| First Reading |
Psalm |
Epistle |
Gospel |
| Acts 2:1–21 |
104:25–29, 31–32 |
1 Corinthians 12:3b–13 |
John 7:37–39
|
After the people of ancient Israel were freed from slavery in Egypt, Moses led them out into the desert to the foot of Mount Sinai. There in a wilderness land claimed by no one, God gave the 12 tribes of Israel the Law. While the Ten Commandments serve as the summary of the Law, this gift was much more than parameters of ethical behavior. God gave Israel a history. The tribes remembered that they had common ancestors, Abraham and Sarah. God had promised them a special blessing, namely that their descendants would be as numerous as grains of sand on the seashore and that through them and their descendants, all the peoples of earth would be blessed. Hence the revelation at Mt. Sinai was not only a recapitulation and celebration of the past, it was the inauguration of a people with a universal purpose, to become a conduit of God's blessing to all humanity.
This is what the Christian celebration of Pentecost is about also. In one sense, it is our baptism into God's universal mission. The gifts of the spirit are tools to being this about. The gift of tongues is only one of the gifts, but it is the most remarkable, as well as the most ambiguous. Some would interpret the gift of tongues as the symbol of the Gospel being easily translatable and adaptable to all cultures, hence the tongues of Pentecost are symbolic of foreign languages and of the disciples' ability to learn and actually speak the Gospel in other languages. Others would suggest that the tongues were unintelligible, symbolic of the Holy Spirit in its fullness being too deep for mere words, and of the Spirit being able to go beyond the restriction of our own particular language. The Spirit has ways of communicating the peace of Christ that go beyond our understanding.
Yet whatever interpretation one would favor, the overall point is that the gifts of the Spirit are not personal possessions that confer on us any kind of superiority. The gifts of the Spirit are specifically to be used for the communication of the Gospel to others. They are to be used in advancing the universal purpose of God. Individuals or church communities that think these gifts bestow superiority on them or recognition that they are further along than others who do not have the gift, simply have missed the point of Pentecost.
That is why Peter is very clear in affirming that the Spirit is not the result of any individual or personal action, but is a fulfillment of God's promise to humanity. Peter quotes from the Book of the Prophet Joel holding up the vision of God's Spirit being poured out on all flesh, Jew and Gentile, young and old, men and women, breaking down the religious and social barriers that separate people from one another. The fruits of the Spirit after Easter are to be used as a sign of God's universal benevolence, just as the rainbow became interpreted as a sign of God's universal benevolence after the great flood.
For people of faith today the gifts of the Holy Spirit are not about esoteric or superior knowledge or hidden talents, but about gifts encouraging and supporting us to go forth and build bridges and relationships and cross the barriers of this world. The Holy Spirit helps us to look in places and take the routes the world overlooks.
There is an old joke about a passerby who comes upon another at night crawling on his hands and knees under a lamppost. "May I help you?" asked the passerby. "Yes, please," comes the reply, "I've dropped my watch." They both comb the area thoroughly for about twenty minutes and then the passerby asks, "Are you sure you lost it here?" "Oh, no. I dropped it on the other side of the parking lot, but the light under the lamppost is so much better here." In reality it sounds pretty silly, but our culture, by in large, takes the attitude that if you can't explain or control it, it isn't worth examining or paying attention to. It is an attitude that is terribly limiting and goes a long way in explaining why our society seems to be losing any positive vision. That is why people of faith are the ones who pay attention to God's signs, who are open to the gifts of the Spirit and will go to look where others will not. You are going to miss a lot of what is significant in life by staying safe within the world's box. While the world likes us to stay within its box of control and predictability, the Spirit often beckons us to venture outside the boundaries of the world's understanding and precedents. In some way the gifts of the Holy Spirit always conclude with the words, "go forth", using the gifts of Pentecost to surpass the world's boundaries and bypass the world's commonly accepted wisdom.
And I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
