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The Day of Pentecost
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Scripture citation(s): Acts 2:1-21; John 7:37-39
A Sermon by
The Rev. Canon Carl Turner
on
Acts 2:1-21; John 7:37-39
✛
A Sermon for the Day of Pentecost, 2023
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The Day of Pentecost depicted in the chancel wood carvings of Saint Thomas Church
Without the Holy Spirit
God is far away.
Christ stagoiys in the past,
The Gospel is simply an organization,
Authority is a matter of propaganda,
The Liturgy is no more than an evolution,
Christian loving, a slave mentality.
Words of the late Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, Ignatius IV, as he addressed the World Council of Churches in 1968.
Without the Holy Spirit, God is far away.
The Vestry and senior staff have just been away on retreat. Our Facilitator shared with us a concept from an expert on managing change – William Bridges. Bridges teaching has extraordinary parallels in the scriptures and the history of the Church. His premise is quite simple; when change comes, as it must, it is hard for many to accept and produces strong emotions, even of grief. He suggests that we must understanding the importance of transition following change. After an event, we have to learn to let go of the past, but the new is not yet fully present to us. He suggests that it is the period of transition that really matters and is why many organizations, companies, churches, and not-for-profits don’t manage change well, because they just fixate on the change.
The greatest example of this in the scriptures is the Exodus. The Exodus from Egypt was life-changing for the Hebrew tribes but, very quickly, the period of transition that followed it became one of difficulty. The people found the trek to a new way of life hard and began to look back; they began to complain (now, there’s a surprise!). There is a delicious passage in Exodus when the Hebrew tribes start fantasizing about Middle-Eastern food – the cucumbers and the garlic that they had left behind in Egypt. The Tribes spent 40 years in this transition period before they arrived at the Promised Land. Before there could be a new beginning, they had to let go of the past, and navigate a new reality. It was part of God’s plan.
The Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus was a similar life-changing event and the disciples found it hard to comprehend and even to believe it. Peter could not cope! What was his response to the news? “I am going fishing!” On the Day of Pentecost, when the Spirit was poured out on the disciples, there was another change, and the Acts of the Apostles charts the sometimes-difficult path that the apostles and the early believers experienced as the emerging church transitioned from being Jewish to something quite different.
Change brings threat; we see it in the response of the High Priest and the Sanhedrin to the early followers of Jesus. Change brings threat; we see in the response of the Roman authorities to the emerging church. Change continues to bring threat when we are not open to the possibilities for growth as we transition to a new way of life, prompted by the Spirit who disturbs us in our complacency, and our always wanting to look back. We, sometimes, have to simply let let go. Isn’t that what Jesus told Mary Magdalene? “Do not cling to me. The old me.”
In the Gospel today, Jesus cries out in the Temple “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’” John tells us that this signifies the Spirit, but that the Spirit could only come after Jesus was glorified.
In the Fourth Gospel, certain words are, as it were, code-words. One of those words is glory. The whole Gospel is written to reveal the glory of God. We read about it in the first chapter as the mystery of the incarnation is unfolded. We read about it in the seven signs, or miracles, by which Jesus revealed his glory. And the greatest sign of all is what the author of the Fourth Gospel calls the glorification of Jesus which is not his Resurrection but, rather, his death on the cross. On the cross, my friends, the side of Jesus is opened with a lance and out flows blood and water, witnessed by the Mary and the Beloved Disciple. A new community is born in the shadow of the cross; the blood and the water symbolizing, as it were, the sacramental life of the Church flowing from the side of Christ.
Temple is another code-word for John – for the Temple is the place where God’s glory abides. But for John, Jesus is the place where God’s glory abides. Therefore, it is in the Temple in Jerusalem that Jesus shouts that from the believer’s heart will flow living water. Not a trickle of water, but a river of living water. Now, if this living water signifies life in the Spirit, one might assume that this water would flow into the believer’s heart. But Jesus says that it will flow out of the believer’s heart and that it will be a river. Just as the sacramental life of the church flows from the heart of the Lord and his pierced side, so our world can only be transfigured if we allow the Spirit to flow from our hearts into the world. If we are only concerned with our own spiritual life; if we are only concerned with our own needs; if our religion becomes private religion, with our church staying always as it was and never changing, then it will simply dry up!
I find it very significant that in the wilderness, in the transition period, when the people were complaining, Moses struck a rock and out flowed water. The prophet Ezekiel had a vision of water flowing from the side of the Temple, that became a river impossible to cross. Thus, Jesus fulfils the ancient prophecies with the water flowing from his side on the cross, and prefigures the vision of the New Jerusalem in the Book of Revelation with water flowing and the Tree of Life restored and bringing healing to all.
Unless the church is open to life in the Spirit – the disturbing Spirit; the changing Spirit – then we can become moribund, legalistic, our gospel becomes private religion, and our members simply going through the motions of the liturgy saying ‘Amen!” and yet unable to recall if they had even joined in the words that proceeded it. As Patriarch Ignatius put it so dramatically,
Without the Holy Spirit
God is far away.
Christ stays in the past,
The Gospel is simply an organization,
Authority is a matter of propaganda,
The Liturgy is no more than an evolution,
Christian loving, a slave mentality.
But in the Holy Spirit, (he continues)
The cosmos is resurrected and grows with the
birth pangs of the kingdom.
The Risen Christ is there,
The Gospel is the power of life,
The Church shows forth the life of the Trinity,
Authority is a liberating science,
Mission is a Pentecost,
The Liturgy is both renewal and anticipation,
Human action is deified.
