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Pentecost. The word, derived from the Greek, literally means “fiftieth.” Pentecost. Originally and still a Jewish harvest festival fifty days after
Passover. In Christian lore, the fiftieth day following Easter on which the church celebrates the coming of Holy Spirit. Pentecost, then, is an
appropriate day for Baptism, the bestowal of the Holy Spirit being one of the prominent themes of our Christian initiatory rite.
On this day, we reflect on two peculiar and, as I read them, hilarious biblical stories.
In Genesis,[1] we read a primeval tale of the dawn of human languages. According to the story, there was a time of
linguistic uniformity. Everyone spoke the same language. Then a spirit of hubris arose in human hearts. People hungering for glory, built a city
with a tower reaching to heaven. God, apparently suffering from myopia, had to “come down” in order to see more clearly. Jealously regarding the
building project as an infringement upon the divine real estate of heaven (who knew that God was a Not In My Backyard NIMBY?), God, with a celestial
snap of the fingers, punished the people by inventing many languages, thereby making communication and continued construction impossible.
The Book of Acts tells the story of the first Christian Pentecost.[2] Jesus had been crucified and raised from the dead.
The disciples, as he had instructed, had remained in Jerusalem, awaiting the fulfillment of his promise to empower them to proclaim his gospel.
Suddenly, a mighty wind shook the house and fire that did not burn alighted on each of them, signifying the anointing of the Spirit – which compelled
them, presumably all Hebrew-speakers, to proclaim in many languages, presumably fluently, the word of God. This apparently paranormal act was dismissed
by the more cynical in the crowd as hardly the result of extraordinary inspiration, but rather ordinary inebriation.
Language, indeed, many languages is the central theme of these two stories. In the first, communication is impossible, for the people do not,
cannot understand what is said. In the second, communication is possible, for the people do and can understand what is meant.
In the latter case, Peter tells us the meaning. Silencing the scoffers in the crowd, he tells them that what they have witnessed is not public
drunkenness, but rather the fulfillment of an ancient prophecy of God’s Spirit being poured out on all flesh, not, as in olden days, only on a
chosen few, but on sons and daughters, young and old, men and women, free and slaves. All will see visions. All
shall dream dreams. All shall prophesy, being able to say, “Thus saith the Lord.”
What does Pentecost mean? What is it that all understood? I don’t know what they were thinking two thousand years ago in Jerusalem on that Day of
Pentecost. I do know what I see now. A vision of equality and equity, love and justice for all. Because the Spirit of God overrides all boundaries,
ignores all barriers erected by humans against one another. The Spirit of God makes “the other,” simply and profoundly, another.
I believe those who are caught up by, in the Spirit, those who have been overcome – inspired, made drunk – by this Pentecost-vision are those who can
and, because they can, do see differently…
That this life in this world – with all of our human hubris prompted by which we, in countless ways literal and metaphorical, would build towers upward
to heaven, the taller the better, to glorify ourselves – is precisely where those with Pentecost-vision in the name of God, saying, “Thus saith the
Lord,” seek to build bridges of connection outward toward “the other” that they and we might become one another…
That this life in this world – with all of our boundaries and barriers, both inherited from generations before us and in our time erected by us, with all
of our lines of demarcation, whether we draw them ourselves or in our silence allow them to be drawn, between those who have and those who have not, those
who are included and those who are excluded – is precisely where those with Pentecost-vision seek to make the dream of equality and equity, love and
justice for all a reality.
I have spent the thirty years as an ordained minister within the relatively safe confines of the church. My sabbatical (and I cannot thank you, St.
Mark’s, my community, nearly enough for allowing me to take it) enabled me to see the world, the church, and my life differently. And now I want to do
things differently. I want us to do things differently. For I have been inspired, made drunk by a Pentecost-vision of conversing with “the other” out
there in the world. And as I think and feel and pray to get clear in my own mind and heart and soul as to what that looks like, I recall the words of
Nikos Kazantzakis in his semi-autobiographical work, Report to Greco:[3]
There are three kinds of souls, three kinds of prayers:
I am a bow in your hands, Lord. Draw me, lest I rot.
I am a bow in your hands, Lord. Do not overdraw me, lest I break.
I am a bow in your hands, Lord. Overdraw me, I care not that I break.
I have spent thirty years praying the first two of these prayers. I now, seeing differently, have begun to pray the third.
