Pentecost C

Acts 2:1-21; Psalm 104:24-35; Romans 8:14-17; John 14:8-17, 25-27

This may be hard to imagine if you grew up in the church, but many folks in our lives don’t have a Christian background at all. So, let’s try to imagine for a moment. Some of you won’t have to imagine…If you were brand new to the Christian faith, then I’d think one of the more difficult concepts to grasp would be the Holy Spirit. Even if you have spent your life around church folks, it might still seem to be a nebulous idea.

And if you were to go to the Bible in search of answers, and you chose the Scriptures that we’ve heard today about the Holy Spirit — your first response might be more rather than less confusion. Because, although the four readings, from the Psalm, to Jesus’ promise of the Spirit, to the Pentecost story in Acts, to Paul’s description of the Spirit in the book of Romans, all either beautifully describe or foretell what we call the Holy Spirit, they all describe the Spirit differently.

Part of this might be:

• endlessly new ways that God interacts with the world
• indescribable nature of the Spirit itself

Here, and elsewhere in the Bible, and among the theologians that came after the Bible, the faithful people trying to understand Scripture have drawn on Greek Philosophy to describe the Spirit.

• unmoved mover; emanation, radiation; light, Word
• not a terrible image for God; it’s biblical after all

But the Spirit doesn’t have its roots in metaphysics, but rather in the body, as breath.

In both the Hebrew scriptures and the Greek New Testament, the words for spirit is the same as breath and wind.

This is also a useful image for God’s Spirit. Think: the breath is always there, all day long; there are days we don’t even think about it; it’s invisible, often unknown to us, but it’s the foundation of our life.

Jesus seems to agree. He uses the Spirit to describe the closeness of God.

It all starts when Philip tells Jesus he wants to see the Father; Jesus makes it a teaching moment.

““Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14.9 NRSV)

But since Jesus is preparing his disciples for a time when Jesus is no longer able to be seen among them, he promises to ask the Father to send the Spirit of truth, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit.

That Spirit, Jesus says, is coming to teach the disciples, to remind them of his words. The disciples will know the Spirit, the Spirit abides with them, and will be in them, even though the world neither sees nor knows the Spirit.

As promised, the Spirit does come.

In the Pentecost story in the book of Acts, the followers of Jesus (and by now there are 120) are together, waiting for this Spirit; wondering what it will look like, what it will be like, what it will ask them to do.

“Suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.” (Acts 2.2 NRSV)

It called all of them; each of them. An individual tongue of fire rested over each follower of Christ as if to say, yes, Philip, even disciples who ask silly questions are called; yes, Peter, even disciples who fall down on their job are called; tongues of fire rested over women whom the biblical authors apparently didn’t think deserved to have their names recorded, yet God sent the Spirit to them, too.

Many there didn’t have their names recorded and didn’t rise to celebrity, yet were called to share in God’s kingdom.

Their call was to do something they couldn’t do. Those tongues of fire weren’t just decorations, they were symbols of the new languages that the disciples found themselves able to speak. New abilities that were given to them through the Spirit.

The Spirit empowered them to do something they could never do on their own.

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Maybe part of the reason that the Spirit is so difficult to describe is that God needs people like each of you, in every age to be a part of the mission. Even — maybe especially — if you don’t feel like you fit the mold for a spiritual person. Each of you here has that tongue of fire resting over you, signalling that God is calling you to be a part of something new. Not just in your life, but for the life of the world.

And what it looks like? It looks like doing something you didn’t previously think you could do. Maybe it’s a regular old Galilean suddenly speaking in the language of the Parthians or Medes. Maybe it’s taking the first step in a relationship with someone that doesn’t speak the same language as you. Maybe it’s mentoring a young person even if you don’t have any idea what you might have in common with a middle schooler or high schooler. Maybe it’s talking to your neighbor who is struggling to take care of a parent with dementia, even though you don’t know how you could help.

I have to tell you that becoming a parent is a whole lot of being called to do something I didn’t believe that I could do.

This is where the Holy Spirit comes to life: in the gap between what we think we can do, and what God calls us to do. This is the Spirit, whom Jesus promised would come. The Spirit, who, when our words fail us, gives us new ones.

God’s power in the world that the world doesn’t see or know. As strange and mysterious as tongues of fire…

But as close and natural as your breath; always with you; giving you life.