Are we ready to be surprised by God, the Spirit?
Feast of Pentecost
Positive Psychology (PP), an approach in psychology, focuses on ingredients of human wellbeing and happiness. For instance, PP has a list of 24 character strengths and 6 core virtues that are said to play an important role in human wellbeing. This ‘catalogue of sanities’ – as they call it – is nothing but a list of the cardinal virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit (similar to Gal 5:21-22; Eph 4:2-3). PP has a questionnaire to measure individual’s level of these character strengths. An interesting finding is that, in the present global population, ‘humility’ is one of the less developed character strengths. Some time last year I took the test and I must ‘humbly’ confess that humility featured as the least developed character strength even for me!
Today we celebrate the feast of Pentecost: fifty days after Easter. Luke (the author of the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles) associates this feast with the Jewish harvest festival of Shavuot, just as Easter is identified with the Jewish feast of the Passover. This feast, for the apostles and disciples, recalls the powerful experience of the Spirit of the Risen Lord. In a sense, it also marks the birth of the Church.
The first reading of today, from the Acts of the Apostles, very vividly, and rather symbolically, describes this event that was an experience for those present. To me, the description of the Pentecost (Acts 2:2-11) has some explicit dissimilarity to the description of the Tower of Babel(Gen 11:1-9). I would like to base this reflection around these differences, and see what they could mean for the church today – the ‘church’ understood as the community of believers; the church that is inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit, but it is also led by frail human beings; the church that inspires hope in the world, but it is also a product of the history of the world.
The book of Genesis (Chap 11) speaks about the Tower of Babel as a symbol of human pride. “’Come,’ they said, ‘let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top reaching heaven. Let us make a name for ourselves, so that we do not get scattered all over the world’” (Gen 11:4). Behind their apparent good intention to stay together, there is arrogance. They wanted to make a name for themselves. God humbles them and disperses them through a confusion of languages.
What happens in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost is the opposite of this. People of different tongues are brought together under the same message. “They were amazed and astonished. ’Surely,’ they said, ‘all these men speaking are Galileans?
How does it happen that each of us hears them in his own native language?” (Acts 2:7-8). There is unity of message, but not uniformity of language. The passage does not say that all of them heard the message in one language – Hebrew or Greek or even Latin! They say, “we hear them preaching in our own language about the marvels of God” (Acts 2:11).
In the 2nd reading of today, Paul takes this idea of unity a step farther. Paul writes his first letter to the Corinthians almost 25 years after the first Pentecost, and the ideal of unity in diversity has been lost. In fact, the Corinthians have been quarrelling among themselves precisely, but unfortunately, on account of the Holy Spirit. There are factions in that church, each trying to claim the Holy Spirit as their private property. The gifts of the Spirit have become the cause of claims of superiority-inferiority. Therefore, Paul has to write to them in very strong words:
I want to make it quite clear to you that… nobody is able to say, ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit. There are many different gifts, but it is always the same Spirit; there are many different ways of serving, but it is always the same Lord. There are many different forms of activity, but in everybody it is the same God who is at work in them all” (1Cor 12:2-6).
Is this not the challenge to the church even today: to be humble to allow the work of God in a variety of ways? Is this not the challenge for us today: to allow God to work in us, in his own way?
The descent of the Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles is described with the help of two powerful images: Wind and Fire. “…suddenly there came from heaven a sound as of a violent wind which filled the entire house in which they were sitting; and there appeared to them tongues as of fire; these separated and came to rest on the head of each of them” (Acts 2:2-3). While speaking of the wind, Jesus says elsewhere in the Gospel of John: “The wind blows where it pleases; you can hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (Jn 3:8). And fire is a symbol of renewal, empowering, new start (Lk 3:9, 16; Lk 12:49). I think this is the grace that we can pray for ourselves today, and for the church, on its birthday: to be humble to be surprised by the Spirit who works in his own way to renew the face of the earth. Yes, to be humble to accept the possibility that the Holy Spirit might work even outside the visible confines of the church.
In this context then, the gospel text of today has its own depth of meaning. The Risen Lord on the day of his resurrection (Easter Sunday) appears to the apostles and breathes on them the Holy Spirit, just as God breathed into the nostrils of Adam the breath of life. And Jesus’ words to the apostles on that occasion carry two key themes: peace and forgiveness. “He said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. ‘As the Father sent me, so am I sending you.’ After saying this he breathed on them and said: Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven…” (Jn 20:21-23).
This is the challenge of anyone or any group of people who claim that they have received the Holy Spirit: they are to be signs of reconciliation in the world. This reconciliation is also achieved by respecting differences of languages, cultures and histories. Let the Holy Spirit bring a fresh lease of openness among us all.
See also Another Sermon for Pentecost