Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 19 May 2024.
Juan Bautista Mayno (1581-1649): Pentecost (Source)
• First Reading: Acts 2: 1-21 (The coming of the Holy Spirit – Peter’s address to the crowd)
• Epistle: Romans 8: 22-27 (We are the first fruits of the Holy Spirit, awaiting adoption to sonship)
• Gospel: John 15: 26-27; 16: 4-15 (The Spirit will guide you into all truth – speaking only what He hears)
There is one hymn that I refused to have this morning – it is the one that asks for the gift of love.
And this love has all sorts of images, from ‘She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah,’ and ‘Let’s spend the night together, now I love you more than ever’ to every other kind of sentiment of the most mushy and self-centered kind.
Above all it assumes that love is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and I’m sorry to tell you, it is not. St Paul describes it as a fruit of the Spirit but it is never referred to as a gift in scripture.
No, love is that fruit of the Spirit that is grown, cultivated, pruned and brought to excellence by the circumstances of life and the way we respond to them. It is all about the other person and is demonstrated most directly by Jesus on the cross.
So we have to start again.
When they were gathered together, they already had one mind and one purpose. They were rejoicing in Jesus, His resurrection and what that meant as they thought about His ministry among them.
This was their focus and their purpose. No other agendas, just gathered together to pray and worship and wait for whatever was coming next – and they had no way of knowing how this would be seen or understood.
So the initiative as wholly with God. No liturgies, no canons or codes of practice or theological best-practice notes.
And then what came was the same breath with which God had given life to Adam and Eve; it was the same breath that Ezekiel had seen giving life to the dry bones in the valley. It was the same breath with which Jesus had healed the sick, and indeed in which He had expressed the will of God as life, the heavens and the earth were created.
This time is was loud, powerful, insistent. It was there to be received so that it might bring a new kind of life to the disciples, now 120 strong.
And then it had its effects, giving new speech to each disciple, as they offered their voices to the praises of God. And in that speech they could worship God, proclaim the gospel, speak to all others whom they met, heal the sick, take authority over the mists and illusions of darkness.
But there was more: flames of fire, the same fire that had consumed the sacrifice of Abraham as God made His covenant with him, and the same fire that lit up the bush in the wilderness, calling Moses to itself and yet lighting up but not consuming the bush itself. The same fire that Elijah called down at Carmel.
A fire to purify and warm and to give light. It would empower the disciples and yet it would purify them as well. It would consume the things that inhibited their faith – and their love. It would withdraw from them the things that obstructed and weakened them but it would leave them stronger, deeper and more determined in their faith.
So this is all very well for those first disciples and apostles in the very early church. What about us?
We also are held back by fear and guilt. The sense of inadequacy especially when faced by a hostile community where faith in anything beyond sport or politics or science is held in great suspicion. Even faith in art and culture is suspect, never mind faith in the living God and in the gospel message of Jesus Christ.
The assumption is that if you believe in the resurrection of Jesus – then keep it to yourself.
But our need is real. We need that exuberance in the Holy Spirit as we seek to live as Jesus commanded. We also need to step out of that sense of inadequacy and guilt as we speak and act for the One who is sinless and yet who rose from the grave.
We are a people in need of that extra power and authority in living the gospel and showing others what it is about.
We also need dying embers to be re-kindled, doubts to be confronted with reassurance, and the fear of rejection to be set against the love and glory of God.
Here we will indeed find love – being shown and cultivated in new and exciting ways. It is a love of God, moving away from self. It is a love directed always to the other and starting with God as we know Him in Jesus Christ.
A love that He will seek throughout our lives to perfect and strengthen, to renew with a new power over the past and all its failures and disappointments.
It is a love that we find in simple fellowship around the scriptures and the sacraments but which radiates like that warming flame and which brings life rather than condemnation.
So yes, Come Holy Spirit. Come within us and among us, and empower us with the gifts we need to proclaim the message of Jesus.
Come most of all to cultivate in us the fruits of the spirit, and most of all that most glorious, most costly and most powerful work of love.
Faith, hope and love all abide – and the greatest is love, which we need to be grown within us and among us.
