May 19, 2002
The room is surprisingly quiet considering the group of people gathered there. At first, you might think they're waiting for someone to speak or for someone to enter _ but the door is locked. No one may enter, nor may anyone go out. Quickly you realize that the anxiety in this room is palpable. Over by the window there's a person with a pack-a-day habit starting on his second pack of cigarettes for the day. Thinking to himself, he's planning out what to do next. It might be prudent to take a day or two off, but then it will be time to go back to the office _ refocus, and get back to work. Another person sits slumped over the table, poring over the Sunday paper. The paper contains all the usual news _ poverty, gossip, crime, and corruption in the Roman government. The reader absorbs every word, but carefully skips over the obituaries. Across the table, another person sits simply staring into space _ eyes red and cheeks stained by the flood of tears cried over the past few days. Numbed by grief, every available pool of energy has been tapped out. Finally, over in the kitchen, someone is keeping busy, pouring drinks, and fixing some food, while worrying about everyone else in the room. They need comfort, they need their nourishment, at the very least they need a sandwich! So there they all are, disciples of a dead man, sitting quietly in a room locked from the inside.
And then, there is a disturbance. The man they saw crucified just last Friday is suddenly standing amongst them, wounds and all, and telling them to "receive the Holy Spirit." What was grief is now confusion, and what will eventually be written down as "good news," for the moment just seems like a frightening and bizarre dream. There has been a Resurrection _ and not like any mere resuscitation _ but a transformation of death into life, a transformation begun in Jesus, and now being offered to all through the Holy Spirit. The room full of people is already transformed: they were disrupted, and their worlds have been turned upside down, but that group of hopeless individuals has now become a community joined by their experience of God and their new mission in the world.
The Holy Spirit has a tendency to disrupt, to be the instigator, and to incite all kinds of trouble, and we get a glimpse of this in the readings for today. Both in the gospel of John, and in the story of Pentecost from Acts, the Holy Spirit appears as the rabble-rouser _ nothing is ever the same after the Spirit has been around. But so often, as we feel the presence of the Triune God in our lives and in our community, we prefer to emphasize the pastoral roles of the Spirit, as Comforter and Advocate. It's no surprise _ we're much more comfortable with safety and stability, but it seems that God is often neither of these things. Particularly when it comes to the Holy Spirit, we have no personal image to get our minds around _ to define and contain the Spirit - leaving us with a level of uncertainty that is, at best, uncomfortable. The best we can do is fall back to the images given to us by tradition, hoping that we can discover something about this ambiguous being.
The most ancient image for the Spirit of God seems to be the idea of breath, or wind. This is a helpful image, for it allows us to understand how we might experience the presence of the Spirit without actually seeing it. It is movement, and therefore an indication of life. We might experience the Holy Spirit like the gentle breathing of a sleeping baby, or like a cool breeze on a warm day. But just as breath may support a whisper, it will also support a yell, and though wind may be gentle in some places, we must also remember that in certain regions like Palestine, or even Palm Desert, California, wind is often neither cool nor refreshing. Wind can be ferocious, or sometimes scorching, disrupting anything that might be attached to something else. Over time, wind will reshape our entire landscape. It may be invisible, but it is certainly powerful; and not only powerful, but also empowering. Perhaps we can think of the windmills that line the highway out here, harnessing the power of the wind to support the human community. The Spirit is power, and gives power. As an empowering source of life, the Holy Spirit enables us to have life, and to have it abundantly.
Another familiar image of the Holy Spirit is the dove _ often associated with peace, though I'm not sure why. I think of the dove sent out from the ark to find dry land. It is a creature that is uniquely free _ able to soar above the earth, seemingly boundless. In this sense the dove gives us an image of the great freedom of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit itself is boundless, and shares with us a freedom from the chains that bind. But it is not just a "freedom from," it is also a "freedom for". Through the Holy Spirit, we are made free to do God's work _ to go where God calls us without disabling fear. We can overcome the obstacles that block our way, and we can have courage because of the conviction of God's call. Of course, outside of Genesis, the dove shows up in another familiar place in Scripture _ at Jesus' baptism. The dove descends upon Jesus, and God speaks, but as soon as Jesus receives this blessing, he is sent out into the wilderness to be tested and prepared. The dove may be a symbol of the inward peace that comes from being in relationship with God, but it is no guarantee of a life without trial. In the Holy Spirit we are given great freedom, but it is a freedom that comes with a calling for the mission of God.
From the story of Pentecost in Acts, we are
given yet another image _ that of fire.
"Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a
tongue rested on each of them"
(Acts 2:3). In the image of fire, the storyteller attempts to
capture a dramatic and world-altering moment. Here, the Spirit,
as giver of gifts, touches each individual, making each person
capable of speaking languages other than his or her own. Though
this may seem like a mere demonstration of power, the gifts are
not arbitrary _ the Holy Spirit has given to a group of individuals
the abilities to build their community. It is the gift of communication
_ enabling them to carry out the mission of God and strengthen
the bonds of love between them. The Holy Spirit, fulfilling the
role of gift-giver, continues to share these blessings today _
making each one of us able to contribute and minister in the community
of God.
The final image from our tradition is perhaps no image at all _ at least it is usually the most difficult for us to get our minds around. From the Nicene Creed, which we recite together every week, we know the Holy Spirit as the third person of the Trinity _ the paradoxical Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, or we might say Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Our language, and our mental images always fail us in the end, but as inadequate as they are, we continue to make attempts. So there are countless ways we might imagine our Triune God, but as the third person of the Trinity the Holy Spirit offers us the perfect community. The three, Father, Son, and Spirit, are distinct, and yet perfectly unified; they are diverse, yet wonderfully intimate. As a community of interaction we know God to be dynamic, and we know that the Holy Spirit is constantly drawing us into the transforming life of the community of God. The work of the Holy Spirit is what binds us together as a human community, and what will finally bring us into perfect communion with God.
As we celebrate this Day of Pentecost, we are reminded of that rag-tag bunch of disciples sitting together in a locked room; in their distant silence they are anything but a perfect community. One moment they are overwhelmed with grief and fear, but the next moment the whole world has changed. The realized presence of Christ changed everything for them, and as a result, they left that locked room and changed the world for us. Pentecost reminds us that as faithful Christians we must expect the unexpected. The Holy Spirit cannot be tamed, and though the Spirit may at times be our Comforter, we shouldn't expect the Spirit to ever make us feel comfortable. The Spirit is, after all, the power that can destroy, or create; the Spirit is the master that makes us free to serve; the Spirit is the giver of great gifts _ both for individuals and for communities; and the Spirit is the energy that sweeps us into communion with God when we least expect it. The purpose behind all of this is life. In the person of Jesus Christ death was transformed into life _ not just for one moment in history, but for all time. The proof of the Resurrection, therefore, is not in Jesus' ability to walk through locked doors, it is rather in the Holy Spirit's unceasing activity walking right through the barriers that we make, and causing a grand disturbance. Amen.
Fiddes, Paul. Participating in God. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2000.
Moltmann, Jürgen. The Source of Life. trans. Margaret Kohl. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997.