Day of Pentecost, Year B, May 19, 2024

Prayer 

Today, O God, you bring to fulfillment the paschal mystery of Jesus your Son.  Pour forth your Holy Spirit on the church that it may be a living Pentecost throughout history and to the very ends of the earth.  Gather all nations and peoples as one to believe, to hope and to love.  We ask this through Christ, with whom you have raised us up in baptism, the Lord who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever. Amen.

From Prayers for Sunday and Seasons, Year B, Peter J. Scagnelli, LTP, 1992.

Some Thoughts on John 15:26-16:15



"...the Spirit gives power to the community of believers not to identify themselves as abandoned or forsaken, but rather as empowered and sent to bear witness to the world that in the events of the Son God's love has indeed been made real and present for all the world. "

Commentary, John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15 (Pentecost B), James Boyce, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

"The temptation when preaching Pentecost is to make the sermon a witness to something that happened."

Commentary, John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15 (Pentecost B), Ginger Barfield, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2015.

"Jesus is not left behind that we might soar into spiritual fantasy and relish the prospects of more magic and more religion. John promises no such flights and is silent about future miracles. The task of the disciples and disciples after them is to bear fruit, to let the seed sown in death rise to new life. Transitional events are minimised. What matters is life and love."

"First Thoughts on Year B Gospel Passages in the Lectionary," Pentecost, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

Jesus begins his teaching several passages before our reading today when he speaks to the disciples about the fact that because of Jesus' own intimate relationship with God he is going to suffer and die; and if they follow him they will certainly suffer and be persecuted as well.  They will be persecuted because the notion that the individual may have a personal experience of God was anathema to the people in religious power of his day and it is anathema to people in religious power today.  In point of fact (and as Bonhoeffer once put it) the grace and mercy received in personal relationship with the Godhead through Christ is the non-religious faith of Jesus.  Direct connection, unorganized, non approved, and unsanctioned, relationship with God through the power of the Holy Spirit is a threatening to institutional threat. For this reason, and for the reason that Jesus is a friend of sinners, he and all who follow him will suffer and many will die.

Jesus then offers to those who are listening, his closest followers, a message that the Holy Spirit will remain with them and that they will not be disconnected either from Christ Jesus or from God himself.  In fact the very nature of a personal relationship of grace, thereby unmediated by the world and its religion, will in point of fact prove the reality of his words.

This grace of the Holy Spirit is given by God alone. It cannot be earned.  This Holy Spirit comfort will put at ease all those who bear witness to it because it requires nothing of approval from the world.  Jesus in his words here is clear that living in the Holy Spirit is a way of life devoid of worldly approval and religious authority. 

One of the reasons that I love the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Communion is that we are (when at our best) trying to live into the challenge of God's Holy Spirit.  We are trying to see it moving in the world.  We see God's grace and mercy challenge our piety.  We see God's grace and mercy challenge our lawlessness.  We attempt to be conscious of the Holy Spirit's presence in the midst of our context.  At our best our mission and ministry is not limited to our church campuses but is meeting the Holy Spirit in the world; both as it sends us out and as it transforms us through our experience of the Gospel in the world.

This Sunday we will, in many ways, mislead our people into believing that Pentecost is the birth of the church.  I want to suggest that at its best the Holy Spirit we may wish to remember is a Holy Spirit that offered relationship beyond the confines of our church with the sinners of the world.  That it reminds us within the church of our smugness and too often self-satisfaction which builds up barriers rather than offering an embrace.  May we on this Sunday, this Pentecost Sunday, be reminded not of God's having birthed a perfect community but of God having invited his people to leave the temple and synagogues in favor of a faith (a personal relationship) that leads the faithful followers of Jesus out into the street to meet the people where they live and in the market place. 

May we on this Sunday rediscover a missionary Holy Spirit that is articulating in the culture of the world (its images, music, economy, and culture) God's grace. And, like the disciples who on Pentecost were given the tongues of the culture which surrounded them, let us pray to be giving tongues to name and call out the Gospel as we find it in the world around us.

Romans 8:22-27

"This seems to be the thrust behind the Spirit interceding for us with sighs too deep for words: a sign that the Spirit is present in our midst, even when no words are exchanged. That presence can make it possible for us to endure."

Commentary, Romans 8:22-27 (Pentecost B), Audrey West, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2012.

"As children of God and joint heirs with Christ indwelled by his Spirit, we are one with creation in suffering, longing, and hope."

Commentary, Romans 8:22-27 (Pentecost), Elisabeth Johnson, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2009.

"It is our vocation to allow Christ to use our hearts. It is our vocation to come to maturity in Christ who is our Truth. We do so by attending to the Christ present in the truth of one another."

"Listening with the Ear of the Heart," Frank T. Griswold, Cross Currents, 1998-99.

