Word to the Wise
Sunday, May 20, 2018 - Pentecost Sunday - B
[Acts 2:1-11; opt: Gal 5:16-25; opt: John 15:26-27; 16:12-15 ,164]"When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me. And you also testify because you have been with me from the beginning. I have much more to tell you but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth." [John]
The feast of Pentecost celebrates the fulfillment of Jesus' promise to send the Holy Spirit to guide the church. This significant event was remembered in different ways in the early church. The memory preserved by the evangelist Luke which we see in the first scripture for today is the one that has dominated the imagination because of the setting and the "tongues of fire." The Johannine memory is less dramatic and dated differently. Efforts to somehow reconcile the two different accounts have not achieved lasting results. Given the fact that the four gospels can have different memories of Jesus' life and ministry, we should not be surprised that the memory of Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit should be any different.
What is important is the acknowledgment of the presence of the Holy Spirit as the continuation of Jesus' ministry in the testimony of the church. St. Paul's list of the "fruits" of the Spirit in Galatians - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control - gives us a way of measuring how we do or do not acknowledge God's presence. History tells us that our record is rather uneven! St. Paul also reminds us in First Corinthians (we have a choice today) that the Spirit is given not just for personal inspiration but for the good of the community.
From the perspective of one who has been giving parish missions and retreats now for about 25 years, the only way I can account for any success in this ministry is that the Holy Spirit gives effect to my words and fumbling efforts to testify to the meaning of Jesus' life, death and resurrection. From the broader perspective of history, the only way I can account for the survival of Christianity is the presence of the Holy Spirit because the record of disasters of a natural, political or moral nature is daunting. Today we celebrate survival as well as confidence and pray that our current church leadership will represent the best of the Holy Spirit's efforts and that our own testimony will show that same presence. AMEN