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Sermon for Pentecost A

May 19, 2002

Today we are celebrating the Feast of Pentecost, the Fiftieth Day that brings to its climax and conclusion our festival season of Easter, our festival season of giving thanks and praise to God for the gift of new life in Christ. Fifty days ago we began the Easter season by celebrating the resurrection of Jesus and the revelation of new life in him. Today we end the Easter season by celebrating the coming of the Holy Spirit and the revelation of new life in us.

More specifically, what we celebrate today is the work of the Holy Spirit in us that makes us the Church. The revelation of new life in Christ that God gives through us doesn’t just come individually, in our own private and personal lives—though of course it does come there, and does come powerfully there. But the revelation of new life in Christ is also a matter of our corporate life, our community life, the way we bring together our individual and private and personal realities to make a shared life in Christ that is bigger than we are. Because the Church is more than just an institution or a hierarchy or a building or a club or a group of people who have similar interests and enjoy each other’s company. The Church is the way we live together, the way we share our gifts and talents and abilities and needs and joys and sorrows and fears and enthusiasms—the way we share our selves so that the love of God made manifest in Jesus can now be made manifest among us. The Church is the spiritual-social magnetic field that draws us together into a love and a work and a life that is larger than our own. It is that drawing-together in the Spirit that we celebrate in our Pentecost festival today.

Paul emphasizes that drawing-together in the Spirit in our lesson from 1 Corinthians today. Paul talks about the great variety of spiritual gifts that the Holy Spirit gives: gifts like wisdom, knowledge, faith, prophecy, healing, miracles, speaking in tongues, interpreting tongues. The gifts of the Spirit are almost as diverse as the people to whom the gifts are given, Paul says; everyone receives from the Spirit in their own particular and personally conditioned way: “to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit just as the Spirit chooses,” Paul says.

But as much as Paul speaks of the diversity of spiritual gifts, it is how those gifts bring forth unity in the Spirit that Paul really wants to emphasize most. All this variety of gifts, Paul says, comes from one and the same Giver; all these different ways of serving, Paul says, serve one and the same Lord; all these various activities, Paul says, are activated in us by the Spirit that is one and the same. The different gifts of the Spirit work together the way the different parts of the body work together, so that through these many members, one life can come forth.

And that is certainly part of the way we experience being the Church here in St George’s. Part of our sharing here is how our diverse and differing gifts are brought together into a life that is wider and higher and deeper than any of our lives would be alone. Think of all the activities the Spirit activates here among us. Today we are wrapping up our Sunday School year, and this coming Wednesday we’ll be finishing the Wednesday School adult classes, and so today we are celebrating the children and the adults who have shared in the experience of faith formation over the course of these last few months; just think of how the Spirit has been at work in the activities of teaching and learning and preparing for class and making crafts and having new insights and telling stories and all the things that make Christian Education. Yesterday was the parish cleanup and planting day, when our parish grounds and flowerbeds were rescued from the last bits of this winter that just won’t go away, and prepared for the growing and flowering of spring; just think of how the Spirit was at work the activities of planting flowers and washing windows and touching up paint and bringing forth a gift of beauty for this house of our household in Christ. This Wednesday we’ll be participating in a blood drive, and next Thursday is our turn for Loaves and Fishes; just think of how the Spirit is at work in the activities of cooking and serving and cleaning up and giving of our own bodies’ living essence to do good and to be of service in our larger community. And think of how the Spirit is at work in all the activities that don’t just have special occasions, but are part of our weekly—daily!—parish life: the activity of leadership in the Vestry, the activity of preparation and beautification in the Altar Guild, the activity of song in the choir, the activity of gathering here to offer prayer and praise in every Sunday’s worship, the activity of going forth from this place, to take the energy that we receive here and live that energy in our daily lives. All of these activities—and many more activities besides, many more than I can name here—all of them are activated in us by the one Spirit, and in the one Spirit they all hold together as a life that is larger than our own, a life that is the life of Christ made manifest in us.

But of course the work of the Spirit that draws many into one to make the Church is not meant just for the Church alone. It is meant to empower the Church to reach out into the world and spread that magnetic field that can draw many and many more into the love and life of Christ. That’s what our lesson from Acts this morning is all about. The gift of languages that was given by the Spirit to the apostles at the first Christian Pentecost wasn’t given just for the “insiders” there in the upper room—Aramaic was all they would have needed to share the Good News of Jesus amongst themselves. But now here they were, suddenly speaking the native languages of Medes and Parthians and Phrygians and Pamphylians and Arabs and Romans and peoples whose names and languages we can’t even recognize today—here they were, sharing a gift that was clearly meant for the “outsiders,” for those who didn’t yet know the Good News, for those whom God was inviting in, to share the life of Christ in a whole new way. The gift of joy that was given by the Spirit to the apostles at the first Christian Pentecost wasn’t given just for themselves—but the gift of joy that was given was so intense and so powerful and so big that they burst out of their upper room, they burst out into the street, singing and praising and lifting up their hands and shouting Good News so much the bystanders thought they must have been drunk—it was a joy so intense it burst out and invited others to come in. The work of the Spirit makes the Church by bringing many together into one, including many who are not members of the visible Church we see.

And that also is true for us at St George’s. The gifts of the Spirit given to us are not just for ourselves alone, but are meant to empower us to burst out of our own little circle and proclaim Good News of great joy in the special languages the people around us most need to hear. Our flowerbeds speak the language of Christ’s beauty to the folks who cruise by on Minnetonka Blvd day after day. Our building space speaks the language of Christ’s hospitality to Montessori families and Alcoholics Anonymous groups and others who use our rooms and our resources. And there are other languages we can be empowered to speak: the language of affordable housing, the language of immigration and cultural diversity, the language of resisting terrorism while working for justice and peace, the language of simpler lifestyles so that we use up fewer of the world’s resources and hoard less of the world’s wealth, the language of acceptance and compassion that speaks more eloquently than the language of judgment and competition so often spoken in our culture and our social world. All of these are languages, all of these are ways of proclaiming the Good News of Jesus, that communicate beyond our own walls, and invite others to be gathered into the love and joy and life of Christ that is larger than our own, working in us by the power of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit makes St George’s Church by drawing many into one, including many who are not now, and may never be, “formal” and “official” members of St George’s. And that also is part of the gift and the work and the joy of the Holy Spirit in us.

And that is what we are celebrating as we celebrate this day of Pentecost. We give thanks to God today for the memory of the time the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles and began the Church; and we pray to God today to send that same Holy Spirit to us, to empower us to be the Church, to make our many into one in the love and the joy and the life of Christ. For that, let us give all our thanks and all our praise to God.

In the Name of God: the Holy One, the Holy Word, the Holy Spirit. Amen.