PENTECOST 2023

SERMON BY THE VICAR                                                 

Language and languages have always interested me. A relative says of me that I am part parrot. Take the role of different languages in liturgy. For example, when we say or sing the Greek Kyrie Eleison does it have the same effect on the brain as saying or singing the English “Lord have mercy?”  Or take the Lord’s Prayer. In multilingual, places like this, it should be the norm for people to pray the Lord’s Prayer in the language which is in their heart. In most European languages, saying the Lord’s Prayer together takes about the same length of time, except in Finnish, which takes quite a bit longer. Today is the Feast of Pentecost or Whitsunday, and we are reminded that the society and community described in the Acts of the Apostles is a similar cosmopolitan polyglot one. Many different languages is a Pentecostal theme. It’s the opposite of the remark made by a TV evangelist in the United States recently. “If English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for America.”  So, I want to talk about the Spirit of God, or the Holy Spirit in three ways. There are, of course, endless ways of talking of the Spirit, but these three for me at the moment have something to say to us. I want to talk of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Praise, the Spirit of Vision, and the Spirit of Unity and Reconciliation.

First of all, Praise, and the Spirit. What enables us to praise God? The way we use the word in English is ambiguous. On the one hand, I can say to you, “you did that really well.” or “You played that piece of music beautifully.”  This is praise. We use the same word in a different context when we speak of God. Praise in this context is not about telling God what he already knows   Praise in this context is lifting up the mind and the heart towards God, and allowing God to be the centre of the picture, not ourselves. Those who know me know my view, rooted in the Orthodox tradition, that in the context of praise and words, fewer is better, and best of all is none. Praise, in taking us beyond the tyranny of the self and the ego, takes us to a realm where there are in fact no words. The great spiritual writers of east and west continually remind us of this experience of being taken beyond the self, and the warming of the heart, which goes with this encounter with the Divine. We cannot do this if we’re always talking. Worship in different liturgical styles always has this element of praise. This is why how we worship matters. How we prepare for it, what our building looks like, how we carry ourselves, our awareness of others, doing things well, reverently, and unobtrusively. All these things matter in worship and should allow individuals to become receptive to praise. But finally, it is none of these things, important as they are, because what enables us to praise is the Holy Spirit of God within each one of us speaking directly to the heart. The Spirit will as often move us to silence as to words. Any Quaker or spiritual director will tell you that. This Godly silence is praise itself, where we are calmed and nurtured by the Holy Spirit working in each one of us. Paying attention to the context of praise is important. That’s why in essence, Churches of all traditions invest in the things of worship, be they simple or Baroque- music, liturgy, reverence, order, silence, inclusivity, stillness, using all the body and all its senses. This is Praise, and it is the Holy Spirit which enables us to do it.

Now the Holy Spirit and Vision. Words from the Acts the Apostles put it like this.

“I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams.”  All Churches need to see to it that they continue to be vision led. That may be easier said than done when the demands of the everyday threaten to overwhelm us, be that keeping the roof over our heads in a cost-of-living crisis or simply paying the utility bills from day to day. Of course, that’s true for each one of us as individuals too. We know how exhausting and desiccating it is when the daily grind overwhelms us – work, family, home, sickness, money worries, relationship problems. The list is endless, and there are times when if we’re honest, the whole lot seems overwhelming. t’s then that we need to be self-aware, take stock, step back, and create the space, if we can, for refreshment and renewal.  So, join us on June 24th as we plan our next 12 months under God. Churches which do not create space for refreshment and renewal through regular retreat, reflection, and time away become at best pedestrian, and at worst, burned out. Without vision, we know, the people perish. Those in positions of leadership in Churches need to be especially careful to create the conditions where this can happen. Imagine if that text I read from the Acts of the Apostles were describing this community, our community. Our sons and daughters prophesying, our young seeing visions, and our old dreaming dreams. How amazing would that be? One of the urgent things we will be discussing on June 24th is how we can attract and retain families with young children, who are now nationally the missing generation. So, let’s pack our vision planning day with young and old and see how we can turn blue sky thinking into fruitful reality. We can do it. We need to do it. The Spirit and Vision.

Now finally, the Spirit, Unity, and reconciliation. One of the most moving things for any priest is the practice of reconciliation. This can take different forms. Reconciliation of a penitent before God, sometimes called confession, is one of the sacred trusts placed on priests, where its seal is inviolable. The Holy Spirit, in my experience, is especially powerfully present in these times of total exposure and trust. Often, a Godly silence is the only response possible, enabled by the Spirit of God. Then, there’s the practice of reconciliation of two parties in conflict. In the Christian practice of reconciliation, the two will be invited to sit together in the presence of a third in silence, and to speak out of the silence the word, which the other needs to hear. In the right conditions, the Spirit can be palpably present on those occasions. This reconciliation is also the Spirit of unity. We need it in our personal relations, and in our institutional relations, in both Churches and secular institutions where conflict occurs. We certainly need this right now in our own society where we are in a dangerous new phase of populist xenophobia, where immigrants and asylum seekers are targeted for all of society’s ills. In the churches we must call this out as we see it, as history teaches us that politicians who play the ethnic and linguistic card may light a conflagration which will consume us all. We can see from the Acts of the Apostles how socially and linguistically diverse the early Christian communities were, and it’s the same today. The Christian church has always encompassed immense variety and diversity, where one cultural experience cannot be regarded as normative for the Christian church. Unity is celebrated through diversity. This too is enabled by the Spirit.

So, celebrate the Holy Spirit of God today, the Feast of Pentecost. It is that same spirit of praise, of vision, and of unity, which takes us into the heart of God, revealed to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.