Last Sunday we thought about the Ascension,
this week we move to Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, the day the Holy
Spirit was given to the early disciples. They are in Jerusalem, waiting as
Jesus had instructed them. The account of the Holy Spirit descending on the
waiting church is only in Acts. For the Gospel we go back to John, to that time
when Jesus was preparing to leave His disciples and face the cross.
The story in Acts is dramatic and colorful.
One of my favorite pictures of the event is in a Roman Catholic shrine in
England. It is a mosaic and pictures Mary and the 12 Apostles, with tongues of
flame, of course. The first time I saw it it reminded me that this was a
universal gift, that there would, likely, have been people whose names we do
not know waiting with the Apostles.
Whoever was in the room we know that the
transformation they underwent was amazing. Outwardly they found themselves able
to speak in every language – a reversal, of course, of the Tower of Babel
story. In that story human beings tried to build a tower up to heaven and their
punishment was to be given different languages so that they could not work
together in such a way again. Here it is not human beings climbing up to heaven
but God descending onto humanity. God gives understanding and universality to
the gift.
This, of course, is vital to Luke’s message –
this story of Jesus, this Gospel, is not to be limited to those who speak the
local tongue, Aramaic, nor those who speak the lingua franca of Greek nor, even
to those who speak the language of the Empire, Latin. All people, no matter who
they are or where they come from are invited to receive this same story and
this same gift.
If we go back to the Gospel we will see
Jesus beginning to flesh out what this coming gift will mean to the disciples.
If you remember the older version of the Bible you may wonder where the word “comforter”
has gone – this version uses advocate. Advocate, in modern use of language, is
a better translation of the Greek parakletos, which is a term for one who
pleads for another in court. Advocate, from a root meaning to cry out towards,
gives this idea of the Holy Spirit as one who speaks on our behalf, who defends
us and pleads for us.
If we go back to the word comforter and try
to look at where it came from, we find something very different from our idea
of comfort. It means “with strength” – so a comforter is one who brings
strength. This makes sense in some of the ways we still use the word but we
have softened it in our modern usage to a rather emotionally soothing concept.
The Spirit brings not just advocacy and
strength but, according to Paul in Galatians, a set of gifts.
“….love, joy, peace, forbearance,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness
and self-control,” he says are the fruits of the Spirit. But what do
these actually mean. Again we have tended to soften them into a rather mushy
collection of things which involve staying quiet and being passive. But this
cannot be true, because if the Holy Spirit continues the work of Jesus, if the
Holy Spirit is one with Jesus – or as has been suggested, is the glue in the
Trinity, we cannot just water the message of Jesus down into a sort of
comfortable and passive assignation.
Robert Greenleaf came up with the idea of
Servant Leadership in the 1960s and 70s. Servant leadership is often mistakenly
taken to mean simply going along with what other people want in order not to
cause and conflict. But Jesus version of servanthood does not fit this model.
Greenleaf’s own theory does not fit this
model either. For whilst Greenleaf certainly says this:
“The servant-leader is
servant first……The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first
to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The
best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do
they, while
being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more
likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society?
Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?“
Marks of servant leadership include persuasion, foresight
and building community. I use this example to say clearly that following Jesus,
living a life in the Spirit is not a quiet option. Comfort is about living with
strength, not avoiding conflict at the expense of watering down the Gospel.
Forbearance, kindness, goodness are not easy options
because they come, not from walking away from difficult situations, but by
walking into them, knowing that we are equipped by the Spirit for the journey.
Knowing that we will be taught to live and act in a way which is consistent
with the God who we serve, if only we will listen.
So, whilst we are called to follow Jesus into
servanthood. Whilst we are called to wash the feet of our fellow travelers and
tend to the needs of those around us we are not called to become some sort of
sanctified doormat. Jesus dying on the cross was not an act of someone who
could not do anything else. It was not an act of disempowerment, but was an act
of ultimate power, but power acted out in a way which those around Him would
never recognize.
Thus with the gifts of the Spirit. We have to
examine them for what they might mean. What does it mean to be kind with the
yearning and pleading of the Holy Spirit? What does it mean to be kind with strength?
Where does that mean we have to stand in patience and goodness – who are we in
all of that?
The Spirit comes, not to even out the nascent Church
into a vaguely enthusiastic mush but to set each of those disciples on fire
with love for Jesus and for each other. People on fire are rarely amenable to
simply allowing life to happen, to passive engagement. What does it mean to be
on fire, to live into the fruits of the Spirit as active participants in the
Life of the Spirit? What does it mean to live Christian lives with strength and
to know that God, in the person of the Spirit, is always watching and breathing
in us?
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