Pentecost 2001
Pentecost Sunday: 3rd June, 2001
Fr John Davis, Vicar of St Peter's, Eastern Hill
If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the
Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.
This is the Spirit of truth.... (Jn 14:15-17a)
Fifty days after the Passover festival, in the Jewish cycle of temple
observance came a thanksgiving for the gifts: a thanksgiving for the harvest
of bountiful provision from God. In the Christian cycle Pentecost is also a
celebration of gifts and of thanks for them but it has quite a different
emphasis. The fruits of the Easter triumph and promise are received in a
most remarkable way.
A frightened and disheartened remnant of the disciples is transformed.
There are outward signs of something strong and powerful. They were all
together in one place. Acts 2:1-4a "And suddenly from heaven there came
a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the whole house where
they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a
tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit..."
People then from all over the region could hear these Galileans speaking of
God in languages that were not their own and not known to them, but in ways
were recognisable and understandable to those from those parts. An impressive
outward sign. And it certainly declared something about the inclusiveness of
the experience.
As Peter immediately was to say to the inevitable scoffers, this was not the
fruit of excessive alcohol. And anyway it was, as he disarmingly said, only
nine in the morning. This is something quite remarkable. The Church looking
back and making sense of the tumbled events of this early period places a very
special emphasis here and on the events that this festival day celebrates.
Pentecost, Whitsunday – the biggest after Christmas and Easter. Yet for
much of traditional non charismatic Christianity, perhaps this is a festival
approached with a little sense of ambiguity or uncertainty, that a mass of
red balloons or a reaching out for some kind of superficial party time, does
not quite address.
Yet something was born here, no less than at Christmas. A different and
outreaching manner of living within a community of faith is sealed in this
outpouring. Gifts are indeed given and received. God is the source of this
empowering. God is the source of these gifts. God who had worked so
wonderfully in Jesus Christ is here experienced as the Lord, the giver of
life, for the community of those who would believe.
This was all happening in a group that by any reasonable and objective
assessment did not have that much going for them. There were clear and obvious
limitations. Some of these included attitude and personality; approach to
living. According to our account, something had changed. Those who had
seemingly lost hope and direction, even taking into account the encouragement
of the resurrection appearances, now strikingly found it. Those who had lost
the sense of the presence and the power of God at work in their lives were
again deeply aware of it and were to celebrate it and to declare it to others.
We are the Body of Christ
His Spirit is with us.
A bold and wonderful assertion. Something to be ever renewed and reaffirmed.
Something to be sought, against all the odds.
One of the biggest challenges that many people face is the confronting
issue of how we shift from the mode of intellectual assent to a particular
teaching or understanding of the ways of God to something that is much more
deeply life-shaping or life-informing. How do we embrace the heart as well
as the head? How do we start to take the steps that engage those issues that
acknowledge that that was then and this is now? What might we do about that?
How do we ourselves as individuals and as a community of faith which chooses
to gather in this place, continue to reach beyond the formal, the token, the
compartmentalised, to that which really does make a difference? Good taste,
yes. Decently and in good order, yes. Colour and movement, yes. Fine music
and pleasant smells, yes. Perhaps the company of old friends, yes. The
reassurance of some things that have changed not so much in a rapidly changing
world, yes. But there is more.
We are called to grapple with the possible reality of a God who speaks the
language of love and commitment. Today's celebration is a celebration of some
the gifts of the means to put this relationship into effect, and an honouring
of those in the first generation of Christians for whom this actually worked.
We are speaking of deep level relationship; with God and each other. This
indeed involves much more than the superficial attractiveness of nice things
or smooth words.
We can for instance believe or accept at some intellectual level that Christ
was born in Bethlehem, but still not be left with a clear understanding of the
commitment of our God to this world and to us in this Incarnation. Would our
living be different if we did?
We can acknowledge that Jesus of Nazareth was executed on Good Friday. We
can accept that the disciples witnessed again and again one they believed to
be the risen Jesus on and after Easter Day. But it is certainly possible to
be taken all through the Easter mysteries and still not have that connecting
sense of salvation or redemption, or the life of the world to come – again
the commitment and compassion of our God for this world and for us. God was in
Christ reconciling the world to himself, noted St Paul. Would our living be
different if we did really believe this?
Today at Pentecost we have again heard that there was a dramatically unusual
experience of encouragement and empowerment that left the remaining small band
of followers eager and able to get on with the tasks that confronted them.
Would our living as a community of faith gathering here be different if we
really believed that such encouragement and empowerment was available and
accessible to followers now as then?
The early Church was a very fragile place. It is easy to find evidence of
almost any of the weaknesses that we can also find today. Consider for
instance the likely process of the General Synod coming up in July, that I
will have the pleasure of attending. There is evidence of contention over
doctrine, questions of inclusiveness and hospitality, narrow sectarianism
and bitter feuds. All these aspects of the Church abide. It is still very
easy to be disheartened.
We ourselves are a fragile community of pilgrims. We travel the same
pathways; we await the same Spirit of renewal and reaffirmation. And this
is not easy. And it never was.
So it is that a single sentence can deflate or shatter. So it is that a
negative disposition as opposed to a positive one can be utterly crippling. It
remains a fact of human nature that some find it very difficult to believe and
expect the best of people rather than the worst. Some find it difficult to
see any other point of view than their own. Personal disappointment or
long-standing bitterness is easily enough projected onto others. Factions
and rival groupings can have very sad effects on the possibilities for wider
community impact. Some people who claim to know God still seem remarkably
pinched and mean, frightened and prejudiced.
In some senses it is reassuring that a quick glance at the Acts of the
Apostles reveals that all the above readily describes the situation which
faced the first generation of Christians. If it also happens to be making
some observations about later generations right down to ourselves here and
now, then this needs to be accepted and acknowledged. That simply underlines
the truth that each and every generation, each and every community of faith,
is in constant need of the grace and gifts that God is only too willing to
provide.
So, today's festival celebrates both that giving and that need for
transformation: that need for forgiveness and renewal in and through the
Spirit of God; that need for the infusion of God's grace in our communities
of faith, wherever, whenever.
All week our collect has included the prayer that we be not left
comfortless, but that God would send the Holy Spirit to strengthen us.
Today our collect asks that that same Spirit should give us a right judgment
in all things and enable us to evermore rejoice in the Spirit's holy comfort.
These are prayers of assurance and warming security; of hope and renewed
purpose and direction.
May these prayers be answered for us here at The Hill in ways of which we
can only dream. May something of the grace of that first Pentecost be born
and renewed amongst us here, sealed with the continuing outpouring of the
love of God, experienced and shared by us here.
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