Monday, May 9, 2016

Everyday Pentecost


I have said these things to you
while still with you;
but the Advocate, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you everything
and remind you of all that I have said to you.’

John 14:26

Getting out of our comfort zones isn’t easy. The disciples in the upper room had become anxious. They had no idea what would happen next, what to expect. They hear the sound of a great wind and above their heads appears – something that looks like a flame – and the anxiety, the puzzlement, the loss they have suffered dissipates as a new confidence, a power, a strength at first seeps through, emerging into the bustling, energetic gift of tongues. This gift drives them to the streets to proclaim the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. The people of Jerusalem who come from every corner of the known world are shocked and surprised, for from the mouths of these uneducated, uncouth Galileans, they can hear them preach the Good News in their own languages.

So disarming is this event that some believe that they are drunk. Peter reminds them it is still too early in the morning!

The gift they have been given is the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, the Paraclete. The disciples have never experienced anything like this before. They too are taken aback by what has now overcome them. Many of those who hear them come to believe and are baptised.

This event which we call Pentecost (because it occurred during the Jewish feast of Pentecost) might appear to be ‘organised chaos’, and yet this is the event for which the disciples have been thoroughly prepared for by Jesus himself. For if there is a purpose to Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, Pentecost is merely the first moment of revelation - the uncertainty, the lack of confidence are dismissed. In Jerusalem that day, the momentum built up by Jesus over three years bursts into life.

The writer of the Acts of the Apostles is, of course, not writing history (as we know it), nor is he viewing these events with his own eyes. They are eyes of faith, the eyes of a community of faith. It may well be that the radical experience the disciples went through on Pentecost, was in fact, an event which took place over quite an extended period of time, and this experience was a gentle transformation from fear and anxiety, to confidence and action. The retelling of this experience in Acts gives an edge and an excitement to the event that is both compelling and inviting. The lived experience may easily be mirrored in our own Pentecosts.

Our Pentecost experience is rolled out every day – as today’s disciples we continue to uncover the mission that we have been given. We might not be asked to proclaim the Gospel on street corners, but we are undoubtedly invited to share and be good news to one another.

Happy birthday, Church!


Peter Douglas
HEAD OF SCHOOL SERVICES, NORTH


 


Stories from the bottom: One of the few subversive texts in history, believe it or not, is the Bible!

By Richard Rohr

Most of political and church history has been controlled and written by people who have the access, the power, and the education to write books and get them published. One of the few subversive texts in history, believe it or not, is the Bible!

The Bible is most extraordinary because it repeatedly and invariably legitimizes the people on the bottom, and not the people on the top. The rejected son, the barren woman, the sinner, the leper, or the outsider is always the one chosen by God. Please do not take my word on this, but check it out for yourself.

It is rather obvious, but for some reason the obvious needs to be pointed out to us. In every case, we are presented with some form of powerlessness--and from that situation God creates a new kind of power. This is the constant pattern which is hidden in plain sight.

Many barren women are mentioned in the Hebrew Scriptures, and we repeatedly see God showing them favor. Sarah, Abraham's wife, was barren and past childbearing years when God blessed her with baby Isaac (Genesis 17:15-19). Rachel, Jacob's wife, was barren until God "opened her womb" and she bore Joseph (Genesis 30:22-24). Barren Hannah poured out her soul before the Lord, and God gave her Samuel (1 Samuel 1).

Even before Moses, God chose a "nobody," Abraham, and made him a somebody. God chose Jacob over Esau, even though Esau was the elder, more earnest son and Jacob was a shifty, deceitful character. Election has nothing to do with worthiness but only divine usability, and in the Bible, usability normally comes from having walked through one's own wrongness or "littleness." We see this especially in Mary, a "humble servant" (Luke 1:48).

God chose Israel's first king, Saul, out of the tribe of Benjamin, the smallest and weakest tribe. The pattern always seems to be that "the last will be first, and the first will be last" (Matthew 20:16). This is so consistently the pattern that we no longer recognize its subversive character. They became merely sweet rags to riches stories.

One of the more dramatic biblical stories in this regard is the story of David. God chose him, the youngest and least experienced son of Jesse, to be king over the nation. His father, who had many sons, did not even mention David as a possibility, but left him out in the fields (1 Samuel 16). David was thus the forgotten son who then became the beloved son of Yahweh, the archetypal whole man of Israel, laying the foundation for the son of David, Jesus.

In case after case, the victim becomes the real victor, leading Rene Girard to speak of "the privileged position of the victim" as the absolutely unique and revolutionary perspective of the Bible. Without it, we are hardly prepared to understand the "folly of the cross" of Jesus. Without this bias from the bottom, religion ends up defending propriety instead of human pain, the status quo instead of the suffering masses, triumphalism instead of truth, clerical privilege instead of charity and compassion.  And this, from the Christianity that was once "turning the whole world upside down" (Acts 17:6).

Richard Rohr OFM (Center of Action and Contemplation, Daily Meditations)

 


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