Pentecost 2016
Since Easter Sunday, we’ve been hearing bits of Jesus’ final
discourse to his apostles. Repeatedly he tells them that he will be leaving
them, and that he will be sending another to be with them. In today’s
reading, Jesus says he will send the comforter to be with them always. Another advocate. He really wanted them to
understand that, because he said it again and again, and we’ve heard it, week
after week.
Today on Pentecost, we finally hear the ending of that story
in the reading from Acts. Jesus has
died, risen and ascended. His disciples
are still smarting, confused and possibly feeling a bit abandoned by the one guy
who they believed was going to solve all of their problems. They’ve lived
through some roller coaster good news / bad news weeks. Jesus was crucified and died. But he rose from the dead and was with them
for a good amount of time. Then the
risen Christ leaves them again, with his ascension. On Pentecost, God returned to be with the
people again through the Holy Spirit. It’s
a lot to go through, and none of it is “normal”.
The disciples were gathered, and they heard a sound like the
rush of a violent wind, and all of a sudden they began to speak in other
languages. At that time, people from
every nation were living in Jerusalem and upon hearing the commotion, the
people from every corner of the world, from Asia and Egypt and Libya, and
Cappadocia gathered. And to their great surprise, they could each understand
the disciples speaking, although they all came together as strangers without a
common language. This advocate that Jesus sent unified all of these different
people, so they all understood what the disciples were saying. They understood
the good news. With the Holy Spirit in
Common, they were unified by God.
Through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, God unified all
people and all tongues that had been divided since the days of the tower of
Babel, the story we heard in the first reading. The events of Pentecost unified
something that had been divided for thousands of years.
We hear of the people
of Babel who came together to use bricks and mortar to build an impressive
building. A building where the tower
would reach to heaven. Their motivation?
They wanted to make a name for themselves. Up until this point, the story says, all of the people on earth spoke one language
and could understand each other. So with
that common language and understanding, they gathered together and used their
human ingenuity and decided to make an impressive building. An ode to their
mastery of human construction. A great thing that will make them look
good. God looks upon their actions, and
acknowledges that now, they can accomplish much. They’ve figured out how to
come together and work together. But God
sees that they’ve come together to do this thing for such a self-serving motive.
At best they were reaching their human efforts towards heaven, to be nearer to
God. At worst, they were doing something huge, the Genesis-era version of
trying to be in the Guinness Book of World Record.
In either case, this
is not what God would have hoped they would be putting their combined efforts
towards, so God confounds their speech. In a flash, the people cannot
understand each other. Their human
bodies have been stymied and limited.
Their combined collective human effort and all of the skill they brought
to the table, is now not sufficient. Not
that it ever was sufficient for them to reach the heavens. But they must
acknowledge they cannot do it alone. No
longer were they going to be able to use their human-ness to get to heaven, or
to make a name for themselves.
True, they were collectively focused on a mission, to build
a tower to heaven out of bricks and mortar.
But it was a mission of human origin, forwarding human values. On Pentecost, there was also a
collectiveness, and a mission. But it was not of human origin. God had a mission, to gather and unify God’s
people. On Pentecost, God changed the focus of humanity’s mission from
human-centered, to God-centered through the unifying gift of the Holy
Spirit.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a 20th Century French
Philospher says it this way, “We are not human beings having a spiritual
experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” I would suggest that the people of Babel
were squarely human beings, aiming for a spiritual experience. With the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we
are inarguably spiritual beings.
With the gift of the Holy Spirit, God unifies us, or perhaps
more appropriate, God gives us the spirit-filled core that has the potential to
unify us. The rest is up to us.
So what now? Now that
we’ve been made spiritual, now that we have a common spiritual core, what are
we supposed to do with it? I think this
goes back to the story in Acts. The
spirit landed on everyone in a form
described as fire. That fire is what inspires all of this red we see.
Fire is bright, it smolders a long time, but can be
rekindled and can blaze again. The Holy
Spirit in us is bright. If we ignore our
spiritual core, the fire doesn’t go out.
It smolders. But with a little coaxing, the fire can be rekindled and
soon, it’s burning fierce, bright and hot.
The fire of the Holy Spirit connects with the Holy Spirit in
others. Like the people at that first
Pentecost, the fire of the Holy Spirit unifies.
God in us recognizes God in others.
It’s the Holy Spirit in us that lets us seek and serve Christ in others,
something we all promise to do in our Baptism.
It’s the Holy Spirit in us that
compels us to respect the dignity of the Holy in others. To strive for justice, even when our own
interests may not be forwarded by our actions.
It’s that Holy Spirit fire that always draws us towards God, towards
God’s mission.
Maybe you’ve experienced that fire, or seen it in someone
else. The fire of the Holy Spirit is
different than good intentions, or dogged determination. Just ask the people of
Babel. And here’s the thing. That
Pentecost moment described in Acts? That
wasn’t a one-time event. We aren’t just
celebrating a static event, thousands of years ago. That gift of the Holy Spirit, of that fire is
in us. When we see it and kindle it and
gather it together as the people of God on God’s mission, we have our own
modern-day Pentecost moments. Every time
we help another. Every time we share the
good news of Jesus Christ in word or action.
Every time we pass the peace, we are acknowledging the holy in each
other, kindling that fire.
When we gather as God’s people, here or in the kitchen for
the family shelter, in our families, at work, at a vestry meeting, or when
we’re serving others, if we are focused on God’s mission, and are attentive to
God the advocate dwelling inside us, we can do great things, because we
remember that we are spiritual beings, having a human experience. We can also do great things because we are
on fire with the Holy Spirit.
As St. Ignatius Loyola said, “Go forth and set the world on
fire”.
Amen
