Texts: Act 2: 1-21
Part 1: Acts2: 1-13
The Church of England is quite extraordinary in its ability to ignore the immediate and concentrate on the long view. In itself, this is no bad thing. If the church is to react to every little whim and fashion and theory of contemporary society – whether that is Medieval, Victorian, post-Enlightenment or post-global warming – it will soon become a church of knee-jerk reactions, controlled by the ephemeral, with no vision of eternity. In our circumstances today, with all the raging controversy around us, it is as well to keep focused on eternity, on the horizon, as we weather the storms.
But just occasionally the long view is exasperating and nowhere more so that at the feast of Pentecost. That is why I have taken the liberty of moving the readings around and stopping in the middle of them. It is very difficult to recreate the immediacy of the events of the first Pentecost. I can’t bring into this place fire and tempest, enabling you to experience something of that event. And I don’t want to. If there is to be fire and flame today, if there is to be a mighty rushing wind today, let it be the real flame and storm of the Holy Spirit now – a real experience of all of us here this morning – not some attempt to translate the imagery or to show how this is really just figurative language.
It is not figurative language. If ever there was an immediate experience, it is the experience of the coming of the Holy Spirit. On that day, to which we owe our presence here today, something extraordinary happened. More than anything else in the Christian story, this was the moment that changed history. This was the moment that enabled the unqualified, the terrified and the petrified to become the people who could shake empires. Which brings me to one of my favourite stories (with apologies if you heard this last week at Coddington):
Jesus ascends to heaven and is greeted by the archangel
Gabriel:
“Welcome back, Lord! Your mission of salvation has been
accomplished. Tell me, what are you going to do now to ensure its
continued success?”
“Well,” says Jesus, “I’ve
chosen 12 men and some women to carry on my mission.”
Gabriel looks taken aback. “I see, Lord – an
initial plan. And what’s your back-up?”
“There is no back-up plan,” Jesus replies,
“I’m relying on them!”
Nevertheless, Jesus did not rely on the apostles without supplying the power to ensure their success. We’ve “paused” our story at the point where the apostles and those with them burst out into the everyday declaring a revelation that was world-changing. These were people who were so excited that they did not pause to think but went right out to tell others what had inspired them. Well, that won’t do, will it? The last thing the Church of England wants is people who are enthusiastic, who want to share their inspiration, who are eager to talk about their faith. Deeply entrenched in our thinking (especially post-Enlightenment thinking) is a profound distrust of anything remotely resembling enthusiasm, inspiration, emotion or imagination. We are bound down and hemmed in and tied down by a necessity of reason, a necessity to meet intellectual thought on its own ground, a worship of the logical and scientific over the intuitive and creative, of detached reasoning over emotion and imagination.
Pentecost is not about distance and detachment. It is about real experience among real, ordinary people. In a moment, I’m going to ask you to do something – so I’m going to tell you now – and then talk a bit more, while you have time to think. In the school where I teach, there is a strong international community. Pupils come from all over the world, bringing with them their native language, but learning to communicate in English as a universal language. This week, I asked them to greet each other in their own language or in any other language that they knew. I’m going to ask you to do the same. If you can say “hello” or “how are you?” or order a beer in another language, I’m going to ask you to do so in a moment. So please think – what can you say that will communicate in anther language or another dialect or accent or rhyming slang or anything other than standard English?
Meanwhile, let’s consider the rest of the first part of the Pentecost experience – all that stuff about flames and wind. The traditional explanation, the explanation of logic and reason, is that this is just some poetic imagery (and therefore suspect) – something happened and they couldn’t explain it so they tried to use a comparison. Rubbish! Balderdash! Piffle! Something happened all right. It is quite clearly described. They saw the power in each other. They heard the power in the room. What power?
