Sermon preached at St Paul’s Athens and on Zoom for Pentecost Sunday – 20th June 2021: Acts 2, 1-21; John 15, 26-27; 16, 4-15.:

Fr Leonard  Doolan

 

The Jewish feast of Shavuot is the day when the first fruits of the land were offered in the Temple. On this day the Book of Ruth is read in synagogues, telling how the Moabite widow called Ruth, and her mother-in law, Naomi, meet the owner of the land, Boaz while they were out gleaning in the fields. Ruth later married Boaz.

Shavuot is also the day when, just seven weeks after the Hebrew people departed from Egypt on their 40 year long journey in the wilderness, recorded in the Book of Exodus, Moses receives the Ten Commandments from God on Mount Sinai. Sinai was observed to be covered in smoke, because God had descended upon it like fire. Thunder and lightning filled the air

It was on this day, according to St. Luke’s account in the Acts of the Apostles, that the followers of Jesus, all Jewish, gathered in one place. The experience that follows is replete with graphic details. Sound, like a violent storm wind, tongues of fire leaping about. The wind-like sound fills the room, and the flames perch on each of them. This describes the Holy Spirit – this is the first experience for followers of Jesus of the Holy Spirit. This is the Christian Shavuot – not the law being given, but grace; this is the Christian Shavuot – not the first fruits from the harvest being presented, but the first fruits of the Holy Spirit.

Rooted in tradition, rich with bright images, resonant with the scriptures of the old dispensation, this is Christian Pentecost.

What we are told next is an extraordinary scene of diversity in unity. So many nationalities, and ethnic difference finding one voice, but not losing their own language. The one voice of God in the Holy Spirit is being received and replicated in global diversity. Here we have the reverse of the Tower of Babel, the story that tells of the division that comes as a result of human pride and arrogance, and a rejection for the need of God in human life. This is a restoration of humanity in all its glorious difference – unity in diversity; not some sort of false friendship or artificial bon-homie because they haven’t even been to the pub or local bar.

This feast of Pentecost is the birth of something new. A new creation is brought forth – St. Paul speaks of the groaning of the world, in birth pangs, waiting for the new birth in the Holy Spirit. This is a neo-natal moment in the history of cosmic events.

‘Our Father, who art in heaven…’ we all know the rest of it. It is of course, the first few words of our Lord’s Prayer. Few things give me greater joy in church life that when our church congregation is invited to pray the prayer in their own first tongue. In this we get a glimpse of that first Pentecost – many languages, but one voice, many different nationalities, but one God and Father. We each say it in our own tongue, but we each know what it is we are doing, and to whom we are speaking – ‘Our Father, who art in heaven…’

It is St. Peter who seeks to make some sense of what has occurred. It is not a drunken babble, though they are all soaked in Spirit, but rather the fulfilment of promise.

 

St. Peter refers to the prophet Joel, to beautiful words that have always had great meaning to me: ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days, I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy’. (Joel 2, 28-29).

I well remember on one of my visits to the Anglican Church in Cameroon, that I went to a very remote village, to meet with a young Anglican evangelist. The village was in a Muslim dominated area. The church was just a small hall, and in one corner there was a little room. This was the living quarters of young Karol, who faithfully led a small but committed congregation there. The community was poor, and he had only a suitcase with some clothes, a mattress, and a bible. He asked me to read from the bible for him, and I chose that passage from the book of Joel. It made a lasting impression on me. Here was one of God’s faithful servants filled with the grace of the Holy Spirit and a burning passion for the gospel of Jesus Christ. Karol seemed to be a living example of one of the young men who saw the vision promised by God.

This envisioning is the gifting of God’s Holy Spirit, freely and graciously poured out, just tipped out of the bucket of God’s love for humanity.

The experience of that first Christian Pentecost on the feast of Shuavat, vividly exposes the sheer lack of ability on God’s part to differentiate – dare I say that – yes, for in God there is no partiality. So that list of different nationalities who understood their unity in diversity, and those referred to in Joel’s prophecy underpins the universality of this event that we celebrate today.

 

We are told in St. John’s gospel this morning about the sending of the Advocate – the Paraklitos – the Spirit that will lead us into all truth, because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth.

This is the truth that we all need to be truly human, to reach our maximum potential, and to aspire to become everything in completeness that God will us to be. This is the truthfulness that we need to see glimmering shards of in our politicians as they lead our public life. The recent G7 conference may have been a meeting of people from different nations, languages and peoples, but it was not a meeting transformed by truth. ‘When the Spirit comes he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgement; about sin because they do not believe in me, about righteousness because I am going to the Father, and you will see me no longer; about judgement, because the ruler of this world has been condemned’. (John 16, 8-11).

Today we are reminded that God’s Holy Spirit leads us into all truth: truth about God the Father, maker of heaven and earth, of things seen and unseen; truth about his Christ whom he sent into the world who died for all of us; and the truth that God poured out on the world his Holy Spirit and renews the face of the earth. Today is not just a day when the disciples received a gift – it is a cosmic event, testifying to the cosmic Christ, Pantocrator, the ruler of all, of everything.

 

After seeing a mosaic of Christ the ruler of all in a visit to the monastery of Daphni in Greece, Rowan Williams wrote this poem called ‘Pantocrator: Daphni’ –

 

Pillars of dusty air beneath the dome

of golden leaden sky strain to bear up

his sweaty heaviness, his bulging eyes

drawn inwards to their private pain,

his hands arthritic with those inner knots,

his blessings set aside.

He has forgotten us, this one,

and sees a black unvisitable place

where from ages to ages he will die

and cry, creating in his blood

congealing galaxies of heat and weight.

why should he bless or need an open book?

we know the words as well as he,

the names, Alpha, Omega,

fire from fire, we know your cry

out of the dusty golden whirlwind, how you forget

us so that we can be.

(The Poems of Rowan Williams, Carcanet, p31)

 

Our prayer in the Spirit today –

Teach us to know, the Father, Son,

And thee, of Both, to be but One;

That through the ages all along

This may be our endless song,

 

Praise to thy eternal merit,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.     (NEH 138, vs 4)