The Joys of Pentecosts [sic] in the Real World

 

Sermon. 1 June 2025. St John the Evangelist’s, Ovington

Easter 7 (Year of Luke)

 

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

[Reminder about BSL response.]

 

Yes, it is still Eastertide! The tone, or the mood, changes slightly, as we have marked the Ascension on Thursday, and as we must in one way or another be looking towards Pentecost next Sunday., Nevertheless, it is important that we remind ourselves that we are still in the Easter season. That we draw upon the core Christian belief. The one that makes all the rest fall into place. And that core – that heart – is that Christ is risen from the dead. And, remember Mary Magdalene: I have seen the Lord. And so we say:

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

 

All of that said, today I am going to do something I have not done yet, in our time, and something I will do only very rarely (but will do from time to time). I mean I am going to spring from our readings (set for the 7^th Sunday of Easter season), and refer to another calendar. I do this, because there is an interesting conflation of calendars today.

 

You see, this evening, Pentecost begins. “Wait!” I hear you cry, “you’ve just told us that Pentecost is next Sunday. How can it begin this evening!” Well, this evening Pentecost begins, too. Why…

 

Because this evening marks the beginning of the Jewish Pentecost, which goes by the Hebrew name, Shavuot, meaning Sevens, or Weeks. What does the Jewish Feast of Pentecost/Shavuot/Weeks mark? What does it mean? What did it mean to the apostles, in the time before the descent of the Holy Spirit upon them?

 

In the Bible, it is clear. This Feast is harvest festival! More precisely, it marks the wheat harvest. Passover marks the barley harvest, and then the people count 49 days, and on the 50^th day, the wheat will be ripe, ripe for the harvest. It’s really a practical matter, about he agricultural year in the land of Israel.

 

We can already see why this is a good – a fitting – day for the descent of the Holy Spirit, and what at least is often called the Birthday of the Church. In the power, the energy, the liveliness of the Spirit, the apostles are no longer bewildered mourners (bewildered also by their resurrection experiences). They are missionaries. And they go out to bring in the harvest. To bring the harvest home. And that begins on the very day of the Bible’s own wheat harvest.

 

Well and good, but there is perhaps something more. It’s not in the Bible but in later Jewish tradition the Feast of Pentecost/Shavuot/Weeks marks something more. Another meaning comes to take precedence. It is the Feast that marks the Giving of Torah at Sinai.

 

The Giving of Torah. I am using the Hebrew word (Torah). The usual English translation is “Law”. The Giving of the Law, to Moses on Sinai. But, well, it’s not a good translation. And it’s especially not a good translation if we think of “the Law” as a bad thing, a cold thing, a thing which suggests that God is distant, that God is a rule-giver first, that God burdens Israel with apparently countless rules. Have any of us as Christians thought these things about the commandments that came through Moses? It would be surprising if we had not.

 

In Jewish thinking the commandments of the Torah are a burden in the sense that they are tasks. The children of Israel do have a lot to be getting on with. But they are also a great privilege, and so they are also a joy. The giving of Torah – with all its commandments – is something to celebrate. Indeed you mark it by eating dairy products, and sweet things. Why? Because a life ruled by Torah, by the commandments from Sinai is like living in a land flowing with milk and honey. Law, Torah, milk, honey. Sweetness, and life! In other words, more than a burden, it is a great privilege to be shown how to live in ways which please God, by knowing, learning, and practising the ways God Godself shows us. This is why – in Jewish thinking – the children of Israel at that time at Sinai shouted out: “we will do and we will hear” [Exodus 24:7]. They were (on one reading) willing to do them even before they heard them. Law, Torah, milk, honey. Sweetness, and life!  

 

When did this idea that Pentecost marked the Giving of Torah enter into Jewish thinking? We don’t know. I say again: it is nowhere in the Bible. But there is some evidence it might have been around, maybe by the time of Jesus, or at least by the time Luke was writing the Acts of the Apostles.

 

So that would give us another resonance for Christian Pentecost. If this is right, we are meant to feel some of the excitement of Sinai. Let me say again: Law, Torah, milk, honey. Sweetness, and life! A way of life to immerse yourselves in. A way of life that comes with God’s blessing. That first Christian Pentecost wasn’t so much a showy magical event, with strange tongues of fire and strange tongues of speech. No, it was about entering into the way of life which the Spirit teaches, which, yes, the Spirit commands. Like a Sinai, there was a meeting with God, who gave us something to do!

