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06/05/22 – The Holy Spirit’s Open Invitation

The Holy Spirit’s Open Invitation

June 5, 2022
Day of Pentecost
Acts 2: 1-21; John 15: 26-27; 16: 4b-15
Rev. Denise Clark-Jones

 

When I was a member of the Committee on Ministry for Great Rivers Presbytery, the issue of interim ministry frequently arose. One of the responsibilities of the COM is to help churches in times of transition, the most frequent situation being the leaving of one pastor and the selection of a new pastor. There are two distinct camps, one in favor of interim ministers and one opposed. But then there is the middle ground, in which most of these committees usually rest – Yes to interims, but with limits. This leads to the question of how long a church should wait before calling a new pastor. Having one pastor leave and then another start immediately creates the problem of the congregation not being prepared for the adjustment of accepting a new pastor and fiercely guarding the ways things were. This makes it very difficult for a new pastoral relationship to begin; new directions are blocked; and communal anxiety can ensue. If the interim pastorate lasts too long, the congregation loses momentum and settles into a malaise. ‘We can’t start anything new until the new pastor gets here.’ This is especially true of churches that have been content for their pastor to keep things going while they observe – and critique — from the sidelines.

In our gospel reading from John today, Jesus is giving his final instructions to his disciples. He has already told them he must leave them, and he has given them instructions to continue his work. yet they cannot imagine how they will continue without him. They are stuck in the relative comfort of the present and the fear of the future. Jesus has told them he will come again, but the return date is left vague. In fact, they’ve been told not to even ask. Jesus does, however, promise them an interim guide for their ministry. This interim will remind them of everything Jesus taught them; and what Jesus taught them was about the kingdom of God.

Thomas has asked the first question: “5 “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6Jesus answered him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” (John 14: 5-7) Unfortunately, these words have been interpreted in a way that supports Christian intolerance of other faiths. This is known as “Christian Triumphalism.” As biblical scholars Ronald J. Allen and Clark M. Williamson have explained: “This statement [Jesus’]

is a doxology – you should praise God for having been given reliable access to God’s grace. It should not be turned into a hammer with which to beat non-Christians.” (1) Once God dwelled with the children of Israel, now God has dwelt with one of those children in a human life lived among them. The covenant with Israel has not been broken, Jesus has extended it, fulfilling God’s promise to Abraham that his descendants would extend throughout all the world.

But this was not enough for Philip, he wanted to see God. What was he thinking!? He is a Jew, and he knows the Hebrew Scriptures. God does not give in person interviews. The tongues of fire Luke describes when God gives the disciples the Holy Spirit are reminiscent of the burning bush from which God first spoke to Moses. Later, on top of Mount Sinai, when Moses receives the Law, he only got a partial glimpse of God’s back, not the face. Jesus has already answered Thomas’ query by explaining they have already seen God because God abides in him. Jesus responds to Philip is: “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me?” (v.9)

Seeing their confusion and inability to imagine how they can be disciples without Jesus’ physical presence, Jesus assures them they will have a “parakletos” to strengthen them for service and guide them in the ways of their Lord. The best translation from the Greek for “paraclete” is an advocate or counselor. Jesus has already told his disciples he will return one day. However, their work is not finished. They can’t coast on their past; they must move forward into the future. But he tells them, in the interim, between the first and second coming of Christ, they will have all they need to do what they have been called to do. Jesus goes further to promise his disciples: “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these…”(v. 12)

Like a parent talking to a child who resists having the training wheels of their bike taken off, Jesus encourages them with the promise they will do even greater works after he is gone. With the training wheels off they will be free to go further than Jesus because his time on earth was constrained by his return to the Father. They would live on, and their work would be taken up by more and more people through time.

Our reading from Acts takes us to the very event in which the gift of the Holy Spirit was first given. In the previous chapter we are told that 120 followers of Jesus were gathered to worship in a house. (Acts 1:5) Suddenly, they became multilingual, but each did not necessarily speak the same new language. The scripture text tells us they spoke, “as the Spirit gave them ability.” The cacophony of sound drew a crowd. The people who made up this crowd were not pilgrims to the festival of Shavuot that was going on at the time, but immigrants currently residing in Jerusalem. (2) Luke tells us the people were representatives of “every nation under heaven.” No national boundary excluded anyone. It’s no wonder some observers thought the multilingual speakers were drunk. They were used to social boundaries based on differences. This was quite an aberration from the norm.

This story is often preached as the reversal of the Tower of Babel story in Genesis when a prideful populace attempted to reach God themselves.  They were punished for their arrogance by having their one language divided into many languages so they could no longer communicate with one another. However, Luke tells us that these 120 people who were filled with the Holy Spirit did not speak one language that everyone observing could also understand. God did not decree that everyone speak the same language. Through the Holy Spirit, God gave these first Christians the ability to speak to the crowd in the peoples’ own mother tongues. The unity of being filled by the Holy Spirit is accomplished with diversity, not by erasing it.

Peter draws the peoples’ attention to the continuity between what God had promised the children of Israel through the prophet Joel and the fulfillment of that promise that day in Jerusalem. Peter quotes from the words of the prophet:

17‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 18Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. (Acts 2:17-18)

Notice there is no exclusion based on gender, age, or social status. Joel says the spirit will be poured out on all, not some. In our own arrogance, we want to make everyone the same – like us. But the scriptures attest to everyone’s value as God’s children. It is God’s intention that we be different, thus difference is good and holy. As a voice from heaven tells Peter later in the book of Acts (10:15), “what God has made clean, you must not call profane.”” Luke tells us that one that day, 3000 people were baptized. That’s a pretty good return for 120 evangelists!

With the current tribalism in our society, public discourse has fallen to such depths of an “us versus them” mentality that we hear people say those that look or act or think differently from themselves do not deserve to live. As the story of Pentecost attests, communication with words is powerful. Too often these words of bigotry and intolerance incite violence intended to end the life of others.

The birth of the Christian Church at Pentecost was initiated by the joy of being recipients of God’s grace through our diversity, not in spite of it. We read in John’s gospel, that the Holy Trinity is a model of unity within diversity. Christ proceeds from God and the Holy Spirit proceeds from Christ and together they form a perfect union that creates, redeems and sustains us. When we affirm one another’s humanity, we also affirm the divinity that God has placed like a pilot light in our being. Through the power of the Holy Spirit that awakens God’s love within us, we can see that light in others.

The miracle of Pentecost offers us a different way than our divisive tribalism. Pentecost is where the Spirit affirms our differences, speaking in ways that each of us can understand—and yet drawing us together, around the same table, into communion. That’s how the day of Pentecost ends, with all these strangers eating together. “So those who welcomed [the] message were baptized, [and] they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayer” (Acts 2:41-42); “they broke bread from home to home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts” (2:46). Let us open ourselves to the Holy Spirit so that we speak and hear words of love that translate into any language and culture of the world.

Amen. May it be so!

 

 

  1. Allen, Ronald J. and Williamson, Clark M. Preaching the Gospels Without Blaming the Jews. Westminster John Knox Press. Louisville, KY,2004, p.212.
  2. Bartlett and Taylor, ed. Feasting on the Word, Year C, vol. 3. Westminster John Knox Press. Louisville, KY. 2010, p.17.

 

 

 

© Rev. Denise Clark-Jones, 2022, All Rights Reserved
Westminster Presbyterian Church | 1420 W. Moss Ave. | Peoria, Illinois 61606
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