Happy Pentecost!
You went shopping, right? Have you decorated your Pentecost tree? Oh wait, that’s Christmas isn’t it? Hmmm…ok….well how much candy did you get in your basket? Lot’s of jellybeans? You do have the perfect bonnet to wear, don’t you? Oh….right….that’s Easter isn’t it?
Pentecost isn’t a big Hallmark Day. Besides church nerds like me, Pentecost doesn’t get a lot of press. Which makes sense…I mean……tongues of fire? C’mon……we like more accessible symbols: a manger birth, a star in the East, mysterious magi traversing the countryside. We’re attracted to the drama and emotion of betrayal, suffering, death, and finally, the miracle of an empty tomb.
Pentecost? On Pentecost we get a gust of wind. And those tongues of fire.
But, everything we hold dear and celebrate fully—-Christmas, Good Friday, Easter--leads to this Day. The birth of God in the flesh, the manifestation of Jesus’ Christ-identity, the crucifixion and descent into death, the defeat of that death through resurrection, Jesus walking among us in resurrected glory, his Ascension ….all of this leads to today, when we’re given the final instrument of faith: The Holy Spirit.
But just what is this Holy Spirit? The ghost of Jesus the man? Some type of ethereal being, poised between this world and the next, a bridge transmitting our petitions to the other side, communicating God’s commands back to us? Or a fantasy conjured up by disappointed and confused followers of Jesus, people who, not unlike people today, feel unsure… uncertain about just what comes next, about what to do and how to behave. Unsure and uncertain about this faith we so boldly proclaim.
Just who or what is this Holy Spirit?
Well, it’s not easily described. I know it’s not as simple as gusts of wind or as bizarre as tongues of fire. I know that, while it can move with the subtlety of a summer breeze, it can also rage with the ferocity of a spring storm. Although it can smolder as slowly as the embers of a lingering campfire it may, just as easily, spark into a full-fledged blaze, consuming every fiber of our being with its power.
It isn’t God in the flesh like Jesus….The Holy Spirit isn’t that tangible—we can’t touch it, or see it or taste it….but, deep within us, we can feel it. Feel it filling us, consuming, enveloping, connecting and sustaining us.
The Holy Spirit is what works in and through us when things go well… [when the Strawberry Festival is over and the last table is put away and we look around and say: now that was a great day. Or when we try something new, like vesting a bunch of kids and putting them up at the altar on Easter morning, of all days, and it works beautifully. Or when you and your team at work get a project in on time and done well….]
The Holy Spirit is also what works in and through us when things aren’t going so well… when, faced with challenges beyond our imagining, we somehow, somewhere, find the strength to move through it with grace and courage. And when people remark, “I don’t know how you did it,” and you just smile, knowing that the truth is, you don’t know either, you just did.
That’s the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is with us. Forever. Just as Jesus promised in the 14th chapter of John’s Gospel: I will ask God and God will give you another advocate to be with you forever…and this Spirit will abide with you and be in you. (paraphrase of John 14: 15-17)
That’s all fine and good, right? But how do we know when it’s the Holy Spirit acting up and not just our own deluded selves---we don’t get tongues of fire, we don’t get gusts of wind. We need to discern the presence, the movement, the action of the Spirit in our lives both as individuals and as a community of faith.
Discerning is challenging. Discernment is, according to Jesuit scholar John Carroll Futrell: “sifting through our interior and exterior experiences to determine their origin.” Discernment, he goes on to say, helps us to see if an action we’re taking is moving us away from or closer to God. Discernment helps us determine if this is of the spirit or not.
But discernment of the Spirit takes guts… because, to fully engage in a discernment process, we must be willing to fail, to make mistakes, to engage in actions that feel risky and uncertain. In short, discerning the action of the spirit in our lives means living like Jesus wants us to live. You see, the Holy Spirit doesn’t come to us in one fell swoop, like we hear in our reading from Acts. No, the Spirit is activated within, between and among us as we engage in the main task Jesus has left for us: loving one another. Completely. Totally. Everyone. No exceptions.
The Holy Spirit is here right now…. but to ignite it’s fire, to catch the wave of wind with which she blows through us and among us, we must do the work we have been given to do, as individual followers of Jesus and as communities of faith, as congregations, as a diocese, a church universal. What is the Spirit telling you? What is the Spirit telling us?
Our job, from the longest tenured parishioner to our newest member, (Kendal who will be baptized into our family in a few moments) is to discern our call, to respond to that tug, to that demand, to that burning which is the Spirit calling out to us, saying Pay Attention! Notice this! Do something about this!
The spirit implores us to live as Christ lived. And that, my friends, is risky. But, and here’s the Good News, the Spirit, while demanding our attention and our action, is also supporting and sustaining us as we do the work of Christ in the world.
By doing that, by taking risks and doing the right thing, the spirit thing, we give the Holy Spirit the space to move, to grow, to spread.
So Happy Pentecost! Enjoy your gift of the Spirit. May it burn within you, within us, igniting the distinct communities of faith in Parkside and in Allentown working within us, among us, between us and around us, blowing aside doubt, pushing away fear and enveloping us in the energy needed to do all that we’ve been given to do. Alleluia. +
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