May 23, 1999
In the two stories of the giving of the Holy Spirit today, John remembers it one way, and Luke perhaps differently. As John tells the story, the gift of the Holy Spirit happened on Easter Day. The disciples were locked in that same upper room where they had last met on Thursday night — locked there because they were afraid and expectant that the police were coming and they would be next to be taken off and crucified. And then Jesus was there. The door still locked. They don't recognize him at first. He has to show them his hands and his side to prove it is really he, risen from the dead. He breathes on them and says, "Receive the breath of life; receive the Holy Spirit; forgive sins. The Holy Spirit is given on this Easter Day."
But Luke remembers it a little differently. We are told at the end of Matthew's gospel that Jesus left them on Ascension Day. They had been told to wait in the city until a sign had come from above and they would know what it would be. They waited there another ten days and then on the major Jewish festival of Pentecost, they are gathered together as followers of Christ and suddenly the Holy Spirit descends upon them like tongues of fire. These Galileans, who in my own personal background would be better translated as red-neck southerners, who can barely speak one language, are able to proclaim the good news of God in Christ Jesus in the languages of the people who are gathered there on Pentecost, so that they, too, can understand in their native languages what it is that has happened in Jerusalem in these last fifty days. As Luke tells the story, this day is a day of transference. It is that day the power of Christ is transferred to that scattered group of individual Christians and forms them into a new community of faith, giving them empowerment to accomplish the Christian mission.
So, the question arises, which one is right? Was it John who remembered it correctly or Luke ? Well, I have the answer — both of them. Remember who we're talking about. We are talking about the disciples. They never got anything right the first time. And so yes, I am sure Jesus breathed upon them and gave them the Holy Spirit on Easter Day, and fifty days later they still hadn't figured it out and so they had to have a little more dramatic demonstration. So both were probably right.
Pentecost has arrived for us, the Church's birthday. At the feast of Pentecost we have the transformation of a nervous and unfocused collection of people into a creative community, a creative force which begins to grow. The game producers have created a particularly diabolical construction — a 1000 piece, two-sided jigsaw puzzle with a different picture on each side in the same colors. When you dump that 1000 piece puzzle onto your table, it is a mess. And, if you have one of those two-sided puzzles, it is a double mess.
Well, that's how these people are on Pentecost. They each were important to the making of both pictures, to the completion of the final product. Each one of them was absolutely necessary. None of them had the whole picture, and the morning of Pentecost, it didn't look like much. But by the time the day was over, they had been formed into a clear picture of what God intended. That is the Church. From time to time, a piece will get flipped upside down and work in the wrong way or be missing from the puzzle, to be filled in by someone else, or to be brought home again. Be that as it may, each piece represents a Christian, a beloved child of God, important to the whole story.
On that first day of Pentecost, the miracle was that each person was able to hear the Gospel proclaimed in their own native language. These Galileans were given the gift of speaking, so that others could understand. It is our task always to seek to be understood. If we aren't being understood as we proclaim the Gospel, perhaps it is not the hearer who needs to change so much as it is we who need to find a better way to speak the saving grace of God — a different way so that others may actually hear.
Today's languages are just as confused and just as multiplied as the languages of the Mediterranean society of the first century. Today's languages are not just the 80 to 100 different languages and dialects that are spoken in southern California, but the hundreds of languages and dialects that are spoken around the world. Today's languages are not just written for general conversation. They are not limited that way, but expand to the language of media and social structures, the language of medicine and ethics, of statesmanship and politics, of government and business.
How do we speak and how do we hear is always before us. The good news, as Paul tells us in that first letter to the Corinthians, is that when the saving grace of God is spoken and heard as empowered by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, then wonderful things happen. People's lives are changed for the better. Paul reminds us that the gifts God gives us around this room and around the world are myriad. That each gift is given individually because God delights in differences. The gifts are given to build up the rest who have different gifts but equally important ones. There are no unimportant pieces to a jigsaw puzzle, and there are no unimportant people in God's kingdom. The gifts, as Paul lists them in first Corinthians, are wisdom and knowledge, gifts of faith and healing, gifts of miracles and prophecy, gifts of discernment and language and interpretation of language. In another place, he even lists administration and teaching as gifts to be received and used. All are important. Not one must be left out. Others must be brought in.
As we began this Pentecost day, we prayed that God would shed abroad the gift of the holy spirit throughout the world by the preaching of the Gospel. We must remember that the preaching of the Gospel is not just what happened in pulpits and lecterns around Christendom. The preaching of the Gospel is what people see in your lives on a day-to-day basis — what they hear in your homes, what they hear in your offices, what they hear on the street, and in the stores, and in other places where you interact with people. The preaching of the Gospel in thought, word, and deed can change lives for good. It is the communicating of the way of life eternal.
As we read the Scriptures today, we see that it begins with expectant waiting — whether it is like those early disciples on Easter Day who are expectantly awaiting the police, or fifty days later in Jerusalem expectantly awaiting power from above to send them forth to accomplish the great commission. In either case, the result was the empowerment of that community by a joyful infusion of the Holy Spirit.
Whatever the expectancy was, the gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives led to complete trust in God in all circumstances of life, not just the bad ones. The bad circumstances are where we find it easy to rely on God. It is when everything is going well that we begin to claim credit and give up reliance. But in all circumstances of life, through the power of the Holy Spirit and the indwelling grace of God, we are able to live in complete trust. We can then look around and see that we are, in fact, enriched by the myriad of gifts and talents which we all bring individually to be shared in the community.
One of the most attractive things about the Episcopal Church is its claim of the via media, its claim of the middle way, its claim of the center of Christianity whereby we recognize that all the points of view surrounding the person of Christ Jesus and the Holy Trinity are important to balance, to enrich, and to enlarge us. And so we seek to gather people, to gather people of different perspectives, different understandings, so that we may be challenged and enriched until God's greatness may be seen around us. So often, we are like that pile of jigsaw puzzle pieces; we don't make much sense. We trust God to put us together in the right way, so the picture will become clear.
One example from my time in Hanoi, North Vietnam, many years ago, was a little chore that we used to do. About twice a week, the camp authorities would deliver to our cell block a sand box full of coal dust. Just crushed coal, black, useless dust. It wouldn't burn when in crumbled form. It might explode if it was in a closed container, but it wouldn't burn. It was useless for anything except to make us filthy dirty. Our chore was to go to that sand box and sit, putting water in it, and making mud. Then we formed in our hands balls about the size of a baseball or softball, packing them down and setting them (like so many small canon balls) into a pyramid out in the sun to dry. After mixed in water and dried, those coal balls could be used to start fires, to cook food to feed the prisoners.
You see, in the darkest days of your life God is working and giving, at the very least, an example of what the Christian community is like. Without the Holy Spirit, we are as useless as that sand box full of coal dust. But mixed in water and formed into a useful shape, then we become useful. Then we become important. When it was just coal dust, it couldn't be burned. When it was wet with water and first formed into coal balls, it still wouldn't burn. It had to be dried first and then like a charcoal briquette, it could be used for cooking.
We are God's people, chosen, each of us, by the Father and brought to this place. Without a mission, we are scattered and useless like that coal dust. But called into community by Christ Jesus, mixed in the water of Baptism, formed into his body on earth and then set afire with the Holy Spirit, then we, too, can begin to feed the hungry prisoners of sin around us with the enriching Gospel of Jesus Christ. AMEN
The Rev. Dr. Robert Certain
rgcertain@stmargarets.org
23 May 1999