Charlotte
Collins Reed
Christ
Church Episcopal
June 4, 2017
Pentecost
When our sons, Slocomb and Caldwell,
were little boys, one of the great challenges of parenting was getting to the bottom
of any particular accomplishment or altercation. Whether something good had happened and they both
wanted credit, or something unfortunate had happened and they each wanted to
blame the other, getting to the bottom of what actually happened was almost
impossible. How two children could come
up with such different accounts of who left the refrigerator door open, or left
the den a mess, or ate the last of the cookies was one of the great mysteries
of parenting.
In some ways, parenting prepared me
well for dealing with Scripture, as Scripture often gives us more than one
account of an event. There are two very
different accounts of creation in Genesis, two stories of Jesus birth and six
accounts of the feeding of the multitudes in the four gospels, and four
accounts of the empty tomb on Easter morning, for starters. But we rarely hear two accounts of the same
event on a single Sunday morning.
Usually, we can take the stories one at a time and hear what that
particular story has to tell us.
Today
is the exception to that rule as today we hear two very different accounts of
how the disciples received the gift of the Holy Spirit. In the reading from Acts, we hear of a
dramatic experience that occurred 50 days after Easter on the Jewish feast of
Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit arrived with the sound of a violent wind and
tongues of flame, giving the disciples the ability to speak in a variety of
languages. In the reading from John’s
gospel, Jesus appears to the disciples on Easter night, breathed on them, and
said “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Which
story is correct?
The fact that we are given multiple
accounts of many important events in Scripture is a great blessing because it
prevents us from saying “God acts this way only.” Multiple accounts remind us that God has
acted in many different ways throughout history and continues to act in
multiple ways in our own lives. If the
Holy Spirit acts only through dramatic events like we hear about in Acts, many
of us would conclude that the Holy Spirit does not act in our lives because
nothing so dramatic has ever happened to us.
But Scripture also tells us that the disciples experienced the Holy
Spirit in a quiet, gentle way, as natural as the breath we breathe. If these
two stories describe ways the Spirit is experienced, then our own stories bear
witness to the Spirit as well.
What
the two Pentecost stories have in common is also important. Just before the descent of the Holy Spirit in
Acts, Jesus ascended into heaven. Jesus’
last words to the disciples were “But you will receive power when the Holy
Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all
Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” After the disciples received the Holy Spirit,
they were to go out into the world as Jesus’ witnesses. In John’s gospel, we hear Jesus say “As the
Father has sent me, so I send you.” In
both accounts, the disciples are given the Holy Spirit and sent out into the
world.
We also hear three different accounts
of the gifts of the Spirit this morning.
The reading from Acts tells us that the gift of the Spirit is the
ability to speak in languages such that everyone around us can hear the gospel
in their native tongue. The reading from
John tells us that the gift of the Spirit is the ability to forgive sins. In 1 Corinthians, Paul tells us that the
gifts of the Spirit are wisdom, knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, miracles,
prophesy, discernment, the gift of tongues, and the interpretation of
tongues. What we hear in these readings
is that there are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit. What the three passages have in common is
that these gifts are given for the common good, not for one’s own personal use
and enjoyment.
At Christ Church, we are blessed with
an abundance of gifts. Collectively, we
have the gifts of teaching, administration, music, wisdom, cooking, flower arranging, compassion,
hospitality, creativity, financial management, the list goes on and on and on. I do not doubt for one moment that we have,
at Christ Church, the gifts for any ministry to which God calls us. Our challenge is always how we use those
gifts together to build up the Body of Christ for the common good and to be
people who are sent.
In
a moment, we will renew the promises we made at our baptism. In baptism, we were sealed by the Holy Spirit
and marked as Christ’s own forever, which is what happened to the disciples on
Pentecost whether with great drama or with the gentle breath of Jesus. We will affirm the foundation of our faith in
the three questions that lead us into the words of the Apostles' Creed. Then we will affirm the way we will live in
response to our faith, using our gifts for the common good and to live as a
sent people. We make those promises as
individuals, but we are called to live out those promises collectively as we
come together to use the many gifts we have been given to make a gospel
difference in the world.
When
we want to know exactly what happened and when the Holy Spirit descended on the
disciples, so we can know for sure how the Spirit will work in our own lives,
Scripture reminds us that the Spirit is not predictable and works in a great
variety of ways. When we take all of our
readings together, we hear from Scripture that Pentecost happens when we are
open to the Spirit, and when we use the great variety of gifts God has given us
for the common good and to be God’s people in the world. Pentecost is that simple, and that demanding.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment