Father Carlton Kelley is the Rector of St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Grayslake, IL.
This sermon is based on The Acts of the Apostles 2:1-21, which you can read by clicking here; and St. John's Gospel 20:19-23, which you can read by clicking here.
SEND FORTH YOUR SPIRIT, O LORD, AND RENEW THE FACE OF THE EARTH. ALLELUIA!
The Feast of Pentecost, which is the culmination of the Easter season of rejoicing, has its roots in ancient Israel as a harvest festival much like our celebration of Thanksgiving.
In Jewish tradition, Pentecost marked the giving of the Law from God to Moses on Mt. Sinai, and later became associated with the harvest of barley and, 50 days later, that of wheat.
The Christian festival of the giving of Pentecost, as its name implies, occurs 50 days after the Lord's Resurrection.
As the first Pentecost marked the giving of God's law for the right ordering of the Jewish people and, by extension, for the good the world, the second Pentecost marks the giving of the Holy Spirit, which enables the law of love as expressed in Jesus' new commandment to love, to be operative in our hearts and minds for the reordering of the world.
In the New Testament readings, we seem to be recalling two quite distinct events, though both recount the giving of the Holy Spirit.
The wonderful reading from the Acts of the Apostles tells of the miraculous and dramatic giving of the Holy Spirit from God to the assembled followers of Jesus 50 days after his Resurrection. In this story, the restoration of the unity of all people to God and one another— the true mission of the church and its unfailing hallmark—is illustrated by the ability to understand different languages as the listener's very own, which is, in and of itself, a restoration of community. If we cannot understand one another at the most basic level of language, then we have no hope for drawing together in love on life's large and important issues. This coming of the Holy Spirit is seen as reversing the division of languages that happened as a result of the insouciant hubris demonstrated by the attempted building of the Tower of Babel as recounted in the book of Genesis, chapter 11.
The reading from the Gospel of John happens before Jesus' Ascension, an event not mentioned in John, and is quite simple in comparison to the story of Acts. Jesus breathes on his disciples and they are empowered to do his work, fully equipped with all the divine reality that is his. As one writer has pointed out, they are not invited but commanded to take the Holy Spirit!
This taking up of the life of Jesus through the Holy Spirit is chiefly manifested in this account in the ability to forgive sins. The ability to forgive sins is far more than a legal opinion, but in its fullest sense is an announcement of a restored relationship both to God and to the sinner's community; an ability to speak the same language again, if you will, an ability broken by sin, but now restored.
If you remember, Jesus' claim to the authority to forgive sins, his insistence that this right belonged to him, was a cause of more than some consternation among the religious leaders of his day. In the Jewish tradition, only God could forgive sins and for a mere mortal to claim such a prerogative was to engage in blasphemy of the highest order. It was as if Jesus took upon himself and claimed the authority to act, in our terms, both as judge and jury, to act as God.
In the Christian tradition, the authority of forgiveness is known as the "power of the keys," an expression taken from a story found in Matthew 16 of Jesus' giving the keys to the kingdom of heaven to St. Peter after he professed Jesus as the Messiah. By extension, Jesus gives this gift collectively to the Church as a whole and specifically to the Church's ordained representatives. However, we who are priests and pastors do not claim to speak on our own authority, God forbid, but only act as an authorized representative of the Church who is herself, in her fullness, the representative of Jesus Christ. It is accurate to say that the clergy of the Church act as in the person of the Church, not as in the person of Christ. This is so because all baptized Christians are called to act in the person of Christ in our daily lives, which is a gift of the Holy Spirit. Only the clergy as ordained to specific tasks within the community may, officially, though certainly not exclusively, represent the Church to herself and the world. And, as we well know, this is a responsibility taken up with various degrees of success!
While the forgiveness of sins is but one element in the rich and brightly-faceted story of Pentecost, it is a central and abiding one because it is chiefly about restoration to God and one another. The giving of the Holy Spirt is, of course, the specific theme, but, like all God's gifts, she is given for a purpose— and always for others. The Holy Spirit is given to us through our Baptism into Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and ascension precisely so that we might be a part of the restoration of ourselves and the whole creation into the kingdom of God that has been so grievously marred and disfigured by sin.
That this is true is confirmed by a mere glance at the day's news in, for example, the gross politicization of COVID 19. The Reverend Anna Blaedel, writing in her blog "Enfleshed," illustrates the profundity of our sin this way:
"The truth is, COVID-19 would not be as deadly and devastating as it is, if not for the collusion of white supremacy, capitalism, mass incarceration, settler colonialism, and their willful denial of the inherent mattering of Black life, the sacred value of Indigenous life, the intrinsic worth of brown life."
And, I would add, many, many others.
These are continuing sins, both individual and collective, that must be confronted and healed by the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit and, in being healed, forgiven.
