The Feast of Pentecost

Acts, 2:1-11
1 Corinthians, 12:4-13
John, 20: 19-23

The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal.

Beautiful as it often is, the King James’ Version is opaque.  Another rendering of S. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians: “To each is given spiritual gifts for the common good.”

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

A couple weeks ago I sat down at breakfast, opened the paper, and read a column by Robert Novak.1  The column marked his fiftieth anniversary in Washington, and he reflected on the city in the late ‘50s when it still very much embodied Southern efficiency and Northern charm.  He waxed nostalgic about $1.25 steaks.  Humorously, he took the occasion to ‘out’ another covert CIA employee, one of his housemates of fifty years ago.

But the piece was primarily a lament that the nation’s capital was a “kinder, gentler place a half-century ago,” that the tone of Washington used to be more humane and positive, largely without the polarization and divisiveness that exists today.  Novak concludes, “Today the city is slicker, the nation is richer and minorities are protected.  But I cannot help feeling a nostalgia for the civility and even innocence I encountered 50 years ago.”

We may, or may not, be able to buy that sentiment fully.  It’s impossible for me to square civility and innocence with Jim Crow.  But lots of folks, left and right, will tell you that our society is more divisive and fractured, less civil and united.  Again, perhaps so, but I’m not convinced, yet let’s assume that’s true.  Why, then, might it be that the 1950s were more civil, united, and well-mannered than today? 

First, I’d keep in mind that the political tensions and animosities of our day probably are significantly less intense than they were during the late 18th century or the middle 19th century.  The difference of the generation of the 1950s might be that they had come of age during the Great Depression and World War II.  It is a generation that knew about sacrifice, hardship, and suffering for the common good.  There’s nothing like a common struggle to build unity and to enlarge our perspective.  It helps us to see what’s important, and what’s not so important.  When there’s real loss and pain usually there’s less quibbling about the small stuff. 

I think many people would argue that the Church was also more civil and harmonious in the 1950s than it is today.  Maybe so.  Maybe not.  I certainly wouldn’t trade times.  Again, if we assume that the Church then was more civil and more harmonious, that the troubles of the Church today are more acute, it suggests that the way we respond is not to withhold ourselves, not to look down our noses, not to be frustrated by it, but to become more committed, more sacrificial, more lavish in giving for it. 

My experience has been that the more I give to the Church, the more time, talent, and treasure I pour out for it , the less disturbed I get about the Church’s troubles.  Quite frankly, this parish is proof of that truth.  We’ve become more focused on the good news, more committed to spiritual growth, and less distracted by turmoil in the Church.  That’s the work of the Holy Spirit among us.

Perhaps what Novak may be nostalgic for, certainly what Christians pray for, is a culture where individuals do not make their own needs and wants a higher priority than the common good.  It may well be that people today are far less inclined to think about the common good, and even less inclined to sacrifice for the common good.  Rather, it’s all about me.  It’s all about pursuing our own prosperity, comfort, and ease.  It’s about self-gratification, instead of community.  And that makes for dissension. 

S. Paul wrote to the church at Corinth to advise them how to make a more effective Christian witness.  He wanted to build up the church, and this required the Corinthians to change their way of doing things.  In today’s epistle, Paul’s exhorting them to stop being self-indulgent and self-centered in worship. 

Paul doesn’t much like the business of speaking in tongues.  Let’s be clear that the scene from Acts today, the Holy Spirit coming down upon the disciples and empowering them to speak in different languages, is not speaking in tongues.  The Day of Pentecost is the reverse of the Tower of Babel where language had been confused and mixed up, where there was disunity.  Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit, allows communication, communion; it is about bringing people together, uniting them.

Speaking in tongues is unintelligible (without an ‘interpreter’); it is not a proper language.  Paul recognizes it as a gift of the Holy Spirit, but he abhors the way the Corinthians are speaking in tongues during worship.  Strange as it seems to us today, the more affluent, culturally sophisticated, and philosophically refined among the Corinthians may have been the ones who took most strongly to speaking in tongues.  They liked it because it allowed them to show off their spiritual gifts, because it differentiated them from the others.  During worship, the ‘in’ Corinthians were drawing attention to themselves, and the less honored members of the community were feeling excluded, unnecessary.

This is a disaster.  The Holy Spirit is not about giving some people a higher spiritual status.  Rather, Paul argues that the Holy Spirit operates in every person, not just in the chosen few, not just in the most able and clever.  The Holy Spirit distributes gifts to every member of Christ’s body.  Every baptized Christian, every one of us, has spiritual gifts.  Each of us has different spiritual gifts.  Some have more ostentatious ones, such as speaking in tongues, or wisdom, or knowledge, or (dare I mention?) preaching. 

I imagine Paul writing his letter and being exasperated having to point out that these showy gifts are no better than humbler types of service.  The way of Jesus was humility – not power and flash.  We mustn’t value some spiritual gifts more than others.  We need them all, and perhaps especially humble service and care for one another.  We become more Christ-like together, when we combine our spiritual gifts with those of others and use them for the common good.  It makes us more whole and more holy. 

Spiritual gifts are abilities and talents and interests, and while the world values some abilities and talents and interests more than others, Paul says that we need them all, that our spiritual gifts don’t make us better, or worse, than one another.  The gifts of the Holy Spirit aren’t given according to our merit or worthiness.

Therefore, Paul says we shouldn’t boast about the spiritual gifts we have and we shouldn’t feel superior to others.  A good singer, a good preacher, a good leader deserves no more honor than the Christian who quietly exercises spiritual gifts in prayer or cleaning the church or fixing a door knob.  Another way to look at it: the gifts of Bill Gates are no more valuable than those of a ditch-digger or a man who lives on a grate.  What does distinguish us is whether we use spiritual gifts for our own benefit and edification or for the common good. 

Paul’s message is radical egalitarianism, that God values equally the contributions of everyone, that God cares equally (and infinitely) for everyone.  That means we see every person as united to us, together forming one body.  A body isn’t well if part of it is hurt or injured.  When part of a body is sick, the whole body is sick.  When the stomach is upset, the whole body suffers. 

Paul calls Christians to see ourselves as having a stake in one another’s well-being.  Our own wholeness and health depends upon one another.  It’s a whole different way to look at the world and at other people, completely against most of what we get in our culture where it’s all about looking out for Number One. 

A self-absorbed existence prevents us from communicating with one another.  It leads to factions and disunity and polarization.  It leads to a lack of civility.  The lesson from Acts gives us the image of the Holy Spirit coming upon the disciples and giving them a remarkable spiritual gift – the ability to communicate in many languages.   The image is about the Holy Spirit re-unifying humanity, the Holy Spirit bringing us together, the Holy Spirit leading us away from living for ourselves and instead living for the common good.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.