When I was a boy I belonged to the Boy Scouts. We city kids used to pack up and go to a campground just beyond the city limits. (One of those camps is on Staten Island, within the city borders. Imagine camping in the woods of New York City!) One of the best features of those weekend trips was the Saturday night campfire. We always built a blazing one and we 20 or 30 boys, along with our scoutmaster, would sit around that fire late into the night until only embers were left. We talked about those campfire circles on the way home and for weeks after.
We would repeat the story our scoutmaster told of Jesse Owens, the great Olympic track star and his struggles against racism. We would teach the songs we learned to those who couldn’t be with us. We would also show them the new knots we learned to tie and the demonstrations of how to start a campfire in rainy weather, etc. Of course, except for the fire (!), we did things like that at our weekly meetings in the church basement, but there was something special about those circles in the woods and the atmosphere created by the fire we sat around.
Maybe that’s why, on a chilly night, people light fires in their fireplace, for the warmth they give, but also the atmosphere they create. Maybe too, that’s why fire is one of the key symbols for the Holy Spirit on this feast of Pentecost and in the Scriptures. The gifts of the Holy Spirit draw us together as a church–like those campfires gathered us Scouts. Without the Spirit the disciples were scattered and disheartened, like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Or, they were physically together, but behind locked doors in fear. Locked up and in fear– hardly the out-going missionary community Jesus envisioned!
Pentecost begins with gathered disciples and, in the Acts account, with fire. It’s the right symbol for a gathering of Jesus’ disciples, because fire warms, energizes, purges and illumines. That’s just some of what the Spirit’s fire can do, not just back then, but right now. Our church leaders and the worshiping community can use, not just some, but all the gifts of the Spirit these days. In the early church, just as today, there was a lot of dissension, suspicion, resistance to change, guilt, fear, etc.
Easter and Christmas get bigger play and excitement, especially among the young, than Pentecost. Pentecost doesn’t have the decorations within the church, on the streets and in the malls as Easter and Christmas do. Pentecost just doesn’t excite the kids–probably not a lot of us adults as well. Where are the exchange of gifts, the family meals, the office and school parties? The attendance here at church doesn’t swell on Pentecost the way it does for those other big festivals. The secular world, especially the advertising industry, just plain ignores Pentecost. What could they sell us anyway? Most of those who are in church today probably think of Pentecost as just another name for a church Sunday in the year–no big deal.
It’s too bad! Because Pentecost celebrates the energy, power and presence of God who gives life to our church and personal spiritual lives. Perhaps the absence of Christmas tinsel and Easter egg hunts can put more emphasis on what we celebrate today: the vital presence of God’s Spirit in our midst. Without all the distractions, we can look and see signs of the Spirit alive and well in our midst.
In the Bible the word “Ruah”, used for the Spirit, is not easily translated into any English word. Sometimes it means wind, breath, spirit etc But from the opening lines of the Hebrew Scriptures the Spirit’s presence is obvious and plays a key role. The Spirit is present at the beginning of Genesis, hovering over the primordial chaos. The creation of humans is described when God breathes into clay the breath of life and the human takes a first breath. When individuals are called for a special task, Moses for example, they are given the Spirit of God. The Spirit was poured out on the prophets stirring up in them a burning zeal for God and God’s Word. From the very moment of his conception Jesus is filled with the Spirit. Throughout his life we see the powerful signs of the Spirit’s presence in his healing and preaching. The entire book of Acts reveals the results of the Spirit’s presence among the first believers. Today we celebrate the gift of that Spirit to his followers–just as he promised them. Right up to the present God has not stopped breathing into mere clay and giving it life.
In the gospel account Jesus enters the locked room where his fearful disciples have gathered. He breathes on them and speaks words of peace and reconciliation to them as an assurance that they are forgiven and in good relationship with him. Then he commissions them to take peace and reconciliation to others. But, they have amply shown, they can’t do this on their own–they are mere clay. So, in John, just as God breathed into the clay in Genesis and the first humans received the breath of life, so Jesus breathed over his disciples equipping them to accomplish what was humanly impossible on their own. The clay that was the early church received the breath of God and became a living, breathing church on fire with zeal to proclaim Jesus in all the world’s languages! Who would have thought those fearful disciples Jesus breathed his Spirit on would have caught such a new life!
At our Baptism and Confirmation we were given that same Spirit. We didn’t get a lesser dose of the Spirit, as if only the disciples in the upper room got the “real thing” and we some other, watered-down version. Our bearing faithful witness to Jesus and his gospel is no more scary than it was for those disciples who left the upper room once they received the breath of God and went out to witness to that crowd who was drawn there by “the noise like a strong driving wind.”
Those crowds attracted by the excitement were of very mixed lot: locals and those from far away; the well-born and poor; former Jews and the most recent converts. In his account in Acts Luke is making it abundantly clear that old barriers of separation and division are beginning to break down. The confusion of Babel is now reversed and, with the Spirit’s gift to all, a new age has dawned. There is a church in the South that has a sign at the exit of the parking lot. The sign faces the departing parishioners. It reads, “You are entering mission territory.”
It makes you want to stay in church, doesn’t it? It’s a big scary world out there. And it’s well-equipped to test our commitment to Christ in many ingenious and well-planned ways. Why not just camp out in the parking lot or in the church hall safe and snug? We can’t, because we have a new breath in us. It’s Christ’s own breath and it sent him on mission to the world. It didn’t spare him fatigue, pain, and being shouted at and criticized. We can’t expect any less, but we have what he had–the breathing and flaming gift of the Spirit.
The Acts, St. Paul and John tell us stories about the earliest appearances of the Holy Spirit. But, unless we have our own modern stories to tell, the Holy Spirit is past tense, just a memory from a seeming “simpler time” in the life of the church. Can we think of our own modern stories of ordinary people revealing breath-taking signs of the Spirit’s life? The 75-year-old sister who opened a shelter for battered families; the single parent who cares for her two children, but still volunteers at the parish’s food pantry; the pastor whose homilies seem to always speak to us; the teenager and his parents who sing in the choir; the college students who spent Easter break repairing homes in Appalachia; the Scout leaders who give up free time to go camping with the youth of the parish; the small business owner who makes sure her employees are safe on the job and have good health coverage, even at the expense of her bottom line, etc. Well, you get the idea.
We need to get the grammar right: the Holy Spirit is not only past tense, but present tense as well. We need to get the math right: the Holy Spirit of the New Testament equals the Holy Spirit of our present time and circumstances. We need to get the colors right: the Holy Spirit doesn’t belong to just one race, but to all colors. We need to get the language right: the Holy Spirit doesn’t just speak in our language, but in many tongues. We need to get the location right: the Holy Spirit doesn’t belong only behind our closed church doors, but has burst out into the whole world. If the Holy Spirit is not confined, then how can we tell where the Spirit is present? Just keep your eyes and ears open for the fire and the breath of new life!