Pentecost is one of the Church’s “big three” feast days alongside Christmas and Easter. And although we had a wonderful celebration and picnic afterward on Pentecost Sunday, the church was not bursting at the seams at multiple services! I found myself wondering: what would the Church look like if we truly understood Pentecost? What would happen if we really believed that the Holy Spirit is not only with us, but in us and among us?
The story of Pentecost reminds us that when the Holy Spirit shows up, things begin to move. Jesus promised his disciples they would not be left alone: “I will send you my Spirit to be with you always… You will not ever be alone. You don’t have to do this on your own.” Living in the world, but not of the world, living the upside down logic of God’s love– these are difficult things! We were never meant to figure them out all on our own. Jesus promised that the Spirit would be there to comfort us and to guide us every step of the way.
When the Holy Spirit shows up, when we get tapped into that juice of the Holy Spirit, things start to move in our lives, in the church, in the world.
Our Pentecost scriptures gave us two very different images of the coming of the Spirit. In John’s Gospel, the risen Jesus comes to the frightened disciples on Easter evening and quietly breathes on them in an intimate moment behind locked doors: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” In Acts, the Spirit arrives with wind, fire, and languages bursting into the streets where nobody can miss it. One story is quiet, intimate, and personal; the other dramatic, powerful, and public.
Most of us in the Episcopal Church probably experience the presence of the Holy Spirit in ways more similar to John’s account. The Spirit often comes as a whisper, a nudge, a still small voice within us, perhaps when we need it the most. The common thread in both stories, however, is that the disciples were together. The Spirit moves in individual hearts, yes — and through the gathered community. There’s something very important about the gathering of God’s people, something that can happen at no other place and time, and is dependent on each of us in our individual lives, listening to the voice of God’s Spirit.
In the letter to the Corinthians Paul talks about the gifts of the Spirit in each individual believer’s life and heart; how all of those gifts work together for the common good, just like the parts of the human body. All of us have gifts that are necessary to the living out of God’s life in this world, in this time, in this place. I have become passionate about the fact that it’s not just the clergy that receive these gifts. A lot of times I think folks come into church and see the people up front wearing fancy clothes and doing most of the talking, and think, “Oh, those are the people with the spiritual gifts, those are the ministers of the church.” Actually, it’s kind of the opposite. The job of the ordained clergy, primarily, is to see, serve and to lift up your gifts and your ministry. It is your gifts and your ministry, not just within the four walls of the church, but every place that you go, every day of the week, that God’s life is lived out in the world and God’s Spirit is activated.
The church where the people are living out their gifts is a church that is fully alive, a church where the Holy Spirit has shown up, and God is moving.
My question for you is: Can you believe that the Holy Spirit, God’s very presence, is not only with you always, riding on your shoulder, but the Holy Spirit is in you? What would that be like to know that God is in you, that you always have access to that still small voice? What would need to get out of the way in order for you to hear it? What would it be like to be plugged into that power of the Spirit? What would it mean to believe that you have a unique combination of gifts that no one else has, a piece of the puzzle that is just missing until you begin to see and recognize and exercise those gifts?
On Sunday, we practiced naming those gifts aloud to one another. We wrote them down on little red cards. We looked each other in the eye and said: “The Holy Spirit is in you.”
Perhaps that is where Pentecost really begins — not breath, wind and fire, but in the courage to believe that God’s Spirit truly lives within us, and that each of us carries a piece of God’s work in the world.
I am so excited to see what God will do through the rich gifts of the God’s people at Grace unleashed in the world.
In the deep peace of the Risen One, Amy
PS I would love to have a conversation with you about your gifts and where God might be calling you! I hope that this will be an area we can explore together in the coming months.
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