Pentecost, 28 May 2023, Austwick, Clapham, Keasden
We know that the world is more than what we can see, hear, taste, touch, or smell. Life has taught us to comprehend that, beyond these senses, there are forces just as active, just as potent, just as real. We use the word ‘spiritual’ to explain them. And the term ‘spirituality’ describes this numinous dimension of our lives which we might experience alone, through prayer or contemplation; or through acts of worship, praise or ritual which we share with others. Whether in church or concert hall, synagogue or sports stadium, whether celebrating a coronation or protesting it: there is a spirituality to each of those group activities: there is a spirit to whatever people gather to do.
There are some times when the spiritual forces in the world erupt so strongly that everyone can see their effects. Our news media is quick to alert us when a spirit of violence erupts on our streets, as it did in Cardiff this week, for instance. [1] But there are many other moments when people come together in a spirit of goodwill, a spirit which transcends the usual barriers between them.
Pentecost, which we celebrate today, is one such occasion. It was an interruption to the usual way of life; it was a rupture in the material world which upset the normal balance of things, and opened up new horizons for the many-and-varied peoples who experienced it.
Within the sights and tastes and smells of Jerusalem’s streets at festival time, by the Holy Spirit people found themselves speaking to others they’d previously never contemplated approaching. By the Holy Spirit some found themselves being blessed by strangers they’d never expected to meet. We might imagine the joy in those streets, where suddenly everyone knew and was known, where everyone understood and was understood, accepted and was accepted, each by the other, each by all, as their tribal, racial, religious, differences melted away. By the Holy Spirit.
Pentecost proclaimed that the deepest work of the Holy Spirit is reconciling people ‘to God, to creation, to one another and to themselves’. And, as Samuel Wells declares, reconciliation is the work of all people who seek God: it is ‘the central work of the church in ministry and mission’. [2]
Reconciliation will upset the normal balance of life, for the new relationships and horizons it opens up are contrary to the prevailing spirits in our world.
The world’s prevailing spirits persuade us that we are individuals, islands to ourselves. But the Holy Spirit draws us into community, where together, however different from each other we may be, we share our God-given humanity.
The world’s prevailing spirits persuade us that we must be divided by our nationalities, classes, sexualities, genders, each struggling to be known and valued, in competition with the others; and that our way is the normal and only way to live and see the world. But in the Holy Spirit these distinctions are eclipsed by mutual appreciation, mutual understanding.
The world’s prevailing spirits persuade us older folk to ‘give up on the future’; as we see that the old materialist promises of a wealthier, healthier life for all, are built on human misery and the exploitation of the earth; as we sense that ‘it is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to [this present system which rules and divides us]’; [3] but in the Holy Spirit, we are told, ‘our old men shall dream dreams’: of a world where all peoples are reconciled to each other and to the earth itself.
The world’s prevailing spirits disavow young people when they try to raise their voices in protest or in hope; but in the Holy Spirit, we are told, ‘our sons and daughters shall prophesy’. Prophecy, in scripture, means defining the signs of the times, speaking truth to power. In the Holy Spirit our young people’s truths vitally contribute towards reconciliation between generations.
The world’s prevailing spirits ensure that those who are enslaved remain unseen and unheard; but in scripture God says that ‘Even upon my slaves, both men and women, … I will pour out my Spirit and they shall prophesy’. In the Holy Spirit a trigger towards reconciliation is that those most marginalised by this present system which rules us, will be heard, as they proclaim God’s truth in their way.
In a broken world, reconciling disparate peoples is a great challenge. As they gathered in Jerusalem for the Pentecost festival, did the Parthians and Medes always see eye to eye? Did the Mesopotamians and Judeans have very much in common? Would the Egyptians and the Libyans have avoided each other? How did the native Jerusalemites view the Jews who visited from Rome?
Jerusalem at Pentecost was a multi-racial place, where people of quite different cultures and world-views, habits and behaviours, rubbed up against each other. Mostly they were people on the move, travelling people, coming into the settled city of their hosts. The Holy Spirit’s release of understanding leading to reconciliation is all the more remarkable for having taken place in a situation of such tension and flux.
And so to our world today, still in tension and flux. What are we to make of the truth that, far from shrinking, as it may seem from our English countryside, Christianity is flourishing worldwide? How do you feel about the news that our brothers and sisters in Christ are growing by the thousands daily in Asia and Africa? And that in England, too, there is significant growth - among the black-majority churches of our cities. ‘In the borough of Southwark in south London alone around 20,000 people attend church every Sunday. This is the greatest concentration of African Christianity outside Africa’. Mostly Pentecostal, their life and worship is driven by the promptings of the Holy Spirit. [4]
Does such news rupture our view of the world, and upset our normal balance of things? Does it make us wonder whether this means we have to change our ways of worship to the way the black-majority churches do it? I’d say not. For after Pentecost, we can be sure that the Mesopotamians and Judeans returned home still being Mesopotamian and Judean; but having experienced the Holy Spirit they might then have been supportive, and open to learning, from each other.
All people of faith are on a journey, even those who have lived most of their lives in one place, and worshipped most of their lives in one way. We are are all fellow-travellers. After Pentecost, would the natives of Jerusalem have more fully embraced those Jews who had visited them from Rome?
If we are dreaming of a good future for God’s church, then we needn’t necessarily embrace Pentecostalism; but we must embrace the Spirit of Pentecost. When we call on the name of the Lord we shall be saved. When we pray, ‘Come, Holy Spirit’, God will come. Each morning that we open ourselves afresh to the the Holy Spirit, begins a good day in the journey of faith we share with so many different, wonderful, others, here and across the world.
Notes
[1] Tyler Edwards, Cardiff riot: Ely crash death boys were followed by police. BBC News, 24 May 2023.
[2] Samuel Wells, Catalysing Kingdom Communities. Address to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, May 23, 2017. [PDF]
[3] "It is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism”. Phrase attributed to Frederic Jameson and Slavoj Žižek, in Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: is there no alternative?, p.1.
[4] Tomiwa Owolade, Is the future of Christianity African? How immigration is revitalising British churches. New Statesman, 29 March 2023.
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