When the day of Pentecost had come . . .
When the day of Pentecost had come… were the first seven words of our reading from the book of Acts. One would think that there is nothing wrong with them. They are merely stating a fact, pointing out the arrival of the Holy Spirit upon the first Church. But I don’t like these words. They have been misused as far as I am concerned ever since then.
My unease is that they seem to refer to the arrival of the Holy Spirit as taking place only on one particular day and do not see it is as an event which began long before that (in fact since the very beginning of time) and has had thousands and indeed millions of manifestations ever since then and continues to unfold daily around and within us. These words, as far as I am concerned have pushed us as North Americans to separate spiritual from religious, they separate one part of the trinity from the other two, they draw a line between the past predictions of how God works and the movement of the Holy Spirit in our days and our times of 2026. As far as I am concerned those seven words set up a problem that we have not dealt with very well: that the Holy Spirit arrived but we have not seen that much of the Spirit since then. Or perhaps it is that we are not quite sure how to name when she has been spotted. We believe in a God known to us in three parts but the role of the Holy Spirit seems to have been whittled and watered down to one event long ago with little or no connection to us here and now. And nothing could be further from the truth. Pentecost is one of the great feasts of the Church up there with Christmas and Easter as we recognize the movement of the Holy Spirit within the lives and the faith of the faithful followers of Jesus still holding on and holding out to his presence. The Holy Spirit arrived but has continued to swoop down and sweep through the lives of countless people ever since then.
When the day of Pentecost had come is exactly the wrong kind of language to use; for we know the presence of the Holy Spirit every day, indeed all days are days of Pentecost if we believe in the trinity of God. All days where we feel the wind, the fire, the language of the Spirit are days of Pentecost. All days where we notice the Spirit moving over creation, or we recognize holiness in another person, or beauty causes us to gasp, or tenderness causes tears to come to our eyes, or moments where God’s hand touches us, breaks through a great silence, so that we know the presence of the One, the Other, the Peace of God upon us. All days where we notice that the words of another touch us in ways we do not expect, or a piece of music stirs within us a closer contact with God, or the wonder of this world breaks into the mundane activities within our lives and we recognize the hand of the Holy Spirit still moving in our world of today. All days where there is a transformation in our heart or our mind and forgiveness is allowed to sneak in or wonder is allowed to grow or gratitude overwhelms us or the word of a child makes us laugh… or cry or the wind blowing on a winter’s night or a fire burning in a campground on a summer’s eve or just a moment where we say “Thank you,” to no one in particular but the Author of Life in actuality. And these things happen all the time… not simply when we open our Bible to consider things of long, long ago where a visit from the Holy Spirit took place but every day, any day when we notice that indeed our souls are connected to the heart of God.
And of course down through the centuries people have felt and known this Spirit. She has stirred and nudged and ruined some plans and created even more grand new ones. Over and over again the Spirit has come to us and we in the Church have not always known what to do. It is hard to pin down wind, it is hard to put out a fire which is out of control, it is hard to argue against the wisdom and word of God. The Church has not always known what do as the Spirit has continued to reveal herself is a variety of wonderful and wondering places. But lots of people have known what to do. In fact they have revelled in the presence of this same Spirit.
William Butler Yeats expressed it this way:
My fiftieth year had come and gone,
I sat, a solitary man,
In a crowded London shop,
An open book and empty cup
On the marble table-top.
While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed;
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness,
That I was blessed and could bless. (from Vacillation)
Janet Lees writes this:
Wild Spirit,
do not let us be tamed
to a life made only
of straight lines.
May we also travel
like the geese,
sharing the load
enjoying the lift,
calling encouragement:
just flying. (from 'Still travelling' in Tell Me the Stories of Jesus)
Thomas Merton wrote this: “… being attentive to the times of the day: when the birds began to sing, and the deer came out of the morning fog, and the sun came up. The reason why we don’t take time is a feeling that we have to keep moving. This is a real sickness. We live in the fullness of time. Every moment is God’s own good time, His Kairos. The whole thing boils down to giving ourselves in prayer a chance to realize that we have what we seek. We don’t have to rush after it. It was there all the time, and if we give it time, it will make itself known to us.
Anne Lamott is quoted as saying that the grace of God, the love of God, the forgiveness of God, the compassion of God is like a spiritual WD-40 that the Holy Spirit spritzes upon us and “the movement of grace is what changes us, heals us and heals our world. To summon grace, say ‘help’ and then buckle up. Grace finds you exactly where you are, but it doesn’t leave you where it found you.”
In a little while in this service two people will come forward. Henry and Allison will stand before all of us and answer a few questions about their faith. And in a few days Jenn Ashton will also stand before all of us and answer a few questions about her faith as part of the ordination service. And in the prayers we will ask that the Holy Spirit will open their hearts to grace and truth. That they may be sent into the world in witness to God’s love. And this is a lot to ask of them. But we believe in a Holy Spirit who arrived not just on one day but on each day. And that Holy Spirit walks with us and will walk with Allison, Henry and Jenn. We believe that this Holy Spirit walks with each one of us because we have heard the whispers of the Spirit, we have seen the wind and the fire, we have known a sense of awe that overwhelms, we have opened our hearts to recognize that the Holy Spirit continues to call each of us into the world to bear witness to another way, the way of Christ so desperately needed in the world of our day. A way where we are called to love our enemy and respect the dignity of every human being. But we feel guided to do this.
Jesus said it this way, “When the Spirit of truth comes, the Spirit will guide you into all truth.” And ever since then the Spirit has continued to blow and burn in the world down through the centuries. Not always in nice neat ways, sometimes troubling ways, sometimes divisive ways but always present inviting us to drink much more deeply of life, if only we would pay attention.
When the day of Pentecost had come. The day of Pentecost has come my friends and has continued to come stirring and shaking and shifting people of all sorts down through the centuries to awaken and take note that indeed the Holy Spirit of God is in our midst. Today is the Day of Pentecost, THE Day of Pentecost: awaken to the Spirit amongst us here and now. The same Spirit that we invite to swoop down on bread and wine to change them and change us. May it be so.
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