May 23, 2021
/Pentecost
Acts 2:1-21; John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15
The Rev. Canon Joann Saylors
Good morning. It’s great to be back with you, and great to be here for the birthday of the Church. Maybe. I said that about the Ascension, too. Also, arguably, the calling of the disciples. Or the Last Supper. The Church has a lot of birthdays for scholars to debate. I’ll come back to that.
Certainly today is a feast day, and joy abounds. Pentecost, from the Greek word for fifty. A major feast of the Church. But aside from special church practices – red t-shirts, balloons, doves, reading the Gospel in multiple languages – why does it matter? What takes us beyond just the day itself in our faith journeys?
On the day of Pentecost, when the fifty days of Easter had come to an end, Christ's Passover was fulfilled in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, manifested, given and communicated as a divine person. The Advocate promised by Christ entered the believing community to guide and protect us until the Jesus returns.
Let me say here that Pentecost is not the birthday of the Holy Spirit. The scholars do agree on that one. As the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit is co-eternal with the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit was there for Creation: remember that the Spirit, God’s breath, moved over the waters. And we hear about works of the Spirit throughout the Hebrew scriptures. We say it every week in the Nicene Creed: the Holy Spirit, the giver of life, has spoken through the prophets.
Pentecost is a feast we share with our Jewish sisters and brothers, at least in part. I was in seminary before I realized that there was more to the day than what we heard in the Book of Acts. It had never occurred to me to ask WHY people were gathered on that particular occasion. The disciples, sure, they gathered in rooms all the time, but why had the crowds gathered? They were actually there for the Jewish feast of Shavuot, which is …wait for it… 50 days after the harvest offering at Passover.
We didn’t come up with the name “Pentecost.” By Jesus’ time, it had also come to commemorate God giving the Law, the Torah, to Moses at Mount Sinai. Pentecost, then, in the broadest sense, is a celebration both of God giving the Word and of God giving the Spirit. The Ten Commandments is a Pentecost movie!
We talk a lot about gifts coming from God. On Shavuot, Jews mark not just the giving of the Torah by God, but their acceptance of the Torah. Some Jewish writers have compared the exchange to a marriage or other sacred covenant. One way the holiday is observed is through the reading of the Book of Ruth, the story of a woman who converts to Judaism and accepts the Torah. And the Christian Pentecost celebrates not just God sending the Holy Spirit to the gathered community, but also their accepting the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The gifts accepted at the first Christian Pentecost have different meanings to different Christians. Some interpret what was received as the spiritual benefits of accepting Jesus that bring a more meaningful earthly life. Others — especially those Christians known as Pentecostals — believe the first Pentecost offers all followers of Jesus “the gifts of the spirit” — speaking in and interpreting tongues, the ability to prophesy, the power to heal by touch, the ability to discern spirits. Pentecostals believe those things are available to all Christians, starting with the first ones, but only those who accept them are able to fulfill the work and destiny that God has laid out for them.
We believe that it is the gift of the Spirit to each one of us that helps us confess Jesus as Lord, serve God, pray, and live like Jesus. Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, names the fruits of the Spirit that make us more like Jesus: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Gifts that keep on giving.
But Pentecost has always been about more than gifts to us as individuals. From that first Pentecost until now, it has always been the belief of the Church that the Holy Spirit directs and guides us both collectively and individually. When we call Pentecost the birthday of the Church, it’s because the gift of the Spirit made to the believing community equipped and empowered the apostles to go out among the people and begin to spread Jesus’ message.
The day of Pentecost is a celebration of God's hand guiding the Christian community through the trials and decisions that had been and will be presented to it. In the Book of Acts we see this new Church struggling to come up with answers to the existential problems it faced: Who should be admitted to the believing community? Is it necessary to obey the purity and food laws of the Torah? What roles, rights and duties should Church officials exercise? These were problems that vexed the early community, and the descendants of those problems still vex us today.
