NewCreation

Homily for Pentecost Sunday, Year C

Pentecost Sunday Welcome, my sisters and brothers, to this, the homily for Pentecost Sunday. And amongst our readings we have the two classic Pentecost readings. We have the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel from St. John — the two entirely different accounts, if you like, of Pentecost, both of which have much more in common than they seem. What I'd like to do is to take a step back before looking at the texts and just comment something about the coming of the Holy Spirit. Very often in our basic understanding of Christianity we have something like the Holy Spirit coming as a consolation, meaning a consolation prize given that Jesus isn't here, which is exactly not how Jesus saw it. Jesus saw that what he was doing was setting something up so that we could have something much, much more than him being here — at least, being here in the flesh, in the historic form in which he was historically. What he had done was to make possible the giving to us of the Holy Spirit. The gift of the Holy Spirit is how God is now able to get through to us, inside us, between us, completely. The gift is more than the giver. That's something which Jesus keeps trying to say: "Because I have gone, this you will be able to do more than me." Once we begin to understand Jesus's purpose — if you like, his project — as having been not so much to pay for our sins, quote unquote, as though that were, you know, a bill settlement issue, but as making available to us the source of life, living fountains of a desire vastly greater and richer than that of which we are capable, and that opens us up into the possibility of becoming new creatures together, that gives us a new way of being human — to understand that that's what he was about, all that he says and does makes more sense. His anxiety to get it done makes more sense. What Jesus was trying to do was make it possible for us to be given the Holy Spirit: he instantiating it and the Father giving it, he breathing it out, the Father pouring it upon us. So what we celebrate today, if you like, is that enormous gift having become possible for humans. And I want to stress that, because sometimes Pentecost is celebrated as if it's the birthday of the Church — which it is, so that's nice — though actually, probably the Church's birthday is probably better considered to be Good Friday. But there we are, that's just my little opinion. But the real problem with thinking about it as the birthday of the Church is it tends to make the Holy Spirit a churchy thing. Whereas the whole point of the Holy Spirit is that it's how God's act of communication goes worldwide. God begins to be able to spread out. The Holy One comes out of the temple and goes worldwide. So this is now a universal and a cosmic difference that is made. If you like, we who have the privilege of being baptized Christians and having received the Holy Spirit have the privilege of being on the inside of something that is for all humans. If – and it's always an if – the Church manages to be a sign of the reconciled humanity, of God's children coming together as one in answer to Jesus' prayer, that sign is a wonderful thing. That sign is the presence of the Holy Spirit ushering in the kingdom. But it's doing it constantly all over the place, and not necessarily where we're looking for it. That's another thing which we get from John. No one knows where the Spirit comes from, where the wind blows, where the Spirit blows. It's constantly going ahead of us. It's constantly surprising us. I think that that's a very, very important part of understanding this gift as something not that we can think of as something which we possess and can give to other people, but which is something which with luck possesses us and is impelling us to new places, new positions, new openings up, new freshenings of life and belonging. All of these things are what the Holy Spirit is about. Having said that, let's look quickly at the texts, because you'll see something – I hope – about what I'm trying to stress there. John's text is the text we had at the very beginning of Easter. It's the text where Jesus appears in the upper room on the evening of the first day of the week, and the doors are locked. So remember, I told you before, this is – if you like – this ironizes the holy place in the temple into which Jewish people quite rightly were fearful to go, because only the high priest could go. But here we have an ordinary house, people in it locked for fear of the Jews. It's in a sense a bit of irony there, because this is in fact now a secular place in which the Holy One of God is appearing. And the first thing he comes and says is: "Peace be with you." He gives peace twice, thus fulfilling what Jesus had talked about earlier in John's Gospel. After he said this, he showed them his hands and his side. So he indicates how the peace comes – the greeting of peace. He's showing them what he's done to bring them peace. He's identified who he is: he is the one who was cast out, and it's from the cast-out one that peace comes. Not vengeance, not anger – peace. All the great requital-for passages in Isaiah have been fulfilled, but not as vengeance; as the gift of peace. "And then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord." So, in other words, peace and joy. Joy is the realization of something that has been done for us beyond our imagination and is coming upon us. Peace and joy – these are going to be the absolute keynotes of the Holy Spirit. Then Jesus says to them again, "Peace be with you." So now he's going to not only spread his peace upon them, but: "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." In other words, up till now his Father has sent him; all that he has done has been, if you like, the iconic reflection of his Father. He has been the image – the only image. What God looks like is determined by what Jesus has done. In other words, it's become entirely a horizontal form of belonging, a form of recognition. We recognize the Father in what the Son does. The Son is equal to the Father. It's not a question of looking up; it's a question of looking sideways. And now that same package he is giving to them. "When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, 'Receive the Holy Spirit.'" Actually, he breathes into them, and it's the – as I've said time and time again – it's the same verb as in Genesis, breathing into Adam's nostrils. This is the beginning of a new creation, starting a new humanity. This is not only