Pentecost 2017

7:37-39

Today is Pentecost Sunday, the day we celebrate the giving of the Spirit as a result of the Ascension of the Risen Christ. This is a day of great celebration and unnerving responsibility. It is both a blessing and a challenge, a day in which we move out of the shadow of the incarnate Christ in the shape of Jesus and are left alone with the Spirit to usher in the kingdom of God.

 

It is easy to get caught up in the glorious scenes depicted in the book of Acts. It sounds almost like a scene from any major Hollywood blockbuster – big, bold and life changing. And it is, or at least can be. Here there are dramatic symbols of tongues of fire and a universal language of love and hope. All are able to hear the same voice at the same time. In the moments of revelation they stand together imbued with the power of the Ascended Christ and speak and hear as one.

 

John, as he is wont to do, editorises Jesus’s proclamation with the words “Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive..” Jesus is offering himself as the source of the water of continuing life and John clarifies that this will only happen when the Spirit comes. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and John always has great hindsight. In this case John’s hindsight brings with it the insight of cause and effect.

 

John’s Jesus says, “‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” He rightly notes that this is not a natural response of human beings to an encounter with the Mystery we call God, that this will not happen without the input of grace, of a gift we are unable to see or consciously receive but that comes to those who stand with the Cosmic Christ unconditionally, without having to seek it.

 

And the effect of such a gift is an outflowing of that same Spirit in the form of love, respect and wholeness by those who claim Christ as their own. Jesus says this flow will be life giving, life-enhancing, life-watering. It will be as water is to the human body and to all creation, the vital and necessary source of the ongoing existence. We can not live without water and we can not live into Christ without the Spirit.

 

Let us take a little time to imagine a world in which such a spirit was freely flowing from all who believed. Let us image a country or even a community where such a spirit was freely flowing from all who believed. Let us imagine a church in which such a spirit was freely flowing from all who believed.

 

Then let us take the same time to  look around us and see what is really the case. A world in which violence and selfish takes pride of place, communities and countries in which people are marginalised and excluded and churches in which bullying and violence is done daily.

 

In the last week or so I have spent time with clergy who have left their places of ministry this year because of bullying by parishioners. These are good and experienced clergy in parishes here in our city. They have been criticised without reason, bullied by those who resist change or simply want their own way and people within their parish have threatened some with violence. Another priest recounted a conversation with parish councillor who asked who we were reconciling with during National Reconciliation Week. When she said the aboriginals the person responded with, ‘That’s ok, we don’t have any of those here.” The fact that the priest is obviously indigenous in appearance and had been open about their background during the two years tenure seemed to have been completely missed by the person in question.

 

As we talked I saw broken people who have been victims of others fear and anxiety, who have been made scapegoats for others personal insecurities and who have ceased to be persons but simply priests. I have had these experiences throughout my ministry, some of these have occurred here. As I said in my paper at the Carmelite symposium on Thursday,, “In our interactions with others there is often a crucifixion, and it is not Jesus who is crucified.”

 

We know that Pentecost did not result in a problem free church. The book of Acts is full of conflict and the history of the institutional church is replete with scapegoating, inquisition and violence; innocent people have been destroyed over and over again by those who claim the Spirit of Christ. We excuse it as politics, human nature and well, that’s the way it is.

 

Jesus is definite, that is not the way it is to be. He says clearly, “‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” Shall flow not may flow, on a good day will flow, when they have had a good night’s sleep or any other rider. It is “shall flow” Now we know that is not always the case for ourselves and for others and we need to ask ourselves why?

 

Are we awake to our own frailties and foibles, and our biases to stymie the flow from ourselves to others? Are we able to take our selves out onto the front veranda and have a full and open conversation with ourselves about how we speak to others, how we demand our own way, how we hold onto what we have and have come to value?

 

Self-reflection is vital to both human and, in our context, faith growth. Without the capacity to look closely at our motivations and the impact of our words and actions on others and change pour behaviour, we will continue to wreck havoc on others in our churches, communities and the world.