 

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

 

I will say one thing more thing, as a coda. I have learned and reflected on such as the above, because there has been over half a century of Jewish-Christian dialogue, Jewish-Chrisian rapprochement, a coming together of Jews and Christians. This is something to celebrate in its own right. (And it happens that this year is the anniversary of an important milestone in that journey. But more about that anon.)

 

The thing about good dialogue is that it makes truth-telling possible. We can be candid with each other. The State of Israel is one thing at the heart of Judaism for many Jews. Christians have to do the hard work of understanding that. Judaism is not Christianity without Christ. No. It has its own energies and focus. And a focus on the Land of Israel, and derivatively on the State of Israel (as what makes living Jewishly in the Land possible) is most certainly one such focus.  

 

But! But that doesn’t ever mean that Jews or Christians must slavishly agree with – still less support – the policies of any particular government of the State of Israel, or any particular Israeli politicians. And among both Jews and Christians many are saying that now is the time when we simply have to speak out about what the Israeli government is doing in Gaza. Denying food to civilians. Killing civilians. Engaging in a war that doesn’t seem to have any goal, any goal, that is, apart from, it seems, removing or wiping out Gazan Palestinians altogether.

 

This sermon is of course not the place even to begin to set out the various arguments on all sides (there are more than two). But I do urge us all to do this. To pray for Israelis and Palestinians. To pray for Gazans. To pray for those in power. To pray for the innocent children. To pray for a solution. And if you are minded to take action and find out more, or protest, do not, as it were, sit on that inclination, squash it down, but live it out.

 

For we live in the excitement of Easter, yes, and in the excitement of Pentecost (Pentecosts!), but also in the agony of a real world not yet put right.

 

Amen.

Preaching Pentecost by John's Gospel Alone

 

Sermon. 28/05/2023 Pentecost

Gospel: John 20:19-23

 

We are here to mark on the Day of Pentecost, and to reflect on the gospel of the day. This immediately raises – if not a problem, then – an issue. For the gospel makes no mention of Pentecost at all. Indeed the word Pentecost is found nowhere, in any of the gospels.

 

We need to go back a stage. “Pentecost” comes from the Greek, meaning 50^th, and in particular the 50^th day after Passover, which brings us to the second of the three Harvest Festivals of Judaism. But this harvest festival takes on a new meaning in the story - not from the gospels but - from the Book of Acts. You know it, I think. There is a violent wind. There are tongues as of fire. Each tongue rests on one of the apostles. They speak new words, in new tongues. What could be more dramatic?

 

Today’s gospel is in some tension with this. It does describe an encounter with the risen Lord, on that first Easter Day. So, yes, it has a drama of its own. But! But what actually happens is: Jesus breathes. He breathes out. He breathes upon the apostles and says, in all simplicity: “Receive Holy Spirit”. And this Spirit is associated with the peace Jesus has already brought, and with a new pattern of forgiveness. Jesus breathes, breathes forgiveness,  and the capacity to forgive.

 

Do we have to choose between the two accounts of the coming of Holy Spirit? Surely we need both. We may long for – either boldly and publicly or secretly – long for the drama of the Day of Pentecost. And if we can’t have tongues of fire, then can we not have fire in our belly? If we can’t have tongues of fire, can we not have it so that our hearts burn within us. Such things are certainly part of the story of the Church. Such fiery and spirited passion is to be welcomed, always after testing.

 

But! But let us not forget the other story. The story that the Spirit comes from simple intimacy with Jesus. An intimacy with Jesus that is possible because his followers had gathered in one place. They wanted to be with each other. At least as much as any drama, we are to long for the closeness to Jesus that comes from feeling his breath on us. Feel his breath on us, so that we can receive some new gift from him. Feel his breath, so that we can bring forgiveness into the world.

 

I hope this speaks to you. But I am also aware – say it bluntly – that it may not speak to the people we long to reach out to, who have no connection with the story. They may say: “I can do forgiveness. Someone says sorry. I say that’s okay. We both move on. Why does it have to be more complicated with Gd?”

 

We need to be clear that forgiveness here isn’t a word of pardon. It isn’t any sort of transaction. Remember Jesus is with his friends, but his friends are the ones who have let him down. They fled. They let him die. And… not one of them has said sorry. It is even an open question if they feel guilt or shame. Yet Jesus is there, already there, fully there, reliably there, speaking peace. Because this forgiveness is not a pardon. It is Gd’s own determination to form a new community, one were recrimination – even justified recrimination – just has no place.

 

This is the divine forgiveness from the breath of Holy Spirit. This is for us, and it for us to help move and grow in the world. There’s something dramatic here – as dramatic as any wind, or any fire.

