The Apostle Paul wrote a letter to the church in Corinth trying to help them understand how to be church together. They were debating who was in and out of the church. Paul saw a church that was much bigger than one congregation in one town. He wrote inviting them to see the church as so much bigger than just one person or group of people. We don't choose who is in and out of the church, the Holy Spirit is the one behind the whole church calling, gathering, sanctifying, and enlightening. Paul challenged the Corinthians,
I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says “Let Jesus be cursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit. 1 Cor 12:3-14 NRSV
What makes a church isn't our human presence alone; what makes a church is Jesus' presence through the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Paul understood this 2000 years ago. And he looked at the church way back then he saw that the Spirit working in very real ways in the church. Why the Holy Spirit works is mysterious; but looking around me today I can see how the Spirit of the Living God is at work the lives of so many lives in this room.
Paul said it this way
4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.
12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.14 Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many 1 Cor 12:4-14 NRSV
The Holy Spirit is the very real presence of God alive and at work in our world. But if the Holy Spirit doesn't show up in the church we're sunk. In the book of Genesis there's this one story about a city called Babbel.
Eugene Peterson told the story this way in the Message. Genesis 11:1-9. "God Turned Their Language into 'Babble'"
1-2 At one time, the whole Earth spoke the same language. It so happened that as they moved out of the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled down.
3 They said to one another, "Come, let's make bricks and fire them well." They used brick for stone and tar for mortar.
4 Then they said, "Come, let's build ourselves a city and a tower that reaches Heaven. Let's make ourselves famous so we won't be scattered here and there across the Earth."
5 God came down to look over the city and the tower those people had built.
6-9 God took one look and said, "One people, one language; why, this is only a first step. No telling what they'll come up with next—they'll stop at nothing! Come, we'll go down and garble their speech so they won't understand each other." Then God scattered them from there all over the world. And they had to quit building the city. That's how it came to be called Babel, because there God turned their language into "babble." From there God scattered them all over the world.
The Holy Spirit is the very real presence of God alive and at work in our world. When the Spirit enters into the church nothing: not sin, not death, not the devil can block God from entering into and transforming every corner of our lives. Our readings this Sunday tell us two distinct occasions when the Spirit came into believers' lives. There are many more stories that could be told about the work of the Holy Spirit both in Scripture and in our own lives; but these two stories speak volumes for all of us about what God is doing.
Jesus is up to something big by passing the Holy Spirit on to us; but there's more to this gift than might be first expected. God's Spirit isn't given in a neatly wrapped package (with gift receipt) at one point or time in history and that's it.
The risen Jesus breathed out and told his friends receive the Holy Spirit. They gathered in a locked room fearing the same people who had killed Jesus. They'd heard the first reports of the resurrection and still feared for their lives. Jesus came and stood among them breathing out and telling them "peace be with you" and "receive the holy spirit (John 20).
The Spirit was seen as fire in tongues on the Apostles' heads in Jerusalem. The believers gathered together in Jerusalem praying and praising God together. Beyond human explanation they began to speak, each one in their own native tongue, and understand one another regardless of where they came from or what language they spoke (Acts 2).
God's on the loose. We can impose no limits on where the Spirit moves in flame, breath, wind, or whatever other form God might choose. One of the most profound mistakes that the church can make is getting in the way of the Holy Spirit. 500 years ago a man named Martin Luther stood at a spiritual crossroad. He was a priest ordained to serve in the church, but he was deeply unsettled in his spirit. What he understood is that God works freely; we make rules and God doesn't care. We set limits based in our attempts to control God and God isn't going to stop moving and changing and challenging.
In Religion After 2000 Andrew Greeley offers a helpful challenge to the church asking two questions that are great for Pentecost.
Why, I wonder, are we so afraid of mystery?
Or to put it another way why are so eager to budget the Holy Spirit's time for Her when on the record She is determined to blow whither she will?
The gift of the Spirit is a promise of future relationship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God comes to this relationship freely and unfettered by our judgments and ideas about what God can or can't do. Jesus' gift of the Spirit is a mystery that we don't solve or resolve; instead the Spirit is the very real presence of God meeting us together with God's Word over and over. The Holy Spirit meets us not as we humans would choose; but as God would choose. The Spirit comes freely to comfort, chastise, enliven, and move us.
Jesus is giving away a part of the divine self in Pentecost. What happens at Pentecost isn't the grand finale; God's promises to be with us from here on into the future; and as we go into whatever future might be in store we know that we don't go alone.
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