Reflection for North Balwyn Uniting Church
Pentecost, 28th of May 2023
‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ We must not live our Christian lives behind closed doors. Faith is not something to express in private; it is something to be lived out in public. Pentecost is the anniversary of the Holy Spirit pushing the disciples out from behind a locked door, down from an upper room, and into the world. Pentecost is the birthday of the church because it celebrates the day that the Jesus movement went public.
We hear Luke’s version of the coming of the Holy Spirit every Pentecost, so this year I want to focus on John’s version. Today’s gospel reading is also a Pentecost story, but one with gentle breath rather than tongues of fire and multiple languages. It is Pentecost for introverts rather than Pentecost for extroverts. The word ‘Pentecost’ is a version of the Greek word for ‘fiftieth,’ the fiftieth day after Passover, which is when Luke’s story of the coming of the Holy Spirit takes place. In contrast, John’s story of the coming of the Holy Spirit takes place on Easter Sunday, the very day of Jesus’ resurrection, although possibly after his ascension in John’s condensed timeline. At this point in John’s story the disciples, who have accompanied Jesus throughout his ministry, have seen his miracles, and have learnt from his teachings, have not yet come to complete faith. John tells us that even after seeing the empty tomb Peter and the Beloved Disciple had not understood from the scriptures that Jesus must rise from the dead. (John 20:8-9) After they left, Mary Magdalene saw the risen Jesus who told her: ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’ She went and announced to the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and told them what he had said to her. (John 20:11-18)
We do not know whether the disciples believed Mary Magdalene when she, apostle to the apostles, announced the resurrection. Possibly not, since in today’s reading we find the disciples gathered in fear behind locked doors. Interestingly, we are not told how many disciples are hiding, nor are we given any names. This frightened group represents all disciples, us and every disciple of Jesus who has ever lived. Into this scene of fear, Jesus enters and greets them: ‘Peace be with you’.
Jesus shows the disciples his hands and his side, and they rejoice. They see for themselves the risen Lord whose resurrection Mary had announced; whether they had believed her, they now know that Jesus has been raised from the dead. He enters the room that they are in even though the doors are locked; the disciples can see that his resurrection has given Jesus victory over physical limitations. Yet when Jesus shows the disciples his hands and his side they can see that the wounds of crucifixion are still open. The risen Christ remains the wounded one; the one whose death, John tells us, is glory. It is this man, tortured and killed, who offers the disciples, hiding in fear, the greeting of peace. Death has turned into peace, and the disciples’ fear turns into joy.
Jesus breathes on the disciples, giving them the Holy Spirit, as God breathed into the nostrils of Adam to give him the breath of life at creation. The new creation is brought about by the resurrection. This is one of Jesus’ last appearances; one of the last times that people come to faith by sight. As Jesus says to Thomas, ‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe’. From now on, that will be everyone who comes to faith in Christ. The only exception will be Jesus’ appearance to Paul on the road to Damascus; as Paul describes it: ‘Last of all, as to someone untimely born, he appeared also to me.’ (1 Corinthians 15:8) But even though Jesus is no longer among us doing signs and wonders, we are given the promise that God is still close to us. Jesus breathes on the disciples and says to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit’. God the Holy Spirit is as close to us as the breath in our lungs. This is why I describe today’s story as Pentecost for introverts. In John’s telling the Holy Spirit does not come in an extravaganza that leads onlookers to wonder whether the disciples are drunk. The Holy Spirit comes as quietly as our breath. It is no coincidence that every type and form of meditation and mindfulness tells its practitioners to begin by paying attention to our breathing. Be quiet; focus on your breathing; in and out. When we do that we are not simply becoming attentive to the present moment, we are entering into the peace of God who gives us the breath of life.
‘Peace be with you,’ Jesus tells his disciples. Not peace as the world gives, but the peace that passes all understanding, being at peace with God and at peace with one another through God. This is why we greet each other with the sign of peace before we gather around the Lord’s Table. By saying, ‘Peace be with you’, ‘And also with you’, we are affirming that nothing divides us before God. In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus says: ‘when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.’ (Matthew 5:23-24) ‘Peace be with you’ before every communion shows that we are reconciled with each other before approaching God.
