Pentecost (sermon)

“Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and still you do not know me?” That’s what Jesus says to Philip at the beginning of today’s Gospel reading, and they’re words that speak to my own doubts and uncertainties. Sometimes and in some places I’m sure and confident about what I believe, but that’s not true all the time. Sometimes faith’s a struggle, and my sense of being called gets weak and faint. And maybe Jesus is asking the same question of me: “Have I been with you all this time and still you don’t know me?”

Pentecost was one of the big Jewish festivals, not as important as the Passover, but big enough to bring a lot of people into Jerusalem. The wine harvest happened at Pentecost, which is why some people were quick to dismiss the joyful band of disciples that day as having drunk too much of the new wine.

But they’d been filled with the new wine not of the grape but of God’s Holy Spirit. And all the ifs and buts of faith, all its uncertainties and inhibitions, had been lifted from them, to leave them full of wonder and delight: each of them experiencing God’s love in a deeply personal way: as flames, distributed, and resting on each of them - that’s how it’s described. But also as something shared and bringing them into a new closeness together, as they were so powerfully made aware of the closeness of God, and the triumph of his love.

I’ve got lots of favourite hymns, one of which we’ve already sung this morning: “Come down, O love divine.” Any top ten of my favourites would probably be different on any different day. But if there’s one hymn I think would always be there, it’s the one that begins “There’s a wideness in God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea.” These days it’s often sung to a great new tune which must be of fairly local origin as it’s called “Corvedale”. But I also sing it to an old Welsh tune as a solo at concerts; and I sang it recently at the memorial service for a friend.

I like this hymn so much because its theme about how when our faith gets officious and judgemental and narrow minded we’ve lost touch with God’s generosity and grace. And these words especially always strike home: “But we make his love too narrow by false limits of our own, and we magnify his strictness with a zeal he will not own.” I’m sure God always sees further than the narrow judgements we make, and is more generous by far than our moral strictness. The Holy Spirit came upon the disciples on that first Christian Pentecost as a direct experience of transforming love. They were so overcome with joy because they knew, not just as an idea or doctrinal statement but as something that ran through them like fire, just how much they were loved. That’s why they went straight out onto the streets to tell people.

But there was a day after Pentecost, and a day after that. Even for those first fired-up Christians there’d be days when faith was more a slog than a dance, days when the skies and the streets were cold and grey. Last week at morning prayer I was reading from the first Letter of John; and in chapter 2 John writes about those in whom the fire had obviously cooled, for they’d left the fellowship and gone their own way.

Nearly forty years ago I was made a deacon, and I remember the day clearly. It felt like Pentecost: I was on a real spiritual high, with the sense of God welcoming me in with the gift of his Spirit, on that special Sunday. But I remember the Monday that followed too, when the real task of ministry began, and my sense of being fully called and equipped wasn’t quite so strong.

My ministry’s never been an easy ride. It’s included some great times, but sometimes I’ve fallen out of love with the Church, and at times it’s annoyed or appalled me. But I haven’t always got it right either. As Paul wrote, God entrusts his message of love to mere earthenware vessels, to us fallible and breakable human beings. At times we do make his love too narrow. But Jesus has promised not to leave us without help: to send his Holy Spirit.

On that first Christian day of Pentecost, narrowness was done away with, and barriers were broken down. People from all over the world could hear the apostles speaking to them in their own language. Amazing! So what really happened?

People from all over the place could hear good news preached in a way they could understand. They’d all have been Jews, or else proselytes, believers who worshipped alongside Jews. It took a bit longer for the Gospel to reach across the barrier that separated the Jewish world from the world beyond. And probably all these people spoke Greek, since Koine or common Greek was very widely spoken across the Roman Empire.

Not a real miracle after all then, you might say. But a miracle is much more than a magic trick. The miracle of Pentecost isn’t really the speaking in tongues, however that actually happened; it’s the fact that, as those tongues of fire rested on the heads of the disciples, the barriers were broken down between what’s divine and what is of the earth, between the sacred and the secular, and between every sort and class and race of people.

God’s love is for everyone, and within that love we see one another and understand one another in a new way. Each one of us is someone loved by God, someone bearing his image. Wherever we are, God is with us, longing for us to turn to him and open our hearts to him, longing to fill us with the radiance of his love: a love that is immeasurably broad and wide and deep.

And that love shone in the life of Jesus, which is why he asks, “Have I been with you all this time and still you do not know me?” And I don’t always know him. On those grey and dismal times when prayers are hard to come by, I find myself thinking that however loudly I speak them they won’t be heard. Is that because I make his love too narrow, by false limits of my own? Am I closing my eyes to things I should be seeing? Have I settled for a smaller, more manageable God, who fits into my lifestyle?

All of those things, at times. And maybe also it’s just that things are no longer as fresh and new as they once were. God is always doing new things; his love is always sparking off new and beautiful events, changing lives, healing situations. But maybe at times I’ve been looking in the wrong places. I might expect to find God in church, but he isn’t locked inside this or any other sacred building. The message of Pentecost is: “Wherever two or three are gathered together, there am I in your midst” - God’s promise to be always with us. We can build walls around the places where God’s supposed to be, and try and dictate the places in which he belongs. But it won’t work. The message of Pentecost is that God doesn’t stay where we try to put him.

Today’s Gospel reading challenges us to see God in new ways; to open our eyes wider, to open our minds and our hearts wider too. By all means look for God in churches and cathedrals, but don’t expect to only find him there; see him also at work in the kindness of strangers, in the beauty of the natural world, in each person who takes risks in the name of justice and peace, in each person who reaches out to people who are weak or needy or broken or hurting. The message of Pentecost takes us out of our own comfort zone to see further: as the Taize chant puts it “Ubi caritas, et amor, deus ibi est” (Wherever love and charity are, God is there). Barriers were broken on the birth day of the Church, and when barriers get torn down there’ll always be a sense that we’re stepping into the unknown.

That’s certainly what the disciples did that day, as they left the safety of their lodging to shout and sing and laugh and pray out on the streets. And there on the streets of Jerusalem the Church was born. And they and we are met in ministry and mission by a love beyond words, and the assurance that in God the unknown and unknowable, we are known; we are treasured; we have a place in his love; we find in him our true and lasting home.