[invitation to take the first of three
deep breaths this morning. As you
inhale, “Come, Holy Spirit.” As you
exhale, “Help me breathe with God.”]
Pentecost
- concludes a seven week period that began at Passover (pentecost / 50th day)
- Jewish Festival of Weeks when first fruits (sheaf of wheat) were offered back to back to God in celebration of the gift of the harvest
- not focused on thanking the laborers, but on being thankful for the bounty from God.
- Post the agrarian age, it becomes more of a celebration of God’s gift of the law (torah), particularly the Ten Commandments, and the renewal of covenant between God and God’s chosen people
- In our Gospel reading from John 14:8-27 we’re reminded that Jesus, during his final earthly sermon to his followers on the night before he was handed over to suffering and death, promised that for those who love him and keep his commandments he would, through God, send us the Holy Spirit to be abide in us as advocate, teacher, counselor, comforter, etc.
- What we heard today from Acts 2:1-21 is about the promised coming* of the Holy Spirit to over a hundred followers of Jesus who are powerfully inspired and equipped to share the Good News with devout Jews from all parts of the land in their own local languages, convicting thousands of them to follow Christ
- FYI, later (likely years later) in Acts 10:44-48, the Holy Spirit is poured out to Gentiles to whom Peter was speaking
- What is common in both stories of the coming of the Holy Spirit is that it enables believers to meeting other people where they are, as they are, in their own languages, honoring their diversity and yet still calling them into common bonds of family in Christ
- Because of this call into new community enabled through the Spirit, some consider Pentecost our celebration of the birthday of the church
Too often, we domesticate Pentecost
into a whimsical tale of a one-time event long ago that brings an annual splash
of the color red before we flip the fabrics from white to green. It’s hard for most of us modern thinkers to
really ‘get’ the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, particularly since few
if any of us have experienced it as tongues like fire or been overcome by it as
by a powerful, rushing wind.
Spirit as wind and breath:
- “like the rush of violent wind”
- The Hebrew, Greek, and Latin (neshama [see also ruach], pneuma, spiritus) words that are translated as ‘spirit’ are also related to wind and breath… describing an invisible, moving force that, as we’ve noted, influences our lives
- As the breath of life itself...
- o God’s breath over the primordial chaos that brings order and life
- o God’s breath blowing into our nostrils, animating the stuff of ashes and dry bones into living people
- o God’s breath driving people into leadership and mission
- o God’s breath clearing paths for people to travel through trouble from bondage to freedom as well as calling to people, healing them and bringing life again to what was otherwise perceived of as dead
- o God’s breath enabling us to speak to each other where we are in ways that we can understand what needs to be heard
I once read, “For John, the Spirit is the
Advocate, the continuing and comforting presence of Jesus with the church, and
the source of peace. For Paul, the Spirit is that which unites us to Christ,
makes us into his body, and gives particular gifts to each person for the sake
of the community. For Luke… the Spirit is the power of God, the mighty burning
wind that blows the church into new and unexpected places of ministry….” In other words, the Holy Spirit is working to
draw us together as a collective and equipping us to do work together in Christ’s
name towards God’s purposes.
Rather than conceptualize ‘it’ as some
outside force, I propose that that today we consider that the Holy Spirit is as
personally intimate with us as our very breathing. What if we embrace the Spirit as intimately
as breathing… enabling us to share in God’s very breathing? What does breathing with God’s breath really
mean?
As one
commentator puts it, the Spirit “motivates, inspires, encourages, impels,
triggers, stirs, provokes, stimulates, influences, and activates…”
In various
passages of the Bible we find that the Holy Spirit testifies, convicts/leads,
reveals truth, strengthens/encourages, comforts, searches, and sanctifies (like
during the Eucharistic prayer, we ask for the Holy Spirit to sanctify the
offerings and us)
Holy
Spirit – neither an impersonal poltergeist that invades our world to terrify us
(though we hear stories of it occasionally disrupting the status quo or driving
us into challenging situations / the Spirit blows where it will, ref: John 3:8)
nor a personal genie that we invoke to get what we want.
