The text tells
us that on the Day of Pentecost the disciples were all together in one
house. Was this the same house
where they ate the Passover meal with Jesus? Is it the same place where they huddled behind locked doors
after the crucifixion – the house where Jesus appeared in their midst not once,
but twice, and showed his wounds to Thomas? We don’t know for sure, but likely it is a familiar spot in
Jerusalem for the group to gather.
These eleven
were a wildly divergent collection of individuals. Consider Simon the Zealot. Named after a revolutionary, he appears to have participated
in activities designed to overthrow (or at least to harass) the occupying Roman
government. Today we might call
him a terrorist. At the other end
of the spectrum there is Matthew the tax-collector whose profession was the
embodiment of Jewish collaboration with the Romans. I’m thinking Jesus did not have Simon and Matthew sit near
each other at the dinner table.
Then you have
Jesus’ own brother James, whose words and writings indicate he was a trained as
a Pharisee. Match him with Peter,
Andrew, James, and John – the Galilean fishermen. Today we might refer to them as Rednecks, hard-working
country folk who never would have measured up to Pharisaic standards of holiness. The fishermen were as different from James
as today’s cookout will be from next week’s silver-service reception after
confirmation.
A couple of
Jesus’ disciples were once devoted followers of John the Baptist. Even though they converted from that
rival movement, no doubt they brought with them some of its practices and
beliefs. How different do you
think they were from the Beloved Disciple of John’s gospel? He was connected to the High Priestly
family and thus had access to the upper echelons of the prestigious Temple
hierarchy. You have to think his
culture and background was a tad different from that of those who followed into
wilderness a charismatic figure who ate bugs and wore clothes made from camel
hair.
As I said, this
is a wildly divergent collection of individuals: terrorists and collaborators,
religiously devout and worldly, cultured and course. No wonder they found it such a struggle to get along;
bickering all the time, debating who among them was the most important, and the
like. And no wonder they had such
a difficult time understanding what Jesus was trying to teach them, what with
all the effort it must have taken for them just to coexist with each other.
So we might
want to ask of Jesus, what were you thinking when you pulled together this
assortment of folks to carry forward your message into the world. Well, apparently Jesus wanted everyone
to know – including us – that Christianity cuts across all boundaries, smashes
apart all barriers, and breaks down all divides. Christianity rises above social status, cultural background,
political leanings, and religious affiliation. On the Day of Pentecost, with the receiving of the gift of
the Holy Spirit, each disciple retained his distinctiveness, but became bound
with the others by something infinitely more unifying than their differences.
When I think of
myself, I don’t think of myself as being an American who happens to be a
Christian. I am a Christian who
happens to be an American. I don’t
think of myself as a Republican who happens to be a Christian, but as a Christian
who happens to be a Republican.
And I certainly don’t think of myself as a Cleveland Browns fan who
happens to be a Christian, but as a Christian who has the misfortunate of being
a fan of the Cleveland Browns.
And when I
think of myself in relation to the human family, I don’t think of myself as one
who possesses ‘The Truth’ or as one who has earned God’s favor or as one will
get to heaven while others who don’t have what I have get sent to hell. Rather, I think of myself as one who
has been touched by God’s love and thus has a story to tell, as one who has
been enfolded in God’s love and thus can share God’s love with the world, as
one who has been richly blessed and thus has much to share, as one who has
glimpsed the mystery of God and thus has much to learn about God from others.
The Spirit of
Pentecost – falling on these eleven and being declared in every imaginable
tongue – proclaims that Christianity is about what writer Robert Morris calls a
“generous pluralism”. It finds its
unity not through a neat and tidy ideological conformity, but rather in Jesus
himself, in his Spirit, and in his way of being with people.
Morris
describes Jesus’ vision of unity in the Spirit this way:
“It consisted in being humble
beggars for God’s grace, fellow mourners about the suffering of others,
colleagues in making peace, practitioners of mercy and forgiveness, and joint
seekers of the vision of God. [It
seeks] to cultivate a compassion that can dissipate condemnation, a love strong
enough to neutralize hate, and an interior grounding in God deep enough to
transcend the need to find security in group sameness.”
At its core,
this Day of Pentecost – with its ecstatic experiences and dramatic signs – is
(as they say) the beginning of something big… really big. The gift of the Spirit now enables the
church to live into the message that Jesus proclaimed. We are empowered to use our differences
for the work of God’s kingdom because we are being drawn and held together by
something substantially greater than our differences.
Years ago I
served at a parish where the women spent years organizing bake sales and
after-church lunches in order to raise money for a new, commercial grade
refrigerator for the kitchen.
Given that each month’s event raised only a hundred dollars or so, you
can imagine how long it took.
Well, the day finally came when they had all the funds they needed. The order was placed and delivery was
set. Unfortunately, the crew
bringing the unit into the church dented one of the sides. Well, after all the effort that went
into all those events, you can understand how even a slightly damaged
refrigerator would not do. Back it
went and new unit was brought in.
The only problem, it too got dented.
Well, as they
say, the third time is the charm – especially if the district manager is on
hand to supervise delivery. I
talked to him about his work and he told me that they sold a lot of products to
religious communities. “You must
hate working with churches,” I said, thinking about all the committees and all
the disagreements and all the stuff that can make working with a place like us challenging. The supervisor said something I have
never forgotten, “Oh churches aren’t nearly as bad as country clubs. At least people in churches are
supposed to be nice to each other.
With country clubs, all bets are off.”
This is a day
for us in the church not celebrate that we are supposed to be behave in a way
different from the world, but to celebrate that God’s love makes us different
by binding us as one. Do we always
live into this? Of course
not. But does God ever give up on
us? Never. That Presence which pulled together
those first eleven followers pulls us together too. It pulls together our parish. It pulls together the churches throughout Suffolk. It pulls together our diocese and our
denomination and all who share in the Christian tradition. It works to pull together people of
faith around the world. And, as
Paul says in today’s reading, it even works to pull together the entire
creation.
Of all God’s
gifts given to the church – forgiveness, empowerment, joy, faith, hope, love – perhaps
the most important and (at times) the most tenuous is unity. With this week’s service of Holy
Baptism and next week with the bishop present for confirmation we begin our
worship with a confession:
There is one
Body and one Spirit;
There is one
hope in God’s call to us;
One Lord, one
faith, one baptism;
One God and Father of all.
This
oneness is not something we muster on our own, but something we receive. It is not something we create, but
something we embrace. It is not
something about which we boast, but something for which we give thanks. Living as we do in a society that seeks
to divide and differentiate along all kinds of lines, God’s gift of unity is
perhaps the most potent witness we can offer to the world. If you agree, I invite you as one to
say “Amen.”