Christ’s appearance does not only bring the disciples joy and peace. The disciples are commissioned. Christ’s resurrection brings responsibility. Jesus’ death was a pouring out of love and compassion for the whole creation. Now the resurrected Jesus calls on the disciples to share this love and compassion with the world. They are sent by the Son as the Son was sent by the Father. They are given a mission to the world, and the gift of the Spirit is given to them so that the disciples can be to the world what Jesus was in his own life and death.
Through this gift of the Spirit, the disciples can do the work of God, including the forgiving and retaining of sins. That sounds a little strange: ‘If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ It does not mean that the disciples or the church have the power to refuse to pardon people’s individual transgressions. It means that it is the role of the community, sent by Jesus as Jesus was sent by the Father, to reveal the nature of God and God’s love to the world. The presence of the love and compassion of God will reveal sinfulness, will lay bare, illuminate, all that is not godly in our lives and our world. Some people will embrace this revelation. Some people will refuse to enter a relationship with the God of limitless love and as John wrote ‘this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness’ (John 3:19). Some will come to the light; some will turn away. The role of the church is not to be the arbiter of right and wrong, but to witness to and reveal the love of God in Jesus Christ. The gift of the Spirit enables the community to live this life of witness, to carry out the commission that Jesus gives.
We, like those very first disciples, have been commissioned to share God’s self-sacrificial love and light with the world, not to stay frightened or rejoicing behind closed and locked doors. We have been called to make our faith public. This is not easy in a country like Australia which is, mostly, happy for people to be religious only if religion is kept behind those closed doors. Too often churches have accepted that our place is being part of the private sphere. Churches have been incredibly good at telling people how to behave in our homes while ignoring how we are to behave in our workplaces. We have been happy to speak out and be heard on matters relating to marriage and pregnancy and child-rearing and stay silent on questions of political integrity and governance and taxation.
It has been fascinating to watch the difference between the public debate that happened around the postal poll on marriage equality, and the one currently happening around the Voice to Parliament. The media loved reporting on what the churches thought about marriage. Marriage was not only understood to be part of the private sphere of family and sexuality that is religion’s business, most of the churches opposed marriage equality and so the media was able to portray people of faith as a bit weird and backward. There has been so little public reporting of the support by churches (and synagogues, mosques and temples) of the Voice to Parliament that on the various social media sites in which I hang out I have seen some of those in favour of a ‘Yes’ vote complaining that churches, unlike sporting clubs, are silent. A proposed change to the Constitution is most certainly in the public sphere and so for the media, and I suspect many Australians, it is a matter in which religions should not meddle.
But we have been commissioned by Jesus to meddle. Since we are imperfect beings, and churches are imperfect institutions, this means that we will be accused of hypocrisy. How can our community service agencies ask the government to increase welfare benefits when churches receive tax exemptions? How can churches say we support constitutional recognition for First Nations people when we played a central part in colonisation and the attempted destruction of Indigenous cultures, and housed the children stolen from their families? There are always going to be people who listen to us, sneer, and accuse us of being filled with the new wine of wowserism, do-gooding, or wokeness.
Jesus did not chastise the disciples for hiding behind locked doors. He did not ask them why the empty tomb and the news brought by Mary Magdalene had not changed their behaviour. He came and stood among them despite the barriers of a locked door and their fear, and brought them a greeting of peace, before commissioning them, recreating them, and giving them the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Uniting Church’s Basis of Union says that the church has been given the gift of the Spirit in order that we may not lose our way on our journey back to God. As we come down from the upper room, as we come out from behind locked doors, we know that we are not always going to get our faith right. We are not always able to live as Jesus’ sent ones. We also know that that is okay. In the midst of our fears and mistakes Jesus will continue to come among us and say, ‘Peace be with you’. And we will have peace. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Rev Doc Geek 