This coming Sunday is Pentecost Sunday, a day on which we celebrate the “birthday” of the church! And Happy Birthday to us at Holy Family too! Traditionally, Pentecost marks the beginning of the church. Something remarkable, that changed the course of history, happened on that day so long ago. That same Holy Spirit has led each of us to Holy Family parish, to continue the work of those assembled so long ago.
We share this day, more or less, with the Jewish holiday called Shavu’ot that falls fifty days after Passover. On this day the first fruits of harvest were brought to the Temple. It also commemorates the giving of the Torah to Moses—and thereby to the people of Israel—at Mount Sinai. So on this ritual day the covenant of God was remembered and renewed in the form of a pilgrimage feast. Ideally, all of God’s people were to come celebrate in Jerusalem.
But of course, there had been the Exile and flight from the Exile into Egypt. Descendents of those who had been taken into exile were living in the lands of the Parthians, and the Elamites, and other peoples beyond the Euphrates. Others were scattered throughout the Roman provinces in what we now call Asia Minor, Cappadocia, Pontus, Phrygia, and Pamphylia. There were heirs of those who had gone to Egypt and Libya, and those found in Rome, Crete, and Nabatean Arabia. At any pilgrimage feast, then, there would be Jewish pilgrims from all of these places, and they would be speaking the local dialects where they lived.
The day of Pentecost described in Acts 2 probably began with Jesus’ disciples filled with worry and anxiety. So much had happened, so much had changed. Jesus had ascended, and they had seen no sign of him since then. He had promised much, there were great expectations, and yet nothing had happened. How often have we felt like that…lonely, scared, and uncertain in the face of changes in our lives, not knowing how to embrace the changes and create transformation—to cultivate resilience in the face of change?
And in that moment so much of the essence of what it means to be church was present. God is always doing a new thing, and the Holy Spirit in Her wisdom has promised to be among us amid those changes. Jesus invokes the Spirit upon the disciples with the words “Peace be with you…receive the Holy Spirit.”
Yes, change can be scary, and during times of change we may need to remind ourselves that we are human, and imperfect. Sometimes we need to forgive ourselves for “not knowing” the way to go. Not being able to forgive, not allowing for mistakes—and uncertainty, and vulnerability—can hold us in bondage, and prevent us from being available to the life-giving breath of the Spirit. We must also distinguish between the gift of life, and the gift of Spirit. They are not the same thing, and are often given to us at different times. After the resurrection of Jesus, the disciples are given the new life of Christ, but only some time after, at Pentecost, are they given the spirit for the new life that they are already living. This is often the case in our own lives. The Paschal Mystery is a process of transformation.
The author Ronald Rolheiser has reminded us that there are five clear, distinct moments within the Paschal cycle: Good Friday, Easter Sunday, the forty days leading up to the Ascension, the Ascension, and Pentecost. Each is part, he says, of one process of transformation, of dying and letting go, so as to receive new life and new spirit. Simply put, Good Friday challenges each of us to name our losses and deaths. Easter asks of us that we claim our births. The forty days requires that we grieve what we have lost and adjust to the new reality. Ascension is letting go of the old and letting it bless you, refusing to cling to what was. Pentecost is the reception of the new spirit for the new life that we are in fact now living.
According to Rolheiser, we are each given the gift of the Divine Spark of life. What we do with that Holy flame is up to us, in conversation with who we understand God to be:
“There is within us a fundamental dis-ease, an unquenchable fire… this desire lies at the center of our lives, in the marrow of our bones, and in the deep recesses of the soul. At the heart of all great literature, poetry, art, philosophy, psychology, and religion lies the naming and analyzing of this desire. Spirituality is, ultimately, about what we do with that desire. What we do with our longings, both in terms of handling the pain and the hope they bring us, that is our spirituality . . . Augustine says: ‘You have made us for yourself, Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.’ Spirituality is about what we do with our unrest….spirituality is about what we do about the fire inside of us, about how we channel our eros.”
For Richard Rohr, only your soul can know the soul of other things. Only a part can recognize the whole from which it came. “But first,” Rohr writes, “something within you, your True Self, must be awakened. Most souls are initially “unsaved” in the sense that they cannot dare to imagine they could be one with God/Reality/the universe. This is the illusion of what Thomas Merton (1915–1968) called the “false” self and what I have taken to calling the “separate” or small self that believes it is autonomous and separate from God.
The Divine Spark, for Rolheiser, and the True Self for Rohr, these are the outward and visible signs of a life well lived, in love, and in community. Rohr also speaks of the “flame” of love, the Divine Spark given to us by God:
“Your True Self is Life and Being and Love. Love is what you were made for and love is who you are. When you live outside of Love, you are not living from your true Being or with full consciousness. The Song of Songs says that “Love is stronger than death. . . . The flash of love is a flash of fire, a flame of YHWH” (Song of Songs 8:6, Jerusalem Bible). Your True Self is a tiny flame of this Universal Reality that is Life itself, Consciousness itself, Being itself, Love itself, God’s very self.
Of course, this Holy Fire is available to us all, regardless of what language we speak or where we find ourselves on the journey. Join us at Holy Family this Sunday at 10:30am (one service only) and stay for the festive lunch, birthday celebration, and Hymn-Sing! Let’s make a joyful noise, and be glad in it!
I’ll catch you later on down the trail! Bill+