The Day of Pentecost, rcl yr c, 2022
Acts 2:1-21; Psalm 104:25-35, 37B; Romans 8:14-17; John 14:8-17, 25-27
When we cry
The story many of us know best about Pentecost is what we hear about in Acts. It’s the story we told yesterday at Come to the Table, our informal family-oriented service, because it has all the drama we could imagine.
It’s a tale of international metaphysical intrigue! Intrigue … There’s a violent wind from above and fire appearing from nowhere! It’s metaphysical intrigue … Where is this wind and fire coming from? Well, above and nowhere, apparently. And it’s an international metaphysical intrigue …This violent wind and descending fire makes people talk in other languages?
Not only though is it an international metaphysical intrigue, it’s one of the last chapters of a mystery, the central question being what the book of the prophet Joel meant when God said: “I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.” The book of the prophet Joel meant that this would happen: by the power of the Holy Spirit, the disciples would speak of God’s deeds of power manifested in Jesus, of God’s act of grace in Jesus, of a life given that we might live; and this story was not just for Jerusalem, but for the whole of the world. For you; for me; for us. We are reconciled, I am made good and well, you are forgiven and loved.
This is the drama of Pentecost: the word of God and of divine expression, how the grace of God comes to be known in every language of the world.
I’d like to talk today though about the Holy Spirit in a different way. I’d like to talk how Paul writes about the Holy Spirit in Romans chapter 8, where the expression of God the Holy Spirit is written about not in terms of intelligibility, of understandability, or comprehensibility, but in terms of a cry in one place; and in another, as a sigh too deep for words.
In our reading from Romans Paul writes of receiving a spirit of adoption. Baptism is hiding in plain sight here. We receive the Holy Spirit in our baptism; and our baptism is our adoption, our initiation into God’s family, where we are made children of God with Christ as our sibling. This is “receiving the spirit of adoption.”
For Paul, here, what’s distinctive about the Christian life that comes in baptism, though, is not our ability to speak a dozen languages and to share the word of grace to millions of people from all nations. What’s distinctive is an expression that is far less intelligible, comprehensible, or even clear. Distinctive of the baptismal life is a cry. The greek here is krazomen, and you can hear what he means in the word itself. We cry to God with just two letters, an alpha and a beta, an a and a b, “abba!”
This cry to the Father is the beginning of what we will say in a moment in our Baptismal Creed and Covenant; something that develops in sophistication, and becomes very concrete in its expression in our lives.
But in the baptismal life it isn’t us crying out to God, it’s the Holy Spirit “bearing witness with our spirit,” we have the Holy Spirit in baptism and now the Holy Spirit can cry out in us, and what the Holy Spirit cries out in us is that we are children of God, and if children of God then with Christ as our brother, and with Christ as our brother, then we are the recipients too of all the promises God has made to Jesus his chosen one.
In this way, the baptismal life of the Holy Spirit is Trinitarian: the Holy Spirit gives us the words of prayer, and that prayer expresses our adoption by a heavenly parent, a heavenly father, Abba, an adoption into a new family with Jesus as a sibling, and with Jesus as a sibling then heir to all that’s promised to him.
Here, the prayer of the Holy Spirit isn’t the explosion of words and language and expression that we hear about in Acts. The prayer of the Holy Spirit is simply, “Abba. Father.”
Elsewhere Paul describes the prayer given to us in the Holy Spirit as even less comprehensible yet. Later in Chapter 8 of Romans Paul says that “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.” Again,
prayer here is not our own words, but words given; and these words are less comprehensible than the cry of “Abba, father,” let alone the explosion of words described in Acts, or for that matter the promise made in Matthew, that you shouldn’t worry about what to say, because the Holy Spirit will give you words. Sometimes, the words God gives us in the Holy Spirit aren’t words at all, but a sigh, a groan, an involuntary expression in the face of an undesirable circumstance.
Blergh!
Argh!
This sort of cry might actually be something closer to a prayer than anything else we might say.
Sometimes the Spirit gives us just the right words to say, whether that be a word that would defend against an old enemy; or a word of grace to a new friend. This is part of the promise of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes though we might be given but one word, and a cry at that: a cry of vulnerability, a cry of dependence, a cry of trust: Abba, father.
But there are any number of reasons we might be left entirely speechless. To be left without even one right word to say. Like when we are left with a groan of vexation, a sigh of frustration, or even a whimper of resignation in the face of our weakness; this may well be the Spirit giving expression to those things that are just impossible to say; and given to us as a prayer to God.
All of these cries and sighs, when they are the cries and sighs of the Spirit, are the voice of God the Spirit dwelling in us, cries and sighs best understood as prayer, and prayers that confirm the extraordinary things promised in baptism: that in Christ we are given all those things promised in him by the Father: acceptance; forgiveness; and a love more deep than words can express.
The Revd Dr Preston Parsons
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.
As our parish musician, he provides both support and leadership so that a variety of parish programs can find musical expression and attract participation. When our handbell choir is in season, he is one of our ringers. At parish dinners, he provides popular piano music for the guests to dine by. For both worship services and concerts, he will rehearse and accompany vocal and instrumental soloists from our congregation on piano, organ, or even accordion.
Angus Sinclair was appointed Director of Music of St. John the Evangelist on February 1, 2023. Having graduated in 1981 (Honours B.Mus.) in organ performance from Wilfrid Laurier University, he went on to distinguish himself as a church musician, recitalist and accompanist touring in both Canada and the UK. For over 40 years Angus has served parishes and congregations throughout Southwestern Ontario as director of music. He experiences his present appointment to St. John’s as a welcome homecoming, both spiritually and musically.