Oremus Online NRSV Text

Textweek Resources for this week's New Testament Lesson

Every creature, all of creation, is groaning under the work which is theirs to bring about God's plan in tension with the course that the present time has already set. Followers of Jesus, and the world itself are bearing witness to God's intentions for us. Our inner selves beats against our bodies/mind's desires. We have received grace yet our flesh is waiting its redemption. We are already adopted as Christ's yet we continue in the world and brace ourselves against its trends and winds.

Here is an interesting turn. Paul offers us the reality that the action of saving has already taken place. We see this in the work of Jesus. Yes, salvation is something that lies before us. But here Paul is quite clear - its evidence is behind us. Just like the fullness of our redemption and salvation awaits us, we still experience it here and now. We are drawn towards our being. We are becoming our truest selves.

We know the changes that have occurred in our lives because of our coming to faith. We see the movement of God and God's work on our behalf. We believe, we have faith, that this work is truly meant for us. Yes we see the cross, understand the cross, believe - in our seeing - that the cross is meant for me, for us. But we have faith that this working of salvation out in us is moving us towards God's intended purpose for our lives. This is something not seen but understood. The witness of the Gospel text, the witness of Jesus' own life in Paul's time, these tell us that what took place, what was seen by others and experienced by others, is meant for us as well. So faith brings hope and endurance.

The Holy Spirit bears witness to us that this is true. If we depend upon our Lord and we are open to his aid, through the Holy Spirit, so we receive mutual aid. We are part of the family of God now and so we, like all others, receive the Holy Spirit's support - even when we do not know what we need. Perhaps, it is important to go back her to our beginning. Our purpose lies in the work of God in creation - this life is not meant for our own ends but for the one who created us. We are groaning against the shifts and changes but God is moving us. We have faith that God is moving us. And, that God is not moving us for our own enjoyment, wealth, worldly satisfaction. No. God is moving us towards God's enjoyment, which profits God's mission, and results in a heavenly kingdom. So it is that God's Spirit is with us, moving us, nudging us, guiding us, praying with us, and bringing us to our ultimate purpose.

On this Pentecost Sunday this reminds me that the work of the church, the community of Christians, is not the support of the church itself. The work of the Church and community is the work of God. In the same way the Holy Spirit is working God's purposes out in us and in our church. This is not the same thing as believing that what we experience as the particular flavor of church we have is the end of God's chosen expression. No, the Holy Spirit is moving. We are groaning even now under the stress and strain of a church which seeks to be what God called it to be on the one hand and what we want it to be on the other.

The church has already been saved we might say. We know this is true if we look back at the work of God in Christ Jesus. But that work is being lived out even as we speak.  We have faith that our efforts will be guided by the Holy Spirit as we seek to be faithful missionaries of God's reconciling work. We know that God is moving us, even if the steps of how we become who God invites us to be are unclear. We are groaning too. Oh dear Lord how we groan. But we believe, we have faith, that God is moving us. And, that God is not moving us for our own enjoyment, wealth, worldly satisfaction as a church. No. God is moving us towards God's enjoyment, which profits God's mission, and results in a heavenly kingdom. Where the church does not resemble the kingdom of heaven there we must open ourselves up to the Spirit's guidance.

Acts 2:1-21

"Despite the theological attractiveness of seeing Pentecost as the reversal of Babel, there is little from the ancient historical and religious context to suggest that Luke or his audience would have made such a connection."

Commentary, Acts 2:1-21 (Pentecost A), Mikeal C. Parsons, Preaching This Week, WorkingPreacher.org, 2014.

Sources for this Sunday's First Reading

Luke interprets the events of Pentecost through the eyes of the covenant with Abram. This is an essential ingredient to the story of the Gospel and the mission of the community. Here we see the promise to Abram unfold in reality. All of the work of the Gospel and Jesus' reaching out to the sheep of other folds becomes clear as many are adopted into the family of God through the mission and ministry of the first followers. 

The event itself is worthy of the Old Testament with noise and fire and a great tremendous inbreaking of God into the realm of men. The work of Jesus and his life has moved to the cross, tomb, and into resurrection and now the fruit is to be harvested.

It is the coming of the Holy Spirit. This itself is the fulfillment of God's promise. 

The work of the follower of Jesus is to share the Good News of Salvation to every people through every language, and in every context. Here the diverse vision of God is seen in the gathering of people from all over the known world to receive the first words the Holy Spirit speaks to the world. 

This will be fulfilled in the work of every story of the book of Acts and is shall be the banner call of the men and women who take up the ministry of Christ. 

The Holy Spirit is sending the followers of Jesus out into the world, to speak the peace of Christ, and to serve and care for God's people. The Holy Spirit working in these followers are to be the hands and feet of the God in the world. They are to baptize and proclaim a new age.