The stories throughout Acts testify to a community struggling to organize itself in the best possible and most inclusive way. The most faithful way. It was only with the belief that its members were acting with some guidance and grace from God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, that the early Church had the confidence to make the necessary decisions about who and how to be, then live into them.
Throughout Paul’s letters, we hear of faith communities struggling to understand the doctrine and practices of following Jesus. We hear Paul preach against conflict, selfishness, factionalism, pride, and immoral behaviors. Paul’s letters, inspired by the Holy Spirit, held up a model of faithful behavior for the churches to whom they were written, the churches that they were sent on to, and the very diverse mix of churches who have studied them ever since.
The problems experienced by the early communities are as real today as they were to the apostles and disciples who knew Christ. There was bitter division in the early Church about who should be allowed to join the community. Some proposed much more inclusion; others more restriction. This is not so different from the conversations around immigration or homelessness or race in the U.S. and around the world.
Like those who objected to the admission of the Gentiles, we have our negative terms for those we wish to exclude. Think about “undocumented person” versus “illegal alien.” Or “unhoused” versus “homeless.” We all know there is power in language we use around race. “Those people.” Too often that means “those other people not like us and not as valuable as people like us.”
That sort of us vs. them mentality doesn’t stay outside the doors of the church. We see congregations who say they want more young families, but don’t really want children in worship. Or say they want to be hospitable to the community, but only if the community will pay for extra cleaning services after their meetings. Or schedule vestry meetings at a time when no parent of younger children could possibly commit, despite a plea for new leaders. We use exclusive terms like “genuflect” and “rector” and “vestment” that can inhibit people from participating in our community, because it’s so hard to keep asking what things mean.
When we start to see a need to open our arms and take down our walls, that is the prompting of the Spirit. When we find ways to let go of our precious judgment so we truly see other people as beloved children of God, that’s the Spirit. It is only through the power of the Holy Spirit that we treat those we put into the category of “other” as our sisters and brothers in Christ.
The early Church also faced questions of ethics. How can Christians live into the image of God? In the wake of Church scandals and the appalling words and actions of many who profess themselves followers of Jesus, the unchurched and de-churched have come to see greed, selfishness, and tribalism as normal Christian behavior. As we watch the politicization of caring for the vulnerable, the rise in social apathy, and elevation of rights without corresponding responsibilities, we should ask ourselves: what sort of life do we lead when we let the Holy Spirit guide us? How could we as the Spirit-led Body of Christ point back to an understanding of the common good? Can we model Jesus’ “love thy neighbor” command as a way of life attractive to those who are weary of selfishness and exploitation?
Led by the Spirit, the Church after Pentecost tried to structure itself as a caring and just community. If we are being led to do the same, we are doing a good job of hiding it. A recent Barna study revealed that 62% of lapsed Christians said the #1 quality they look for in a person with whom to discuss faith is ‘non-judgment.’ But only 34% said they know any Christians who possess this quality. It’s a gift of the Holy Spirit that allows us to listen, to see our own brokenness before that of others, and to love instead of judging.
Fortified and encouraged by the belief that the Spirit of God guides us, the Church from its very beginnings has continued to evaluate its attitudes and teachings in the light of new contexts and cultures. We will continue to ask new questions, find new answers, and the Spirit will guide us to adapt in faithful ways that honor the past. Pentecost may be a feast with its roots in the past, but the power it gives to change the Church and to change the world is perennial.
It’s no accident that just after we profess our beliefs in and about the Holy Spirit in the Nicene Creed, our next statement is, “We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church.” Because the birthday of the Church is a work of the Spirit, a gift for the apostles of the past, present, and future.
When we are made new Christians by water and the Holy Spirit, a cross is marked on our forehead with the words “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ's own for ever.” It’s a little Pentecost moment every time, as the Church is reborn whenever the Body of Christ adds a new member. We may not hear a violent wind or see tongues of fire, as they did at the first Pentecost. But we can trust that God will send the Holy Spirit to guide and protect us. It’s up to us to accept the gift, and then go where she leads us.
AMEN.