The Lesson: Acts 2:1-21
When the day of Pentecost had come, the disciples were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs– in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”
But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
`In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy.
And I will show portents in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and smoky mist.
The sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.
Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ “
In the Name of the God of Creation who loves us all, Amen…Good morning, and welcome to our beloved Holy Family on this Pentecost Sunday. Today brings to a close the Easter season, and the Feast of the Pentecost is the liturgical marker of Christ’s promise to send the Holy Spirit among us. It was, after all, the occasion of his Baptism on which he received the Holy Spirit, a Spirit that henceforth informed every action of his earthly ministry. On the Day of Pentecost, the power of the Spirit was given to the community of faith—the disciples, wherever they might be gathered—to remain with them for all time.
As we heard read so well in today’s passage from Acts, the disciples were gathered together in Jerusalem for the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost, as it was known among Greek-speaking Jews. This festival occurred fifty days after Passover, and was originally an agricultural festival in which the first harvests of the season were offered. Over time it became an opportunity to commemorate the giving of the Laws to Moses at Sinai as well, so this festival day was significant indeed. On this particular day, ten days after the Ascension of Christ, the disciples were no doubt scared, and sad—grieving the loss of their risen Lord. I imagine that they were still uncertain as to the true nature of the events swirling around them. I wasn’t there of course, but in my imagination I hear them saying one to another, “Where do we go from here?” On some level, they must have felt abandoned, and wondered, “What do we do now?” Like most of us, I know what it is like to be in search of meaning, and purpose, and to be afraid. I suspect we all know how this feels. And we sometimes ask ourselves, “What do I do now…where do I go from here?” This is not necessarily a bad thing, of course, as Eliot reminds us in this brief poem:
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
In a real sense, the Day of Pentecost is the final, answering verse in the tone poem that is the Paschal Mystery—that process of transformation by which we are given new life, new spirit, and a new way of looking at the lives we lead. And it is fitting that Pentecost brings us full circle in the liturgical cycle of Lent, Holy Week, and Eastertide. In this sense, following Eliot’s musings, we come back home to arrive where we started, and know what it means to be at home with God for the first time. But what does this mean, really? I want to suggest that it involves our grieving what is past and what has died or needs to die, followed by a period of waiting and hoping, then claiming and living into our new births, and finally accepting the spirit of the life that we are in fact already living. We see this process writ large in our liturgical year, especially in the cycle of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter, and Pentecost. The disciples went through each of these stages, and on the day of Pentecost so long ago, we are told that “a sound like the rush of a violent wind…filled the entire house where they were sitting….All of them filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Now, we know that one interpretation of the Holy Spirit is that this is the one who comforts us. I find it fascinating that the root of the word “orphan” in its Latin form means “one without comfort.” So, in precisely this sense, the Holy Spirit is one who comes to comfort us, and serves as an Advocate for God, who has adopted all of us in the Spirit of Baptism. As Augustine said, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God. In other words, until our restless hearts are finally at home in and with God, we are orphans, among those without true comfort, without a home. That house where the disciples were gathered on the Feast Day of Pentecost was in this sense an orphanage, into which the wind of the Spirit blew, and they were filled with the Spirit and adopted by that Spirit and in this way, they, and we and the whole church, were transformed. I invite you to picture a time and place in which you felt at home, and safe, and where you experienced, perhaps even despite loss and grief, a sense of the peace of God. And, I invite you to consider with me the implications for our lives of relationships like this, those sacred moments in which the gift of love, breathed upon us by the Holy Spirit in Her wisdom, can transform our lives.
When I was growing up my maternal grandparents had a small farm in north Fulton County in what was then very much the country. It had a pond, and a small lake, and acres of fields and woods with streams, wildlife, and a large garden to which they lovingly tended. The land was in many ways a sanctuary for me, in no small part because of my grandmother. I would spend hours fishing, or walking with the dogs in the woods, or lying in the hammock, or sitting by the fire reading. My grandmother was always glad to see me. She was never preoccupied with my academics, or how many touchdowns I had scored, or the other daily concerns of my—at times—too-busy adolescence. I spent as much time there as I could. Often I would whistle up the dogs and be gone for hours in the woods. And always, upon my return, there would be on the dining room table a piece of her homemade pound cake and a cold glass of milk. It was almost like—I would say exactly like this gift was an outward and visible sign of her love and care. Through her pound cake she seemed to say, “I am glad you are here, and you are home, and here you are loved.” From time to time she would ask me to help her make the pound cake—she knew I liked to cook, in part because she had taught me how—and she often said that someday I would need to write the recipe down, because she knew it by heart and did not have it in written form. As the years went by, I married and had children of my own who also loved to visit there. And one year, while we were living in Tennessee and visiting the farm, she called me into the kitchen. She wanted me to watch her as she made pound cake, and write down exactly what she did, just the way she did it, and take the recipe back to Tennessee. She was insistent, and persistent, and I did as I was told. It was to be the last time I ever saw her. Months later, sitting out on the front porch after her funeral, I tried to imagine my life without her in it. It seemed a much-diminished world. And then suddenly I made the connection with our last visit. There was no pound cake on the table this time, but she had, through her persistence and out of her love for me, provided me with a gift of grace–the means to create it myself and the desire to do so. Yes, and to share it with those whom I love and others as well, in times perhaps of sorrow or joy. Today’s Gospel is just like this, and our lives can be like this too.
This is wonderful, I found myself thinking, and it perfectly describes how the work of the Holy Spirit, our comforter and advocate, gently guides us in the direction of God’s sustaining, nourishing, and healing presence, piecing our lives back together no matter the damage.
Diane Ackerman, writing in a New York Times editorial, suggests that what we are learning is that the brain is constantly rewiring itself based on daily life, just as the windows at Westminster were lovingly replaced. When we participate in loving relationships, for example, just holding your partner’s hand is enough to subdue blood pressure, ease stress, improve mental health, and even lessen pain. “In the end,” Ackerman writes, “what we pay the most attention to defines us. How you choose to spend the irreplaceable hours of your life literally transforms you.” A baby’s first attachments imprint its brain, but this is not the end of it by any means. This neural alchemy continues throughout our lives. Supportive relationships, neuroscience is teaching us, across the life-cycle, are the most robust predictors of medical and mental health, happiness, and even forms of wisdom. In short, loving relationships can alter our brains. This includes our loving relationship with God, and our worship in spaces just like this one. We now know that spiritual practices such as mindfulness meditation and centering prayer can change our neural pathways and neurochemistry, and that acts of compassion inform who, and whose, we become. The brain changes with experience throughout our lives, and it’s in the context of loving relationships of all kinds—partners, spouses, children, parents, close friends, parishioners, and yes, dear one’s, the Holy Spirit leading us, turning us, to God—that brain and body really thrive.
So, there it is. We can respond to the Disciples’ questions, which are after all ours too—“Where do we go…what do we do now?” by turning to one another in love. If you’re in a committed, loving relationship to another—including a relationship with God—this can change your life. What we bear witness to in Baptism, and in the Eucharist, is a commitment to this community and to that love, God’s love, which binds us together. We can turn, like sunflowers in a Kansas field, and face the source of love, and compassion, and our best selves. “Practice Resurrection,” the poet Wendell Berry wrote, and that may begin with reaching out in hospitality and love, to others. And that’s how the “better angels of our nature” come to us, become part of us, sustain and transform us, with the help of the Holy Spirit, throughout the long green season of Pentecost, and beyond. Amen.