In last week’s reading from Acts, Jesus commissions his followers to be his witnesses to the ends
of the earth and promises to send the Spirit upon them to empower them for this mission. In
today’s reading from Acts this promise is fulfilled. The Jesus community is has a mystical
experience that awakens in us an awareness of the presence and power of God within us. This
awareness gives the community courage and confidence to share Jesus’ message of the coming
Reign of God with a hostile world.
We see the beginning of this witness in the second scene of today’s reading. A crowd of
people from “every nation under heaven” gathers around the disciples. Although they come
from different cultures and races and speak different languages, somehow, they all understand
the message these simple Galileans are speaking. The point is that when the Holy Spirit, the
Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of Love is present in individuals and communities, she works in and
through them to bring humankind in all its diversity together and enable us to understand,
empathize with and even love one another.
I think we have all experienced this power of the Spirit to bring us together with very
different kinds of people and enable us to understand one another. One of my experiences of
this sort happened in Moscow 60 years ago. I was on a trip in the Soviet Union with a group of
students. One evening we went to a monastery as some people, mostly elderly women, were
gathering in the church. When our group left, I stayed behind to pray with them. As I was
walking to the subway station after prayer, one of the women who had been at the service
joined me. She wanted to communicate, but she spoke no English and I no Russian. However
somehow we understood each other. She had noticed that I crossed myself differently and
wanted to know where I was from. I said, “Americanski.” Striking her fist in her hand, she
replied, “Americanski, Ruski, niet” Don’t fight! I heartily agreed. When we got to the subway
station, she opened her purse and took out a 5 copeck piece, the cost of a subway ticket, to give
me. I hesitated to take it because I doubted that she had any money to spare, but she insisted,
So, I accepted. Then she blessed me and went off.
This was a Pentecostal experience for me. The open-hearted generosity of this simple,
elderly Russian babushka touched my heart. I felt a certain bond with her. I could even say I felt
love for her, and I believe these feelings were mutual.
The Spirit works on this microcosmic level to draw us together one by one, two by two
and form us into communities. The Spirit also works on the macrocosmic level through these
communities to transform the world. Pentecost is an example of this work. According to Acts,
the Spirit added 3000 people to the community on Pentecost. She continued drawing people
from every nation under the sun together at a breakneck speed for the next three centuries. By
the year 300 there were six million Christians in the Roman Empire, nearly 10% of the total
population, despite the fact that throughout this time Christianity was illegal. Indeed, those
who joined the Jesus community put their very lives at risk.
The counter-cultural community of the early church formed by the Spirit of Jesus
transformed the culture and society of the Roman Empire. It undermined the ideology on which
Empire is built and the culture of violence by which it is maintained. Many early Christians
refused to worship the state in the person of the emperor or participate in its violent rituals like
gladiator contests and public executions. They also refused to serve in army because they
believed Jesus had forbidden them to kill. The great 3rd century theologian, Origen of
Alexandria, expressed the Christian consensus on this matter when he wrote, “God did not
deem it becoming to God’s own divine legislation to allow the killing of any person whatsoever.”
By the beginning of the of the 4th century, the emperor Constantine, astute politician
that he was, realized that it was in the best interest of the Empire to stop persecuting and try to
coopt the Christian community. He legalized and then privileged Christianity, turning it into the
Religion Department of the government. This was the beginning of Christian Nationalism, which
is still with us today and, in fact, seems to be gaining power and influence.
But no one, not even Emperors, Popes, or Presidents, can tame the Holy Spirit. Her
power keeps breaking out, attempting to change the world. It broke out in the 13th century in
the work of Francis of Assisi. Francis not only loved mother earth and all her creatures. He loved
peace and he loved his enemies, as Jesus taught us to do. During the Fifth Crusade, he went
to the court of Sultan Malik ben Kamil in Egypt to negotiate peace. Reports of their encounter
strongly suggest that if it weren’t for the bishops and the pope, Frances’ and the Sultan’s
peacemaking efforts may well have succeeded.
These outbreaks of the Spirit have continued right up to our own time. They include
Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent campaigns for truth and justice which, as he himself often said,
were inspired by Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. They include Martin Luther King, Jr’s civil rights,
anti-poverty, and peace work, also inspired by Jesus and by Gandhi.
No one can tame the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of love. But there are
other, powerful spirits in the world that resist and oppose the Holy Spirit’s efforts and we
ourselves are not immune from their influence. They work to move history in exactly the
opposite direction, to separate people and set them against one another. Those who, moved by
the Spirit, work for the coming of the Beloved Community must expect this resistance. Pope
John XXIII experienced it often. Near the beginning of the Second Vatican Council, which Pope
John prayed would be a new Pentecost for the church, one of the curial Cardinals approached
the Pope. Deeply troubled that the Council debates were creating sparks among the bishops in
St. Peter’s, he begged he Pope to do something to stop this. The pope responded, “Good.
Perhaps some fires will be started.”
Pope Francis is experiencing the same resistance to his reform efforts, especially his
efforts on behalf of Synodality. The Pope realizes that the Holy Spirit is freer and can work
better in and through community than through hierarchy and that Synodality allows the Spirit to
speak to us in and through the community.
The Holy Spirit transforms individuals and the world , often creating what looks like
chaos. Fr. Richard Rohr points to an example of this from the Book of Act. Paul is preaching in
Thessalonica and his preaching has created an uproar in the city. A mob seized some converts
and brought them before the city authorities. “These people who have been turning the world
upside down have come here also,” they shouted.” Father Richard comments, “No one is called
before the city council for mere beliefs and new attitudes unless they are upsetting the social
order.”
This Pentecost, as we celebrate the Spirit’s presence and power within and among us, I
ask “What have I, what have we as Jesus’ witnesses, done to upset the social order? And what is
the Spirit calling us, the Holy Wisdom Sunday Assembly, to do together?”