 

Amen.

 

Sermon: Celebrating the Queen's Birthday; Celebrating Pluralism

Sermon. St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford. 12 June 2016

Trinity 3 (Year C)

2 Samuel 11:26-12:10, 13-15

Luke 7:36-8:3

How are you? Have you been celebrating, partying? I am looking for bleary eyes... Hmm... about average, I'd say! But, if we – we as the British people - have been celebrating, what have we been celebrating?... Well, we Britons might have been celebrating at least four things things this weekend.

We might just perhaps have been celebrating the sport? After all, Wales wins at football, and even England manages not to lose.

More to the point, our Muslim fellow-citizens are celebrating the early days of the holy month of Ramadan. It is true that Ramadan is a time of strict fasting. But it's not really like our Lent, if (big 'if') by that we think of a focus on our sins. In Ramadan, you fast during daylight hours, but at nightfall, you feast. You invite those who are poor, but also your friends. Communal feasting is encouraged. Ramadan is understood not as a season for penitence, but as a spiritually joyful time when Gd is especially close. As a household in Sixth Avenue proudly displays in its window: 'The Gates of Paradise are open'. So, indeed, a cause of celebration.

Again, differently, our Jewish fellow-citizens are today celebrating the first day of Jewish Pentecost, or Feast of Weeks or Shavuot in Hebrew. In the Old Testament, Weeks/Shavuot is simply a harvest festival. But in later Jewish tradition it came to mark as well 'Matan Torah', the Giving of the Law, of Gd's own Guidance and Pattern for living, as given through Moses at Sinai. With this, two practices developed over time. First, the studying of this Torah, this Guidance given via Moses, throughout the night. And second, and no less importantly, indulging in sweet dairy products (cheesecake is particularly popular; expected). There are various theories as to why Jews do this. But one obvious one is to remind us of milk and honey – good, nourishing delicacies. To insist that following the Guidance of Sinai makes for a sweet and good life. So, indeed, once again, a cause of celebration.

All of that said, of course most of us are likely to have been celebrating the official 90^th Birthday of our Sovereign Queen, Elizabeth II. And why not? Even people who are not ardent - or any kind of - monarchists can see much that is impressive in our current Queen, and her dedication and faithfulness to her vocation. And, even if one disagrees with that (and you can be a loyal Anglican and disagree), it can be and is good to mark a long life, as a reminder of the value of life itself. Many, many causes of celebration here.

What this shows is that in today's United Kingdom, there truly is diversity. Pluralism. This causes unease and turbulence along the way, of course. But it is something we do not intrinsically have to fear. It gives us more chances to celebrate than we ever had before. The breaking of the daily fast of Ramadan is known as the iftar. And more and more Muslim communities are offering 'interfaith iftars', inviting people of other faiths to join them for the feasting. (If you're interested in one – let's talk.)

And, again, in one major synagogue in Central London, I know that Jews, Christians and Muslims marked the Jewish Festival of Shavuot by coming together to learn from their Scriptures, in one of those all-night study sessions I mentioned. So we can celebrate our diversity, our pluralism, because our pluralism gives us new and fascinating things to celebrate. Baruch Ha Shem! Al Hamdu li Lah! Alleluia!

What is striking about this is that one of the people who has most effectively reflected on this new situation - and on how we Christians might relate to it - is the Queen herself. Her Majesty's Christmas message has become one of the few remaining places - let's be honest - where people who never go to church hear some serious reference to the birth of Jesus Christ at Christmas! And, crucially, the Queen does not present that story as an exclusive possession for an closed-in sect. Rather, she relates it to our common life, our national life. Consider this, from the Christmas Day address of 2014:

Queen Elizabeth: 'For me, the life of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, whose birth we celebrate today, is an inspiration and an anchor in my life. A role model of reconciliation and forgiveness, he stretched out his hands in love, acceptance and healing. Christ's example has taught me to seek to respect and value all people, of whatever faith or none.'

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWUho9WDIgw]

Given this, it is not too surprising that Her Majesty takes solemnly seriously her role as Supreme Governor or our little Church. Here she is addressing our General Synod in November 2015:

'St. Paul reminds us that all Christians, as ambassadors for Christ, are entrusted with the ministry of reconciliation. Spreading God's word[,] and the onerous but rewarding task of peace-making and conflict resolution[,] are important parts of that ministry. So too is the Church of England's particular vocation to work in partnership with those of other faiths and none, to serve the common good in this land.'