But first, above all else, they must be recognized as sins in need of forgiveness. When we place ourselves in a posture of sinners in desperate need of forgiveness, when we forgive others, when we forgive ourselves, when we give God the permission to be God, our community and the world are restored to the seamless representatives of God's love we are called to be. We again speak the same language of love and the entire cosmos sings that praise.
Yet in the Gospel of John, Jesus gives the church the extraordinary authority not only to forgive but, strikingly, to retain sins. Jesus says, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained" (John 20:22).
Now, we must ask, why would the Prince of Peace, the One who suffered at the hands of sinners, the One who knows the terrible consequences of sin, wish us to retain sins? This seems to go against everything the Son of Man did, he who was willing to forgive and die for the sins of all.
Martha Spong, a minister of the United Church of Christ writing in the magazine Christian Century, says this:
"We hold onto particular sins not from a position of bitterness or malice, but with a mature understanding of what cannot be sustained and supported by the human community. We agree that some things are too terrible to put behind us, lest they be repeated by future generations— or by us next week or next year."
We hold onto sins, we retain them as Jesus commanded us to do, to remember them and the harm they do; to remember them in the great pain they cause, a pain we are to share. We remember the Holocaust and its terrors so we will never repeat its enormities. We remember the murders of Travon Martin in Florida and George Floyd in Minneapolis so that people of color may be freed from the terrible and violent bondage to white supremacy. We remember the murder of Matthew Shepherd and countless others so that queer folks may not be left to die on a fence in a desert because of the pervasive fear that is too often an expression of heteronormativity. We remember the centuries of subservience and violence women have had to endure, so women will be fully free in the grace of God to be fully women with all the agency and freedom of love that men have always enjoyed.
I once served a church that had experienced sexual abuse at the hands of its clergy. I was there to help them sort through this particular and all-encompassing difficulty that had never been brought to the light of day. I remember one meeting with the congregation and the bishop in particular. The bishop, though no doubt feeling as though he was well intended, said that the women involved needed the grace to just "move on." This reckless comment was greeted, then and there, with the outrage it deserved. But I had the real fear that our good work would be reversed by his one comment. I am happy to say he came to see the error of his position.
The kind of pervasive sexual abuse of women and others in vulnerable positions in our society must be remembered— must be retained— so that it does not continue to happen. For too long this cancer has been allowed to spread unchecked and accepted as simply the way things are, dismissed with the carelessly casual comment of "boys being boys."
During my work with this congregation, any number of older women came to me in private to say that they had been abused in their churches, in their homes, and in their places of work. All of them felt as though they had no recourse but to remain silent. They were not given the permission to speak the language of violence and degradation they knew all too well. That they continued to remain loving and productive for their families and communities was a real testament to their resilience and the love and grace of the Holy Spirit. They had been given no choice but to move on. In effect, they were told just to forget these horrible episodes in their lives. In effect, they were told that justice would never be theirs. In effect, they were told that only the lives of the powerful mattered, whether at home, at church, or at work.
That is why we retain sins so that we will not forget that they are possible— and that they happen. We retain sins so that the dynamics of the language of power that causes them might be closely examined in the light of the language of love. We retain sins, so that in the fullness of God's time, the victims will be healed and the sins will be able to be forgotten, not out of unconcerned carelessness or a will to power, but because we will have all relearned the language of self-giving love.
I maintain, though many would disagree, that one of the chief joys and glories of the church lies in our ability to speak our sins— out loud and with conviction. I believe it is the greatest gift of the Holy Spirit that the church is able to do so, and to do so without fear. I believe this is true because, following in the footsteps of our wounded Jesus, "by our wounds, we have been healed." As the great Canadian poet and song writer, Leonard Cohen, expressed so simply, "that's how the light gets in."
The Holy Spirit is the bringer of this light, a light that never fails to heal, but a light that must often first sear, and a light that must often first blind.
The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Michael Curry, along with many other religious leaders, has invited us to join him on June 1 in a day of "mourning and lament" for those who have died as a result of COVID 19. The death toll of the USA alone stands at more than a 100,000. This is neither a badge of honor nor a sign of success, but an indicator of how casually death is regarded and, through our inaction, how many died that might have been spared. This figure of 100,000, which will climb significantly in the coming weeks, is an indicator of misplaced priorities in health care and the misuse by the few of other precious resources that should be for the good of all. In short, this is a sin that needs to be retained, to learn and learn well, the lessons of the misuse of power concentrated in the hands of the very few for the benefit of the very few.
I invite you to pray this prayer now and on June 1 so that the Holy Spirit might descend richly and abundantly on us and our nation to heal the gaping wounds that have been revealed by COVID 19. And, in being revealed, will experience the marvelous love and healing of God.
"Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we born to eternal life. Amen.
The Holy Spirit Like a Dove, Emanating Light. St. Peter's Basilica, Rome
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