Human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. They share in the nature of God. God, we believe, created everything. I like to think that when he did so, at that moment when the universe (or universes) came into being - commonly referred to as “The Big Bang – the divine energy was released into creation. If you imagine all that energy compressed into an immeasurably small space and then exploding into life, each one of us is charged with that same energy. It is a great mistake to consider ourselves as separate from the universe, a kind of bolt-on extra, a piece of window-dressing, separate from the power that drives everything else. Let’s let science in for a moment. It has been proved that we are all surrounded by a web of energy that can be shown as an aura of coloured light outlining the body. That is the divine energy that powers the universe. We are all made of that energy – we are all stardust from the Big Bang. And at that first Pentecost, they could see and hear what they really were. Not inert matter, not a Lego-people stuck on a living world, but part of the vast ebb and flow, the web of energy with which the life of God penetrates and enlivens and inspires the universe.
Now let’s consider what that energy does. I’m going to ask you all (on a count of 3) to say something to your neighbour in another tongue, as the Spirit gives you power of utterance. (Count) Now I’d like you reflect on how much you understood of what you heard during that babbling mixture of languages and how hard you were trying to understand. It has been estimated by the cynics that only three or four languages would have been necessary for the massed races listed in the account in Acts to understand each other. This is to miss the point. The point is not how many languages were necessary then, nor how many languages we can speak this morning. The point is that the divine power – perceived as wind and flame – enabled people to communicate with each other. Just as we have tried to communicate to each other this morning. Imagine what the effect on the world would be if we were really empowered to communicate the message of love to each other? Now let’s hear the second half of the story.
Part 2: Acts 2: 14-34
Notice that there’s always someone ready to rubbish the experience. “They’re drunk” – a response that probably isn’t often made about the Anglican church! And after many readings of this passage, I have never worked out why Peter thinks it is impossible to be drunk first thing in the morning! However, be that as it may, the rest of the passage is a wonderful manifesto of the power of the divine Spirit. It links God’s power at work in us quite unmistakably with the driving power of the universe – the fire and blood and smoke, the sun and the moon. And it states quite unmistakably that this power is at work in every one of us – old and young, men and women, youths and girls. We are people who are to see in our spirits the outworking of God’s purpose – we are to prophesy and dream and have visions. All that divine power that infuses us and radiates through and beyond us, is to be experienced and lived out. To shake empires. To bring about the great and glorious day of the Lord. This power is in each of us. The gift of the Holy Spirit.
Nothing could be more immediate or more important. This is not picture language. This is reality. But life is not lived at the heights. We cannot stay on the mountain of the transfiguration or of the ascension, at the foot of the cross or in the garden of resurrection. We cannot always be lit up like divine neon-signs nor always stand in the central radiance of universal power – we would short-circuit. In our ordinary, daily lives therefore, where are we to find the power that shakes empires? How are we to be the people of vision and dream? The answer lies in opposites. In the compression of that great power into what each one of us is able to bear. A return, perhaps, to the compression of the Big Bang. If you look at a wheel (any wheel!), the power of the outer rim comes from the stillness at the centre. The wind and flame are in the outer movement, but at the centre of all power is the heart of stillness. That heart, also, is in us. So I am going to end this reflection by asking you to be still. To put aside the brain-chatter of reason and logic that engages us when we hear a talk or sermon, and to look inwards. To become conscious of the compression of universal power, into that central point of stillness, with all its potential.
To do this, you need to sit as comfortably as you can, with legs uncrossed, both feet on the floor, your back and head as upright as possible, your hands open and relaxed on you knees, your neck and shoulders relaxed, your eyes closed. While you seek this inner stillness, the source of all divine power, I am going to read a prayer:
Come, Holy Spirit, come as the robin in the morning,
awakening our hearts with your song.
Come as the dove in the evening, bringing blessing and peace.
Come as the blackbird at noonday, gladdening your world with joy.
Come to us as we worship, that we may sing to the Creator,
healing the wounds of creation and bringing peace.
Draw near to us this day.
Come as fire, come as the firefly,
Come in the flame and flash of firework splendour.
Fill the eye, fill the heart, body and soul.
Fill the sky of our imagination
that we may freely give voice to your wonder and glory. AMEN.