[https://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2015/11/the-queen's-speech-at-the-inauguration-of-the-tenth-general-synod-of-the-church-of-england.aspx]

Did you hear it? 'The Church of England's particular vocation [is] to work in partnership with those of other faiths and none, to serve the common good in this land.' Yes! We can be rightly proud that this resonates with our own vision for this church and the Froud Centre too. Maybe we weren't invited to the thanksgiving service at St Paul's Cathedral. Nevertheless, Her Majesty and we truly are singing from the same hymn-sheet!

It's true that the theme of celebration does not dominate in today's First Reading, nor the Gospel. But I'd say it is still there. For both readings are about sincere repentance. King David, and the unnamed woman who wipes Jesus feet with her hair - with her tears - both come to a place of self-awareness, knowing that they have sinned, and turning to Gd for forgiveness. And, with self-knowledge, and with that willingness to express remorse and seek forgiveness, there comes real relief. The hard work of deluding self and others can stop. And with that relief on earth, there is, we are told, joy in heaven. Here, then, is another way in which we can see that celebration can take the most diverse of forms: it can mean exuberance (with cheesecake upon cheesecake); it can mean quiet calm - and all things in between.

And I leave you with this. It turns out that Her Majesty is not only a good popular theologian of the Anglican way; she is also a good pastor, who cares for those in her care. On Desert Island Discs, the surgeon David Nott told the story of returning to the UK after seeing indescribable horrors, working in hospitals around some war zone. He was honoured by an invitation to formal dinner with the Queen. When he was there, he realised that he was still too traumatised to make small talk. To speak. The Queen said: 'Can I help?' The traumatised surgeon had no idea what she could mean, what she could do. But she called for... the corgis. And she asked a courtier to open the cupboard in the corner – wherein lay... the dog biscuits! So Her Majesty and the surgeon spent the rest of the meal just playing with the dogs, stroking, feeding, and throwing biscuits for the corgis... And, yes, David Nott was clear: that human touch – that canine touch – really did help.

Not to labour the point, in this act of thoughtful kindness, going beyond mere duty, we have a model to emulate, yes, but also yet another cause, among so many causes, for celebration. Alleluia. Amen. 

Sermon for Pentecost: Tradition as Change

Sermon. 24 May 2015. 
St Michael and All Angels, Little Ilford

Pentecost (Year B)

Acts 2.1-21

Psalm 104

Romans 8.22-27

John 15.26-27, 16.4b-15

Last week Fr Brian told of his first visit to the Holy Land. Now, it wouldn't do if – ever – a clergy team exhibited internal competitiveness. No, that would be wrong. Nevertheless, I feel myself strangely drawn to say... 'When I visited the Holy Land, on each of my three visits there, I too came back laden with anecdote and insight, which I might just share with you, from time to time!

Brothers and sisters, I am joking of course. Really, I want to complement, build on what Fr Brian said last. I want to do that by returning to one place he mentioned, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, in the middle of the Old City of Jerusalem as it is now. 'Sepulchre' just means 'tomb'. So it is the Church of the Holy Tomb, the tomb of Jesus. This also explains its other name, the Church of the Resurrection.

I might give it another name: it is, perhaps supremely in the Christian world, the Marmite Church. You understand? I am saying: you either love it or you hate it. It so happens I love it (but to go into why would be a distraction). I do get why others hate it. You see, all the main indigenous Christian Churches have a presence there, and some others. And... they do not get on. That is putting it mildly. I might say they live in a state of constant mutual antagonism. This means that when huge numbers of Christians want to gather in the Church at the festivals, typically the Israeli police (overwhelmingly Jews of course) have to be present – police, in the Church itself. What is more, none of these Christian groups will trust any other with the key to the door of the Church. Instead, that trust is placed in Muslim families (who consider it a great honour, by the way).

What this also means is that the Church is run wholly by policing and preserving the status quo. At least it seems to me that nothing can be moved; nothing can be repaired; no times or customs of services can be changed. The Copts, for example, everywhere else in the world, have an Easter procession, with the great icon of the Resurrection when you would expect - during Eastertide. But... in the Holy Sepulchre they have that same Easter procession every Sunday of the year, including throughout Lent. The reason? Nothing remotely theological (at least as it's been explained to me). It's rather that if they once gave up their right to that bit of space, at that time, they'd lose it altogether, lose it to the other Christian groups who are always competing for space and time.

So if I love it, I love it in spite of this weirdness. It is worse than weirdness; it is wrong. It compromises our Christian witness. More: it is a good example of what tradition in Christianity is not.

