READINGS

1. John 20:19-23

HOMILY

We have the two classic, but entirely different, Pentecost readings: the Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel from Saint John.

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 understanding of Christianity, we have something like the Holy Spirit coming as a consolation, meaning our 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, in the form of which he was historically that what he had done was to make possible the giving to us 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 saying because I have gone to this you will be able to do more than me.

Once we begin to understand Jesus's purpose, his project as having been not so much to pay for our sins quote unquote as though there were a bill of 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, that opens us up into the possibility of becoming new creatures together that gives us a new way of being human.

Once you 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 is that enormous gift having become possible for humans.

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), but actually the church's birthday was probably better considered to be Good Friday.

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: it comes out of the Temple and goes worldwide, so this is now a universal and a cosmic difference that makes we feel 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 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.

This 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.

That's the other thing which we get from John: no one knows where the Spirit comes from, where the wind blows, where the Spirit flows, 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.

So 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 the very beginning of Easter, and 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 ironizes the Holy Place in the Temple into which Jewish people quite rightly were feared to go because only the High Priest could go, but here we have an ordinary house with people in it locked for fear of the Jews.

In a sense, it's 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 in earlier in John's Gospel.

After he said this, he showed them his hand and his side, so he indicates who is he is: the one who was cast out.

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.

Peace and joy are the realization of something that has been done for us beyond our imagination and is coming upon us as 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.

Up till now, his father has sent him all that he has been done has been 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.

It's become entirely a horizontal form of belonging, 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 Holy Spirit.

He actually breathes into them and it's 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.

This is the amazing thing, this power which has come from on high through him by his breath through that which he has achieved.

He says "if you forgive the sins of any, they have forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained".

Let's try and demoralize that for a bit.

That's not merely a question of setting up people who can give up solution and confession.

That's one way of organizing the reception of that, but it's certainly not limiting it.

It's saying:

In as far as you forgive other people, creation will be opened up; 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 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 Henesis now being moved into a different key.

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place and suddenly they came from heavenly sound like the rush of a violent wind, so they're in one place.

Let's think of the Holy Place: 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 there's 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 foreclosing 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 coast and he will render requital. 

Remember the great surprise of Jesus.

The 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" is 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 I referred to in our act one passage: the rushing violent wind and he will come to zion as redeemer, says as advocate from our last sunday to those in Jacob.

Who turned from transgression says the Lord. 

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 mouth 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 dogs, but apportioned out tongues).

Tongues portioned out as of fire appeared among them.

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 is now divided upon each of them, so each of them is a portion of the Lord.

The Holy place is now born 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 (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 and, so this was the diaspora Jews they'd come back at this sound.

The crowd gathered and was bewildered, was confused. They were confused just as god confused people of babel.

Here we have the undoing of babel: each one heard them speaking in the native language of each, so babel is being undone.

A diverse set of languages becoming available so that everyone understands what's going on in different languages.

Not one language that humans could control, but the same truth is being spoken in every language we have the problems of creation undone and 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 on.

This 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.

SUMMARY

Very often people see the Holy Spirit as a consolation after Jesus departure, but it is much much more.

The Holy Spirit is how God can come to us, inside us, between us, completely.

We are living fountains of a desire of becoming new creatures, together. A new way of being human.

Jesus make it possible that we receive the Holy Spirit.

The holy one comes out of the temple and communicates to the whole world. This is a cosmic difference.

Jesus is the one who is cast out, and it is from the casted out one that peace comes. Not vengeance, not anger, but peace comes. Joy is the realization of what has been done for us and is being our comprehension.

The Son is equal to the Father and we recognize what the Father is based on what the Son has done, horizontally vis a vis us. Is not a question of looking up, but side by side.

In as for as you forgive other people, creation is opening up, and 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.

God has become alive sideways, 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 something greater than us in the whole world, so that creation can start to bear witness to the glory of its creator.