While the Spirit may touch and act
through different people in different ways, it’s not doing so for their
individual benefit as much as it is to benefit the body of Christ, the church,
to draw everyone back into communion in God’s kingdom. With every individual and collective breath
in and out, we are invited into the holy labor – with all its starts, stops,
pains, hopes, and expectancy – of serving as Christ’s hands and hearts, helping
midwifing the birth of God’s new kingdom on earth that the Spirit is still
bringing into being.
As Paul
testified is what we heard from Romans 8:14-17, the Spirit adopts us as
children of God (encourages us to call God ‘daddy’/abba) and we, through this
Spirit, are to be inviting others to join us as heirs to God’s kingdom through
Christ (and realize that in this process, we’re also joined with Christ in
suffering for the sake of this new kingdom)
As will
be said in today’s Eucharistic prayer, “…that we might live no longer for
ourselves, but for him who died and rose for us, he sent the Holy Spirit, his
own first gift for those who believe, to complete his work in the world, and to
bring to fulfillment the sanctification of all.” [from Eucharistic Prayer D, BCP p. 374]
And
then in the Preface used during this liturgical season of Pentecost, ““Through
Jesus Christ our Lord. In fulfillment of his true promise, the Holy Spirit came
down [on this day] from heaven, lighting upon the disciples, to teach them and
to lead them into all truth; uniting peoples of many tongues in the confession
of one faith, and giving to your Church the power to serve you as a royal
priesthood, and to preach the Gospel to all nations.” [from Preface for the
Season of Pentecost, BCP p. 380]
[invitation to take the second of three
deep breaths this morning. As you
inhale, “Come, Holy Spirit. Breathe in
me.” As you exhale, “Equip me to help
others breathe with God.”]
Sometimes
a rushing wind and like tongues of fire, how else do we experience the Holy
Spirit at work in our lives on most days?
When
we breathe with the Holy Spirit, we’re told by Paul that there are gifts and
fruits that are observable:
- 1 Cor 12:8-11 (gifts): wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy (speaking critical truth to power), discernment, tongues
- Gal 5:22-23: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
I
take particular comfort in what Paul says in Romans 8:26-27 about the Spirit praying
through and for us even when we’re run out of steam to do it ourselves…
- (NRSV) “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”
- (The Message) “Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.”
Personal
testimony – when I examine the Spirit at work in my own life, it hasn’t been a
dramatic rushing wind nor a tongue of fire… nonetheless, it has been working
every detail of my life into something good.
- The gift of relationship through Mammaw’s instructions about prayer
- The invitation to deeper/enduring relationship through Tisha Lynn May’s evangelism (ref: didn’t get a dramatic sign one night… but everything began to change)
- The further transformation of my life through accepting the invitation and the gifts of the Spirit at Baptism
- The offering of the Good News to others now through my vocation
What
about in your life? How have you
discerned the Spirit at work? What might
the Holy Spirit be up to this season in you?
In us?
Another
commentator said, “The community [the Spirit draws us into] will not be
satisfied with bowling leagues, sewing circles, and yoga classes, or even with
therapy sessions or Bible study classes, but will be led to do ‘works’ similar
to those of Jesus: befriending the outcasts, healing the sick, speaking up for
the marginalized, housing the homeless, feeding the hungry, and speaking truth
to and about the empire. Because the
community remembers, because it is helped by the Spirit to ‘know’ its Lord,
because it is obedient to Jesus' commands, because it is doing his works, and
because of the presence and power of the Spirit in its life….” As, as Jesus promises (John 14:27), “it will be a non-anxious presence in an
anxious, fearful age; it will have the
peace the world cannot give or take away.”
[invitation to take the third of three
deep breaths this morning. As you
inhale, “Come, Holy Spirit.” As you
exhale, “Lead us to better breath together as a family.”]
AMEN.
