery and parent, teacher and loving saviour,
advocate and companion on the way. Do we
also allow ourselves to be part of that intoxicating Pentecost moment where we
know beyond a doubt that God’s vision of peace throughout the world, justice
and love for all people, oneness in diversity is possible?
Like the people at
that first day of Pentecost, are we the ones dancing for joy at the
possibilities God puts before us. For
this is what the coming of the Spirit does for us – offers a way that the world
neither sees nor knows, a way that the world may well look upon as symptomatic
of stupidity, drunkenness, pathetic hopefulness.
And Jesus says to
us – just do it – go ahead and be the church full of hope, the church at peace
in the world, the church full of excitement and unimaginable breadth and new
beginnings – be the church that will transform us and the world – in Jesus
name. Amen.
Margaret Garland
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