 

The coming of the Spirit is a gift but it is not a gift to be corralled for ourselves or recognised in major events. It is a gift that we can only receive if we allow it to flow freely through us and to do that we have to get out of the way. We are to take ourselves to task and be prepared to step away from long held prejudices, understandings, practices and opinions and make room for compassion, inclusion, welcome, mystery and not knowing if we are to be source of living water. 

Pentecost and the Pebble

Acts 2:1-21 & John 14:8-27

Today is Pentecost Sunday the day, Ryusho Jeffus suggests, "Like a pebble dropped into a quiet lake, the Spirit created a ring in the water." Pentecost, like other major festivals, are not just days on a religious calendar or festivals that signify one off events, events that have an historical date and place but are a part of the fabric of faith. They are then, now and future events directly connected to our everyday existence, as real and experiential now as they were by those who witnessed the very first event.

Pentecost is no benign event. Peter’s speech makes it very clear, the coming of the spirit is a powerful interruption to the way things are. It is disturbing, it will disturb us and the world we live in. We will not be the same. It comes not quarantine us from the dangers abounding all around us, but to empower us to remain faithful in the midst of such turmoil.

The truth about Pentecost is very simple, both for the writer of Acts and John, the coming of the spirit of Jesus into the life of the world is not about power for powers sake, knowledge for knowledge sake or presence for comforts sake.

Rick Morley suggests that “At the very least our spiritual lives are meant to be a pilgrimage, where the dangerous place is the place that gets too comfortable: stagnant." For the disciples who are need reassurance all would be well in both stories, there is no such thing if we require it to be experienced in power to have our way, knowledge to control all things or an unending comfort that protects us from the vagaries of life. It simply won’t happen.

Pentecost is the pebble in the world, the reverberating presence of the spirit stirring up life and engaging with the chaos we live amongst. The reverberating presence is a power for unity’s sake, a wisdom for compassion’s sake and a presence for struggle’s sake. The spirit empowers us to life our life to the full, reminding us our lives matter, not for what they give us as individual people but our lives matter to others and for the possibility of life for them. We do not live in isolation and Pentecost empowers us to live for others. Thomas Merton reminds us that “We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another.”

Pentecost reminds us love, or compassion, the deep care for self and another, is vital if we are to live full and vibrant lives. This is not about me first violence, I grab all for myself at your cost, I win you lose. This is truly about living a life empowering others to win, to achieve a fulfilled life, a life as full as ours.  Thomas Merton writes: “Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. That is not our business and, in fact, it is nobody's business. What we are asked to do is to love, and this love itself will render both ourselves and our neighbours worthy.”

Pentecost is available to us in the midst of the struggles we encounter as we work to help others gain life, as struggle to maintain a liveable world, and as we move forward together in a world that so often feels like it is falling apart. Pentecost is not a fair-weather experience. It is an experience that holds up in the roughest weather. When we feel the most powerless and out of control we are to remember we hold within us the oneness of God n the form of the spirit of Christ. We are not alone and never can be if we are directed toward the love and compassion of God in the world. People often ask me how to be sure they are doing the will of God. The answer is simple, do the loving, compassionate act, especially the costly act, the act that leaves you changed, broken and renewed.

Merton’s signature prayer speaks for us clearly on this Pentecost Sunday:

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

Today we come for a baptism. What a great day for a baptism.  We will remember the vows we make and the hopes we have.  We will make a confession of faith and confession of the kind of faith we hope this young person will, at some point in their life embrace faith for themselves, live out this their feast day. May the fire of Pentecost illuminate theirs and our lives land the wind of Pentecost blow freely through our living. Amen.

Pentecost - Being Christ in the World.

John 15:26 - 16:15

 

 

Today is Pentecost Sunday, the day of the breaking in and breaking out of the Spirit in the lives of all who live a life of love and compassion in Christ. To be en christos is to be empowered to live and love in a manner which challenges the accepted ways of the world. To, in fact, be Christ in the world. You. Yourself. No-one-else.

 

No longer is there a Jesus to turn to for direction, teaching, hope, advice and spiritual comfort. You are on your own. You are to speak as if you are Jesus and to act as if you are Jesus because, for John, you are. And you will experience life just as Jesus did. For you are mystically one with Christ.

