The Pentecost Question

Today is the Major Feast Day of Pentecost. On this day we recall when we first received the Spirit of God, the essence of the Christ, the Advocate, the third person of the Trinity. In terms of the life of our faith, it is on par with Christmas and Easter. Lacking the consumer marketing status of either of those and coinciding with high school graduations and the beginning of the summer vacation season it has taken, not even backseat, but trunk status, in the increasingly secularized life of the church.  I am particularly grateful for the balloons and festive flowers and to all of you who are wearing read today to mark the occasion.

The day begins with this lesson, that reads like a selection from a science fiction novel: "When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.  Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, 'Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? …. in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power. All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, 

‘What does this mean?’”

The lesson from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians will spell out the supernatural gifts of the Spirit that each of us has received; gifts which grow in us if we give them attention: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.” 

To borrow from Acts: What does this mean?

And finally, from the Gospel of John is reported the ghostly appearance of Jesus whom no locked door can prevent, and whose very breath imparts the Holy Spirit: “…the doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked… Jesus came and stood among them and showed them his hands and his side…. he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” 

What does this mean?

When I read these accounts and take into view the supernatural specter of the whole of the biblical account - from creation to the great flood and plagues of frogs and locusts and rivers that run with blood, and horns that take down great walls, and the burning bush and the parting of the sea and dreams that changed lives, not to mention the course of history on many occasions, and the hundreds of visitations of angels - I could write an entire book just on the supernatural occurrences of our canon. Today, this part of the life of our faith is in our face in a big way - it is inescapable. 

But what does it mean?

This insight from English Benedictine monk and author, Bede Griffins, who served India for over 50 years is helpful:  “In all these religious systems the danger is that the logical structure and rational doctrine will obscure the mystical vision, so inherent is the tendency of the rational mind to seek to dominate the truth which it should serve. This is the danger of all religion. It begins with a mystical experience, the experience of the seers of the Upanishads, of the Buddha under the bo tree, of the Hebrew prophets and the apostles at Pentecost, of Mahomet receiving the message of the Koran. But this experience has to be put into words; it has to descend into the outer world and take the forms of human speech. Already at this stage it is open to misinterpretation; the conflict between the letter and the spirit begins. Then the logical and rational mind comes and creates systems of thought: heresies and sects spring up, and the Truth is divided. This is due to the defect of the rational mind, imposing its narrow concepts and categories on the universal truth yet it cannot be avoided because the Truth must be proclaimed.”

Firmly girded in the written word, Christians have managed to largely domesticate the events of Pentecost. Let us be clear, they are astounding. To say that they are ‘supernatural,’ to set apart them from normal, human experience, is a way of capturing them and imprisoning them in cages of suspended belief. Jesus spent his entire ministry exposing a world that is perhaps more real than the world we claim as reality. But the truth is that the Cosmic Christ is not at all of another world - is not super-natural - but is very much the fabric of what makes up the world we inhabit in this very moment. The giving and receiving of the Spirit - invites us to share the in-habitations of the unseen, invisible, indisputable sacred world of the divine.  But how do we cross the divide?

Last Friday at the coffee group, David Stinebeck told us about a great veterans graveyard in Bath where there are some 13,000 laid to rest. It is so large that most can simply drive through it, which is a gratifying experience in itself. But David said something that really struck me. He said that if you really want to experience the place you need to park your car and walk the grounds of the cemetery and read the gravestones and immerse yourself in it allowing yourself to be moved by the experience of being surrounded by so many people who gave their lives in military service; that there was no comparison between driving through it and walking through it. 

I submit to you, that the same is true of religious life. Most just drive through - and we do so with great devotion. We are heroically busy with the work of ministry, with the physical labor of mission, and participation in the worship life of the church. It is entirely possible to fill our entire lives with the works of religious life and still be just driving through.

The church year is filled with invitations to park the car and walk instead. Today however, reaches past invitation - it is a portal - a door of sorts. A portal through which we may enter a passageway of otherworldly events and find our way into an alternate reality that coexists with this one; the world of the Cosmic Christ who cannot be held back by locked doors, that death does not destroy but sets free. It is no less than the kingdom of God. To walk means to see the created world as sacred and human constructs for what they are. To walk is to know that each of us is far more powerful then we could have ever imagined. To walk is to know that time is cyclical and not linear. To walk is to know that our dreams are windows and that the divine resides in everything that is. To walk is to know that we are simply stardust and temporary but our souls are eternal. To walk is to know that we are bound to the Holy Spirit; one body, many parts, but one and only one body.  To walk means becoming aware of the other world, the spirit world, the habitation of the godhead that is all around us – to know that there is but only a thin veil between this and that. Do not believe because you see, but see because you believe. 

Bede Griffins went on to say: “The divine essence, the Holy Trinity, is totally present in every particle of matter, every atom, and every electron. However you would like to divine the universe, the whole creation is totally pervaded by God. The cosmic religion has this awareness of God pervading the whole creation which we, as a whole, have lost.” Another great mystic once said, "If you can't see God in all, you can't see God at all."

I, therefore, invite you to ask yourself one question: What does this mean?