Sermon preached at the Zoom Worship for Pentecost Sunday 31st May 2020

Deacon Christine Saccali

 

May I speak in the name of the living God Father Son and Holy Spirit Amen

I have not preached on zoom before so here goes. So many things are different from usual at the moment, aren’t they? And we don’t know if or when the world will return to how it was before this COVID pandemic. I don’t want to use the word normal as what is normal anyway and who is normal?

Interestingly enough, one of the novels I have caught up on during lockdown is Normal People by Sally Rooney which was made into a very popular BBC TV series shown recently. It is an extraordinary book for its ordinariness- nothing really happens but it is relational describing the ongoing relationship between Marianne and Connor against the background of their young lives. Now I am just reading the young author’s first book Conversations with Friends. On the fly leaf there is the quote,’ In times of crisis, we must all decide again and again who we love.’ Again there are many references to normal in the dialogue.

We have been giving a lot of time, space and reflection to this recently. When are we going to get back to normal or a new normal is a question I have heard asked with longing since our confinement and life style altering circumstances of the COVID pandemic and lockdown period. Now we are celebrating Pentecost in a pandemic.

Cast your mind back if you can to Pentecost 2019 a year ago for time seems also to have changed, merged and blurred over the past weeks and months. The seasons have, less so whether the seasons of nature, although we have had a wintry week after a hot blast, or the Church seasons. Here we are 50 days after Easter at Pentecost celebrated ten days after Ascension. Last year I was preaching on this same feast at a packed church at St Paul’s. I remember the congregation sharing the sermon time at my suggestion and talking about the Holy Spirit in their lives, I also remember my delight at the babble that rose up to the pulpit of many voices in many accents. Like the reversal of the Tower of Babel when language was cut off and the many languages heard at the first Pentecost.

 

This year we are celebrating the birthday of the church again but possibly in a quieter and more dispersed way. Not restrained, for the Holy Spirit is a fluid, dancing and whirling divine person  acting and active in chaos from before the beginning of creation and adaptive to all circumstances internal and external while being as diverse as we are.

Let us look afresh at the account of the Coming of the Holy Spirit we heard in Acts 2. What first leapt out at me was that the disciples were all gathered together as they had been instructed by Jesus to wait patiently for the promised Paraclete ‘paraklitos’ the one called to be alongside them and us as Comforter and Advocate. Don’t we long to be all together and now we are here meeting virtually, others later at St Paul’s and yet other disciples in their homes here in Greece or spread across the world? The Holy Spirit reaches into all these places and within us and enjoins us, stirring us from our varied emotions and giving us what we need at every time.

What also struck me forcibly is that the disciples were all gathered together, presumably at close quarters in a small dwelling such as the upper room yet they were waiting in joy for the Holy Spirit, as instructed, now that Jesus has ascended to the Father, praying and praising. How much more so can we who have the Holy Spirit with us be glad in praise and prayer, yes in these times of crisis, fear, violence and separation? Yet joy may feel scarce in the times we live in. I don’t know about you but rather everything we experience at the moment seems to be more acute or more numb. No in between. This is when we need to rest in God’s spirit and lean on it we have the time and space to do just that.

 

On this day when so many others were gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the agricultural feast of harvest, isn’t it typical of God’s calling to the disciples  that instead of being allowed to dwell on what it feels like and means to have tongues of fire resting on you, the Acts account is all over in four dynamic verses then the disciples have to go straight out and start preaching and leave the comparative safety of the dwelling. We are not even told how they get out and into the crowd. We ARE told though of the crowd’s reaction to the speaking in tongues and it is a natural human response that they must be drunk and disorderly even so early in the morning!

You can imagine the tittle tattle and rumour. Already this rabble of followers had not created the greatest of impressions and their leader had died – no wonder they were drunk. Or were they? We are living through times when fake news, misinformation which is misleading or disinformation, which downright sets out to deceive, are all rife and the order of the day.

 

So how do we discern the truth? Through the Spirit of Truth that has been promised to us by Jesus the Way the Truth and the Life but this takes active listening to our extraordinary God to the Holy Spirit with and within us and who is active in the world.

For Christians the Holy Spirit is the source and breath of all life. In our gospel passage we hear of Jesus as the spring and source of life.  I have found during this time the flow of water in streams near where I live have provided enormous comfort. And there is plenty of water around from all the rain. We know at this time that more and more people are turning to prayer, spiritual sources and tuning into church services at this time. My hope and prayer is that when we emerge from this period we will experience a sweeping renewal of Church, maybe not as we know it, but with all the fire, wind and power of the Spirit. A healthy violence designed to stir us and equip us.It is extraordinary yet normal as part of God’s three in one person – Father Son and Holy Spirit. Pentecost is the church’s birthday every day breathing life into us.

 

Let us end by listening to a poem entitled Pentecost is every day by Stuart Henderson:

I share and share and share again

Sometimes with a new language

Which, if you are so open

Will take you behind the sky

And award you cartwheels across the sun.

I give and give and give again

Not restricted by the church calendar

or concocted ritual.

I have no need of anniversaries

for I have always been.

I speak and speak and speak again

with the sting of purity

that can only be Me,

causing joyous earthquakes in the mourning soul of man.

I am and am and am again.

AMEN