Sermon for Sunday, June 8th 2025

June 8, 2025
Pentecost

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

Please be seated.

Friends, let me show you an icon.

[This is a Pentecost icon showing Mary, the mother of Jesus, surrounded by twelve apostles. Her hands, open in blessing, show her presiding over the apostles who show deference and affirmation by extending their hands in the way concelebrants sometimes do at a mass where there are several priests or bishops.

Anchoring the picture is an image of Christ holding twelve scrolls representing the teaching of the apostles. A gold nimbus adorns the faces of Mary and the twelve, each of whom also has a tongue as of fire over their brow. There are two inscriptions. The designers of icons love to put texts on their paintings. In this case “Pentecost” at the top and “Cosmos” at the bottom, over the figure of Christ. So as Mary presides among the apostles, Christ presides over the Cosmos.

This icon is a latish 20th c. version of a classical, Orthodox, witness to the early church. This icon comes from the studio of the Benedictines of the Mount of Olives.]

In the chapter previous to today’s in Luke’s Acts of the Apostles, Peter gathers a community of about 120 people in Jerusalem. The little movement, the People of the Way, is taking shape. The 120 includes the twelve named disciples less the departed Judas Iscariot but now including Matthias.

We are told that the community specifically includes a number of women followers. The fact that women constitute an early thread in the Easter story and in the early history of the church is a particular emphasis of Luke. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is mentioned in particular. Luke also mentions the presence of Jesus’ brothers, that would be James, Joses, Simon and Jude. Perhaps Jesus’ sisters were there. Strangely, Luke doesn’t say.

But the first thing I want us to hear this morning, on the feast of Pentecost, is that the first community of believers is understood to be something more that the 11 remaining men disciples hiding in a locked room licking their wounds or having gone back to their boats, given up on their cause, fishing. In Luke’s witness, there is a continuing evolution as disciples grow in number and as disciples become apostles. Followers become ambassadors.

So, this icon: Mary presiding over the Apostles on the Feast of Pentecost is largely derived from the first two chapters of Luke’s Acts of the Apostles. I like it.  In my mind, Mary’s in charge. The women-folk, some, anyway, picking up the traces of the resurrection. It’s one possibility. One, I cherish. One I commend to you.

In today’s reading from the second chapter of Luke’s Acts of the Apostles, the disciples are gathered at Jerusalem within sight and hearing of a larger assembly of people from all over. The assembly is made up of representatives of a large laundry list of peoples from around the Mediterranean:  Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt, bits of Libya, visitors from Rome, Cretans and Arabs. And they all hear the disciples-becoming-apostles each in their own language, each one hearing of the mighty acts of God. The whole event is a wonder of simultaneous translation!

The disciples-becoming-apostles witness to the mighty acts of God in ways that are understood by people, other than their own, in ways that make sense to them. So the second thing I want us to hear this morning, is not so much about sound and lights and  simultaneous translation, as about the stuff to which it points. That the early church sought to make the Gospel accessible to people who weren’t their own kith or kin, their own relation, whether close or distant.

The church was getting bigger than just 12 guys. The people of the Way were bigger than just 12 guys. And their message was bigger than could be imagined among people of a single language. The Gospel is always bigger than can be imagined by a single people or even kept in a single book. Reframed, the Gospel always has a local expression, a local context, and its expression in ministry is always informed by local needs and concerns. When ministry is not informed by local needs and concerns, it withers and dies.

When God seeks to salve the bruised and broken places of Christ’s cosmos, it is with a salve that suits the local hurts, with water and food to quench local thirsts and satisfy local hungers, and clothing and shelter for the raw nakedness and treacherous despair of those who have nowhere to lay their weary head.

I know. It’s a bit of a jump from Pentecost to the Tent City. But it’s not.

The whole point of Pentecost …  is not the sound and lights and simultaneous translation. It is that Christ is Christ of the cosmos and must be heard and understood to be appreciated by people who weren’t there on Day One. People from afar, as afar as was reckoned in Mary’s day, and in the day of the first People of the Way. And later in Pauls’ day. And Lydia’s Day. And in St. John’s day. And in your day. And in my day.

How do we allow for people to hear each in their own language, each in ways accessible … intelligible … appropriable … needed?

Let me reframe once more. How do we allow for our neighbours to feal so loved that they hear each in their own language, each in ways accessible to them, of the mighty acts of God?

Well, on this day especially, it is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the One called alongside our ancient forebears and the one called alongside each and everyone of us; called into our midst to teach us and remind us of all that Jesus put on offer in three years of ministry and in the life, death and resurrection which he navigated and embraced for the sake of the cosmos. That called-alongside One brings to mind all that Jesus taught and said for every people in every time and generation.

We recall and interpret all that Jesus taught and said for the sake of the cosmos, but more practically, for the sake of the world at our door. In the language of that people. In reflection of the needs of that people.

The great commandments are but two. Love your God before all else and your neighbour as yourself. That’s what Jesus taught. That’s what Jesus said. And Pentecost proclaims the universality of that message. In ways that could be understood by Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, bits of Libya, visitors from Rome, Cretans and Arabs, Chinese, bits of the United States, Canadians, people born in Nigeria, Norway and Newfoundland …

I love Pentecost. I love the idea of female leadership. I love a message that is universal –not imperialist or colonialist—but universal as in “Love God. Love your neighbour.” That’s our message… in whatever language … for the whole cosmos.”

Silence for reflection.

And may the church say “Amen”. Amen.

André Lavergne CWA (Pastor)
Honourary Assistant,
Church of St. John the Evangelist, Kitchener.