*

The danger is that we may be so used to thinking that all these words mean the same thing: old-fashioned, ancient, unchanged and unchanging, small-c-conservative, and traditional. In some contexts, that might be fair. If we are thinking about, say, architecture, or cuisine, or musical preference, there may well be a large overlap in meaning between old-fashioned, ancient, unchanged and unchanging, small-c-conservative, and traditional. But not so in the Church.

And the reason why it is not so in the Church can be summed up in ten words:

because of the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

What the gift of the Holy Spirit, as a constant presence over and among the Church, means is that within Christianity, tradition means rather the right kind of renewal of the Church, tradition isn't things staying stuck and changeless, it's faithfulness to the pattern of renewal we inherit from the saints.

If that sounds wrong and/or bizarre, consider our first reading. After receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit, the disciples move from speaking Aramaic, to speaking any number of languages. They move from being scared and timid, to being bold and public. (Not necessarily in your face, but certainly in your ear.) They speak of the fulfilment of prophecy. So we are in New Times, if not in the End Times.

We see the idea also in the psalm: 'Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth'. The Spirit is the spirit of renewal.

We see it also in Paul's Letter to the Romans. True, you wouldn't know it from today's extract alone, but today's passage is part of a wider reflection by Paul on the new thing that Gd has done, in bringing gentiles, non-Jews, in great number into the Christian community.

We see it supremely in the gospel, when Jesus says: 'When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth'. We are to expect new truths.

And one more: we see it also in the creed we will pray together in a few moments. The language we will use, that the Son of God is 'of one Being with the Father [or of the same substance], God from God' and so on, was criticised at the time it was proposed in the fourth century, as being novel, innovative language – as such un-biblical. But those who defended it said the language is innovative, true, but we need this innovation to convey the truth of the Son of God. And these people – not the biblicist conservatives – are those we now call the 'orthodox' and indeed the 'traditionalists'.

In the Church, and so for us, tradition is the right kind of change, change as prompted by the Holy Spirit, who leads us into new truths.

Now, if this alarms you, please don't panic. It doesn't mean throwing babies out with bathwater. It doesn't mean (change of image) re-inventing the wheel Sunday by Sunday. It doesn't mean tying ourselves up with the latest fad or fashion. It has to be the right kind of change, change after the pattern of renewal we inherit. That means it typically can be discerned only over time, after prayer, deliberation, disagreement, and more time.

*

How, then might we change? We will need, over time, to reflect on where the Spirit is leading the Church and the Churches into new truths. We will need, over time, to reflect on the Spirit of the prophecy, which is the Spirit of Pentecost, and the prophetic challenge the Church is duty bound to address to governments and other instruments of power. But for now let us return to the second reading. Paul writes:

'we groan inwardly... [and] the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes...'.

Here, in the first place, we can find renewal of hope for ourselves. If we find ourselves this Sunday morning feeling we do not know how to pray - if we, indeed, find ourselves, if truth be told, resigned to the fact that, while we shall say some prayers, we have long since given up on prayer being important in how we actually live our lives – then we are not in a bad place. Because we will still groan and sigh, in our own ways. And the revelation of God is that, in the Spirit, our sighs and groans are already prayers. Renewal of hope for us, I say, here and now.

But not only for us. I am wondering if one possible form of renewal for the Church is the way we speak with people who are not Christian and who have no religious or spiritual allegiance. Such people often seem to say, 'I wish I had your faith' (or words to that effect). And perhaps we don't know what to say. They seem to think that faith is, well, there are many variations, but among them, they may assume that faith is:

a) a way of seeing another dimension in life which is simply natural for some, but simply impossible for others;

b) rock-solid certainty which never doubts and has an answer for everything;

c) a spiritual entity which God as-it-were injects into some but leaves a long way from others.

We know that faith is none of these things. And it is good that we know this. We know that, even if we are or get called 'people of faith', it may mean nothing more than that we trust that our groans and sighs by the Spirit do find their way to God. And maybe the renewal of the Church will come when we find new ways to say this.

In the Church, then, tradition has nothing to do with preserving the status quo out of fear or enmity. Tradition, rather is the right kind of change. And... who knows? Who knows what change might just come about if we find ways of being alongside our friends and neighbours, to hear their sighs and groans, and finding the right ways to say to them that these are already prayers? Prayer and faith are already not totally alien to them, far from it. So they would at least have nothing to lose in simply seeing what happened if they joined with others who pray, say, in Church.

Amen.