Sermons Preached On These Passages:

Displacing God of the Displaced
May 29, 2018, Emmanuel, Houston, May 20, 2018, Pentecost

The Great Invasion of Multi-colored Lobsters and Pentecost

May 24, 2015 Sermon preached on Pentecost at Trinity Episcopal Church in Midtown Houston Texas, Pentecost, 2015

My Confirmation

Jun 20, 2009 Pentecost Sunday, year B, Holy Trinity, Dickensen, Tx.

The Day of Pentecost, Whitsunday, Year A, May 28, 2023

Prayer

O God the Holy Ghost
Who art light unto thine elect
Evermore enlighten us.
Thou who art fire of love
Evermore enkindle us.
Thou who art Lord and Giver of Life,
Evermore live in us.
Thou who bestowest sevenfold grace,
Evermore replenish us.
As the wind is thy symbol,
So forward our goings.
As the dove, so launch us heavenwards.
As water, so purify our spirits.
As a cloud, so abate our temptations.
As dew, so revive our languor.
As fire, so purge our dross

Christina Rossetti (AD 1830-1894)
Read more at: http://www.faithandworship.com/prayers_Pentecost.htm#ixzz1OuaDzu2R

Some Thoughts on John 20:19-31


"What is more, he keeps showing up. As he came back a week later for Thomas, Jesus keeps coming back week after week among his gathered disciples -- in the word, the water, the bread, and the wine -- not wanting any to miss out on the life and peace he gives."
Commentary, Elisabeth Johnson, John 20:19-31, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2014.

"Sometimes I think we have more faith in our fears than we do in God, in the Risen Christ. Have you ever been locked in by your fears?"
"Locked In And Locked Out," Alyce M. McKenzie, Edgy Exegesis, 2013.

Oremus Online NRSV Gospel Text


Our passage begins on the evening of the first day. Ignatius believed this was the moment when Christians began to associate Sunday morning worship with the resurrected Lord over and against the sabbath.  That the first day of the week was a day of work, to begin with, the work God has given us through the Holy Spirit.

Certainly, this is indeed what happens.  Jesus comes and is in their midst.
Raymond Brown points out that this is typical of the Johannine resurrection pieces:

1. A bereft situation
2. The appearance
3. Greeting
4. Recognition
5. Command (John, Anchor Bible, 1028)

He tells his followers that he is sending them out and that they are to receive the Holy Spirit. The passing of the Holy Spirit over to the disciples is a giving of authority. They are representatives of the family of God in their proclamation, mission, and service to others.

We spent time on this passage previously the Sunday following Easter, so I don't want to spend time on the resurrection appearance. I would rather focus on the powers given over to the disciples.

The Holy Spirit has been given to them directly from God.

Throughout the whole of John's Gospel, he has refrained from talking about the disciples as apostles; in this passage, he does this for the first time. (Brown, John, 1036)
We see that the grounding, the theology of the trinitarian community ad extra, serves as the grounding for the disciples being sent by Jesus.

They are holy. They are consecrated by the Spirit to bear the Gospel forward.  This breathing on them echoes the first breaths given to man in Genesis 2.7. This is a new creation that is being made.

We might remember our Holy Saturday Great Vigil and the words spoken in Ezekiel's prophecy (ch 37).  In it the "Son of Man" is told to prophesy to the dry bones: "Hear the word of the Lord...I will cause breath [spirit] to enter you, and you shall live." (1037)

I very much like how Raymond Brown speaks of this moment:

Now, another Son of Man, himself fresh from the tomb, speaks as the risen Lord and causes the breath of eternal life to enter those who hear his word.  In the secondary, baptismal symbolism of John 3.5 the readers of the Gospel are told that by water and Spirit they are begotten as God's children; the present scene serves as the Baptism of Jesus' immediate disciples and a pledge of divine begetting to all believers of a future period represented by the disciples. (Small wonder that the custom of breathing upon the subject to be baptized found its way into the baptismal ceremonial.)  Now they are truly Jesus' brothers and can call his Father their Father (20.17)  The gift of the Spirit is the "ultimate climax of the personal relations between Jesus and his disciples. (1037ff)

This Sunday, we will all celebrate the great gift of the Holy Spirit. Some will call this the birthday of the church, and many will wear read. It will be a festive and exciting time.

We must not lose sight, though, that the gift of the spirit is a missionary gift. The recreation of humanity is not for the church alone but for the whole body of God's people around the world.

We should have a glorious celebration of the Church's new creation, but as the first fruits of the great community of God, the reign of God yet to be fulfilled, and the mission of God in which we have the privilege to participate.

