+Pentecost is a big deal. It’s one of those feast days clergy have a tendency to get excited about. Congregations patiently listen as we pontificate on the glories of the Holy Spirit arriving in a rush of wind and flame, encouraging the apostles to stay in community, spreading the Good News to the ends of the earth, through thought, word and deed.
Clergy LOVE this day.
But when it gets down to it, I’m not sure we’ve done such a great sales job. After all, the props aren’t as good as Christmas and Easter: no little baby, no empty tomb. We have tongues of fire and a rush of violent wind. Really? Tongues of fire? Hard to have a Pentecost pageant with a bunch of children dressed up as tongues, isn’t it? Tongues of fire and wind aren’t cute and they aren’t celebratory. Wind and fire can be very dangerous forces of nature, wreaking destruction when they aren’t harnessed appropriately. On this day, in that room with Mary and the other apostles, the wind and fire was unbridled. It was wild.
There was nothing soothing about it. When the great wind blew, the apostles, and all within earshot, were scared out of their wits…but before their fear could really take hold, they began to see and hear the world in a new way.
Literally.
Suddenly they comprehended what was going on. Suddenly, this advocate Jesus had been speaking about, the one promised in today’s Gospel, had arrived. Suddenly they all could hear what others said in their native tongue.
Everyone could understand everyone else. A Greek speaker heard Greek, a Hebrew speaker, Hebrew.
Suddenly the curse of the Babel—when God divided the people of the earth through language---was over.
This was another instance of the old covenant, the old rules, the old way, being replaced by the altogether new. No longer was salvation only for a select few, it was available to all, accessible to all, understandable to all.
The gift of this day was not that people spoke in “tongues” in unintelligible speech, understood by a select few, but that everyone could hear the Good News. This is the day God gives humanity a second chance at unity, another chance to be in community. Today the promised end to separations because of race, religion, culture, gender, age, socio economic standing etc. has arrived. For the Risen and Ascended Son of God has sent us the promised Advocate, keeping God an active and dynamic presence here on earth accessible to all who care to listen.
As many of you know, last week I attended CREDO, a wellness conference provided through the Church Pension Group. It’s a marvelous program and the experience I had there was tremendous.
Instead of regaling you with all things I learned, let me share one particular event which has personified--really incarnated—the Pentecost message for me.
Our team leader provided us with a scripture passage that, after we broke into groups of two and three, we were to read out loud and then discuss. So there we were, 40 of us, reading, out loud and simultaneously, a scripture passage. The cacophony, which ensued, was amazing and one of my colleagues remarked, “This sounds like Pentecost!” It was next to impossible to distinguish one voice from another. It was difficult to hear the actual passages being read, but we didn’t need to: the point was loud and clear. Together, as a group, we were experiencing the word of God. The Holy Spirit was moving through us and by being open to it we, individually and collectively, were moved to a different level of faith.
Reading the passages silently, to ourselves, may have given us the content of the reading, but the cacophonous jumble of voices gave us the meaning.
That’s what this day is all about: welcoming the Holy Spirit into our lives—both as individuals and as a community. To let the disparate voices of many have their say, transporting us to a different level of understanding.
Pentecost isn’t the birthday of the brick and mortar, constitution and canon church; Pentecost is the birthday of community. A community of people who love their God and are willing to work together to achieve a common goal. 2000 years ago, the Holy Spirit enflamed the apostles with courage to spread the good news of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth. What’s the Holy Spirit calling us to do as a community, us as individuals? Are we taking the time to listen? What do we hear?
It’s hard to do—to really listen to one another. Often we don’t listen because we just don’t like what we hear, so instead of trying to understand, we just stop listening.
I saw a few of my colleagues get irritated with the cacophony in that conference room…they weren’t listening, so they couldn’t hear. You know, the spirit moves in mysterious ways---what may move me, won’t move you, what gets through to you may be mumbo jumbo to me. That’s the wondrous thing about the Holy Spirit; she comes to us in a variety of ways.
There are different gifts but one spirit Paul tells us in his First Letter to the Corinthians—one spirit that manifests itself differently in each of us.
Our Good Shepherd congregation is full of gifts—the gift of hospitality, as was on display last week during the tour of homes and will be again for the strawberry festival next month, the gift of compassion as is displayed each week at the food pantry, the gift of generosity as shown through your pledges of time talent and treasure, the gift of music as our choir leads us in worship each week, the gift of an intentional life of prayer through the Benedict group, morning prayer and Bible study, gifts of carpentry, painting, plumbing and wallpaper removal as shown through the rectory renovations.
Gifts, when brought together in a community such as ours, can be transformative. Inviting the Holy Spirit into our daily lives, allowing the Holy Spirit to have a seat at the table with us-- not only in worship but also in committee meetings, coffee hour, and throughout the week ---will, as proclaimed in scripture, make the whole creation new.
Pentecost is the penultimate event of the church year: from birth to death and life again, from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, from mangers to mountaintops The Son of God walked among us, readying us for this gift of the spirit. Today, the Ascended Jesus has sent us an advocate who empowers us to live our lives as witnesses to the Good News, listening, hearing and doing what we, individually and in community, have been called to do.
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