Sermon for Pentecost Sunday 31st May 2020: Acts 2, 1-21; John 7, 37-39.

Revd. Canon Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Church Athens

 

‘Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall; Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horse and all the king’s men, couldn’t put humpty together again.’

Today is the crowning moment of the Easter season – Pentecost. In St. John’s gospel we are told nothing of the 50 days between the resurrection and the sending of the Holy Spirit. We depend on St. Luke for that in the Acts of the Apostles. We’ll return to that event described by St. Luke in a moment.

If we were to sum up the 4^th gospel, St. John’s gospel, it would be the word, ‘glory’. This is the sentiment of great priest theologians like Michael Ramsey, an illustrious Archbishop of Canterbury last century.

‘Out of a believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water. Now Jesus said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified. ‘ John 7 39 (today’s gospel).

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!'”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected. “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

There may be many times in our lives when we might feel that we may as well be speaking to Humpty Dumpty than to the person we are actually speaking with. Few of us have the rare privilege of speaking to the original Humpty Dumpty, as Alice did, in Lewis Carroll’s  Alice through the Looking Glass.

So what are we to make of St. Luke’s description of the event we call Pentecost. In St. John it is all part and parcel of ‘glorification’ but St. Luke is more descriptive, giving us specific illustrations of what was going on.

In particular, I would like to concentrate on one phrase. ‘Because each one heard them speaking in their own native language’. What are we to make of this Pentecostal phenomenon. There is a danger that, like Humpty Dumpty, I could make those words mean exactly what I want them to mean – in which case ‘I would be Master’.

I can rapidly dismiss the explanation that they had all been in the tavernas, as it was only 9 0’clock in the morning. St. Peter quickly corrects that false notion.

 

I could interpret this to mean something akin to that spiritual phenomenon referred to as the ‘glossolalia’ or the speaking in tongues, that phenomenon used by some Christian circles to authenticate real faith, as opposed to a lip service faith. St. Luke uses the phrase ‘All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability’.

I could focus on the word ‘language’, limiting the Holy Spirit to words that are literally part of the language system of the different nationalities that were probably gathered that day in the Courtyard of the Nations, the first and only multi-ethnic courtyard in the Jerusalem temple compound, where Jesus himself had delivered some of his teaching. This would be the language of the Holy Spirit reduced to mere words – and in particular to my own words, which I can use to mean what I want them to mean.

Alternatively I could approach this by way of saying that something completely different may have been going on, something not about words and language, but about the common understanding of being ‘one in Christ’ and thus, being one with the Father. In John’s gospel Jesus associates the sending of the Paraclete with unity in God – that we may be one with the Father, as Christ and the Father are one. (see John 17 – the high priestly prayer of Jesus).

This episode in Acts could be describing an overturning of a powerful and visual story in the Old Testament, namely the Tower of Babel story. Briefly, the Babel story tells of man’s strength and arrogance and his lack of need for a relationship with God. To correct this human arrogance God scatters humanity through a multiplicity of languages, so that humanity is fractured by its inability to communicate universally with one language. The division of language is consequence or a sign of mankind’s hubris, thinking himself, the creature,  to be greater than God, the Creator.

So, 50 days after God has acted in raising his Son from death instead of dividing mankind according to language, man is once again reconciled to God, reconciled to himself, divisions set aside, and a new found unity is discovered in sharing the life of the risen Christ. We are indeed one with the Father, as Christ and the Father are one.

This unity (enosis) is brought about by the procession of the Holy Spirit from the core of the Godhead – from the divine heart of God. In our Nicene Creed we speak of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father, reconciling, redeeming, unifying God’s faithful people. Through this divine work of the Holy Spirit God heals division, and restores oneness to humanity – the complete opposite of the consequences of the destructive division of the Tower of Babel image. Our unity has nothing to do with the human language we speak, but the ‘transformed and unconditional’ language of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control – the fruits of the Spirit as listed by St. Paul. (Romans 6, 22).

For so long mankind, indeed the very Creation itself had been ‘groaning in labour pains until now’  (Romans 8,22).  In God’s moment, his time, (kairos), humanity has a new birth, and is a new creation, which is the first fruits of the new life in Christ.  This life is both promised to us, but now already is sealed by the Holy Spirit.

So what exactly was happening on that first Christian Pentecost as narrated to us by St. Luke? What does it mean when those present said, ‘each one heard them speaking in their own native language’.  Dare I say that it can mean what I want it to mean? No, because that would make me Master, rather than the Holy Spirit being Master (to use the Humpty Dumpty word);   for now in Christ we are born again into a unified diversity and a diverse unity. Diversity now need not divide us. Jesus is now glorified – glorified on the throne of the cross, and glorified in the throne of glory, and so the Holy Spirit has truly come among us, so let’s expect that blast of hurricane to blow through us and that burning flame to cleanse us.

‘Come down, O love divine,

Seek thou this soul of mine,

And visit it with thine own ardour glowing;

O Comforter, draw near,

Within my heart appear,

And kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing.’