The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
June 4, 2006
Acts 2:1-21 John 15:26-27, 16:4b-15
In John’s Gospel, Jesus has been bidding farewell to his followers. He is preparing them for his leaving and for their continuing mission in the world. He is going to the Father, but he will not abandon them. The Father will send the Holy Spirit.
The disciples still didn’t “get it” though. They were still hoping that the messiah would be a great warrior entering Jerusalem mounted on a huge white horse bringing an army to institute God’s reign. Their hope was for a Messiah who would come in a spectacular blaze of glory and who would put away all the evils and injustices of life.
As Jesus came nearer and nearer to Jerusalem and to the cross he tried to prepare his disciples for the time when he would no longer be with them, preparing them for a future quite different from that for which they had hoped. Jesus would die on the cross and the disciples would soon find themselves the object of the world’s hostility.
John wrote his gospel in a time of great persecution as well. Christians were being persecuted, martyred, imprisoned, losing their homes and their possessions, being treated as enemies of the state.
There are places in the world today where this is still true, particularly in some parts of the Far East, Middle East, and Africa. It was a major reason for the 50-year civil war in Sudan between the Arab Muslim North and the African Christian South.
Even in our own day and time and place, the world is hostile to the teaching, to the values, to the way of God taught by Jesus.
In the Acts lesson we hear of the fulfillment of the promise of Jesus as God’s Holy Spirit descends on the people – descends not as a gentle dove, but as tongues of fire to cleanse, purify, strengthen and temper the disciples for a ministry of witness to Him and to the marvelous acts of God in the face of a world hostile to God’s truth, and in such desperate need of God’s truth.
God sends the Holy Spirit. The Greek word for the Holy Spirit is “Paraclete” which has variously been translated as advocate, intercessor, teacher helper, comforter.
All of those aspects, those dimensions of the Holy Spirit are God’s gift to the disciples who must carry on the building of God’s kingdom here on earth, the speaking of God’s truth to an unbelieving and uncaring world, the nurturing and caring for the those the world considers the least and the last, the outcast, the alien, the “Other.”
What God has done through Jesus is to give our lives purpose. What God has done through the gift of the Holy Spirit is to give our lives power. Purpose and power that are best lived out when we help others to recognize their worth, their purpose, their power and that these gifts come as a gracious gift from God and they are for now, for today and for ever.
Sometimes, there are barriers that prevent people from hearing, believing, knowing this Good News. Sometimes people have to have their bellies filled first. Sometimes people have to have their fears acknowledged and assuaged first. Sometimes people have to have their isolation broken through first. Sometimes people have to have their bodies clothed first. Sometimes people have to have be sheltered first. Sometimes people need to find healing first.
Sometimes these things have to be taken care of first, before people can be ready to hear and to know the gracious goodness of God made known in Jesus and given to us through the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Sometimes people need an advocate. Sometimes people need an intercessor. Sometimes people need a teacher, someone to show them the way. Sometimes people need a helper. Sometimes people need a comforter. First, before they can receive the truth abut God’s goodness, about God’s love
Sometimes just in taking care of these things people have come to know the gracious goodness of God, because as the work of the Holy Spirit is done, people can see and hear and feel and experience that gracious love. "I am doing this because God loves me and because God loves you."
Matthew Fox reminds us: “When your gifts are put with her gifts and put with his gifts and put with my gifts, it is Pentecost because God’s spirit is poured out, and we become, in fact, one body, Christ’s body carrying the Good News of God’s gift powerfully to all races and nations; to all sorts and conditions; to the outcast and to those hidden away. All people will be able to hear in their own tongues the Good News; that means they will hear it in ways they can understand and know... they will hear in their own tongues of the mighty works of God. And they will know that they, too, are part of God’s mighty work."
It is Pentecost. Receive God’s Holy Spirit and witness to the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen.
