single persons, people
of all races and families
of every kind.
Sunday
Service:
Holy Eucharist
at 9:30 am
Child care is available
Church of Our
Saviour
191 Flanagan Way (Rt 153) Secaucus, NJ 07094
Tel: 201-863-1449
Fax: 201-863-1474
Mark A. Lewis,
Vicar
MLewis@secaucus.org
Dorothy Fowlkes
Pastoral Associate
This page revised 5
Jun 01
http://www.secaucus.org/
oursaviour
The Church of
Our Saviour
in the Town of Secaucus, New Jersey
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Our Divine
Mission
Reflections on the
lessons
for Pentecost, 3 June 2001
By The Rev. Mark A. Lewis, Vicar
Joel 2:28-32 / Psalm 104:25-32
I Corinthians 12:4-13 / John
20:19-23
If you want to understand Pentecost (the Greek word for a Jewish feast called SHAVUOT ) you have to understand something about the meaning of the older holy day. Shavuot originally celebrated the last grain harvest of the year and the first fruit harvest of the year. Just as the Christianized day comes 50 days after Easter. Shallot comes 50 days after Passover. It was a time to bring the offering of the harvests (ending and beginning) up to Jerusalem and present them at the Temple there -- or, for those who couldn't -- to make an offering to God at home. An offering, a pilgrimage. Later, as the Jewish identity began to form a more theological mind (remember this is thousands of years ago) the feast became associated with another gift from God to God's people: The Law, the Torah. It's a feast about how the good things in life are mystical gifts from God.
It was very easy for the early Christians to start adapting the theme to their new religion. A new spin on an old story. Just as God had made an old covenant with the Jews and later sent a great gift -- a gift that inspired people to offer something back to God by living in a particular way -- so had God made a new covenant. This time the gift would be a new spirit, a new mission, and the new offerings would not be wheat and apples; the new offerings would be made every time people acted in the world on God's behalf.
The biblical writers all make one point emphatically. These new things people were doing were astonishing. Really new. Speaking in languages they couldn't have known. A new energy was ripping through the world like wind and wildfire. The Bible tells the story of the gift of the Holy Spirit over and over again. Paul tells it at least twice. All four gospels tell it. And -- importantly -- they all tell it in radically different ways. Hardly similar at all except for the main point: God's Spirit makes God's people do some pretty terrific things. Things that change everything about how people live and how the world looks to them.
Paul tells about the languages. The gospels have Jesus doing three things (but on different timetables). Matthew puts the event on the evening of Easter Day. Luke and Mark: 50 days after -- on SHAVUOT. Obviously we're way into symbolic storytelling here, not journalism or realism. But the message the risen Christ brings to the disciples always has three parts: He "sends" the disciples just as God "sent" him. He "inspires" [the word implies breathing as in "respiration"] them, breaths new breath into them, just like mouth-to-mouth resuscitation brings someone back from the dead to live again. Then, third, he assigns them a mission. In Matthew, it's to go out and baptize everyone they can find. In Mark it's to go preach the gospel. In Luke, as in John we just heard, Jesus tells them to go out and forgive sins. Go out and tell people to let go of the baggage they're dragging around with them everywhere. And get started on a new life.
The essence of the story, its underlying truth, ends up being the same in all the accounts. The Spirit of God is given for a purpose. Paul is scolding the Corinthians. He sees that they think their gifts and accomplishments are a cause to brag and feel superior to others who may not have the same talents. No, Paul says, the gifts of God grain, fruits, talents, whatever, are given to the people of God to energize us for action, action -- specifically -- for the common good of all sorts and conditions of people. The gift of the Spirit, as today's readings present and describe it, energizes people, gets them moving, and sends them out on a mission.
But what kind of mission? Various governments and the UN keep trying missions to the Middle East to open up some space for peace accords there. Medical researchers are on missions to find cures for the diseases that take us down. Not every mission, though, has to be complicated or high-powered. How about a mission to embody compassion in your own home? A mission to be merciful with the people we live or work with? A mission to be generous with people who lack basic necessities of life? A mission to shape the society we live in by letting elected officials know what we think? All those things and many more show God's presence in the world. They are preaching the good news. They are connecting people with God's ways. And they are showing people where to find places to put down their sins and live a new life. When we get moving, when we use the energy we have as well as we can, we are acting like people who have received the Holy Spirit.
We don't have rushing winds or tongues of fire or marvelous miracles of language today. We do have a roomful of people here who are reminding ourselves that we have God's gifts backing us up and the whole world near and far to use them in. Day in and day out breathing in the breath of God and breathing it back out with love and purpose. Whoever you are, that's the kind of life God wants for us all: The kind where ordinary people understand that they are on a divine mission and that everything right down to our breathing out and breathing in has meaning and purpose.
-- Mark Lewis
Your comments or questions are welcome MLewis@secaucus.org.
Links to additional "Reflections on Lessons" may be found at the bottom of the Sunday web page.
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