 

John writes about the coming of the Spirit at a time when we associate Pentecost with miracles, speaking in tongues and other super-natural events, and yet that seems far from what John has in mind. No where in this farewell discourse does he mention the doing of miracles or speaking in tongues or ecstatic experiences s being the lot of the those he was writing, his community which was beginning to feel the wrath of persecution and the struggles of remaining faithful even within the synagogue.

 

One would have thought if these were to be the tools of a disciple’s life, John would have spoken strongly and clearly about the power available. He doesn’t. Instead he links the disciples lives and experience of life directly to that of Jesus and stresses that the Christ is now in them as God was in him and that is all they need.

 

Jesus is saying that even if I go away, the meaning I came to bring will not disappear. What I have done is to open to you a new understanding of what it means to be human. Trust it. Now that it has been opened, it cannot be closed again. Spong writes that Jesus continues with; ‘The spirit of truth, which proceeds from the father, will come to stand where I have stood.’

 

David Ewart suggests "Whatever else we may want to say on this day of Pentecost about the Spirit, it is important to notice that Jesus always refers to the Spirit as the Spirit of truth. And in John truth is always the way, the life, the light, the joy, the friendship."

 

Here we discover a mystical and mutual indwelling bringing into existence a new being in relationship. It is no longer one of authority but of indwelling friendship. It is a new way of engaging with the divine. The divine is no longer up there, beyond the clouds, but has entered life, your life, my life in the form of the very spirit of truth. This was the spirit we saw in Christ and now will be visibly evident in the lives of those who form the ‘body of Christ’. Us.

 

William Loader, of Murdoch University says, "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."

 

Our life and lives are transformed by the indwelling Christ. It is our actions, thoughts, experiences which become the visible presence of God in the world. Pentecost is not about the supernatural crashing into the world in the form of special effects and magic tricks, it is the empowering of ordinary people to do ordinary things so that extraordinary changes take place in people, places and things.

 

In the Anglican Church there has been a process for young people to take communion after confirmation. When I was a school chaplain I used to alternate the services with 2 out 3 services for the High School students being a Eucharist. Almost all of the young people had neither church background nor any religious education in relation to the sacraments. Yet when the invitation was given many would come forward to take communion. Fortnightly 25% of the 600 students did.

 

Some teachers and other clergy questioned to authenticity them taking communion. Yet these young people made a conscious decision to come forward as did those who decided to stay in their seats. For both groups this was not simply following the crowd but a deliberate act of the will.

 

And it was a truly Pentecost experience every time. They would look directly into you eyes as you distributed the sacrament, moving from bread to wine respectfully and deliberately. While they may not have been regular church attendees outside school, their reverential actions spoke loudly about a deep sacramental and mystical experience of God. They were experiencing being in Christ. They trusted what was within them and stepped forward in faith to receive.

 

John’s Jesus speaks to the ordinary person, saying I know what it is like to be a human who is different to those around me, to march to a different spirit. Jesus says I also know the spirit is sufficient for all your needs, not only your physical needs, but your need to make decisions, to live in a certain manner, to endure hardships and persecutions.

 

It is perplexing when we see the Spirit at work, and adults even Christian adults, respond with questions and doubts, unable to accept that God is at work in ways and in people outside of what we perceive as the normal spiritual way. We simply shut down Pentecost.

 

Here we sit amongst a community of people who are open to possibility. That is why they bring their children to ballet, make school lunches, run exercise classes. It is all about what is now and will be in the future. It is about awakening the spirit with in, going beyond the mind that is. It is the mystical ordinariness of the incarnated spirit of God alive in the daily activities of human beings.

 

In an experience known as the Louisville Epiphany, Thomas Merton expresses what this Pentecost event is, and it is no different to the first event in Acts.

