The Spirit Rocks – 15 May 2016 – Pentecost

We live and move and have our being in the power of the Spirit given to us by God. What is that power? Where is it manifest in our lives as individuals and as a community of the faithful? How do we welcome or obstruct its influence?

It's hard for many mainline Protestants to get really excited about Pentecost. After all, if you get too into it, there is the danger that someone might do something embarrassing like speaking in tongues. What would you do? What would you say to the person at coffee hour after the service?

During my clinical pastoral education the supervisor was supposed to visit the group, but because we were off-site, she came only on the day of the final evaluation. Perhaps because of guilt she ravaged us individually and together….

[N]o one was in the mood for a closing worship. I suggested that we simply gather in the chapel and pray together. We stood in a circle, holding hands.

[A] student from the Episcopal seminary who had been involved with the charismatic movement… spoke saying, “I can't believe I'm going to do this.” He proceeded to speak in tongues for a minute or so. St. Paul would not have approved since there was no one present to interpret. But in that act of vulnerability, the student redeemed the whole experience….

Perhaps that is the meaning of speaking in tongues for our present day. It is an act of unguarded expression which requires trust in God and the assembled community. And, perhaps, that is why most of us are so wary of it. We spend our lives trying to keep up appearances, most of all in the church. So on Pentecost we read the lessons in various languages. This satisfies the requirements of the day. – Judith E. Simonson

John 14:8-27

John... speaks of the Spirit as another Advocate (Helper) who will be God's presence in the community after Jesus is taken up in a cloud. This Advocate/Spirit was given as an Easter gift, connected to the forgiveness of sin. Sin/flesh are synonymous; new life/Spirit are resurrection gifts.

Truth (alétheia) doesn't mean the opposite of falsehood. It means the opposite of léthé, oblivion. Truth is what is remembered. (Marilyn French, The Women's Room). – S. Marian Bohen

Acts 2:1-21

It is interesting to note the different reactions of people to the spirited disciples. Some were “[a]mazed and astonished”… “But others sneered and said, ‘They are filled with new wine.’” This is one more example of the way God deals with humans, without compulsion, awaiting a free response. – S. Marian Bohen

Romans 8:14-17

[Here] we encounter an extraordinary exposition of what it means to have been gifted with the Spirit of Christ: “—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may be glorified with him.”

“The first question the Levite asked was, ‘If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?’ But the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question. . . ‘If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?’” (Martin Luther King, Jr., speech, Memphis, 3 April 1968) – S. Marian Bohen

On this birthday of the church, perhaps our prayer should simply be that the Holy Spirit helps the church “grow up” into a place that tells of the love of Jesus in any language people can understand. – Judith E. Simonson

Judith E. Simonson is an ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

S. Marian Bohen, a writer and editor, was engaged in formal education for twenty-four years in Indonesia, has taught at Marist College, the Maryknoll School of Theology, in Sing Sing Prison in New York, and in Stateville Prison, Chicago.

Homily Service 40, no. 6 (2007): 37-44.

Wind and Fire – 24 May 2015 – Pentecost

The lessons appointed for Pentecost all have in common reflection on the spirit. However, there is clearly no single understanding of spirit to be found in either the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament and even within a given author there is variation as to the meaning of spirit. For example, in the scriptures the Spirit creates, protects, calls, empowers, directs, sends forth and comforts. We observe that for Luke the Spirit empowers and directs the disciples in their mission to the world. For Paul the Spirit is the presence of Jesus in the faithful. For John the Spirit has a more personal quality than in Luke or Paul. The Spirit/Paraclete dwells in the faithful to teach and witness to them and to strengthen them in their witness. In Isaiah, Ezekiel and the Psalms the spirit is Yahweh’s creative and life-giving presence. – Jeffrey Galbraith

But what does this gift of the Spirit mean? All those languages! All that cacophony!

Acts 2:1-21

The Pentecost story from the Acts of the Apostles puts the issue of the multiculturalism of the Gospel firmly before us . . . The growing practice in our congregations of having the Pentecost story read in multiple languages simultaneously is a nice approximation of the originally described Pentecostal experience. – John Rollefson

If Pentecost is the reversal of the Tower of Babel story, the image is of a church that speaks many languages and is confounding to outsiders. In other words, the we offer ourselves as a puzzling community to the world. And in the face of that mystery which is the church, our work must involve constant “translation” to make sense of what is so very rich­­––not a simple prospect.

John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15

Pentecost does not “mean” only one thing, even as the Hebrew word ru’ah and its Greek equivalent pneuma connote. In fact, the Pentecostal experience has an astonishing multivalency that the church qua human institution has from the first found discomfiting. The meaning of Jesus’ explanation to his disciples as to how “it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you” (John 6:7) was nicely clarified for me years ago by Henry Nouwen in his book, The Human Reminder (New York: HarperCollins, 1984). There Nouwen recalls how he suffered from the inability to have frank and intimate conversation with his father whom he deeply loved but in whose physical presence he found it impossible to communicate that love. Only, Nouwen remembered, in his own physical absence from his father, through letters, was he able to express his deepest thoughts and feelings and thereby deepen the intimacy of their relationship. – John Rollefson

Romans 8:22-27

Romans 8 might be called the Spirit chapter. . . Paul explains what it means to live in the Spirit... In verse 23 Paul reinforces the notion that it is all creation that groans when he writes that “we ourselves… are groaning inwardly.” The eschatological event, therefore, involves not just people, but all of the creation. Paul points out that Christians have the Spirit as the firstfruits. In other words, they have a down payment on the future, which can help to sustain them while they await the redemption of their bodies. – Jeffrey Galbraith

Pentecost, then, tells about the gift of God’s Spirit not just to humanity but to all of creation. While some preachers seek to find readings that invite preaching on the value and healing of the natural world––air, water, soil, and creatures––we may find in this day’s scripture many places of entry into that vital subject.

Jeffrey Galbraith is pastor of St. Paul's Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Greenfield, MA, and a professor of business administration at Greenfield Community College.

John Rollefson is a former pastor of Lutheran Church of the Master in Los Angeles, California.

Homily Service 39, no. 7 (2006): 3-19.