It’s exam time, so here’s a comprehension test. You’ve heard the readings this morning,
you’ve got them printed out so you can look back, when was the Holy Spirit
given to the disciples? Surely that’s
easy, it’s today because today is Pentecost and that’s 50 days after
Easter. That’s a quick A* if ever there
was one. Ah, but all is not so
simple. Yes, the Book of Acts, our first
reading, does indeed give that timeline (Acts 2:1-11), but
the gospel from John, does not. In John
the Holy Spirit is given in the evening on that first Easter Day (John
20:19-23). The two stories do
not seem to tie up. And John is awkward
like that, he doesn’t put everything in the same order, he doesn’t even get the
names of the disciples the same, but then he’s not fussed about there being 12. That said, the Acts reading doesn’t say it
was the first time the Holy Spirit came on them, it’s just we’ve tended to
assume that. The Holy Spirit has already
inspired their choice of Matthias to replace Judas. Beware editorial headings in bibles. So Pentecost is a day that is not as straightforward
as we might like it to be and that is because it is a day that disturbs and so
it should.
I want to offer this morning three ways that we see the Holy
Spirit and they come from our readings. The
first I’ve just hinted at, disturbing.
The second is that it directs and the third is that it distills. But I will begin with distilling.
If we take the timeline in Acts, the gift of the Holy Spirit
comes at the end of a long period of head scratching, fifty days. The resurrection and what it means is not
obvious to the disciples. It’s not
obvious in John either. The disciples
need to work out this crazy experience.
They meet to pray, to tell the stories of what Jesus had done, and to
break bread. This is a process of
distillation as it all gets mulled over and sinks in and this process is itself
a major way that we open ourselves to allow the Holy Spirit to work in and on
us. Distillation is a process of the
Holy Spirit.
Then on the day of the agricultural festival when the first
wheat of the crop is offered, what we used to celebrate later in the year at
Lammastide, what they called Pentecost, they are hit with the full force of the
Holy Spirit. And this explodes with a newfound
linguistic fluency. They don’t speak in
a spiritual language. This is not
heavenly tongues. They speak in an array
of ordinary languages, a veritable collection of Google translate breaks out
and is catalogued in every lesson reader’s worst nightmare with that list of
places and peoples. People hear them in
their first language. Not in a holy,
special language, but God in the normal.
This prefigures the breaking of dietary laws later on. The gospel is for all people and all
cultures. That is still radical today
because we have tended to make it Western and middle class, even middle aged
and older. The gift of the Holy Spirit
is a reminder that we must not restrict the gospel to one culture or set of
assumptions. It refuses to be bound by
whatever boxes we create for it and will break free. This is every control freak’s worst
nightmare.
So the distillation of what it means quickly moves into
disturbing us when it has sunk in and done its work. We are creatures of habit and like to know
what to expect. But when that happens we
can very quickly start to become blind to the bits which the cosy status quo
has filtered out. The Magnificat, the
song of Mary, which we sing in beautiful polyphony every day here, is still one
of the most radical pieces of poetry in the Bible. The humble are exalted, the rich are thrown
out and put to the back to the queue, and a young girl is allowed to sing the
song. Social conventions disturbed and
turned on their head.
That disturbing is part of the wind that blows through
history and through the church. Change
and advancement is often brought through conflict and challenge. Without it we don’t move. Things which today seem self evident, like
the ending of slavery, were hard won.
Well, I say self evident, but the Queen’s Speech this week included
provisions against modern forms of slavery and exploitation. And there is an active slave market in
Africa, which we have seen with the 200 school girls kidnapped by Boko Haram. The battles of equality have to be renewed
for each generation and fans of hip-hop, rap and pop music will know that there
are attitudes which are as sexist as any previous generation has been. So we still need disturbing and the Spirit
still has work to do. The church is no
exception in any of this. Power always
needs confronting with justice and the view from the side aisles, which are
often the much richer places to view from.
The angles are more interesting and we see things very differently.
Distilled and disturbed, we look for direction. And it is John who gives it to us. The point of receiving the Holy Spirit is to
be sent. As the Father has sent the Son,
so the Son sends the disciples, and that is us, dear reader. The Son was sent to proclaim the good news of
God’s grace and a new start. We are sent
with the same message to reconcile and unite.
It is in John that the Son comes that we may have life in abundance, to
love and be loved, to serve, to be set free and to join in a banquet of grace
and truth. The purpose of God comes
among us and calls us to follow him.
It has become popular to refer to Pentecost as the church’s
birthday. I’m not so convinced by this,
because the disciples were clearly shaping and gathering themselves before hand
– they were distilling so that they were ready to be disturbed. The church was born with the resurrection at
Easter and it was Spirit-fuelled too. But
on the Day of Pentecost, to jump back to Acts, the disciples find courage; they
are directed. Shattered, frightened men
and women found the strength and boldness they needed to witness to the gospel
of Jesus Christ risen and glorified, even to risk and face death for this
otherwise crazy faith. The Spirit gives
direction to faith, to being living witnesses; it gives us a mission which is derived
from the purpose of God.
Distilled, disturbed and directed, the Holy Spirit which we
celebrate today is the lifeblood of everything we do and aim to be.
Come wind and fire,
breathe in us;
kindle a flame to ignite us to action
that we may be filled
with your life and love
and direct us in your service. Amen.
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