Homily for Pentecost 2007
The Very Rev’d Michael J. Pitts
Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal
Acts 2:1-21
Romans 8:14-17
John 14:8-17, (25-27)Luke and John present us with very different stories about the first disciples’ experience of the Spirit. First of all the time frame is different. In Luke’s narrative there is a forty day period between the first Easter day and the Ascension of Jesus. Then there is a further ten day period before the disciples, gathered together in one place, received the gift of the spirit, the well known Pentecost story, which we read a moment ago. Forty plus ten equals fifty. Pentecost in Greek means fifty. Luke is nothing if not numerate. In the Jewish tradition the feast already existed, its theme being the giving of the law, and it fell fifty days after Passover, the feast of the liberation from Egypt. Behind those later meanings may lie earlier agricultural festivals, but that we can leave aside for now. It is Luke’s timeframe that has been adopted in the Christian Calendar.
John has a quite different sequence of events. In John there is no ascension. John speaks much in his gospel about the glorification of Jesus, but the glorification is his death on the cross. The giving of the Spirit takes place on the day of the resurrection, in the evening. Then it is reconfirmed one week later, when Thomas is with the group. There is however at this point in the story one similarity to Luke worth noting. All takes place in Jerusalem, unlike in Matthew’s Gospel where the final events take place in Galilee. But then in John after a beautiful cadence and final sentence, the final story begins over again in chapter 21, and the setting is in Galilee.
But aside from the sequence of events, there is another more profound difference between Luke and John. St Luke, in the Pentecost story connects spirit with language. The immediate result of the gift of the spirit is the ability to speak foreign languages. For Luke this is the foundation not only of the Church, but also of the churches mission of bringing the good news to every part of the world. We need to note as well that Luke’s understanding of Spirit as giver of language, is very different from that of Paul. When Paul speaks of the gift of tongues, he is not speaking of the ability to speak foreign languages, but of the deeper spiritual experience of the temporary gift of an otherwise unknown language arising from prayer, a language known only to the speaker and to God. This is an experience which has occurred in the history of the church from time to time down the ages. If you read the Corinthian letters you will find that Paul is not especially happy with the use of this gift, and puts a number of restrictions around it. This, however, does not stop the Pentecostal churches from making speaking in tongues a central focus of their gospel and of the life of their communities. For the record, I have to tell you that I have heard, but never experienced personally, the gift of tongues. I also have to tell you that during my ministry in several countries, I have learned, and subsequently forgotten, several languages. None of them however has come to me in any miraculous way. In my final school report for French, the teacher wrote, “Pitts will never master the French language.” It is, of course, on the basis of the theology of Luke and Paul that most of the church’s missiology has been elaborated. Mission, in this understanding, is about traveling to foreign parts, preaching the gospel in foreign languages (though nor always with understanding of or respect for the rest of the culture of the hearers.) It is also about growth in numbers, another Lukan emphasis, also linked in his theology with the Spirit.
If spirit and language are linked in Luke, in John the more important link is spirit and truth.
This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. [1]
This, from our Gospel this morning, is one of six or seven passages where John speaks of Spirit and truth as being intimately connected. We may of course think that this is not totally different from Luke, if we think of truth being expressed in language. But in John’s understanding, and in mine, truth both goes beyond and is deeper than language. This points to another difficulty we have today. In a world dominated by scientific method of observation, hypothesis making and experimental verification leading to theory, theologians in some parts of the church have confused truth with fact. Facts can be represented in language, even if, often in science, it is mathematical language. While truth can also be expressed in language, it also has many other components, among them, beauty, commitment, love, justice, equity and hope. In this connection it bears repeating that while our English word belief often today signifies acceptance that certain facts are true, the word in an earlier time meant belove. To believe in God means God is our beloved.
Our love of God therefore involves us in a search for truth, and truth is to be found in many places – through science, in the aesthetic appreciation of poetry, literature, music and the arts, as well as through prayer and theology.
One of the particular John aphorisms about spirit and truth has always resonated deeply in my theological thinking. It is part of this morning’s gospel.
Jesus said, "I have said these things to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything." [2]
It is restated in a slightly different way a little later in the Gospel
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. [3]
Now while I accept the creeds and conciliar statements of the church, and the concept of the canon of scripture, I have never imagined that the Spirit stopped leading us into all truth and teaching us everything in the fourth century of the Common Era. At every meeting and at the beginning of every act of study, we pray, explicitly or implicitly, for the guidance of the spirit. I believe also that the spirit today does not confine herself to guiding only those involved in church administration and theological study. The Spirit and her truth are to be found in the work of artists and scientists, politicians and humanitarians, judges and revolutionaries, peace workers and justice seekers.
You may know that the clergy and many of the lay members of this Cathedral are much exercised about the present state of affairs in the Anglican church of Canada and in the world wide Anglican Communion. We were particularly outraged and offended when we received the news this week that an invitation to the Lambeth Conference in 2008 had been withheld from our neighbour and a friend of this place, the Bishop of New Hampshire. With this in mind, I want to point out that the motto of the Anglican Communion, found under the compass rose logo is taken from another of the Evangelist John’s aphorisms about truth.
Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." [4]
“The truth shall make you free” is precisely the motto of the Anglican Communion.
Sometimes when John is speaking of truth, Jesus is in conversation, as here, with those of his compatriots who accepted him, or with those who did not. Later on in the Gospel he is in conversation with the closer band of followers. In both types of conversation truth is mostly about relationship with him. Then, near the end of the story Pilate puts the point blank question, “What is Truth?” but he does not wait for a reply and Jesus gives none. [5]
A large part of the problem in the Anglican Communion, and in the wider church is that when we ask Pilate’s question we come up with very different answers. For some, as I have already hinted, truth is to be found in a set of facts about past and future inerrantly and unchangeably recorded in the scripture, or a set of doctrines pronounced by the church in times past. Belief consists in accepting those facts and doctrines without question. Of course, those who take this line are remarkably selective about which set of facts and doctrines they find important and any particular time, and they leave aside those facts and doctrines which do not fit in with the flavor of the moment. But they don’t talk about that. I also believe that the insistence on a faith which provides all the answers and requires unquestioning obedience is, in fact, an escape from freedom motivated by a fear of freedom. [6]
Others, and most here count themselves among them, see the search for truth as an ongoing work of the Spirit. The search for truth, in our understanding, is a dialogue between the different disciplines, faiths and commitments of the human cultural tradition. As we ask the spirit to guide us into truth we work with scientists, artists, musicians and writers and their works. We consult with sociologists and anthropologists, lawyers and doctors. We dialogue with other faiths and human commitments. The truth is never, for us fixed in the past: It is something we always hope to find more of in the future. The Truth is also always about relationships of love, justice and equity. All this, we believe is totally consonant with the understanding of truth we find in John’s gospel.
Happy Pentecost. May the Spirit guide us into all truth, and in doing that may she make us free.
[1] John 14:17
[2] John 14:25-26
[3] John 16:13
[4] John 8:31-32
[5] John 18:38
[6] Erich Fromm’s classic 1941 book was called Escape from Freedom in North America and The Fear of Freedom in Great Britain.