to do with the particular people there; it's to do with a new Adam, the possibility of becoming a new human and of creation being opened up again. And this is the amazing thing: this power, which has come from on high, through him, by his breath, through that which he has achieved – this power is now ours. And that's not simply a – I don't know – a canonical thing; it's an actual thing. He says, "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." Let's try and demystify that for a bit. That's not merely a question of setting up people who can give absolution in confession – though that's one way of organizing the reception of that – but it's certainly not limiting it to that. No. It's saying: in as far as you forgive other people, creation will be opened up; and in as far as you don't, it will remain closed down. There will be no more deus ex machina, no more God from outside. God is now at your level. You are within God and God is within you. It's going to work at your level. It's up to you to take this forward. Where are you going to go? And its power comes through forgiveness, through letting go. It's a power that seems weak… but is the strongest thing, because it's as you let go that you will come to discover what is, rather than remaining locked in confirmation bias, in violent patterns of identification and projection. It's as you're able to forgive and let go that you will discover who others really are, who you really are, and will be able to open up the universe. So this is the power that is being given. And when we look at the Acts version, the same sense of the whole of creation being opened up, and things that were from the book of Genesis now being moved into a different key. So: "When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place, and suddenly there came from heaven a sound like the rush of a violent wind." So they're in one place — let's think: the holy place. And it filled — the rush of the violent wind filled the entire house where they were sitting. "House" standing for Temple. So there's the holy place, the house, the Temple. The sound that comes like the rush of a violent wind — well, this is a beautiful fulfillment of Isaiah 59, because Isaiah 59, which is a wonderful — from 14, from 14 onwards — is a wonderful prophecy of the Holy Spirit which is brought alive in this reading. I'm going to read it to you, because it's so rarely associated with this passage and yet so important. It says here: "Justice is turned back and righteousness stands at a distance, for truth stumbles in the public square and uprightness cannot enter. Truth is lacking, and whoever turns from evil is despoiled." So familiar to us — familiar to the ancients, familiar to us from our world now. "The Lord saw it," all this unpunished, uncorrected injustice and lies, "and it displeased him that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one, and was appalled that there was no one to intervene. So his own arm brought him victory, and his righteousness upheld him. He put on righteousness like a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head. He put on garments of vengeance" — it says, "but of requital" — "for clothing, and wrapped himself in fury as in a mantle. According to their deeds, so will he repay: wrath to his adversaries, requital to his enemies; to the coastlands he will render requital." Remember, the great surprise of Jesus's fulfillment of Isaiah is that all these elements of requital are done without vengeance. So: "Those in the west shall fear the name of the Lord, and those in the east his glory" — it's going to go international — "for he will come like a pent-up stream that the wind of the Lord drives on." Those are exactly the same words as are referred to in our Acts passage there: the rushing violent wind. "And he will come to Zion as redeemer, as advocate" — from our last Sunday — "to those in Jacob who turn from transgression, says the Lord," so starting with Israel. "As for me, this is my covenant with them," "says the Lord. My spirit that is upon you and my words that I have put in your mouth shall not depart out of your mouth or out of the mouths of your children or out of the mouths of your children's children, says the Lord, from now on forever." In other words, it's the word, it's the words that are going to be given them. So here in Acts we have the coming of the violent wind filling the entire house, which has now become the new Temple: divided tongues — actually not divided, which makes it sound like forked tongues, but apportioned out tongues, tongues apportioned out — as a fire appeared among them, and a tongue rested on the head of each of them. So the fire that was supposed to be in the center of the Temple has come back, but divided now upon each of them. So each of them is a portion of the Lord; each person. The holy place is now borne on each person. And all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them ability, so fulfilling Isaiah's promise that the Spirit would now come as human word, enabling us to tell truth, to do justice, to understand, to become fully human. Then there were devout Jews living in Jerusalem — and so this was the diaspora Jews, they'd come back — and at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered. "Gathered and was bewildered" — "confused" — and "confused" is the same word for Babel. They were confused, just as God confused people at Babel. So here we have the undoing of Babel: each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. So Babel is being undone. And now what is the word? An entirely diverse, non-totalitarian, diverse set of languages becoming available, so that everyone understands what's going on in different languages — not one language so that humans can control — but the same truth is being spoken in every language. We have the problems of creation undone, and we have the possibility of humans being able to tell truth, live truthfully and freely, starting to open up. So this is the power that we've been given. And well, let's think about this over the next few weeks, because this notion of God having become alive sideways amongst us at the horizontal level, enabling us to discover from within where this peace, where this joy comes from, and how it empowers us to go forth — not just in little ecclesial huddles, but as people who speak and witness to something greater than us in the whole world — so that creation can start to begin to bear witness to the glory of its Creator. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.