"I have decided to stick with love; hate is too great a burden to bear."

Pentecost  A   2020

Come Holy Spirit.  Fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.

Pentecost arrived for the disciples after fifty days of uncertainty.  True, Jesus had risen.  Overjoyed, they had seen him, listened to his words and even shared a meal with him.  Yet they had not overcome their doubts and fears.  They still met behind locked doors.

On the Day of Pentecost those locked doors were thrown open; the fear in the disciples was replaced with a Spirit-filled courage and enthusiasm.  They were now fearless proclaimers of the Word of God.

What had changed for the disciples?  They received the Holy Spirit.

The great truth of Pentecost – for the first disciples and for us as well – is that the Holy Spirit has the power to enlarge and expand the human heart if we allow the Spirit of Jesus to grow and enliven us from within.

In today’s first Scripture reading, we hear how the Holy Spirit was given to the followers of Jesus.   Listen again: “When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together.  And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were.  Then there appeared to them tongues of fire, which parted and came to rest on each of them.  And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to proclaim.”

For the first disciples, the Holy Spirit did not make things easier for them, he didn’t work spectacular miracles, he didn’t take away their difficulties and their opponents.  Rather, the Spirit brought into the lives of the disciples a harmony, that had been lacking, his own harmony, for he is harmony.

The great meaning of Pentecost is that it was time for God to be born again not in one body that was Jesus, but this time in a body of believers who would receive the breath of life from their Lord and pass it to others.

We see how the growth of the Church took place with the influence of the Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles.  The Book of Acts is the story of the incredible growth of the first Christian communities.  The Acts of the Apostles is kind of like a Gospel of the Holy Spirit.  In the first four books of the New Testament we learn the Good news of what God did through Jesus Christ in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  In the Book of Acts of the Apostles, we learn the Good News of what God did through the Holy Spirit.

The first and foremost attribute of the servant church is its daring openness to the Spirit.  It is our prayer that we the Church make room for the release of the Spirit in the life of the community and the courage to act when it does.  We are not to fall back into being the safe and self-absorbed church, but rather a place of miraculous hope and extravagant hospitality.

God chose a young virgin named Mary to bear God’s Son, and Jesus chose a bunch of Galilean fishermen to share in His ministry.   God chooses you and me to hear and witness to His message of hope and promise and love in this place and in our world this day.

We seek to experience Pentecost as the feast of locked doors.  Where are the locked doors in our lives?    For us, we are under extraordinary precaution to wear masks, to socially distance from one another.  We are potential threats to each other’s health.

But for me and for all of us, it is not a time to abandon trust in Jesus as the Lord and Savior of our lives.  It is not a time to abandon our commitment to be a Church of brothers and sisters who stand for one another.  It is not a time for us not to be fearless proclaimers of the Gospel.  But yes, out of love of love for one another, we need to socially distance, wear masks and respect each other’s health.   We so much want to go forth to evangelize and serve but recently serving the greater good has meant doing nothing.  This seems to go against our Gospel DNA.

So, where does that leave us?  We are led to prayer:  Come Holy Spirit.  Fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. 

Now more than ever, we invoke the Holy Spirit to wipe away the darkness of anxiety allowing us to be guided by the light of Christ and to trust in God’s promise of new life.

Our Gospel today takes place on Easter evening.  On that first evening they were gathered in a house with the doors locked, because they were afraid – afraid of being killed, just as Jesus had been killed three days before.  But Jesus was among them and He said: “Peace be with you.”  To this scared group of former followers, the Risen Christ begins by bringing the peace of God.

  Filled with inner peace  that only God can give, our hearts are like a deep sea, which remains peaceful, even when its surface is swept by waves.

The Holy Spirit does not bring only harmony within us but also among us.  He makes us Church, building different parts into one harmonious edifice.  We need the Spirit of unity to regenerate us as Church, as God’s People, and as a human family.

There is always a temptation to build “nests,” to cling to our little group, to the things and the people we like, to resist all contamination.  The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, brings together those who were distant, unites those far off, brings home those who were scattered.

For us the faith communities of St Joseph’s and Holy Spirit, as we reflect on how we are called to collaborate and be for one another, our locked door may be our fear of losing a bit of who we are.   And  we all need to acknowledge all that keeps us from trusting in the grace and the blessings of spirit-filled collaboration.

On this day of Pentecost, as we celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God in our lives, can we trust in each other and in the grace of God that St. Joseph’s and Holy Spirit can be sister parishes that love and serve and support one another?

As the first disciples on the Day of Pentecost were transformed from fearful disciples who wanted to live behind locked doors to become fearless proclaimers of the Word of God, can we the faith communities of Holy Spirit and St. Joseph’s on this Day of Pentecost welcome the opportunity of having a sister parish that will help us live according to our better angels?

As we are well aware during these last few days, across the country protesters took to the streets to express anger over the death of George Floyd, a black man after a Minneapolis police officer kept his knee pressed to his neck for more than eight minutes.  Peaceful protests have at times turned to violence.  Racial tensions have exploded with the claim that promises of freedom and justice have not been met.

May we invoke the wisdom and prayer of Martin Luther King Jr who said:  “ I have decided to stick with love.  Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

On this day of Pentecost, may we pray for healing and unity for our Church and our nation as we now come to the Table of the Lord in spiritual communion.  May we all commit ourselves to using our God-given giftedness in the service of one another.  To quote Martin Luther King again:  Life’s most urgent question is:  What are you doing for others?”

Have a Blessed Day.