PENTECOST SUNDAY
5 JUNE 2022
Throughout
this Easter Season, we have been hearing from the Farewell discourse of Jesus
at the Last Supper from the Gospel of John.
Today, Jesus commands his disciples to love as he has loved them. They are to give themselves in humble
service, as he had washed their feet.
They are to imitate his total gift of self, as he will do on the
cross. However, he will not leave them
alone to obey this command. He promises to
send another Advocate to be with them. When
he returned to the right hand of the Father in the Ascension, he did not tell
them to make plans to organize a new Church.
He did not tell them to form work details or to develop strategies to
begin their mission as Church. He told
them to wait in Jerusalem to pray and wait for the promised Advocate. The power of the Church in the world is
sustained by prayer and faith, not by might and muscle. At the time that Saint Luke wrote the Acts of
the Apostles, King Herod and the Roman Caesar were using their might and muscle
to accomplish their goals. Both of them
are long gone. But the Church of Jesus
Christ remains, with all our faults and failures and sins. Of course, we need to give our gifts to build
up the Body of Christ, established in this parish through our Baptism and
Confirmation. But, the work of the
Church in this parish is most visible when we grow in authentic prayer and
faith, trusting the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
We heard
Saint Luke’s account of the fulfillment of the promise Jesus made at the Last
Supper in our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. We need to look beyond the drama of the
mighty wind, the tongues of fire, and the many languages to understand the
dynamics of the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Those dynamics impact us as much as they impacted the 120 disciples in
that upper room on the Day of Pentecost in at least three ways.
First, Saint Luke emphasizes that the
gift of the Holy Spirit occurs during the Jewish Festival of Pentecost – 50
days after the Feast of Passover. This
Jewish Festival celebrates the giving of the Law to Moses and the Israelites at
Mount Sinai. It was one of the three
pilgrimage festivals when Jews came from around the Mediterranean to come to
Jerusalem. Occurring 50 days after the
resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Spirit’s descent enacts the giving of the New
Law – the law of Christ to love God and neighbor, as he has loved us. That same Holy Spirit is given to us, so
that we can obey the new law of love in our day.
Second, we
need to understand the meaning of the tongues of fire. The tongue is a symbol of speech. At the Tower of Babel, the unity of speech
was destroyed. Confusion and conflict
replaced the original unity. The opposite
happens here. The gift of tongues
enables the disciples to speak as one body.
The Spirit unites what had been divided.
Even though the tongues of fire hover over individuals, that gift is for
the gathered community. That same gift
is given to this gathered community to speak the one language of God’s love. We speak that one language when we give
ourselves in humble service and are willing to die to ourselves for others.
Finally,
the Holy Spirit moves them outside the upper room to the outside world. The gift of the Holy Spirit is not meant to
isolate them as a group holier than any other.
The Holy Spirit moves them to transform that world, even in the face of opposition. That same gift moves us out of this church to
transform our world, even in the midst of opposition.
As we
celebrate this Memorial of the Last Supper and conclude the Easter Season, we
too can be assured that Jesus has fulfilled his promise to us. With the promptings of the Advocate, we can
obey the new law of love. We can speak
the common language of love and mercy, especially as we emerge from the
pandemic. We can make a difference in
our world.
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