Sermon - Pentecost 12th June 2011
Today, Pentecost Sunday, some churches would be decorated with red, yellow and orange balloons, and a big birthday cake, with about 2000 candles on it. Well, we haven't got the balloons, but we do have plenty of fire-colours in our clothing this morning ... and we've got almost 2000 candles alight !
Yes, today is remembered as the "birthday" of the church, about 2000 years ago. It was a day when strange happenings took place in Jerusalem . You heard about it in that first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles. Something happened to that small band of Jesus' disciples that they and others remembered so vividly... there was a sound as if it were the rush of a mighty wind, there appeared to be tongues of fire resting on their heads. They could speak in all the languages of the world.
We can look back on that amazing day and say, OK, well, yes, that was back then... that was Pentecost ... so what ?
I put it to you this morning that, in some way, we have to re-live & affirm the Pentecost experience all the time, but its manner of expression will change depending on the culture of the day, and the circumstances in which we live. And so what I am going to do this morning is to mention a number of characteristics of the Pentecost event which, I believe, we must focus on, so as to re-present , and remember Pentecost for us.
The first thing we need to remember is that those apostles were there, with each other, as one group of people, because Jesus had risen from the dead, because of the resurrection. Seven weeks ago, on Good Friday, we were in this church remembering the death of Jesus on the Cross, but not just that, we were remembering that His disciples were in complete despair that day . They were not with each other. They had separated from each other. Everything that they had expected Jesus to be had been proven wrong. He had not turned out to be the sort of Messiah they were wanting. He had been humiliated, arrested, tortured and had died a horrible death. Most of those disciples had deserted Him ... most of them were not even there on Calvary Hill to see Him die. All their hopes had collapsed.
But, as you know, on Easter Day, and for the 40 days thereafter, those disciples kept seeing Jesus and experiencing His presence in unusual ways, and during that time they had had the chance to reflect on some of the intriguing and paradoxical things He had said to them during His 3 years with them, and they had eventually come to realise that the Resurrection had to take place, that it was in God's plan, and that Jesus had in a sense predicted it. The rising of Christ was God's stamp of approval. It was the guarentee that no matter what Man and the World might do to thwart God's will, God's will would prevail.
These disciples, now, 50 days on from Easter, were convinced of this: that the Resurrection of Jesus was central, crucial to their lives, and an essential element in their minds, their thought processes, the way they saw things. They wouldn't have stayed together, supporting each other, had that not been the case.
Now, is that so for us ? Is the Resurrection of Jesus at the heart of our faith and at the heart of all that we are and do ? I hope so. Easter is the central and most important festival in the church's year. I suspect there are many people who do not realise this -- who think perhaps that Christmas is more important. No, Easter .. the Resurrection ... is at the heart of our faith. Having conducted three funerals recently -- firstly of my own father, and then of two of our parishioners -- I have to remind myself of that central belief that, for the Christian, death is not the end. That's the message of Christ's resurrection. The world .. Mankind ... cannot extinguish us, if we are "in Christ", incorporated into Him.
That belief was a "given" for those first Christians at Pentecost. It should be a "given" for us too.
Then secondly, building on all that, for those first Christians, Jesus had not just risen from the dead, but, so they believed, He was with them forever, in some special way. After the 40 days after Easter had passed, they no longer saw Him, visibly, but they were convinced that His presence was still with them. This is the point of what we call "the Ascension" ... He "ascended into heaven" does not mean that Jesus went up in some sort of spaceship. It means that His godly presence is now available to all people, no matter where they live, geographically, no matter in what century they live in. He is alive for us, personally today -- do we believe that ? Is that our experience ? I hope so. And His life is to be lived in us.
The great Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, in the 1940's, once said that we need an "inbreathing" of God's Spirit, and that that is the Pentecost experience for us at any point in time. He said "It is no good giving me a play like Hamlet or King Lear, and telling me to write a play like that. Shakespeare could do it. I can't. And it is no good showing me a life like the life of Jesus and telling me to live a life like that. Jesus could do it; I can't. But if the genius of Shakespeare could come and live in me, then I could write plays like that. And if the Spirit of Jesus could come and live in me, I could live a life like that."
This is to be our Pentecost experience. Not so much a mighty wind, flames of fire .. but having the Spirit of Jesus in us, inspiring us, in our everyday lives. Are we sufficiently connected to Him, through prayer, through our participation in the eucharist, through our familiarity with what He said and did in His earthly life, as recorded in the gospels. I hope so.
A third feature of the Pentecost experience is that those first disciples were "all together in one place". It was to their "being-togetherness" that the Spirit came. This emphasises to me the absolute importance of church, of being part of a community of faith, of being "in church" regularly, being "altogether in one place" with other Christians. As I have said a number of times, you can't really be a "private" Christian, a solitary Christian. The spirit comes to us when we are together.
A number of implications of this: if "church" is just one of the many activities we are engaged in, then we can easily melt into the mindset that says "I won't go to church today, because this other activity is more interesting, more important" .. we will start to put church on a priority list, and then let its priority slip down the list. It then loses its centrality in our whole being.
That's one implication. Another concerns our understanding of the extent of the church. The church of God is not just St John's Croydon. We are part of a region ... our regional bishop was here last week .. we are part of a diocese, and part of a denomination. "Being together" also means playing our part in the wider church. Next Sunday afternoon I hope many of you will come to KIlsyth as we gather with our fellow Anglicans from Mooroolbark and Kilsyth to spend some time together envisaging our future as Anglicans in these outer Eastern suburbs of Melbourne. Yes, we are part of the wider church -- not just some sort of "club" that is St John's Croydon. Last Sunday afternoon some of you joined me in going to an ecumenical gathering of Christians from a half a dozen denominations, as we celebrated together our common faith.
"Together in one place" -- that must be an essential element of the Pentecost experience, as the people of the church work together, using the many gifts we have been given by God.
The Resurrection of Christ being central to the faith of Christians ... the living presence of Jesus with us ... the community of faith, "being together in one place". The fourth feature of the Pentecost experience was what we heard about at the end of that reading from the Acts of the Apostles: the energy, the enthusiasm, the fervour which those previously- frightened apostles demonstrated, as they spoke in all the languages of the world to the people around them, and as they went out, no , as they were propelled out into the world, to live the good news, the preach and tell about it to all.
That has to be our "Pentecost" experience. Being energised not to stay in this building, worshipping, focussing our attention on what happens inside here, but to go out, to our families, to our workplaces, to the people we meet each week in whatever context .. to go out, sitting where they sit, walking where they walk, speaking their languages. What a daunting task!
But if Pentecost means anything it tells us that the Holy Spirit has no qualms about sending out raw recruits -- and although sometimes it seems to us that God asks to do the seemingly impossible it is worth remembering that when He calls us He equips us and empowers us. It happened to those first apostles, on that day. It can happen to us.