The Coming of Infinite Love

Pentecost 5^th June 2022

[Acts 2:1-11, John 20:19-23]

It might surprise some of us to notice that the New Testament contains two versions of the coming of the Holy Spirit to the first Christian community. On this Pentecost Sunday we read them both. Luke, in Acts, places the event on the Jewish feast of Pentecost, fifty days – seven weeks – after the great feast of Passover. John’s gospel places the event on Easter night, when Jesus himself breathes the Holy Spirit into his disciples.

This fact alone, that there are two different accounts, should help us to see that the mysterious, transcendent happening, like the “sightings” of the Risen Christ, cannot be described in literal terms. But we can state some truths about the Holy Spirit’s coming among us: It follows from the Incarnation, God coming among us as Jesus of Nazareth. We learned from the way Jesus treated people and from his Good News – the gospel – that our Creator is a loving father/mother, whose Infinite Love underlies the universe. Jesus showed us that God welcomes all people, and especially cares for those who are “poor”, deprived, treated unjustly, broken, grieving: the majority!

The mysterious event on the day of Pentecost – or the night of Easter – shows that this Infinite Love comes into each one of us, personally. John’s gospel shows Jesus promising exactly this: that God, Father, Son and Spirit, will come to live within us, to the degree that we “keep his commandment” to love each other “as I love you”.

What do you think stands out most, in the two different descriptions of the Holy One giving us this great gift? It is given when we have come together, trying to be united. The followers of the Risen One had “gathered”, even if only because they were scared! Into this imperfect group who were praying for God’s help, Infinite Love was able to come. The Spirit united them, stronger than before, as it can unite us. But the Spirit did not make them all the same, monotonously uniform. It brought alive their human gifts and differences, even empowering them to speak in different languages.

The Spirit united them, giving them, and us, the power eventually to unite the whole human family, because it gives us the power to forgive. “…those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven.” We also received the power to “retain” sins. Does this mean that our love can act like the retaining wall of a dam, preventing others from spreading evil and doing harm?

Do we who follow Jesus really believe that we possess this Infinite Love, which gives us the power, if we work together, eventually to heal our world? Why then, are we sometimes pessimistic, depressed? In John’s account, Jesus gives his friends peace and joy. Do we recognise and use these precious gifts?

Jesus’ Spirit sends us out, you and me, to heal our world. Can we try to keep in mind that the Spirit is in our every breath and movement? Yes, we can love every person that we come across – even “enemies” who harm people or our planet, whether they are cruel, or merely greedy and thoughtless. By applying the Spirit’s gift of loving and forgiving, we can heal them.

Looking honestly at our world-wide church, has it always been faithful to the Holy Spirit? Has it always respected the truth that every member is equally loved by God? Or through the centuries, have we allowed a “caste” of clergy to dominate the rest? Clerics’ role of presiding at Eucharist is important, but should it have separated them from the rest by giving them higher status? Because clerics came to be seen as “holy”, most of the church looked away when a small percentage of clergy took advantage of their status to abuse children. And many bishops concealed the clerics’ crimes “for the good of the church”. They were declaring that abused children were not as much part of the church as the clerics were!

In the beginning, the Eucharist was a joyful community meal, but clerical power gradually made it into a “one man show”, performed and controlled by a special man, “holier” than the rest. But holy men and women, saints, are found in every walk of life, not just in presbyteries or priories! If all Christians have rich and diverse gifts, how can Roman clerical committees insist that our celebration of the Eucharist must be uniform, identical, every time we come together to thank and praise the Infinite God?

Much good work has been done to restore the Eucharist, but today, when there are fewer priests, parishes are still being combined into super-parishes, for the sake of diminishing clergy, instead of being re-shaped to meet the people’s need to celebrate Eucharist in true communities, which can only happen when groups are small. We need many more priests, of a new and simpler kind, to let this happen around the world.

On this wonderful feast of Pentecost, can we each re-discover that at the beginning of our Christian life, we received God’s Spirit, making each one of us a “prophet, priest and king”?

* * * * *