Pentecost

People sometimes ask me, “what does the Bible say about heaven?” or “what does the Bible say about sin?” or whatever. And most often there isn’t a simple answer because the Bible is a collection of writings written at different times for different purposes by different people and those writings don’t always agree. We can’t use the Bible like an instruction manual, it is far too fluid and complex and demanding.

Today’s readings about the coming of the Holy Spirit in a new and personal way are a good example.

In the first reading we heard from the Book of Acts.  It was written to show how the gospel was spread from Jerusalem across the mediterranean world to Rome, the center of the Empire. In today’s exciting account, the Holy Spirit comes to the disciples in wind and fire on a festival day when Jerusalem is full of Jews from across the known world and the disciples go out into the streets speaking in different languages. Then Peter gets up and preaches his first sermon putting the whole thing into the context of God’s Spirit being poured out. This is no inner mystical experience but an exuberant outpouring of God’s energy that touches every life present.

I love this story and I love the kind of Christian experience which is described here and in in our second reading. Paul is writing to the church in Corinth, giving them practical instruction for worship. He writes, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.”

In the mid 1970s there was a charismatic revival in the Anglican and Catholic churches, starting down in Van Nuys.

For me those were exciting times with healing and prophecy and speaking in tongues. I have often wondered why that didn’t continue – why those of you who speak in tongues only do it privately at home and why we no longer lay hands on people and expect them to be healed and why we are almost apologetic when we see visions and dream dreams.

But then I think abut the gospel reading from John. This is also an account of the disciples receiving the Holy Spirit, but a very different one. Jesus appears among the disciples with his customary greeting of “Peace be with you” and then shows them the marks of the crucifixion almost to prove it him just in case they thought he was someone else. Then “he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” You can’t get much more intimate and personal than that. No rushing into the streets, no-one accusing them of being drunk, no speaking in tongues, just the quiet breath of Jesus.

So we have two quite different accounts of what happened and they just sit side by side with no scriptural attempt to compare and contrast or to sync them in some way. Perhaps they happened on different days to different disciples, perhaps the people who wrote these things down were reflecting their own experiences several decades later. We don’t know.

So what does the Bible say about the Holy Spirit?

In the psalm we were reminded that the Spirit was there at the very beginning of creation and continues to be active in renewing the face of the earth.

The Spirit was there at the very beginning, but at Pentecost the Holy Spirit was made available to all followers of Jesus in a new and different way. It empowered them to take on the work that Jesus had been doing. Which is why it is the birthday of the church. On Pentecost the church was born with the mission to be the manifestation of the Christ in the world. Jesus is no longer physically present, but his work continues.

His work has continued through the centuries and continues today.  We are the ones who get to continue Jesus’ work of healing and reconciliation, we are the ones who get to be God with flesh on, and we are given the power of the Holy Spirit to do just that.

But let us not fall into the trap of thinking that the Holy Spirit powers our work like gas or electricity powers our cars. We don’t come to church on Sunday to get our tanks filled with the Holy Spirit and then go off to do God’s work during the week, because the Holy Spirit is not a fuel but a person. And the Holy Spirit is renewing the face of the world outside the walls of the institutional church as well as within it.

We are empowered by the Holy Spirit as we work and live and love in relationship with Spirit. We renew the depth of our relationship as we gather together to worship and praise God, but it is as we work together with the person of the Holy Spirit that miracles happen.

Often we get it the wrong way round. We come up with a plan and ask God to bless it. I’m sure you’ve heard the rather cynical saying, ‘How do you make God laugh? Tell her your plans.’ I don’t believe that God has some fixed plan for creation, or for you and me, or for St Peters – I believe that God’s plans develop in cooperation with what we are doing and thinking – but since God’s plan is to renew the face of the whole earth, we are only part of it.

So the place for us to start is not in a committee meeting, but in deep relationship with the Spirit.  The deeper our relationship with Spirit, the more we are empowered. Now that relationship may be dramatic and filled with miracles or it may be quiet and contemplative or even both. But it is a relationship that brings healing and new life. It is a relationship that as it grows and deepens will demand everything you have and at the same time will fill you with the life of Christ.

For over a year we have prayed every Sunday for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in this time of transition. And we believe that the Search Committee and the Vestry have received the guidance of the Holy Spirit in calling Ollie as your next priest.

This is a time of significant change for this congregation; a time of loss as well as a time of joy and hope. People who were worshiping with us regularly eighteen months ago are no longer here. Some have moved, some have stopped coming and some have died. This week we mourn the loss of Bob Swanson and it seems likely that Dorene Hughes will be slipping into her next life very soon.
Pentecost was also a time of significant change for the disciples – they were still integrating Jesus’ death and resurrection and the death by suicide of their friend Judas, and now they get hit with the Holy Spirit to enable them to continue Jesus’ mission. A mission that would lead some of them including Peter to martyrdom.

Yet in Acts 2 we read, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.  Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

They devoted themselves to spiritual teaching, to fellowship and prayer; they were filled with joy and gathered together praising God.

May this be our guide, at a time of change, yet another transition; at a time when we alternate between grief and hope; at a time when we long to see the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in our life together, let us emulate the early church, devoting ourselves to spiritual teaching, to fellowship and prayer; let us be filled with joy and gather together praising God.

As the psalmist said,

I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; *
I will praise my God while I have my being.
May these words of mine please him; *
I will rejoice in the Lord.
Bless the Lord, O my soul. *
Hallelujah!

the Rev. Dr. Caroline Hall