Pentecost

Sermon preached by the Revd Anna Matthews

From a small group gathered together in one place, to a large crowd taking up the streets.

From a timid disciple who’d denied his friend to a bold preacher of the good news of Jesus.

From individuals divided by language to a people intelligible to each other.

From Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.

What makes the difference is the gift of the Holy Spirit.

At the beginning of Acts, just before Jesus ascends, he tells his disciples to stay in Jerusalem and ‘wait there for the promise of the Father.’

And the astonished, bewildered disciples obey. They return to Jersualem, and, along with Mary, the mother of Jesus and some other women, they devote themselves to prayer.

Did they know what they were praying for? Does any of us, in so blithely invoking the Holy Spirit, know what or who it is we are tangling with?

The response to their expectant praying is that a holy hurricane rips through the house, loosening their tongues, opening their hearts, and kindling the fire of God himself within them. The promise of the Father is given.

And we are meant to hear, in this passage, echoes of the Father’s promise as it has already been given. The wind that blows through the house recalls the wind that swept over the dark waters, right at the beginning. Something is stirring to life. Likewise, the presence of Mary among the disciples reminds us that she has already experienced the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, the power of God at work in her, as she said yes to God’s call. God is working now to bring about new birth in us all.

What we hear in Peter’s preaching is that this is not some novel, unexpected thing that’s taking place. This is what has been prophesied from of old: the Spirit will be poured out on all flesh, joining together in one community male and female, old and young, slave and free, breaking down barriers and boundaries and establishing a whole new social order based not on old hierarchies and prejudices but on the freedom of the Spirit and God’s desire for his people.

This is what we see in creation: God’s desire to share his love, for us to live in it, in communion with him. And when we mess that up it’s what we see in the incarnation, as God takes on human flesh and lives as one of us, showing us what his love looks like, showing us that it is stronger even than death – that God will not let sin keep us from him.

This is the promise of the Father: that we can share his life – that our true home is in him, and that he makes a home in us. And through the gift of the Holy Spirit this promise is not deferred for the end of our lives, or the end of time, but is given now. At the end of his sermon Peter’s asked by the stricken crowd ‘what should we do?’ and he tells them ‘repent and be baptized’ so that they will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

To receive the Holy Spirit – which if you’ve been baptized, you’ve already been given – is to be made a participant in God’s life, which is not static. It is to put yourself at God’s disposal, for him to work in you, through you, with you, to fulfil his promise for all creation.

And the Holy Spirit will not leave you unchanged as she acts. New birth, new creation, a home for God – that’s for you, too, not just for others. It was for Peter whose memories of denying Jesus still haunted him. It was for the others among the twelve who’d fled and then crept back, chastened at their cowardice. It was for Mary Magdalene, preacher of a new creation she knew first-hand in her bones, and for all those who came after, who learnt that with the gift of the Holy Spirit their lives were bigger than they’d imagined.

Because what we see, in this account of Pentecost, is that the Spirit arrives bringing courage and hope and proclamation and urgency and strength and zeal. The Spirit calls them out of their smallness and into the wideness of the Father’s promise. And because the Spirit will not rest until the Father’s promise has been fulfilled, the story told of Peter’s life is no longer one simply of denial. Frightened disciples become bold apostles as the Spirit draws them beyond their fears into the freedom of God. And the Spirit will take them to places and to people they’d have found unimaginable, sitting and praying in expectation of the Father’s promise. It will take them to Samaritans and Gentiles, to people of low birth and to the rulers of empire. It will astonish them with the depths of God’s desire for his people and make them brave in proclaiming it.

And this is what the Holy Spirit goes on doing, if we will open ourselves up to the Father’s promise. It will overflow the boundaries we set, from fear or habit or lack of imagination or timidity, and draw us into God’s desire for us and his world. The Father’s promise is that we should be his, and the Spirit will be restless until that promise is fulfilled. The Spirit is disruptive – but not wilfully so. Disruptive rather in the sense of unsettling old certainties – about who we are, about what we can do, about who God loves and who he doesn’t. Because in Paul’s words, it is the Spirit’s work to bear witness that we are children of God. And what we see in Acts, over and over again, is this testimony, starting with the disciples and spreading out through them to the ends of the earth.

It creates distinctive communities, this restless Spirit of God: communities that defy and disrupt established social norms; communities that mix together those whom polite society keeps apart; that give a voice to the voiceless and cut through hierarchies with the recognition of one another as children of God. Communities where those who’d always been told they were outsiders find themselves on the inside; where the poor are fed and justice is practised and the sick are cared for. Communities that look like the sort of community that formed around Jesus, in fact.

Of course, this disruptive Spirit isn’t always very welcome. Because having courage can be hard work, because sometimes we cling to our smallness, because the Spirit asks us to love people we don’t like much and pray for those who’ve hurt us, and joins us in one family with people we’d frankly not have picked. And because the Spirit is hard to control, upsets our cherished traditions sometimes, keeps on working in our hearts until they are more like God’s heart, and sometimes that kind of open-heart surgery is more than we’re willing to sign up for.

But God never tires of giving his Spirt, because God never tires of making us his. This is the promise for which he made us, the promise for which he redeemed us, the promise for which he sends his Spirit. In every generation the Spirit equips God’s people for the work to which he calls them – the proclamation of the truth that we are children of God. Sometimes that will mean burning with the fire of God’s own justice against the oppressions of the world, and all that denies the dignity God bestows on his children. Sometimes it will be the gentle, patient work of loving someone who thinks themselves unlovable. Sometimes it will involve speaking before rulers and authorities and sometimes it will mean labouring in obscurity to help the gospel be considered trustworthy. There is no set formula, no resource manual that will tell you how the gift of the Holy Spirit will arrive in your life. But you will recognise it when it comes – whether as a holy hurricane or a gentle breeze. And you will know it because it will make you more like Jesus, and help you to recognise Jesus in others. So, come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your people, and kindle in us the fire of your love. Amen.