“In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness… This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud… I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

 

We are challenged on this Pentecost Sunday to see the supernatural possibility in the natural, to see God’s spirit already at work in those around us and to find ways to engage and to be en christos with them. We are not to demand that they change or convert to our thinking but to find ways to befriend and to compassionately be one with them. In doing so we open up the miracle of Pentecost and bring about a new world for all. Amen’

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Peter the Reluctant Learner Comes Alive!

Acts 2:1-21

Today is Pentecost Sunday, often referred to as the church's birthday, the day when God poured out the Spirit on the early church gathered in Jerusalem. It was an amazing spectacle and it is this spectacle we often get caught up in. And it would have been so easy to have been swayed by tongues of fire, roaring winds and otherwise mono-linguistic people speaking in foreign languages. This story of God breaking in on, not just the disciples though they were there, but devout Jews and people from every part of the known world is a story too good to ignore, yet we often drain it of it's power and relevance for us today.

This story is an example of experiential learning, the type of learning we search for in our teaching, parenting and living. We are called to become involved in this event which is being experienced by us and by people all throughout the world at this very moment. Jesus promised to send the Spirit to teach, to breakdown, to unify and to celebrate the creative and redeeming wonder of God, and Pentecost is that day.

The wonder of teaching is surprise, and as teachers, if we lose the capacity to be surprised by our material, our students and our selves, our teaching becomes static, lifeless and dead.  Each day we are surprised by students, students who respond with amazing insights, attention and participation  we were not expecting, not at least from 'that' particular student.  Marking Religious Education assignments I have been surprised by the students who have surprised me with the quality of their work and their insights into the world around them.  These haven't been the brightest and the best, just ordinary students who have given of themselves in a way that says, 'I am listening and I am capable of catching you off guard.'  When we are not looking something amazing happens. That is Pentecost in action, that is the Spirit of God continuing to create wonder and blessing in places we consider dead, not alive, barren and unproductive.

Peter gets up to speak, Peter the petulant, the impulsive, the one who speaks before thinking, the one who cut off the soldiers ear with his sword, the one who denied Jesus three times, gets up to speak in the midst of this amazing moment. Peter speaks without hesitation, plainly and powerfully, no impulsive sayings, no over the top rhetoric - just good plain speaking knowledge - he speaks what he learnt when Jesus was with them. Peter becomes the archetypal student, the student we hope we teach. He gives us hope that those in our classes who mimic the 'old' Peter - Peter the student -  will become Peter, the learner who now acts on what he was taught:

• He is aware - of what is happening, of who is there, and of the importance of the occasion;
  
• He applies reason - 'These men are not drunk' - and asks those listening to take this situation seriously,
• He is contextual - he remember's the prophets words and quotes them as the reference for this moment in history.

Peters speech in it's entirety reflects the power of experiential learning.  While Peter had spent 3 years with Jesus, he had also spent a lifetime with the Torah and the Jewish traditions as well as in the world as a business, fishermen, son, husband and parent. Peter gathers together all the learning which had come his way and uses it here to teach those who were gathered from all over the known world and who had, many of them, a similar understanding of the Jewish scriptures as he.

Peter would have recognised in the diversity of languages and peoples the image of the Tower of Babel where God brought into being individual languages so that people could not communicate as before.  Now they, despite their diversity through the primacy of language, are brought together to experience the unity that comes from Spirit.  Note that no language is discarded, no difference is erased, they still have their languages and their ethnic and cultural differences, but they are united through the power of the Spirit. They are one, but different. Diversity becomes a strength not a weakness, and they are challenged to engage and learn from each other in the glow of Pentecost.

Luke has Peter dismantling the arguments of those watching, the devout Jews, who accuse the crowd of being drunk.  When the Spirit surprises, our natural reaction is to find an excuse, a way of rationalising what we have seen so that we can avoid embracing what is there.  The challenge to the conformity of the devout Jews to an ethnic Jewish religion, to the idea that they and they alone are Gods' people, and that that God only speaks to and through them, was powerfully experienced by them at this moment.  All of a sudden centuries of accepted teaching, learning and expectations have been challenged to the brink of collapse, how do we respond? Let's find reasons and excuses to trivialise and dismiss it out of hand.  That way we can go on doing what we have always done and not have to learn something new.