Some Thoughts on I Corinthians 12:3-13

"I would have fit in well in Corinth. The Corinthian Christians' struggles, which Paul refers to in 1 Corinthians 14, resemble my own: jealousy, striving, arrogance, and a propensity to measure one's worth through comparisons with other people."

Commentary, 1 Corinthians 12:3b-13, Matt Skinner, Preaching This Week,WorkingPreacher.org, 2008.

"... [Paul] is thinking about people who make claims that their actions flow from the Spirit. In effect it is indeed possible to curse Christ by what we do and think, even when we are claim to be acting and speaking by the inspiration of the Spirit."

"First Thoughts on Year A Epistle Passages in the Lectionary," Pentecost, William Loader, Murdoch University, Uniting Church in Australia.

Oremus Online NRSV Epistle Text 

On this Pentecost, we attach Paul's writing on the gifts of the spirit.  Of course, Paul is writing because there is an argument over whose gifts are most important and who is more important and what gifts are acceptable...blah blah blah.  It is typical of Christian community to argue not only over who is in and who is out but also what the hierarchy is once you are part of the group.  I think this is not unique to the Christian community but the problem with community in general.

While the community is focused on the spiritual gift of speech, Paul reorients them to understand that there are many gifts.  Deep within the text is a bit of important trinitarian theology.  Paul writes: “Same Spirit ... same Lord ... same God” The Spirit is a gift of the Father; Christ was to serve or minister, and the Father is the creator of all things. This is where and how the gift-giving is rooted in God. Nothing is for personal use. All of it builds up the kingdom, builds up the church, and does God's work in the world.

There is the speaking but also wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracle-working, prophecy, discernment, tongues, and the interpretation of tongues.  We each receive gifts for this work - the work of the church.

Because baptism is through the Spirit, these gifts are through the Spirit as well. Everyone, no matter what their background, family of origin, or place within the Roman social hierarchy - are given gifts for ministry.

I believe that the place where these sermons go wrong - including my own in the past - is when we narrowly define the purpose of the gifts.  I think we do a good job of telling people they have gifts, that God receives them all into his kingdom, and that they are each blessed and chosen by God for his work. We fall down on this message when we so narrowly focus on the gifts so as to imply that their use is only within the four walls of a church building.  When we do this, we create a separate world apart from the world that God came to save.

God does welcome us all into his family. Regardless of who we are and where we have been, he radically forgives and welcomes the prodigals.  He does this so that the world may know him and be reconciled.  The work takes place out in the world. The kingdom gifts are given to each and every person so that in their families, in their work, and in their life - in general - they may be a witness.  God has not raised all of us up, go through this extraordinary ordeal, and sent his Holy Spirit so that we might figure out how to keep the lights on in an empty church.  Our gifts are given for evangelism - spreading the Good News of Salvation through the unique witness of God in Christ Jesus, AND our gifts are given that we might serve our neighbour and, in so doing, serve the God who created and has made all things - who gives life and light and love.  That is a much more important mission, and it is the mission for which these gifts have been given.

Some Thoughts on Acts 2:1-21

Oremus Online NRSV First Text 

As many are aware, there are several passages that describe the moment in which the Holy Spirit descends upon the disciples. John’s version is very much an imparting from Jesus as he breathes on them and gives them peace. Luke’s is the story of the mighty rushing wind and it is more likely the popular version people remember.

In Paul’s sermon at Pisidian Antioch he says, “[Jesus is the fulfillment of] the holy and faithful things of David.” (Acts 13:13-41 as referred to in connection with this passage by Richard Hays in Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, 232.) Luke is clear regardless of who is speaking, Peter or Paul, that Jesus is the fulfilment of the Isaiah prophecy that God’s reign will be victorious and that it is meant for the whole world. The Gospel authors, Luke included, read the Old Testament as the prefigured and prophetic work of the Word at work in the world.

The coming of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples is clearly the way/manner in which this gospel message of fulfilment will be taken into the world. And, the coming of the Holy Spirit (as discussed in previous passages on Peter’s speech) is also part of the fulfilment itself. For while Jesus is the culmination of the work of the Word, it is the Holy Spirit that shall reweave and restore creation and humanity. And Jesus is to be the Lord of all.

This is all clouded in the midst of our celebrations of Pentecost Sunday. The message will be muddled by reading the story in different languages. It will be obscured by the celebrations of the “birthday of the church”. It really isn’t a story about the inside, but our celebrations tend to reinforce a stayed church institution and hermeneutic of attraction. The story is instead one of sending, of going, of being empowered with gifts for the journey and being unmoored from our appointed seats at the table to a world hoping for light in the midst of a shadow. Pentecost is NOT about the birth of a church it is about the ever-expanding reign of God and the Good News of the Gospel of God in Christ Jesus outside our church boxes and upper rooms and actively spreading into the world around us.