ALL SAINTS MARGARET STREET
Sermon preached by Fr. Julian Browning at Evensong and Benediction on the Feast of Pentecost, 23 May 2010.
Readings: Exodus 33.7-20; 2 Corinthians 3.4-end.
2 Cor. 3.17 ..where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
Today is the Church's birthday. It's the day on which a new life is born. New life for you and for me. And the possibility, undreamed of till now, of new life for the Church and the world. This is the day on which we know that Jesus Christ stays with us. Not playing hide and seek with us, not abandoning us to our own devices, but staying with us, living with us, crying and laughing with us. That's what happened at Pentecost - or perhaps I should say that's what is going to happen, because at Pentecost we look forward, not back, we look into our unknown future, and trust the Spirit of God to carry us forward into a new dimension of being, the Kingdom of God.
At Pentecost God shows yet again that he constantly returns, to inspire, protect and guide those whom he loves, from the beginning to the end, alpha to omega, from our baptism to our death and beyond to the filfilment of God's purpose. Pentecost is about God's new creation, the Church, but it's also quite personal. We heard this morning what happened to those disciples when they were gathered together in one place, and they heard the sound of that rushing mighty wind. Those tongues of fire rest on each of the disciples, not on them as a crowd. Painters have had difficulty representing that scene, with the wind and the tongues of fire, sometimes showing everyone under an eye level grill, but wind and fire, in Bible vocabulary, are always signs that God is showing us who He is. God shows each of us who He is.
This evening's two lessons tell us what this new freedom is. St Paul talks about Moses veiling his face, when he has finished speaking to God, afraid that he glory is going to fade. It's all a bit academic and complicated for a Sunday evening, but what we're faced with now are two ways of living: our usual way of being religious, in which the glory keeps fading, when we have a veil, a covering, over our minds, which doesn't let the light in. Or the new way, the Pentecost way, in which the glory never fades, in which the glory of God is always available to us, so we don't have to go up mountains like Moses to look for God, because we ourselves have been transformed, so that when we look into a mirror we see that glory, which is Christ in us. I think this is the clue to the freedom Paul talks about. We don't have to try so hard to be special, wonderful people. It never really worked anyway, did it? It was all largely fantasy, wanting to be someone else. This is like being released from prison, the prison of our own desires and expectations. We are transformed, we are transformed from people who want everything, to people who receive everything. That's a big difference. The difference between those who take, and those who receive. Receive the Holy Spirit. If you can get that idea in your minds, our Pentecost liturgy, our prayers, hymns and anthems, turn into words of fire descending into our lives. Father of the poor, draw near; Giver of all gifts, be here, Come the soul's true radiancy. All is gift. The gifts we were given at our Baptism are constantly being given new life again, not through our paltry efforts, but by the Holy Spirit. All we have to do is receive the Holy Spirit, so that the Spirit can act in us, and we learn again to live, love and pray.
What's it like, to live with the Holy Spirit? It's like being out in the sun, said St Basil the Great, and when a sunbeam falls on us we feel as if the sun shines just for us, but we also know that the sun shines over land and sea and mingles with the air.
We are now free to understand other people, as well as God. The Holy Spirit makes all languages, all viewpoints, all lives, understood; that's the gift. So the Church is catholic right from the start, embracing all tongues, all people, that's the whole point of it. There weren't lots of little churches which went through mergers and acquisitions to create a colossal church in the Middle Ages. Rather the Church starts out as catholic at Pentecost, worldwide in conception; the gift of tongues embraces all continents, all cultures, all languages. We have the gift of tongues, as those apostles did, but this is no party trick and is certainly not a private line of communication with God. It is the gift of being able to hear everyone speaking in their own language, as St.Luke says in Acts, to hear what they are really saying, to see them as children of God, to understand them and get though to them and love them and forgive them as Jesus would do.
It's going to take some getting used to, living with the Holy Spirit. We get in a rut, you see, particularly church people like us, we think we must be out of touch and left behind, because everyone out there is happy shopping. So we don't know the way forward and start to fret. That's living in fear, and fear is tyranny, it keeps us prisoner all our days. It needn't be like that for us. The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. God's Spirit is within us and among us, the source of holiness and the light of our understanding, said St Basil, offering illumination to every mind that is searching for the truth.