Students and children (even ours) do that to us each day.  We have preconceived ideas what teaching and learning looks like, what particular students or children are like and what we can expect from them and, even when they surprise us, we often simply dismiss that as a one off and fail to embrace the learning in that moment for ourselves.

Students and children (and people in general) learn and process their learning in ways that are particular to them.  They often only learn when those who teach them are no longer in the room. Peter is forced to recall his teaching, to process what he has learnt and to get up and present it without notes, powerpoint slides or a rehearsal.  He speaks off the cuff and has to rely on what is with in him, much of which he was still processing, yet here he is giving the speech which set the church up for the future and him as the leader of that church.

In my RE classes I have a number of Peter's and at least one by that name. I have been driven to distraction by these young boys and girls wondering when their disruptive, some times disrespectful, sometimes oppositional behaviour will stop and they will begin to learn. I said to a fellow teacher on Thursday after a particular difficult year class, 'Tell me again, why do we do this?"

One student hadn't submitted his assignment, and when challenged said he would do it sometime, I said 'sometime isn't good enough, tonight is'. I marked some of the others work and was surprised at both the quality and the insights into contemporary issues and the thinking of the Apostle Paul.  I met 2 boys on the stairs and told them they had done good and asked permission to publish their work for others to see. One said yes straight away, the other said no, until I told him it was for other schools and not students at our school, then he was very happy.  I learnt something about that young man right there, how he sees himself and how he wants to be seen. He was proud of his work but he didn't want to stand out amongst his peers.  Later on that night, at 6.30, an excellent assignment came through from the boy who said he would do it sometime!

As teachers we, just as Jesus did and God before him, become frustrated at the lack of obvious and visible response from the students in front of us.  The Peter, James and John's in our classrooms disrupt, interrupt and are abrupt, but they are learning and will activate and implement that learning as and when they and the moment is right. Our disappointment is just that, our disappointment, not theirs. Jesus knew Peter had it in him, that's why he told him he would be the Rock on which he would build the church. Even Peter didn't believe him!

Here at Pentecost, Peter comes of age and his learning matures and bubble forth like a new wine, empowered by the surprising breaking in of God's moment and Spirit. Pentecost is the promise of the hidden, the unseen, the previously unknown to break forth in diversity and surprise.

Our task? To stay awake and not resort to our preconceptions, ancient practices and accepted wisdom. The Spirit will surprise us, but we have to be awake to be surprised!

Being in the mystery

"Being in the know is the booby prize. Being in the mystery is the grand prize", says quantum physics scientist Fred Alan Wolf.

Life is a mystery. What happens next will always surprise us and when we think we have it under control it turns out to be not so. Wolf suggests that when we embrace mystery as the normal shape of existence then we open ourselves up to an exciting and interesting life. But if we settle for what we know, and try and fit life into that narrow and limited understanding of the world, we settle for less. By settling for less we condemn ourselves to always be disappointed and looking for answers.

Wolf challenges us to sit in the mystery of life, to resist the temptation to find easy and comfortable answers and to avoid embracing the modern myths of safety, happiness and solutions through consumerism. All around us we are asked to accept the answers of others, often others with knowledge and power, governments, drug companies, advertisers, multi-nationals, institutions and more. Some how the way we see the world as an ordinary person is discarded for that of those who are deemed to 'being in the know'. Even the church is not immune to this form of consumerism, knowledge and power with some within it claiming to 'being in the know', knowing the will of God for all and having the definitive answers to the problems we face each day.

Yet, the last two Sundays - Pentecost and Trinity - asks us to be open to 'being in the mystery' of creation, redemption and the spirit. To be open to the surprising God whose ways are not the same as ours and whose answers are unlike those we seek. God asks us to empty ourselves of 'being in the know' and be filled with the emptiness of 'being in mystery'. A life of unknowing which, paradoxically, fills us with the knowledge which saves us - the redemptive knowledge of love and truth experienced in the mystery of being alive in this world.

So I agree with Wolf - "Being in the know is the booby prize. Being in the mystery is the grand prize." But some times it is uncomfortable.....