Pentecost Sunday   May 27, 2007

Acts 2 : 1-11  Psalm 104 Rom 8: 8-17 John 14 : 15-26

A tongue of fire rested on each one of them.

Grain - Barley and Wheat- is planted in Nov./Dec. in Israel. The harvest of grain in the spring is a part of the religious ceremonies during the Passover. The harvest of grain begins during the Passover, when the first fruits are cut from the field and offered to God. Although barley and wheat were both planted in the autumn, barley matured faster and would be harvested sooner.

 There is a tradition of counting fortynine days beginning from the day on which the Omer, a measure of barley, was offered in the Temple in Jerusalem, up until the day before an offering of wheat was brought to the Temple.

 The Jewish people were only freed from Egypt at Passover in order to receive the Law at Mount Sinai at time of Pentecost. Thus the Counting of the Omer demonstrates how much a Jew desires to accept the Torah in his own life.

 Our Christian calendar keeps the same time period, our Salvation came through the death and Resurrection of Jesus: the New Passover, and we prepare for the new Law: the Gift of the Spirit who reminds and teaches the New Christian Community of everything that Jesus taught and preached about the Kingdom of God. It is with this background we celebrate this wonderful feast : Pentecost or the Birthday of the Church.

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This is the Background of the Feast we celebrate today. Pentecost. This is not a solemn celebration, it is more a festival like King David danced before the Ark of the Covenant. It is a celebration with song, laughter, music and cymbals. It started rather quietly on Ascension Day, as Jesus ascended, he told his Apostles to stay in Jerusalem because they were to receive the Holy Spirit and then they would to the ends of the earth preaching the Kingdom, beginning from Jerusalem and Samaria and Judea.  It was important that Jesus had to go. Rather difficult to understand at first sight. But Jesus had come to plant the seed. He had to teach them about the Kingdom and he would SEND - “apostello” - them to the ends of the earth. He was the potter who had fashioned them “Earthen Vessels” with wealth untold. However, they had to be baked, they had to be polished, they had to glazed and that was the Work of the Holy Spirit.

Pentecost came and the Holy Spirit came with all Power. The room shook as if by a mighty wind, there were flames - baking, polishing, glazing. The Holy Spirit did two things. First the Holy Spirit transformed this sad and frightened group into a Body. The Body of Christ - the physically body had ascended into heaven. And then as Jesus had said, the Holy Spirit would remind them of the things Jesus had taught and teach them about the Kingdom which they were to proclaim to the ends of the Earth. Well the ends of the Earth had come to them. There were

• Parthians, Medes and Elamites
• people from Mesopotamia, Asia and Cappadocia
• people from Pontus, Phrygia and Pamphilia
• people from Libya, Crete and Rome. It was the world as was known at that time.

Soon, these Apostles were going to go out and what would they proclaim, nothing more and nothing less than what we say in our acclamation of faith: “Christ has died, Christ IS risen, Christ will come again.” They were going to preach about the Greatest Person that ever lived.

He had no servants, but he was called Master

He had no degrees, but he was called Teacher,

He had no medecines, but he was a Healer

He had no armies, but Kings and Governors feared him

He was buried, but He is alive.

He offered no goats or lambs, but he is the Eternal Priest.

A group of no name brand of men and women would set the world on fire - a fire that would consume them, but bring life to all who received their message: the Word of God. That is why Pentecost is not a solemn feast, but a festival that must be celebrated with shouts of joy, with tambourine and with laughter and dance. It is the birthday of our Church.

a. Today the baton is passed on to you and me. The Kingdom of God is intricately linked with a justice for our brothers and sisters. This no liberal theology of a new age. It goes back to our Jewish roots of the Old Testament. In our small nuclear families - if some one is suffering, if someone has injustice done to them - then we put all festivities and food on hold until the person is healed and until justice is done. And so as we proclaim the Kingdom either in Word or better still in acts, we make sure everyone at the table of the Lord is at peace.

b. We can do this by getting to know the one who first preached the Kingdom. There has to be a deep intimacy with Jesus Christ. He showed us the way, before choosing the Apostles, before preaching his major sermons, before speaking of the Bread of life, - he spent the night in prayer. He spent the time of deep sharing with the Father. And we have to do no less. How can we give what we do not have. All talk, all speech, all research has to be confirmed by the Holy Spirit and we do that in prayer.

c. The message of the Kingdom is truly “catholic”. It is for all. Everyone is included, the saint and the sinner, the one who has kept the law and the one who stumbles all the time. It is not limited to the Christian, - it is for all people to hear. We are not there to convert them. We are only there to proclaim the good news. In the early church, the common phrase was “see how they love one another.”  A grandmother took her grand child to a Charismatic meeting that was truly alive. People were clapping their hands, people were shouting alleluia, people were leaping up for joy. Why are they doing that asked the little girl. Oh, because they are filled with the Holy Spirit. So if they jump higher , they will get more of the Holy spirit? asked the girl. No replied the grandmother, “it is not how high they jump, but what they do when they land with both feet on the ground that will tell us if they are moved by the Holy Spirit.”

d. Finally, we can only proclaim the Kingdom if we “have been there and done that.” I can easily and from afar say how sad I am that there is injustice. I can shed a tear at the pain of discrimination, I can take up a collection to feed the poor. I can even pray over those that are wounded. But unless I take my life into the pulpit, unless I can experience the suffering and joy in the proclamation. I will be only a sounding brass.

 We must have experienced the injustice, the heartache, the cheating and lying, the hopelessness and bigotry. We have to walk in the footsteps of the Master, who carried his Cross, died and then rose.

So then as the Angels said to the Apostles - what are we waiting for... we must get up and proclaim. We must get up and go forth. We must as the Disciples on the Road to Emmaus rise up at that late hour and hurry back those 11 kilometres and more to tell of the great things the Lord has done for us.