Mass readings for Pentecost:
Acts 2.1-11 Psalm 104.1-2, 24, 29-31, 34 1 Corinthians 12.3-7, 12-13 John 20.19-23
We had confirmations Thursday and Friday, and quite naturally there was talk of the Holy Spirit as the divine gift to the Church; indeed, by the Spirit the Church came into being. One of the things I hoped that the kids would take away from this was that while you don’t understand or appreciate all that is happening at your confirmation, to take time to reflect in coming days, throughout their lives, what this divine gift in means.
I talked a about Peter Pan (of all things!) as there has been a new movie adaptation released. It’s not been well-received, the reviews are poor; and I said the best reviewers know why the film is so poor: the makers, the Disney Corporation, don’t understand what Peter Pan is about. They don’t appreciate the characters, the relationships, they haven’t thought through how the story functions and what it says to audiences who’ve adored it for generations. And so, when it came time to update it for 2023, they simply put more girls in the story doing all the things the Lost Boys and Peter do in the original – they fight pirates and they do the rescuing; as if having girls doing boys’ things is what makes girls equal and heroic. But, as I told the kids, if you know the original story, the lead female character Wendy has always been the heroic one, and that’s because Peter Pan isn’t just an adventure story, it’s a fable, a parable about growing up; and not just an adventure story with some wistful observations about the end of childhood. Wendy with precocious wisdom, and despite the temptation of Peter to enter a perpetual childhood that is ultimately lifeless, she chooses to grow up.
I further said there’s a whole lot more than even that going on in what is a well-crafted children’s story if you take the time to reflect on it. How much more is there going on in the story of Christ and His Church!
I preface my comments with that because my fear is that too many of us hear the story of Pentecost and fail to grasp just how significant this event is. It’s not simply in being the birth of the Church, but in how it plants a revolutionary idea into history that emerges as Christians through the generations have reflected on it.
What is the significance of God sending his Holy Spirit to a group of Galileans, Judeans, perhaps some Greek-speaking Jews? I know the story is full of fantastic elements: the fire dancing over everyone’s heads, the gift of foreign languages, the speaking in tongues, etc. But that’s not what is truly amazing.
Consider the stories of the Bible, and the stories from the mythologies of the world (stories of heroes and heroines from Greece to Scandinavia to the Indian subcontinent, and beyond). When God comes to encounter humanity, it’s almost always to one person, and through that one person to the rest of humankind – Abraham, Moses… And if a divine gift is given, it’s also just to one person who is deemed worthy of it because they’ve demonstrated some exceptional skill. So, if you know Nordic myth, it’s always a great warrior who is gifted with a magical weapon; in Greek mythology, a person of great beauty, or of some great skill either artistic or athletic or, an in one case, scientific, who is given immortality; and they become an intermediary for human beings with the gods – an example most of you would know is the Greek hero Hercules.
Yet in the story of Pentecost, it’s not one person, but a group, a gathering. Ecclesia, the Greek word for “Church” literally means, “gathering.” Even if you want to point out that Jesus gifted the Spirit to the eleven Apostles in the upper room the day he rose from the dead, it still was not one person. No, in the upper room, and on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit comes not just to one but to many.
So, while we know the names of some who were there: Peter, and Mary Magdalene, John, James, Jesus’ mother Mary, there were others whose names are lost to us this side of heaven, they too received the same gift, and so enjoyed the same dignity and an essential equality with all those saints we do know about. As Saint Paul tells us in his theology of the Church as the body of Christ, there are many members, and all are essential, and all have a role, and so all are equal even if some are more visible, more prominent. Yes, Peter got singled out to be “the rock” but he and his successors fulfil their particular role by the power of the same spirit you and I received in baptism and confirmation.
For the world and its powers, this is dangerous!
A community of people who all are inherently equal; and as we see in the Book of Acts, and in the earliest of our histories, that egalitarianism was maintained even as it struggled against the culture of the time. Saint Paul had to battle against the tendency of the rich members of a congregation to presume they had privileges, that they didn’t have to wait for the members who were slaves to arrive before they started into a fellowship meal – no, you have to wait for your brothers and sisters in Christ because your time is not more important than theirs.
Think how that new sensibility, that revolutionary attitude toward fellow members of the Church came to work on humanity generation upon generation. How it slowly broke down superficial distinctions and implanted and enforced the idea that all are equal before God; and how that was translated into civil society as equality before the law; that no king had any greater rights than a peasant, and no pauper could be deprived of his rights because of his poverty. How ethnicity and race and sex are irrelevant.
But as well, there is a collective responsibility to defend, uphold and spread this good news. When the Church is threatened, or insulted, when evil things are being pushed by corporations, governments, universities, there are these calls for the bishop to do something, to say something. Well, he can write a letter, but it’s for the whole body to respond, each in his or her own way and always in Christ. So, we don’t use violence, but prayer and personal sacrifice and right living, and by offering the gospel and keeping the sacraments. Sometimes we need to part company with those who disparage our faith, and corrupt our children; to cut the television cable, cancel the season’s tickets, shop somewhere else – that’s a sacrifice. But more importantly, we need to double up our prayer, and come ever closer together as a community to know who we are as God’s children.
When a need arises either out in the wider community or among our Christian brothers and sisters, we make the sacrifice of time and perhaps even treasure to meet that need. We’ve received a report on the survey to our parish’s “school families” and they’ve spoken to us of the barriers that are making it difficult for them to practice their faith. They need opportunities for fellowship, to get to know the parish members – coffee after mass, parish suppers, other kinds of social gatherings. Another expressed need is for us to revive a children’s ministry during mass so that little ones who can be a distraction to parents and to those around them have a place to go, and in their own way learn about Jesus, our Creator, and the Holy Spirit. Okay, we as the body of Christ in Dundas have now heard this, can we respond according to the Holy Spirit and do as Christ would? What sacrifice do we need to make?
I asked the kids about this gift of the Holy Spirit, and how it’s broken down into seven gifts… and I asked one lad to name just one, and he rhymed off all seven – we gave him a round of applause. Anyway, I asked, “you receive the gift of the spirit of wisdom – will that instantaneously make you wise? You are given the spirit of fortitude, are you now tremendously courageous?”
The answer of course, was “no.” I said to them these gifts to be open and used but you will likely not be very good at them to start. Imagine if the first bicycle you got you put in the garage and never bothered to learn to ride? You still have the bicycle, and now, years later, you can learn to ride it, but it’s likely not going to be easier for waiting, maybe even harder.
Enter the spirit of fortitude by small acts of courage, of wisdom by really thinking before you act, of piety by getting to mass even once this month, of Godly fear, by putting him first at least one day a week.
The strength to do so has already been given to us, we need to have the confidence to use it, and in that power of the Holy Spirit, not only do the great works Christ promised we would do, but in them feel the fire of divine love, and know the joy of eternal life.
To us all as the Church, I wish us a Happy Birthday.
Amen.